Michigan Camp Meeting 2019: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

White Out: Whatever Happened to the Gift of Prophecy?

Mark Howard

Satan’s Last Deception

Father in heaven, we are thankful to be here at the Michigan Camp Meeting.

We're so thankful for the privilege we have to come together as like-minded believers to study your word and to understand your purposes for our life better.

Lord, especially as we believe we live in a generation that will see Jesus come.

We want to be ready for that day, and so we ask Lord that you would use this and other presentations here at Camp Meeting that would help us to be ready and help us to help others be ready as well.

We ask and pray these things in Jesus' name.

Now I want to give you a little bit of a background for myself.

Some of you perhaps have heard this before.

My family grew up, I grew up at Seventh-day Adventist.

My mom and dad were first-generation Adventists.

And they actually, we all left the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the early 1980s during the Desmond Ford crisis.

Now, I don't know if you know about that or not, not necessary that you do, but I want you to understand that for our family, the subject of Ellen White was not a positive 1.

And so that when I was in my mid-twenties and the Lord was able to stir my heart and bring me to conversion and give my life to Him, and I was looking for which church to attend.

I looked at the Adventist church among other churches, and you can believe I had a sticking point with the spirit of prophecy, and it led me to maybe a deeper study than many would go into, into the subject.

So I want you to know a little bit about where I'm coming from from this.

I came from a position of having a lot of skepticism, and some of the things that I'm going to share throughout this week and things that I'm sure many of you have heard about Ellen White, about her ministry, about whether or not she was a plagiarist and whether or not she had failed visions and all of these kinds of things.

That was something that I had to answer for myself coming into the faith, and the Lord has impressed me to share those with others because I think it's very important.

You know, the Bible tells us that we're to give this last message, the 3 angels' messages, with a loud voice.

And that loud voice implies personal conviction.

You can't give anything with a loud voice without personal conviction.

And so we need to be settled on this matter of the spirit of prophecy as well as many other things.

So I'm hoping that this seminar will meet that need among us.

Now the title for the week's seminar is White Out, as you see that on the screen, whatever happened to the gift of prophecy.

And I want to tell you that attacks on Ellen White and her ministry are not anything new.

In fact, I'd like you to turn with your Bibles this morning, and I hope you have your Bibles throughout the week.

We'll be referring to them quite a bit here.

There are a lot of things I'm going to bring up today that I'm not going to substantiate.

I just need to lay some groundwork this morning.

Revelation 12 and verse 17, the Bible says, and the dragon was what?

Now, if you're reading any King James, it's the word wrath, and the New King James is the word enraged.

The dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Now, I'm not going to break this passage down, but as Seventh-day Adventist we believe, of course the dragon right there in the passage earlier tells us it's the devil, representative of the devil, and that woman represents the church.

And Revelation 12 brings us down to the last days, which we believe Revelation 12, 17 points to, where the dragon is enraged with the church that keeps the commandments of God and has what's called the testimony of Jesus Christ.

We believe that refers to the gift of prophecy, the ministry that was manifested through Ellen White and other prophets.

And we're going to talk about that further in the week.

But I don't want you to miss that first part.

A lot of times when Adventists talk about this verse, and we say, well, there's 2 characteristics here of the remnant church.

They keep the commandments, and they have the testimony of Jesus.

But there's a third characteristic that too many people overlook, and that third characteristic is the devil is enraged with this church.

You got to be clear on that, and especially what 2 things, the commandments of God and the gift of prophecy.

And so we should not be surprised at attacks on the gift of prophecy, neither outside the church or inside the church.

Now I want to share with you a statement here.

Our title of our message today is Satan's Last Deception.

It's going to come from a statement I'm going to share in just a moment.

But I want to share this statement from Selected Messages, Volume 3, page 83.

Ellen White says, "'All who believe that the Lord has spoken through Sister White and has given her a message will be safe from the many delusions that will come in these last days.

I want to tell you that the devil knows this statement better than any of us knows it, and that's why he can't stand this gift of prophecy.

It's 1 of God's ways to help ensure his people are ready for the coming of Jesus.

The devil has attacked the spirit of prophecy, as we've mentioned.

And today in the church, I'm afraid we're just plain confused about the role of Ellen White's gift in our church.

I was just talking to a young man yesterday.

