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Doctrines of Demons
1 Tim. 4:1-5 -- The Spirit clearly says that in later times
some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared
as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from
certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and
who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be
rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God
and prayer.
While the preceding passage may have applications to various denominations that profess
to be followers of Christ, I can find only one that the entire passage fits. Could
it be that the Holy Spirit was telling us, through Paul, about the source of unscriptural
doctrines that an end time church would be promoting? Also note the warning by Jude
as to the necessity of holding on to the faith that had been delivered to the saints.
Jude 3 -- Dear friends, since I am eager to begin a letter to
you on the subject of our common salvation, I find myself constrained to write and cheer
you on to the vigorous defense of the faith delivered once for all to God's people.
(Weymouth)
I would like to, first of all, concentrate on Paul's statement above: "In later
times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by
demons." I would like to give a few recorded instances where this appears to
have taken place.
In 1856 there was a conference meeting held in the Battle Creek Tabernacle. Ellen
White states that while there she was taken off in vision, and some things concerning the
SDA church were revealed to her. She had an angel guide who gave her a guided tour
as she continually initiated various scenes by the statement: "Said the
angel." A couple of important quotes are taken from this vision which she has
listed as Testimony # 2.
At the conference at Battle
Creek, May 27, 1856, I was shown in vision some things that concern the church
generally. The glory and majesty of God were made to pass before me. Said the
angel: "He is terrible in His majesty, yet ye realize it not, etc..."
I was shown the company present at the
con- ference. Said the angel: "Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven
last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming
of Jesus."
Solemn words were these, spoken by the
angel...
Testimonies Vol. 1,
pp. 127-132.
There were 61 members present for this meeting. A list of each person in
attendance, including infants, was carefully maintained as all believed with total
conviction that Jesus would come while some of those on the list were still alive.
The youngest infant to attend that meeting has now been dead for about 50 years. No
question about it, that prophecy failed.
An angel from heaven does not come to earth to give anyone his thoughts on future
events. He always comes with a message from God. If it is a conditional
message it will be so stated. This message was in no way conditional.
Deut. 18:22 -- If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the
Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken.
That prophet has spoken presumptuously.
This was an "angel" proclaiming a prophecy in the name of the Lord. If
it was an angel from heaven that is the only type of message that he proclaims.
Since the prophecy obviously failed, he had to be an angel messenger that Paul described
as a deceiving spirit. In no way could it be an angel sent by God.
Notice the description of a vision that Ellen White received, in her own words:
Sabbath, March 24, 1849 -- We had a sweet and very
interesting meeting with the brethren at Topsham, Me. The Holy Ghost was poured out
upon us, and I was taken off in the Spirit to the city of the living God. There I
was shown that the commandments of God, and the testimony of Jesus, relating to the shut
door, could not be separated.
The last half of the vision addresses a problem that worried believers in the
"Shut Door" theory. If the door was shut, no further conversions were
possible. No one who was unconverted before October 22, 1844, could after that date
be converted. Yet, as opponents of the Shut Door continually pointed out, sinners
continued to accept Christ and become Christians -- for instance, at the great
crusades then being held by Moody and Sankey. These apparent conversions, which
seemed to prove that the door wasn't shut, was a problem that was taken up and answered by
the vision.
I saw that Satan was working
through agents, in a number of ways. He was at work through ministers, who have
rejected the truth, and are given over to strong delusions to believe a lie that they
might be damned. While they were preaching, or praying, some would fall and
helpless, not by the power of the Holy Ghost, no, no, but by the power of Satan breathed
upon these agents and through them to the people. Some professed Adventists who had
rejected the present truth (former Millerites who rejected the Sabbath and the Shut Door),
while preaching, praying or in conversation used Mesmerism to gain adherents, and the
people would rejoice in this influence, for they thought it was the Holy Ghost...
(They) were so far in the darkness and deception of the devil, that they thought it was
the power of God... I saw that the ... false
reformations would increase and spread. The reformations that were shown me, were
not reformations from error to truth, but from bad to worse; for those who professed a
change of heart, had only wrapt about them a religious garb, which covered up the iniquity
of a wicked heart. Some appeared to have been really converted, so as to deceive
God's people (i.e., make them think the Door wasn't shut); but if their hearts could be
seen, they would appear as black as ever.
My accompanying angel bade me look
for the travel (travail) of soul for sinners as used to be. I looked, but could not
see it; for the time of their salvation is passed.
