XXXVI - 3(03)

“Watchman,

what of the night?”

"The hour has come, the hour is striking and striking at you,
the hour and the end!"          Eze. 7:6 (Moffatt)

The Messenger of the Lord

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How Do We Relate

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Forthcoming Issues

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Editor's Preface

When we are told something of spiritual import the first evaluation is not usually, "Is it truth?" but rather we want to know what is the status of the one who said it. When John the Baptist began preaching in the wilderness, and the news spread to Jerusalem, a delegation was dispatched with only one over-all question - "Who art thou?" (John 1:19). When a negative reply was given to their unspoken thinking, a series of questions followed as to his identity. When all received a negative response, he was asked, "What sayest thou of thyself"? (ver. 22). Forthrightly he replied, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord as said the prophet Isaiah" (ver. 23). The people who heard him, believed him to be a prophet (Matt. 21:26). Jesus declared John to be "more than a prophet" and in the next breath designated him as the “messenger" to come as prophesied by Malachi (Matt. 11:9-10). Is this saying the work of a messenger is superior to the office of a prophet?

The Apostolic Church had prophets. One such prophet was Agabus who brought a personal warning to one whose writings would form a major part of the New Testament canon, yet that person chose to ignore the warning the prophet gave him. (Acts 21:11-13). Among the major gifts of the Spirit listed in the New Testament, the gift of prophetic insight ranks second. (Eph. 4:11).

In this issue we note the designation assigned to the ministry of Ellen G. White. We also note several messages given which relate to this specific hour, with which we must reckon.

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The Messenger of the Lord

The first decade of the 20th Century was a decade of crisis for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. At midpoint of that decade, a conflict ensued between the General Conference leadership and Elder A. T. Jones. In a 96-page Statement, they purposed to refute charges made by Jones against the Spirit of Prophecy. One question revolved around whether she claimed to be a prophet or not. On this point Jones wrote:

Bear in mind that I did not say that she was not a prophet. I simply said that she said, "I am not a prophet;" and that I heard her say it. (A Final Word and a Confession, p. 6; emphasis his)

As evidence Jones cited a "verbatim stenographic" report of what she said on Sunday afternoon, October 2, 1904, in Battle Creek. Her words were:

I am not, as I said yesterday, a prophet. I do not claim to be a leader. I claim to be simply a messenger of God. And that is all I have ever claimed. (ibid., p. 8; emphasis his)

Then Jones quoted a signed communication from St. Helena, dated November 17,1903, which read:

From the year 1846 until the present time, I have received messages from the Lord, and have communicated them to His people. This is my work - to give to the people the light that God gives to me. I am commissioned to receive and communicate His messages. I am not to appear before the people as holding any other position than that of a messenger with a message. (ibid., p. 10; emphasis his)

During the first half of that decade of controversy, she did give several important messages which reflect upon our own time. At the 1901 General Conference Session in Battle Creek, the president, George A. Irwin, had just finished his presidential address to the delegates, and the Chair declared the Conference open for business, when Ellen White arose and came to the podium. She declared:

I feel a special interest in the movements and decisions that shall be made at this Conference regarding the things that should have been done years ago, and especially ten years ago, when we were assembled in Conference, and the Spirit and power of God came into our meeting, testifying that God was ready to work for this people if they would come into working order. The brethren assented to the light God had given, but there were those connected with our institutions, especially the Review and Herald Office and the Conference, who brought in elements of unbelief, so that the light that was given was not acted upon. It was assented to, but no special change was made to bring about a condition of things that the power of God could be revealed among His people. . . .

That these men should stand in a sacred place, to be the voice of God to the people, as we once believed the General Conference to be, - that is past. What we want now is a reorganization. We want to begin at the foundation, and to build on a different principle. (1901 GC Bulletin, pp. 23, 25)

At this 1901 session a new and different organization was effected. The Church was to be governed by an Executive Committee of twenty five members with power to organize itself, appointing a rotating chairman annually (ibid., pp. 379, 206). It was hoped that the exercise of "kingly" power by any one man would be erased.