Said that 1 of the professors had brought up 1 of the statements where Ellen White says that the Lord could have come to our earth, ere this, before now, had God's people done the work that God had given them to do.

And he said 1 of the other students, this is 1 of the theology students, said, well, wasn't that Ellen White's, just Ellen White's opinion?

And the teacher, the professor responded, well, no, that was something she received by inspiration.

Well, the response came back, well, how do we know that that came from inspiration?

I mean, it sounds kind of like just her opinion to me.

And that would be, I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if it were a very isolated comment, but it's not an isolated comment.

In fact, many of the students who ask questions like that are getting their ideologies from some of our other teachers.

I'm just saying that this issue is a widespread issue and so this week we'll be addressing some of these questions and God willing some of the answers.

Today I'm going to be sharing some examples, a little bit of history, and as we progress throughout the week, I'm going to attempt to provide clear answers from leaders, scholars, but more importantly from Ellen White herself.

I think she gives very clear answers to some of these accusations.

Now, I've shared some of what I'm going to share today in a presentation I called at 1 point, Betrayed with a Kiss.

You know, taking from Judas, who betrayed the Lord, not with a…Judas didn't betray Jesus with a punch in the mouth.

He betrayed him in a way that looked like he was on Jesus' side.

I chose not to use that title today because today I'm going to share with you things, attacks from within the church, from outside the church, and from within the church.

And I maybe even should be careful to use the word tax because I have read, and some of what I'm going to share today are actually labeled as defenses of Ellen White's ministry.

But the net effect of the defense is to weaken it not strengthen it and I'm not using the betrayed with a kiss title because it implies that the people who are maybe Presenting some of these views that I'm going to share today are intentionally trying to deceive.

I don't believe that I think we have many sincere leaders and scholars who are trying to make Ellen White's writings relevant in our day, but I'm afraid that in the way they're doing it, they're making her writings of none effect.

I'm going to take you to a statement where Ellen White talks about what she calls the very last deception of Satan.

Selective Messages, volume 2, page 78, notice what it says, the very last deception of Satan will to be what?

Notice the language there, to make of none effect the testimony of the Spirit of God." Now, she's coming on her own ministry and her own writings.

Then she quotes Proverbs 29, 18, where there is no vision, the people perish.

We're going to look at that in another translation as we come toward the end of this presentation.

She continues, Satan will work ingeniously in different ways and through different agencies to unsettle the confidence of God's people, God's remnant people in the true testimony.

Now in the context of this, she's talking about her writings, and she says the very last deception of Satan will be to make them of none effect.

Now as Ellen White often does, she's using the language of Scripture here.

We're going to look at that in a minute because for us to understand this terminology is key.

What is she really saying this very last deception will be?

I need to interject here that if you read in the writings of Ellen White, you're going to find that she uses, she talks about last deceptions in other areas.

I don't think she's talking chronologically.

I don't think we're going down through time and saying the very last chronological thing that's going to happen.

I believe that when Ellen White is talking about the very last deception, what she's addressing is something that when this deception takes hold, Satan will know his cause is secure.

Last in the terms that once the devil pulls this 1 off, he's got it.

And you're going to see what we mean by that as we continue today.

Let's go to our Scriptures here this morning.

Let's go to the Lord's Scriptures and look at this, seek to answer this question, what did she mean by the phrase of none effect?

We're going to the book of Matthew chapter 15.

Now, I'll be reading in the New King James Version.

Of no effect is what it will say in the New King James, but the idea you'll see is the same.

What the Bible Says About Prophets

Heavenly Father, we are thankful again to be in this setting where we can study together, we can fellowship, we can learn a view.

Father, we pray for the outpouring of your Holy Spirit upon us to give us understanding, Lord, not just an intellectual understanding, but a practical 1, Lord.

Help us to put into practice the things that we're learning here and draw us closer to you, for this is our prayer in the name of Jesus and for his sake.

We are talking about the gift of prophecy in the Adventist Church, specifically the ministry of Ellen White, and a lot of questions that are related to that ministry.

And I had shared a trend in our church that I feel is moving away from, what do I want to say, that's moving towards reducing the authoritative role of Ellen White's ministry.

And I had cited a number of different authors, some inside the church, some outside the church.

I just want to reiterate again today, I am not trying to read into the motives of these individuals, and I believe there are many people who are trying to clarify Ellen White's gift, but I think they're doing it unwittingly in a way that's actually weakening it, not strengthening it.