The time for the salvation of sinners is past. This is the Shut Door, pure and
simple. Again this was all pointed out to her by an angel from heaven while she was
in vision; according to her account.
Again, I ask, could this be an angel from heaven that was revealing all this to
her? I believe this has to be another instance where their faith was abandoned in
order to be deceived by deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
Six days following the vision of March 24, 1849, Ellen wrote out a copy of it and sent it
to her friends, the Hastings.
Ellen White. Letter to Brother and Sister Hastings (March 30, 1849) --
I will now write you the vision God
gave me on the Sabbath, the 24th of March. We had a glorious meeting. I was
taken off in vision...
[She relates the vision in which she
was bidden by an angel to look for the former travail of soul for sinners but could not
find it because the time for their salvation was past. She then says:]
Dear Brother and Sister, I have now written the vision God gave me. I am tired of
sitting so long. Our position looks very clear. We know we have the truth, the
Midnight Cry is behind us, the door was shut in 1844.
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Could an angel that showed the truth of the Shut Door have possibly been an angel
from God? If not, then what kind of angel must it have been?
Note again what Paul prophesies about the promoter of these demonic-based teachings.
He says: "Such teachings come through hypocritical liars."
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary -- hypocrite -- one who affects
virtues or qualities he does not have.
He says further that they "order them (church members) to abstain from certain foods,
which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the
truth." Quite clearly he is describing a hypocite who orders followers to
abstain from certain foods. Now observe the application of the description:
It has been clearly presented to me that God's people (SDAs) are to take a firm
stand against meat eating. Would God for thirty years give His people the message
(received in mid 1860's by Ellen White in "vision") that if they desire to have
pure blood and clear minds they must give up the use of flesh meat, if He did not want
them to heed this message? By the use of flesh meats the animal nature is
strengthened and the spiritual nature weakened.
Counsels on Diet and Foods,
p. 383.
You would naturally conclude that if anyone received a vision from God that meat eating
should have no place in the diet of a follower of Christ, that would be sufficient to
cause instant and permanent change to a vegetarian diet. But was that the case?
I believe this can be best answered by an incident that occurred in 1906. Ellen
White claimed that in vision she saw various men of leadership in the Adventist Church who
were questioning her validity as God's messenger to the Adventist Church. She wrote
to each of them telling them to write out their concerns about her.
Testimony dated March 30, 1906
Recently in the visions of the night I
stood in a large company of people. There were present Dr. Kellogg, Elders Jones,
Tenny and Taylor, Dr. Paulson, Elder Sadler, Judge Arthur and many of their
associates. I was directed by the Lord to request them and any others who have
perplexities and grievous things in their minds regarding the testimonies that I have
borne, to specify what their objections and criticisms are. The Lord will help me to
answer these objections, and to make plain that which seems to be intricate.
Let those who are troubled now place on
paper a statement of the difficulties that perplex their minds... They should
certainly do this, if they are to be loyal to the directions God has given.
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Dr. Charles Stewart was one of these people who responded to her request. One of the
items that had troubled him was on the topic of eating meat and her lack of
compliance. Note his concern:
1868 -- Testimonies
for the Church, Vol. 2.
No butter or flesh meats of any kind
come on my table.
1869 -- Testimonies
for the Church, Vol. 3.
I have not changed my course a
particle. Since I adopted the health reform, I have not taken one back step.
1870 -- Testimonies
for the Church, Vol. 3.
Above all things we should not with
our pen advocate positions that we do not put to a practical test in our own families,
upon our own tables. This is dissimulation, a species of hypocrisy.
1894 -- August
30 -- Written Testimony.
When the selfishness of taking the
lives of animals to gratify perverted appetite was presented to me by a Catholic woman, I
felt ashamed and distressed. I saw it in a new light and I said, "I will no
longer patronize the butcher, I will not have the flesh of slain animals on my
table."
1898 -- October 5,
Sunnyside, Coorenbong.
Not a particle of meat has been upon
my table for the past five years. I found that I could take no half and half
ground. I must be firm and decided in regard to my diet.
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Dr. Stewart comments:
In 1868 you say:
"No... flesh meats of any kind
come on my table."
The following year you state:
"I have not changed my course a
particle."
In that same testimony you state:
"I broke away from everything at
once -- from meat" etc. "I left off these things from
principal."
But in 1898 you state:
"Not a particle of meat has been
on my table in any shape for the last five years"
-- which means that before
then, before 1893, meat did come upon your table.
