Michigan Camp Meeting 2023: The Boldness of the Cross

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Young Pioneers

Brian Strayer

Will the Real Ellen White Please Stand Up

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2023 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Loving Lord, as we turn back the pages of history and focus on pioneers that helped to form our church, we know that you have told us through your servant Ellen White.

We have nothing to fear for our future except as we forget how you have led us in your teachings in our past history.

And so as we turn back the pages of history, May we be enlightened, informed, inspired, and may we learn some lessons that will help to shape our Christian lives here on this earth right now.

I thought I'd tackle the most difficult 1 first.

Will the real Ellen White please stand up.

Who really was this woman called Ellen Harmon White?

And this is the oldest photograph we have of her, the very earliest, 1854.

Her reputation always seemed to outstrip her diminutive size.

Even at 19 years old in 1846, this 5-foot, 2-inch girl with a dark complexion, brown hair, and gray eyes weighed only 80 pounds and felt that tuberculosis would soon take her life.

Instead, she suffered most of her life from physical attacks and ailments, which she believed the devil sent her way to hinder her work.

Having scores of visions might have made Ellen White proud or haughty, but she remained humble and even contrite for her shortcomings.

In 1876, she wrote to her husband James, it grieves me that I have said or written anything to grieve you.

Forgive me and I will be cautious not to start any subject to annoy or distress you.

I may not view all things as you do, but I do not think it is my place or my duty to try to make you see as I see and feel as I feel.

I am not free from mistakes and errors in my life.

Had I followed my Savior more closely I should not have to mourn so much my unlikeness to his dear image." Words of Ellen White.

What did she think about her role as prophet and messenger?

In an 1895 letter, she declared, I would not do a work that is so uncongenial to me if I thought that God would excuse me from it.

Well, in 1850, Congress passed a Fugitive Slave Act that required any citizen who saw a runaway slave to assist in returning that slave to his or her master.

Ellen White took a definite stand against that law.

She wrote these words, when the laws of men conflict with the words and laws of God, we are to obey the latter.

Whatever the consequences may be, the law of our land requiring us to deliver a slave to his master, we are not to obey.

And we must abide the consequences of violating this law.

Those were the consequences Ellen White was aware of.

On other occasions, Ellen White could be very level-headed when other people were losing their heads in fanaticism.

At Healdsburg College, now Pacific Union College, in 1884, some people expressed shock that the College Hall Sabbath school was decked out with cypress wreaths, autumn leaves, and evergreen trees festooned with flowers at Christmastime.

Some of them came to ask Sister White, what do you think of this?

At Elmshaven in California, Ellen was forced to confront many weirdos, many fanatics, who came to voice their peculiar views upon her and get her endorsement.

1 man came telling Ellen that he had been shown that Adventists should chew their water, not just swallow it down.

They should mix it around with their saliva.

Another man convinced that the Adventist Church had become Babylon rushed from the United States to Australia to find Sister White.

She had seen in a vision that he was coming, so she greeted him, oh you are so welcome and you can be a member of my household.

And oh by the way, do you know how to type?

So she put him to work typing a new manuscript she was working on entitled The Desire of Ages.

After several weeks passed, he forgot that the church was Babylon and he never did present that message.

As the Prohibition campaign against liquor gained ground in the United States, Ellen had to meet many fanatics who felt that Adventists should not vote on this issue or any other issue in Battle Creek, Michigan, where certain city fathers thought they would be clever and succeed in passing a liquor ordinance if they held the vote on Sabbath, because all the Adventists would be in church, right?

Ellen White declared, shall we vote for Prohibition?

And perhaps I shall shock some of you if I say, if necessary, vote on the Sabbath day for prohibition if you cannot vote at any other time.

You see, for Ellen White, prohibition, temperance, was a moral issue, not a political 1.

Her work could also involve great personal danger, for you know, some of the quacks that she encountered actually threatened her life.