So we touched on that yesterday, and it's interesting.

1 of the things I shared is the viewpoint or mindset – I've heard this over the years now, over and over, that Ellen White should not be presented from our pulpits, that she taught that and it just shouldn't be the case.

Pastors should not be bringing up Ellen White.

And in fact, and I said that that was a false statement, And so somebody messaged me and this is what they sent.

This is a statement from Ellen White and I'm reading just a portion.

It says, the words of the Bible and the Bible alone should be heard from the pulpit.

And we're going to explore this a little bit more tomorrow.

This is a good example of 1 of those situations where you take a statement, let's just take it at face value.

If that's absolutely true, then the pastor shouldn't be doing any talking.

He should simply be reading from the pulpit.

Well obviously that's not the meaning of it.

There is an importance for the Bible to be heard from the pulpit.

We're going to talk about that in the relation to Ellen White's writings tomorrow and then the following morning, where are we?

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday we're going to be talking about the whole plagiarism thing.

If so how does that relate to her gift and and how could she be a true prophet and a plagiarist at the same time and all these things?

Which she wasn't a plagiarist but we'll get into that.

But anyway, today we're talking about what the Bible says about prophets.

And I want to refer you to a statement by W.C.

White, the son of Ellen White, in a letter he wrote to L.E.

He says, "...the foundation by which to fix faith "'in the messages which God has sent, ' speaking about his mother's writings, "'sent to his people, will be more readily found "'in the study of his dealings "'with his prophets in past ages.'" And I have put it this way, I believe that understanding what the Bible teaches about prophets would settle a lot of our questions.

I read critics' questions, I hear questions among Seventh-day Adventists, and I think a lot of them stem from the fact that we don't ourselves really realize how prophets operated in scripture.

And scripture has to be the foundation of our faith.

So today we're going to begin by talking about what the Bible says about prophets.

According to the Bible, first question we're going to look at is, what is a prophet?

Now this, because of the nature of the time that we have, I'm really disappointed this morning that this year we've reduced seminars by 15 minutes.

I could use that extra 15 minutes this morning.

This is not intended to be an exhaustive comprehensive Study and I'm saying that because there's always somebody who wants to tag me out and they'll say well You only brought up a couple verses that's because we didn't have 6 weeks to study this topic We had an hour this morning to do it.

But in light of all that, I still believe we're going to be able to establish things pretty clearly from scripture.

I'm going to have you go with me to the book of Exodus as we answer this question.

According to the Bible, what is a prophet?

And if you've done any study on this topic, this may be a little bit of a review.

But we're going to actually work on looking at 2 things today.

We're going to lay a biblical foundation for the gift of prophecy and then we're going to look a little bit at biblical inspiration or the gift of inspiration, how inspiration works.

Now we're in the middle of a thought here, but this is when God had called Moses and sent him to go to Pharaoh.

He didn't, he felt incompetent and he wanted somebody else to go and so the Lord said, I'll send your brother.

This is what we're picking up on in Exodus 4 verse 14.

The Bible says, so the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, is not Aaron the Levite your brother?

I know that he can speak well and look he's also coming out to meet you.

When he sees you he will be glad in his heart." Now notice verse 15, now you shall speak to him and do what?

In his mouth and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and I will teach you what you shall do.

Verse 16, So he shall be your what's the word Spokesman to the people and he himself will be as a mouth for you and you shall be to him as God.

So here the Lord says I'm going to go ahead.

I'll use Aaron and Aaron will be your spokesman.

Now hold on to that thought and go just a couple chapters to the right to chapter 7 and look what it says there in verse 1.

Similar thought expressed only different words being used.

Exodus 7 verse 1 the Bible says, So the Lord said to Moses, See I have made you as God to Pharaoh and Aaron your brother shall be your what Prophet what was he in verse in chapter 4?

Spokesperson very simply stated a Prophet is a spokesperson for God I say that because if you ask a person on the street today what a prophet is, a prophet is somebody who tells the future.

But you know not all Bible prophets told the future.

Interestingly the Hebrew word, if you look at the screen here, the Hebrew word for prophet is the word nabi.

And a prophet is simply a spokesperson for God.

So both Old Testament and New Testament words that are employed for prophet is that the prophet is a spokesperson.

Let's just verify that as we go to Jeremiah chapter 1.