Two years later at the 1903 General Conference Session in Oakland, California, the reform constitution of 1901 was set aside, and a new constitution was adopted, however, not without protests and warnings. A minority report of the Committee on Plans and Constitution challenged the proposed constitution as so "subversive of the principles of organization given to us at the General Conferences of 1897 and 1901" that they could "not possibly subscribe to it." (1903 GC Bulletin, p. 146). One member who signed the minority report, P. T. Magan, warned the delegates:

It may be stated there is nothing in this new constitution which is not abundantly safeguarded by the provisions of it: but I want to say to you that any man who has ever read Neander's History of the Christian Church. Mosheim's, or any of the other of the great church historians - any man who has ever read those histories can come to no other conclusion but that the principles which are to be brought in

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through this proposed constitution, and in the way in which they are brought in, are the same principles, and introduced in precisely the same way, as they were hundreds of years ago when the papacy was made (ibid., p. 150).

On April 13, the 1903 Session in Oakland was adjourned to meet again in Battle Creek, on April 22. On April 21 from St. Helena California, Ellen White wrote:

In the balances of the sanctuary, the Seventh-day Adventist church is to be weighed. She will be judged by the privileges and advantages that she has had. If her spiritual experience does not correspond to the advantages that Christ, at infinite cost, has bestowed on her, if the blessings conferred have not qualified her to do the work entrusted to her, on her will be pronounced the sentence, "Found wanting." By the light bestowed, the opportunities given, will she be judged (Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 8, p. 247).

The time setting in which this warning was given, and what it says dare not be overlooked. It does not say, "Perhaps the Seventh-day Adventist church will be weighed, but pointedly "is to be weighed." Further, if her "spiritual experience" does not reflect the infinite sacrifice of Christ and she fails "to do the work entrusted to her," the sentence "will be" -"Found wanting."

Whenever this "message" is read, we are confronted with the fact that the Church does not have "free" entrance to Heaven with no questions asked. Corporately it will have to give an account at the judgment bar of God even as the Jewish nation had to do. The Seventh-day Adventist Church does not have an unquestioned status with heaven even though it was given "the most solemn truths ever entrusted to mortals . . . to proclaim to the world" (Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 9, p. 19). Further, a God who will call for a corporate accounting will also give ample evidence so that the individual member can know the decision rendered. This decision we have to face, even as the Jews individually had to face God's judgment on the decision of their Sanhedrin regarding Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

If we are willing to follow the counsel given for the study of the messages of the Messenger, we can properly relate them to the present. The counsel reads: "The testimonies themselves will be the key that will explain the messages given, as scripture is explained by scripture" (Selected Messages, bk. i, p. 42). What messages have been given which help us to know the decision which has been made "in the balances of the sanctuary"?

We closed "Postscript - 2" in the February issue of WWN with a message given in 1896. It read:

My mind was carried into the future, when the signal will be given, "Behold the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him" (R&H, Feb. 11).

This "message" is calling attention to the parable of the Ten Virgins which Jesus gave as a part of His eschatological presentation on the Mount of Olives. What other "messages" have been given which helps one to know what "go ye out to meet Him" might mean? There are two that come to mind:

1) "The state of the Church represented by the foolish virgins is also spoken of as the Laodicean state" (R&H, August 19,1890).

2) "Since the time of the Minneapolis meeting, I have seen the state of the Laodicean Church as never before" (R&H, August 26,1890)

In these "messages" there are mingled, three factors: a) the "foolish virgins;" b) the Laodicean church; and c) the 1888 message of righteousness by faith. By connecting the "foolish virgins" with the state of Laodicea, one can know better the meaning of the words of the True Witness, "I will spue thee out of my mouth" (Rev. 3:15-16). As the door was shut to "the foolish virgins" with the dictum, "I know you not" (Matt. 25:12), on Laodicea likewise is the door shut.

In regard to the "time" element - 1888 - the message given at Minneapolis by Jones and Waggoner - righteousness by faith - was declared to be "the third angel's message in verity" (R&H, April 1, 1890) In other words, the message was to accomplish a specific work. The work of that angel had already been defined as "the angel that

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is to select the wheat from the tares, and seal, or bind, the wheat for the heavenly garner" (Early Writings, p. 118). Observe that it is not the tares that are taken from the wheat, but the wheat is removed from the tares. The "wise virgins" - the "wheat" - go out to meet the Bridegroom. The present agitation of the 1888 Message in Adventism today misses the whole objective of the work of the third angel. A message of righteousness by faith that does not separate the wheat from the tares is not the genuine message which harmonizes with the work of "the third angel."