This conjecture is confirmed by the
testimony of three parties, all Seventh-day Adventists, two of them officials with the
denomination, who state that for years after receiving the light on health reform you ate
meat and oysters. Two of these persons have told me personally that you ate oysters
in their home, on one occasion as late as 1890. Another stated he saw you eating
oysters in a restaurant. If you deny that you ate oysters, and state that the
statement of these men are false, I will make an affidavit to this effect and give you
their names that you can ask them for an explanation.
In your various testimonies you state:
Series B, No. 6, p. 31 --
"God gave the light on health
reform, and those who rejected it rejected God."
Testimony to Irwin, Prescott,
Waggoner, and Jones. Feb. 21, 1899. --
"Those who do not accept the
light God has given on health reform, who subsist on the flesh of dead animals, can not
represent the truth to others."
Testimonies Vol. 6, p. 37,38 --
"No one should be set apart as a
teacher of the people while his example contradicts the testimony God has given in regard
to diet. His disregard of health reform unfits him to stand as the Lord's
messenger."
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Stewart comments further: --
In patronizing the butcher and having meat upon your table, were you not practicing
dissimulation, a species of hypocrisy, in that you were advocating a position with your
pen that you did not put in practice upon your table?
Since you ate meat and oysters after the
light on these articles first shone upon your pathway, and thus went contrary to light God
had given you, were you not placing yourself in that class described thus:
"Those who rejected (the light on
health reform) rejected God."
"Those who subsist on the flesh of
dead animals can not represent the truth to others."
"Those who disregard health reform
are unfit to stand as the Lord's messenger."
During the years in which you ate meat,
and thus went against light given you by God -- were your writings just as truly
from the Lord as when you were living up to all the light you had?
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Dr. Stewart charges Ellen White with a species of hypocrisy by advocating a
position with her pen which she did not put in practice upon her table. Wouldn't
this qualify as an example of hypocritical liars presenting things taught by demons?
We know they are doctrines not found in the Bible. We also know that she never
answered Dr. Stewart's letter as she had promised to do.
Let me demonstrate how little by little simple straightforward texts in the Bible are
altered or radically changed. Then the altered text becomes the norm and the Bible
text it came from is no longer the current version to believe by her faithful adherents.
Notice Moses' account of the flood where God added flesh food to the human diet, after the
flood.
Gen. 9:1-3 -- Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to
them, "Be fruitful and increase in numbers and fill the earth. The fear and
dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon
every creature that moves along the ground and upon all the fish of the sea; they are
given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you.
Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything."
This is a clear, straightforward statement, very easy to understand. Now notice
how Ellen transposes this statement to mean something completely unstated. It's not
just paraphrased but completely changed:
God gave man no permission to eat animal food until after the flood.
Everything had been destroyed upon which man could subsist, and therefore the Lord in
their necessity gave Noah permission to eat of the clean animals which he had taken with
him into the ark.
Counsels on Diet and Foods,
p. 373.
This represents her attempt to show that the Sinaitic Covenant was in force from the
time of Eden, but the Bible nowhere supports that theory. Which one do we believe --
Moses or Ellen White? I personally feel safer with Moses.
Now notice how Paul recommends responding to an invitation to a meal. He is
speaking to the members of the Christian Church in Corinth. Corinth was a pagan city
and he is discussing how you would respond to a pagan invitation to a meal.
1 Cor. 10:25-27 -- Eat anything sold in the meat market
without raising questions of conscious, for, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything
in it." (Sounds like eat anything that lives and moves.) If some
unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is placed before you
without raising questions of conscience.
Now notice the advice Ellen White gives in a similar setting, although not necessarily
a non-Christian invitation.
We must practice what we preach. When sitting at a table where meat is
provided, we are not to make a rail upon those who use it, but we should let it alone
ourselves, and when asked our reasons for doing this, we should in a kindly manner explain
why we do not use it.
Counsels on Diet and Foods,
p. 462.
If the dietary restrictions as given to the Israelites in the Sinaitic Covenant are
binding on us today -- then the advice given by Ellen White is the only proper
answer. If that covenant with all its rules and regulations were nailed to the cross
as the Bible clearly states, then Paul's instructions are the proper approach to this
problem. Once again we are brought to the place where we must choose whether to
follow the advice of Paul or Ellen White. It is not only these two illustrations,
but all through the Bible we are confronted with similar contradictions.