As she stepped from the platform at the 1903 General Conference session, a man by the name of Helge Nelson, the man who claimed to be her prophetic successor, rushed forward and assaulted her.

Helen staggered against the platform steps.

She tottered feebly and almost went down as several of the deacons rushed forward to support her.

When Angel Nelson, as he liked people to call him, began beating her.

Several stout-armed elders grabbed him and hauled him bodily from the hall.

Jones summoned the police, and they sent patrolman Flynn, who carried Helge Nelson off to the city prison, charging him with assault and battery.

White followed a very demanding schedule.

Her family arose at 6 in the morning, but by that time, Ellen had been up probably since 3 or 4 a.m.

The cook began breakfast at 5, served it up at 6.30.

Morning worship followed at 7 with scripture, prayer, songs.

And then Ellen spent an hour in her flower garden, weeding, transplanting with her boys, and then followed 3 or 4 hours of writing.

She spent afternoons sewing, mending, knitting, darning, something none of you women do anymore, right?

And then she went back to her beloved gardens.

She made occasional shopping trips to town, visits to the sick.

The day came to a close as Ellen read to her boys for worship some interesting book.

But the day might not yet be over for her, for she often helped the cook to wash dishes, did some sewing, maybe some laundry, perhaps some more writing, until midnight occasionally in the 1870s.

She said, I have frequently been so weary as to stagger like an intoxicated person.

But praise the Lord, I have been sustained.

If we were to follow her itinerary, we might have to attend not just 1 camp meeting in the summer, but 08:10, or 12 camp meetings every summer.

Ellen also preached in other Protestant churches.

At least once we find her preaching to convicts in the Oregon State Penitentiary.

Another time she preached while riding on a Mississippi River boat.

Now despite all this travel and preaching, she also kept up a rigorous writing schedule.

Sitting in a low, heavy rocking chair with a swinging board bolted to the right arm for a writing table, she often wrote for hours.

And when James, her husband, came home from the Review and Herald Publishing House, she had him lie down on the sofa to listen as she read to him what she had written that day.

Now she was an unusually good reader, speaking slowly and distinctly.

If James discovered any weaknesses in composition or subject-verb disagreement, he would suggest grammatical corrections, and these she would write into her manuscript.

Her son Willie wrote in 1935, I can never forget the joy which they shared together as she brought out from time to time precious instructions for the church and interesting historical articles regarding leading characters in the patriarchal and Christian age.

Now, even as late as the 1890s, when Ellen was well up in her 60s, she often awoke at 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning to write while others slept.

But that did not mean that her life was 1 endless grind of work.

She loved the vacations that she and James took in the 1870s in the Colorado Rockies where they had a little cabin.

There she enjoyed relaxing or riding horseback with her husband along a mountain trail and then stretched out in a buffalo robe on a grassy spot.

I love the hills and the mountains and the forest of flourishing evergreens.

Luther Warren

Today we want to talk about a man who lies behind all the youth movements that the Adventist church now celebrates.

A man named Luther Warren, the Pied Piper of Seventh-day Adventism.

You know, very few Pathfinder leaders today know who Luther Warren and Harry Finner were, and it is safe to say that most of you adventurers and pathfinders may never have even heard those names before.

Well, if you check the Seventh-day Adventist encyclopedia for information, you'll find only 3 sentences about Harry Fenner, and only 5 sentences about Luther Warren.

Furthermore, the children's book, Luther Warren, written by Mary Boucher and published by the Review and Herald Press in 1959, is no longer in print.

And yet those 2 boys, who in their teenage years went all in for Christ started a ministry for young people that over the next century blossomed into the You Sabbath schools, the missionary volunteer and junior missionary volunteer societies, Adventist youth, the Sunshine Bands, the Pathfinders, and the Adventurers.

Now that being the case, don't you think that we should devote a few minutes today to understanding their contributions to the work that you men and women as adventure leaders and Pathfinder leaders do every day.