There is another message from "the Messenger" which needs careful consideration given in the time frame of 1888. It reads:

After the truth has been proclaimed as a witness to all nations, every conceivable power of evil will be set in operation, and minds will be confused by many voices crying, "Lo, here is Christ, lo he is there. This is the truth, I have a message from God, he has sent me with great light." Then there will be a removing of the landmarks, and an attempt to pull down the pillars of our faith. A more decided effort will be made to exalt the false Sabbath, and cast contempt upon God Himself by supplanting the day He has blessed and sanctified. This false Sabbath is to be enforced by an oppressive law. Satan and his angels are wide-awake and intensely active, working with energy and perseverance through human instrumentalities to bring about his purpose of obliterating from the minds of men the knowledge of God. But while Satan works with his lying wonders, the time will be fulfilled foretold in the Revelation, and the mighty angel that shall lighten the earth with his glory, will proclaim the fall of Babylon, and call upon God's people to forsake her (R&H, Dec. 13, 1892; emphasis supplied).

This editor does not profess to understand fully all that is written in the above statement, especially the last time element introduced by, "but while." However, if one is willing to accept the hermeneutic given by the "Messenger" so as to properly understand her messages - comparing one statement with another, even as in the study of the Bible - comparing one verse with another (See p. 3, col. 2) - the following dare not be ignored:

The world must not be introduced into the church, and married to the church, forming a bond of unity. Through this means the church will indeed become corrupt, and, as stated in Revelation, "a cage of every unclean and hateful bird" (Testimonies to Ministers, p. 265).

In the December 2002 issue of "Reflections" a newsletter for beneficiaries of the NAD Retirement Plans of the SDA church, the contributing editor, Elder Jack Harris, resubmitted for thoughtful consideration an article he had written for the North Pacific Union Recorder twenty years previously in 1982. In part it read:

When I began my ministry [in 1950], a much respected pastor said to me, "Just wait twenty years, and you will see a vast change in the church." (Was he right or wrong?) True Sabbath keeping is becoming a less common practice. In some churches less than 10% of the members make an effort to study the SS lesson. Divorces and marital problems occupy a major portion of a pastor's time. With ever higher earnings, we are giving less and spending more on ourselves.

With almost calendar precision, fashions for men and women and our youth run the gamut from shock to sensibility, from the abhorrent to the acceptable. Today immodesty seems to be taken for granted but Bible standards have not changed. Some (many?) among us seem to have forgotten that we are to set an example and represent Christ.

"The world (has been) introduced into the church, and married to the church, forming a bond of unity."

Let us return to the 1892 "message" and note the other two conjunctive adverbs of time - "after" and "then."

"After the truth has been proclaimed as a witness to all nations . . . " Observe this does not say, "to all individuals," but rather "to all nations" - corporate entities. This reflects the words of Jesus in His eschatological discourse on Olivet -"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, then shall the end come" (Matt. 24:14). In the context of the "message" this would infer that the "end" was to be a period of time rather than a point of

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time. Jesus said also -"Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the nations ('upo eqnwn), until the [probationary] times (kairoi) of the nations (eqnwn) be fulfilled" (Luke 21:24). Simultaneously with the witness of the truth to all nations "every conceivable power of evil will be set in operation."

The mid-years of the 20th Century have been termed the Golden Age of Adventist evangelism. The cities of America, Canada, Australia, London and even Shanghai, heard the "loud cry." From that period come the names - J. L. Shuler, F. W. Detamore, R. Allan Anderson, George Burnside - to name a few of the voices which helped swell that "witness" to all nations. One has only to recall the decades following to note the accuracy of the prediction "that every power of evil" would operate with a new intensity.

"Then there will be a removing of the landmarks, and an attempt to pull down the pillars of our faith." This has been documented so completely that it stands verified beyond dispute. See WWN, XXXVI - 2(03). In the compromises of the SDA-Evangelical Conferences, the Sanctuary "pillar" was "pulled down," the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Godhead were altered. This requires a rethinking of our "witness." The order as indicated in the "message" of 1892 is, first the "truth" as a witness to all nations; and then secondly, the warning in regard to the tampering with the truth.