A meat diet changes the disposition and strengthens animalism. We are
composed of what we eat, and eating much flesh will diminish intellectual activity.
Students would accomplish much more in their studies if they never tasted meat. When
the animal part of the human agent is strengthened by meat eating, the intellectual powers
diminish proportionately. A religious life can be more successfully gained and
maintained if meat is discarded, for this diet stimulates into intense activity lustful
propensities, and enfeebles the moral and spiritual stature.
Counsels on Diet and Foods,
p. 389.
Are you now becoming less surprised that this teaching, supposedly given by a vision
from God, is nowhere to be found in Scripture? Could this be more of those things
taught by deceiving spirits? Is the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 compatible with
the above?
Mark 6:31-44 -- Then, because so many people were coming and
going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he (Jesus) said to them, "Come
with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. So they went away by
themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized
them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus
landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep
without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
By this time it was late in the day, so
his disciples came to him. "This is a remote place," they said, "and
it's already very late. Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding
countryside and buy themselves something to eat."...
"How many loaves do you have?"
he asked. "Go and see."
When they found out, they said,
"Five -- and two fish."
Then Jesus directed them to have all the
people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds
and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and two fish and looking up to heaven, he
gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before
the people. He also divided the two fish among them all.
They all ate and were satisfied, and the
disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number
of men who had eaten was five thousand.
Wouldn't this have been the perfect place for Jesus to teach the large crowd that
eating fish and meat causes their animal passions to take over? -- that the
dulling of their intellect would hamper their understanding of what He had been
instructing them. Can you imagine Him not doing this if indeed it would cause this
to happen?
There is an alarming lethargy shown on the subject of unconscious
sensualism. It is customary to eat the flesh of dead animals. This stimulates
the lower passions of the human organism.
Counsel on Diet and Foods,
p. 389.
Now, note the contrary point of view of Paul. He is telling the early Christians
their need to realize that the Sinaitic Covenant with its rules and regulations on food
consumption is no longer binding.
Col. 2:20-23 -- Since you died with Christ to the basic
principles of this world, (Sinaitic Covenant) why, as though you still belonged to it, do
you submit to its rules: "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not
touch!"? (Instructions in the covenant on unclean meats.) These are all
destined to perish with use, but they are based on human commands and teachings.
Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship,
their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in
restraining sensual indulgence.
It almost seems like Paul had just finished reading Counsels on Diet and Foods
before making the preceding statement. I believe something more certain had prompted
his response. It was the Holy Spirit revealing to him what would be promoted in
later times.
Now I would like to take up the last to be discussed item in Paul's description of
things taught by demons: "They forbid people to marry."
Admittedly there is much less available to us on this qualifying item than the
others. This is due to the fact that the material has been suppressed.
Material for this segment of this booklet is obtained from excerpts from Limboline.
This material in Limboline was introduced during 1984.
The following are excerpts from letters written by Paul Barker of Mt. Vernon,
Washington, to Eryl Cummings, Farmington, New Mexico during the period of 1974 to
1982. He was writing about the testimony DF97-C, which he claims was suppressed.
Mrs. White wrote a testimony to the
effect that the coming of the Lord was so close that no marriages should be made in the
denomination and those members who were married should live as "chaste
virgins..."
That testimony was read before
gatherings of the people but was evidently destroyed when it met with so much resistance
and the only proof of its previous existence can be had only from those who heard it read
or was an eye witness to the consternation it caused.
"Dudley Carrier (of Grandview, Washington) heard it read... Carrier was only a
boy and not allowed in the meeting where this testimony was read, but he said that he
crawled under the side of the tent where it was being read in a camp meeting and heard it
read... This testimony caused pandemonium to reign in the church and soon they
repudiated it and now they deny it ever happened...
... Many is the time I have sat in church and listened to the minister tell how Satan
tempted him during the night and how he fell, while the tears streamed down his cheeks and
being a boy of only five or six years old I wondered what kind of sin the man committed in
the ‘dark hours of the night.’
I mentioned this incident to the
ex-editor of the Signs and he at once informed me that he had heard of this incident and
had tried to pin it down but was never able to find out anything about it. The
wife's folks also know the circumstances and according to (my sister) Cora, they often
mentioned it. They were both avid believers in Mrs. White's inspiration...
The wife tells of one man who got up
before the church and confessed that Satan tempted him during the night and that he got
up, went out in the snow and knelt down by a haystack and gained the victory...