Luther Warren was born into an Adventist home in Macomb County, Michigan, on September 15, 1864.

His mother Ellen had been baptized by J.N.

Loughborough, and I'm going to be giving you the life sketch of J.N.

Loughborough later this week in an afternoon seminar.

As neighbors left to fight and die in the bloody Civil War, Luther did not have to seek for death on some distant battlefield, because death came knocking at his door.

His older brother and his twin sister died in infancy, while his brother Walter was accidentally shot and killed by a cousin in their home.

Luther grew up to be an extremely sensitive boy.

His mother, who often prayed over him, dedicated him, like Samuel's mother did, to God.

Early in his life, he demonstrated an unusual tenderness for other children.

He helped his mother care for his younger siblings, and he even tried to adopt a baby of his own when he was 17.

Luther was widely known as an honest, hard-working, truthful boy.

Despite being a moracious reader and 1 of the district's top spellers, in fact he knew his ABCs when he was only 2, he was also a nature lover and an outdoors boy who actually enjoyed hoeing corn, planting potatoes, raking hay, because he sang while he worked.

A vegetarian from his childhood, Luther's favorite foods were watermelon and pumpkin pie.

Let me know where that's going to show up, okay?

As an adolescent, he was 6 feet, 2 inches tall, kind of a Craig Harris build.

He towered over most of his playmates, who loved his playful spirit.

He sensed the humor and his knack for practical jokes.

In short, Luther Warren was sort of an Adventist Pied Piper and an Adventist Peter Pan rolled up into 1.

He loved to tell them stories, but he never wanted to grow up like Peter Pan.

Luther's career as a worker for God began rather humbly as he and his friend Harry Fenner knelt in a grove of trees in 1879.

And I'm too far back from the screen, but I hope the tech guys have Harry Fenner up there as well.

Several months before, the Hazleton Michigan Adventist Church Board had met to discuss their concerns about their young people.

Many of them were growing careless and not attending church regularly.

Luther's father, Duran Warren, had expressed the wish that older members would show more concern and more care for the younger ones.

So somebody made a motion that they set aside Sabbath, January 12, as a special day to encourage their young people to be faithful to God and church standards.

6 months later, the seeds that have been planted in youthful minds bore fruit.

As 14-year-old Luther and 17-year-old Harry walked along a dusty country road discussing how they could be of greater service to God, they decided to pray right then about it.

And so they jumped over a split rail fence and they knelt down in a grove of trees and they asked God to guide them.

Suddenly the idea struck them as they were praying that they should invite their friends to form a Christian Boys Club, something like the Christian Endeavor societies that were popular all across America in that time.

Soon 9 boys began meeting once a week in an unfinished attic of the Messeral home in Hazleton.

You won't find it on the map today, it's now called Juddville Center.

And they met to pray, to sing rousing hymns, to run errands for the sick and needy, to distribute tracts, to subscribe to the signs of the times, and to write missionary letters to the downhearted and discouraged.

Before long they formed a temperance club and all of them signed the T-Total Temperance Pledge, promising to refrain from alcohol, tea, coffee, tobacco, and pork.

He suggested that they give up swearing as well.

And so they added that to their teetotal pledge.

Feeling left out, 6 girls insisted on becoming members, and thereafter the group was co-ed and met in family parlors.

While their primary purposes were religious, they also planned social activities, picnics, parties, taffy pulls, games, sleigh rides, swimming parties, and maple-sugaring bees.

Avery Stuttle encouraged Luther's talents, and his first halting sermon was preached in her parlor when he was still in his teens.

Recognizing his God-given talents, the Hazleton Church appointed Luther Sabbath school superintendent when he was only 18.

Impressed with the boy, Elder Eugene Farnsworth urged his parents to send him on to Battle Creek College.

And so the family sold a cow and an aunt sold her gold watch to provide the funds for Luther Warren to go to Battle Creek College in 1882 and 83.