There are "many voices" in the community of Adventism - as the "message" indicated there would be - who while decrying the "apostasy" in Adventism are in the same breath calling for a missionary advance in Africa, the Baltics, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands featuring monthly "the Ministry of the Month." If these truly believe there is still a witness to the nations to be given, then they better unite forces once more with the Church, and tell to their deluded followers that the changes made in the truth during the previous decades was merely "advancing light" in which they should now walk.

What should be the approach? Let us go back to the beginning of "the times of the Gentiles." The instruction was clearly given - "Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8). It was dual, first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. There was no question about the message to the Gentile nations; it was their time to hear the Gospel. What, however, was the message to Israel? "Your religious leaders crucified the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Do you concur, or do you accept the resurrected Lord? (Acts 13:26-30). Those who accepted Him became "followers of the Way" (Acts 9:2, margin; 19:9, 23).

We have come to the close of "the times of the nations." The witness to them corporately is to end, but what is the message to "spiritual Israel"? "Your religious hierarchy has crucified the truth as it is in Jesus." The question is simply: Is there any difference between crucifying Him who is the Truth, and the truth as it is Him? And for those who are seeking to promote "independent" missionary programs, the question is also simple: Do you really believe "the Messenger" which you so loudly boast that you do? If you do, then line up with the time sequence given through that Messenger, and cooperate with the "third angel" in his work.

How Do We Relate?

In the November 2002 issue of WWN, I called attention to a paragraph in Patriarchs & Prophets (pp 354, 355) with a footnote directing the reader to an appendix reference (p. 761). This reference in turn stated that the paragraph was not in line with the Biblical type. The issue had no more than hit the field in Australia, than I received a Fax urging me because of this "revelation" to denounce Ellen White as a liar and false prophet. This I refused to do. First, how could I declare her false of what she never claimed to be? (See article above). Secondly, the evidences are too well documented to deny that which verifies the fact she had been given a "spiritual gift."

Just at the time of this exchange of Faxes across the Pacific, the library received the Fall Issue of the Adventist Heritage Ministry Bulletin. The lead article told about the relocation of the pre-

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civil Seventh-day Adventist Church from Parkville, Michigan, to the Historic Adventist Village in Battle Creek. At the original dedication service of this church on January 12, 1861, Ellen White received a vision pertaining to the still future American Civil War. On coming out of vision, she sought to warn those in attendance what she had been shown was coming in the months ahead, stating that some present would lose sons in that war. J. N. Loughborough, who was present, recalled in the Pacific Union Recorder, March 14, 1912, this experience.

He stated:

Near the stand sat Judge Nathan Osborne, whose wife was a Sabbath keeper. When Mrs White told what was coming, he looked at me and shook his head. Some time later I spoke in that same church. My subject was spiritual gifts. In illustration of the gift as manifest by Sister White, I referred to the vision of January 12, 1861. This time the judge did not shake his head, but instead his face was in his handkerchief, and he was sobbing bitter tears. Alas! His son Frank had been killed in action and his son George had spent time as a prisoner of war. The elder of the Parkville Church told me that he knew of six or seven of the others who had lost sons in the War.

(A complete report of this vision in historical context, can be found in Loughborough's book, The Prophetic Gift in the Gospel Church, pp. 93-96)

Where does this leave us in regard to the paragraph in Patriarch and Prophets? There is always the primary question, as I indicated in the November issue of WWN: Why did not the book committee make contact with Ellen White and let her bring into harmony the paragraph with the Bible before the book was first published? We do not have the answer to that question. As it stands, it leaves a stumbling block, and some perceive it as placing a question mark on all that has been written by the "messenger."