When God called Jeremiah to the prophetic ministry, You'll just see that it confirms what we've looked at here.

And let's pick up there, once I get to Jeremiah 1.

The Bible says in Jeremiah 1 verse 4, Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you before you were born.

Now there's this interchange that goes on just like with Moses but I want you to notice what happens at verse 9.

The Bible says in verse 9, then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth and the Lord said to me behold I have put my words in your mouth.

Okay this is just fits with what we've talked about.

It doesn't matter what age a prophet operates in, any prophet God calls is called to be a spokesperson for God.

Okay, now I want to go to this next question.

This is an interesting 1 as we look at it in scripture.

Who is credited for being the voice of the prophets?

In other words, the prophet is a spokesperson for God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

We might right away say, well the Holy Spirit, because it's a gift of the Spirit.

But I want you to look at what Scripture has to say.

First of all, we're going to look at Revelation 12, 17.

That's a well-known verse for Seventh-day Adventists.

Revelation 12, 17, still going to look it up.

Question is, who is credited for being the voice of the prophets?

Revelation 12, verse 17, the Bible says, "'And the dragon was enraged with a woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of who?

Ellen White or Sola Scriptura

Heavenly Father, Father again, we are just thankful to be here at this modern day feast, Lord, a coming together where we can worship you and draw aside from the busyness of life.

I pray that As we do this throughout this week, your Holy Spirit will be poured upon each 1 of us and give us understanding and clarity that we may be more confident in our faith and more able to share it with others.

For we ask it in Jesus' name and for His sake.

All right, now yesterday we talked a little bit about what the Bible says a prophet is, a spokesperson for God.

We laid a little bit of a groundwork there, talked about inspiration, the process and how it works, and how different people view inspiration.

We, as Seventh-day Adventists, believe in what we call the thought view of inspiration.

Ellen White herself understood her inspiration to be thought inspiration.

She recognized that she was a fallible human being, that she made mistakes like anybody else, but she also was very clear that she did not pour those mistakes into her writings, that her writings were not her own opinions and that they are a reliable source of truth for us.

Now when we say, in fact our doctrinal belief used to say source of truth and we changed it because we didn't want to confuse people.

There were critics who would say, well, you Adventists think that Ellen White is another Bible.

And so our current belief, fundamental belief number 18, says that her writings speak with prophetic authority.

I'm going to share with you some statements that we looked at on Sunday.

The first 1 here you can see on the screen.

While her statements on the relationship of her writings to the Bible may give the appearance of orthodoxy, she really takes away the Reformation teaching of sola scriptura, the Bible and the Bible only, is sometimes how it's referred to, by asserting her writings as authoritative.

That was a former Seventh-day Adventist that Judd Lake cited in his book, and it's indicative of many people who hold that same thing.

Well, you guys say you believe in the Bible and the Bible only, but at the same time you say you believe in the writings of Ellen White as authoritative and so that means you really don't believe that the Bible's really your foundation of faith.

Similarly, Dale Ratzlaff said in his book, The Truth about Adventist truth, Ellen White as a source of truth is perhaps the underlying heir of the SDA church, emphasis his.

While the Adventist church claims to be a Bible-based church, the leaders know very well that Bible study without Ellen White interpretation will lead members out of the church.

Her writings serve as a prism through which Adventists interpret Scripture." So 2 questions I want to pose as we get started here.

The first 1 is this, is a belief in Ellen White's prophetic authority really a violation of sola scriptura?

We're going to be addressing that here this morning.

And secondly, Should a prophet's communications color a believer's interpretations as Brother Ratzlaff was trying to point out there, a prism that colors every doctrine?

Let's go with this question here that I had on the screen.

Should a believer allow a prophet, if it is indeed a prophet of God and has passed the biblical test, should a believer allow that prophet to color or influence their understandings of Scripture?" Now I'm going to tell you that the defensive side of Adventists wants to say, well, we believe in the Bible and the Bible only.

Does a belief in the Bible and the Bible only exclude the council of prophets?

But let me put it this way in a way that I think will make more sense to us.

Let's go back in time, get in our little time machine, and let's go back to the days of Jeremiah.

When in the days of Jeremiah, he was an extra-biblical prophet.

Series

White Out: Whatever Happened to the Gift of Prophecy?

Reading Ellen White - Part 2

Transcript

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