... Many tried to live up to her
instructions. I sat in the Adventist church in Missoula, Montana, and heard the
minister, Rollin D. Quinn, get up before the congregation and with tears streaming down
his cheeks confess that Satan had tempted him during the dark hours of the night and he
had sinned, but with God's help he would stand firm from now on, only to repeat the scene
the following Sabbath.
One minister told my father that he
did not dare trust himself home with his wife, so he had her meet him at the depot and
visit with him as he went from one assignment to another. How many people Mrs. White
caused to sin by violating their conscience -- only God knows. The thing has been so
completely covered up that only a handful of people are left on this earth who know the
real story.
... (In 1934) while rummaging through
Mrs. White's vault, a man by the name of S. A. Nagle found this testimony (DF97-C) and as
he was printing a book on Mrs. White's inspiration, confirming the belief that she was
inspired, he incorporated this testimony in the book, and when the book was printed the
big boys at headquarters blew their top and called him up on the green carpet for printing
this testimony. As he believed in her inspiration, they were able to make him recant
by showing him that Mrs. White said that the General Conference body was God's highest
authority on earth. He surrendered the four hundred books to them and they destroyed
them all except one that he mailed to Dudley Carrier and one he mailed to a friend in
California, so only two of those books remain to bear witness to the testimony.
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I believe a letter written to W. C. White (Ellen White's youngest son) on the topic is
helpful.
Loma Linda, Calif.
Dec. 21, 1921
Dear Brother White:
... I will try to answer your
"secondly." It is a subject
that I have felt I should not perhaps talk about and so have remained silent, as we have
had no instructions in recent years along those lines.
Going back to the first that I heard
in regard to this question, Sister White called a private meeting on the campground in
East Portland in 1884 to which all the workers were invited, and all the Seventh-day
Adventist parents... I cannot remember all she said, but ... (she) made it very
emphatic that it was too late for workers to raise families, remarking that there was none
too much of any of us to put all our lives into the cause...
About 8 months later a second addition
was made to our family. Soon after this, we received a letter from your mother in
her own handwriting, asking if we were not present at the camp-meeting when she delivered
her special message to the workers and asking why we pursued the course we had. And
if we continued along that course, it would take us out of the work...
This subject was very widely agitated
in those days, causing much perplexity among the young married people. As time
passed and the Savior has not come, the children then born into the world are carrying
grave responsibilities in the cause. Much has been said by those living in those
days that Sr. White made a grave mistake in presenting the subject to our people which has
caused much adverse criticism upon your mother's writings. I have met it a number of
times that, "if she was wrong in this instruction, why not in other lines?"
I do wish that this matter might be put in a right light, and not used to discredit the
testimonies; but just how to do it requires more wisdom than I possess.
Hoping you may have grace from God to
do your part,
Your Sister in Christ,
Mrs. M. S. Boyd
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Now let us examine a portion of the testimony (DF97-C), obtained from the book
printed by S. A. Nagle.
This is the burden of the message,
that in accordance with our faith we are required to make any and every sacrifice for the
truth's sake; that at this time, when amid the trials of the last days, it was not in
accordance with our faith or God's will, that our missionaries should fill their hands
with cares and burdens which were not essential to the work...
The message we have to bear requires
much self-sacrifice, and if the workers make no change in their habits and in their
practices, than worldlings in general, they are not letting their works correspond with
their faith. I was shown that Brother and Sister Horn had departed from God's
counsel in bringing into the world children. God required all there was of them in
his work, and both could have done a good work for the Master, but the enemy came in, and
his counsel was followed, and the cause of God was robbed of the attention it should have
had... They were doing a work which was bringing upon them cares and burdens and
retarding the work that God had given them to do. God will say to them, "Who
required this at your hands?"
...When I learned that you were to
soon have an increase in your family, I knew that you were not doing the will of God, but
following your own inclination -- to please yourselves. I have special light
in regard to these things; but hardly know how to present it. The missionaries had
better set the people an example in these things that correspond with our faith...
I am distressed as I see the state of
things among our workers. Brother and Sister Enoch professed gave themselves to the
missionary work... How much better would have been their influence if they had not
married, but both devoted their interests in God's cause, and after they were married, how
much better for them if they had thoughtfully considered the situation, and decided that
God should have all the power he had given them in the work of saving precious souls.
Brother Cudney could have done a very
good work for the Master, had he devoted himself to this work as the Lord's servant.
When married, his work has not been more than one half what it might have been. Then
he must bring a child into the world, and now he can do one-third what he might have done
had he studied how he could but serve God who called him to be a soldier of the cross of
Christ.