It appears that many box themselves into a corner by their own conceptions of inspiration and infallibility. Consider first infallibility. Ellen G. White affirmed, I never claimed it." She wrote, "God alone is infallible. His word is true, and in Him is no variableness, or shadow of turning" (Letter 10, 1895). At the 1919 Bible Conference this question surfaced. A. G. Daniells' response is helpful. He stated:

Now on infallibility. I suppose Sister White used Paul's text, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels," as much as any other scripture. She used to repeat that often, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels," with the idea that she was a poor, feeble woman, a messenger of the Lord trying to do her duty and meet the mind of God in this work. When you take the position that she was not infallible, and that her writings were not verbally inspired, isn't there a chance for the manifestation of the human? If there isn't, then what is infallibility? And should we be surprised when we know that the instrument was fallible, and that the general truths, as she says, were revealed, then aren't we prepared to see mistakes? (p. 33).

As for "inspiration," we will have to determine whether we perceived those inspired of God as "pens" or "penmen." Perhaps, it could be a mix of both; thus, we need to pray for the spirit of discernment, which, by the way, is also a "spiritual gift" (I Cor. 12:10). Paul well wrote to the Corinthians:

The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14).

The basic reason that a problem arises over the controverted paragraph in Patriarch & Prophets is one's reluctance to accept the primacy of the Scriptures. At the very beginning of the decade of crisis, Ellen White spoke to a group of workers assembled in the Battle Creek College library at the time of 1901 General Conference session. She admonished them:

Don't you quote Sister White. I don't want you ever to quote Sister White until you get your vantage ground where you know where you are. Quote the Bible. Talk the Bible. It is full of meat, full of fatness. Carry it out in your life, and you will know more Bible than you know now. (Spalding-Magan Collection, p. 174)

This counsel from 1901 is excellent counsel now, 100 years later. We have a problem. There is an evident difference; however, the solution is

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likewise evident. "Quote the Bible. Talk the Bible." If we are willing to do so, we will know more Bible than we know now.

Forthcoming Issues

For the past several Sabbaths, we have devoted the hour of study at our Campus Sabbath School to the study of the history and development of the Sanctuary truth in Adventism. While there have been major challenges to the doctrine since the beginning of the 20th century, we began with the Biblical texts which are involved with the compromises made with the Evangelicals in the 1955-56 conferences. One, Hebrews 8:5 is translated differently in the NIV, the Evangelical translation, from the KJV. Another, Hebrews 9:11-12, which, R. Allan Anderson told me personally, threw the Adventist conferees a "curve," is translated differently in the KJV and the RSV. Each of these differences has a vital bearing on what we call the sanctuary truth.

There is also a historical background to be considered. William Miller focused attention on the dates 1843 and 1844 in relationship to "the cleansing of the sanctuary," and believing the earth to be that sanctuary, predicted the second coming of Christ to occur "sometime between March 21st, 1843, and March 21st, 1844." Thus the first question to be resolved by the small group who came from the Millerite Movement that would finally become the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1863 was to what "sanctuary" did Daniel 8:14 refer? Here enters Crosier's article, and the statement made regarding it by Ellen White as found in A Word to the "Little Flock."

Don F. Neufeld, an associate editor of the Adventist Review, wrote that "it required some thirteen years after the passing of the time in the autumn of 1844 before the subject of the investigative judgment was fully developed" (Feb. 14, 1980, p. 14). Then he cautioned, "One should not, therefore, equate the cleansing of the sanctuary with the investigative judgment," but continued:

Some have not borne this distinction in mind and have made the judgment the major significance of 1844. The judgment is an important event, but the final atonement and the blotting out of sin were the items upon which the ritual on the Day of Atonement focused. (ibid., p. 15).

First, we shall analyze the texts in Hebrews noted above; then after noting some of the historical factors from the Millerite background of the Advent Movement, we shall turn to the Scriptures and carefully observe the type as set forth by God to Moses. Once the questions resident in the typical services, both the daily and the yearly, are studied, then we shall seek to harmonize the data with the prophecies which are involved. This will require prayer and careful study, but we invite your participation in and response to this objective. We are all "earthen vessels."

NOTE: Two years ago, we printed a "Special Issue" of WWN which asked the question, "The Forming of the Image to the Beast, Is It Now Accomplished?" The author, a retiree from the Legal profession, wished to remain anonymous under the pen name, Pro Libertas. He has now written another Brief in response to the dialogue between Seventh-day Adventist and Roman Church Theologians captioned, "The Church of Rome in Bible Prophecy." [To read the article, Click Here]