If our workers were walking close to
God, they see the situation, and would feel that it was no matter of rejoicing to bring a
child into the world. A blessing is pronounced upon the eunuchs who keep the Sabbath
(Isa. 65:3-5).
The time has come when, in one sense,
they that have wives be as though they have none. God wants us to be consistent
people, our works corresponding to our faith ...
I am thoroughly disgusted with the
course of our preachers and workers...
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Following the appearing of this material in Limboline, the editor received
the following letter regarding this suppressed testimony.
In the 7th January, 1984 Limboline,
you printed a cluster of items relating to Ellen White's suppressed testimony, DF97-C,
counseling against marriage and procreation.
It might help to let your readers know
that sometime in 1982 White Estate Secretary, Robert Olson, put a researcher on the trail
of this document, at my request. When it was located, Elder Olson sent a copy to the
Loma Linda University Heritage Room.
There is somewhat more written in this
testimony than was published in Sherman Nagel's book. In fact, there are a number of
ellipses in the White Estate Ms. 34, 1885 transcript, suggesting that original material is
missing even there!
You no doubt will notice that the
testimony was written just years (3) after James White's death. With her husband
gone and her own children grown, it was easier for Ellen White to counsel against marriage
and child bearing -- especially because she was certain that the Lord's return was
imminent.
The future turns out to have been as
opaque to Ellen White as it is to the rest of us.
Douglas Hackleman
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In view of Paul's statement that these teachings came through hypocritical liars, I
find an editorial comment in the compiler of their material from Limboline to be on
track:
Also interesting is to note that DF97-C applies ever so aptly to Ellen
herself. She -- claiming to be the prophet for earth's final days --
yet went ahead, and in rapid succession, had four children.
I believe that we now have studied enough of her teachings and the proof of its
source that some of it was undeniably received from deceiving spirits. Would God
have given us any clue for the honest in heart to see this connection? I would like
to present the first two verses of 1 Tim. 4 as translated by the NEB.
1 Tim. 4:1,2 -- The Spirit says expressly that in
aftertimes some will desert from the faith and give their minds to subversive doctrines
inspired by devils, through the specious falsehoods of men whose own conscience is branded
with the devil's sign.
I believe most all are acquainted with the devil's sign as referring to his
activities in the latter days. It is best expressed in that dreaded sign of 666.
In the late 1960's my oldest son was a student at what is now Southern University,
Collegedale, Tennessee. During a class discussion of the beast of Rev. 13, that
comes up out of the earth and has the number of 666 as an identifying marker. The
teacher casually remarked that Ellen White's name added up to 666 when counting each
letter by the usual Roman Numeral value for each letter.
E 0
L 50
L 50
E 0
N 0
----
100
|
G 0
O 0
U 5
L 50
D 500
------
555
|
W 10
H 0
I 1
T 0
E 0
----
11
|
100
555
11
----------
666 |
I'm sure the teacher and the class all agreed that this had to be an unusual but
irrelevant quirk of happenstance.
I'm not so sure that this is the case. I believe that if God selected Ellen White to
be His messenger to His "remnant church" that He would not have allowed her to
be saddled with this onerous marker. I believe it is much more likely that He placed
this number on her to help us to realize the source of the material that we have come to
believe above the writings of the Bible itself.
We know she is not the Antichrist beast as he will be on earth and alive during the great
tribulation just before Christ's coming. Anti-Christ means in place of Christ.
Most all her doctrines replace Christ with endless tasks and non-Scriptural duties never
suggested by New Testament instructions. The many beautiful quotations she
plagiarized from mostly godly non-Adventist writers are a smoke screen to help us to
swallow the poison.
How many times have each one of us heard the warning that the closer that error is to the
truth, the greater its power to deceive. Adventists quote that frequently, but never
apply it to themselves.
While Ellen White is not the Antichrist, her material can be shown to have been supplied
by him. She certainly is guilty of teaching non-Scriptural doctrines which are in
opposition to plain instructions as presented in the Bible.
I believe the only escape from this "quicksand" of toxic doctrines is to study
these topics from the Bible and remember to check everything by its teachings and
realizing that a word from Ellen White is not synonymous with a word from God. Ask
the Holy Spirit in all sincerity to show you what is truth and be prepared to discard any
doctrine you are not able to verify from God's Word. If you do this you will have
success in finding out what is truth.
|