There at Battle Creek, Luther studied Spanish, Hebrew, and theology as he hauled wood and shoveled coal for the sanitarium and at the Haskell home for orphans to pay his way through.

Although he only had 1 year of college, Luther continued to read voraciously and later returned to Emanuel Missionary College, now known as Andrews University, where he could study for special classes.

Let's take a look at some of his sermons.

Luther Warren's sermons portray the loving nature of Jesus, and they converted many, including his own grandfather.

And yet when this painfully shy young man tried selling Adventist books with Albert Hazemar, he failed miserably.

Although he was austere and solemn and eloquent when speaking to adults, in the presence of children, this gentle young man could entertain them for hours with his stories, with his songs, and with his games.

Ballinger's tentmaster down in Benton Harbor, Michigan, Luther met Jesse Bell Proctor, a Bible worker and an organist, and in 1889 he secured a marriage license at the 1839 courthouse in Berrien Springs, which is still standing.

I am a member of the board of trustees there, hope you'll come and visit us sometime, and then they could marry.

This early experience in tent evangelism ignited the young preacher, and he soon became known as a crusader of great power, with a sonorous voice and an overpowering personality, but 1 whose sermons presented the saving grace of the beautiful Christ in a most appealing way.

On a rainy June day in 1892, at the camp meeting in Cortland, New York, the 28-year-old Luther Warren was ordained to the gospel ministry by the New York Conference president, Sands Lane.

And during his lifetime, Luther held evangelistic meetings in Michigan, in Illinois, in New York, Nebraska, California, Oregon, Washington, as well as British Columbia, Mexico, and Jamaica.

Hundreds of young people, seeing him as a loving and lovable Christian, dedicated their lives in service to the church that he loved.

And yet, you know, unlike most Adventist evangelists in the 19th century, Elder Warren refused to allow his picture to be used in public advertising for his meetings.

"'I want the people to see Christ, ' he said, "'not me.

I am just a little man with a great message.'" And yet it was his powerful delivery of that message that gave Luther Warren the nickname of the Cyclone Preacher.

Certainly 1 of the most outstanding moments in his career came in 1898 when he was preaching south of Battle Creek and winning so many souls that the local Congregationalist church hired Adventist apostate Dudley M.

Kenwright came and Kenwright stayed at his brother's home.

Now his brother was not a Christian, he was not an Adventist, But as Dudley Kenwright's brother listened to both sides during this debate that went on for several days, he told 1 Adventist member, my brother is not being honest.

Brother is not being honest." At the close of those meetings, Dudley M.

Kenwright's own brother became a Seventh-day Adventist.

That was the power of Luther Warren's presentation of truths.

Also, unlike those preachers who enjoyed writing long reports about their activities for the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Elder Warren wrote only 5 extremely short articles for the review during his entire 50-year ministry.

And yet in those few words, I believe we can truly find the measure of this man.

Unique among Adventist preacher-evangelists, Elder Warren always gave public mention to the children who attended his meetings and were baptized.

He always described them separately from the adults that he baptized.

His articles demonstrate an equal emphasis on faith and obedience, as in his November 3, 1891 article on Sabbath-keeping entitled, Obedience Shows Faith.

To obey God without knowing his reasons is the only proof of the truth and of our true faith and the only way to get righteousness, " he declared.

He began another article by, take it by force, April 22, 1902, with a startling assertion, whatever is worth having, you can have if you take it by force.

Arguing that it was better to open the way than to wait around and wish, he urged the young people to be faithful at what you're doing now and to do it with all your might." And then God would help them to find their place in the church as teachers, nurses, physicians, ministers, canvassers, and other professions.

Most of our preachers avoided it, but Luther Warren was just high-powered enough to like the exclamation mark.

He closed this article with the sobering thought that time and knowledge lost now can never be made up, even in the eternal ages.

Another theme in all of his 5 reports is his deep love for the truth.

JN Loughborough - The Man We Never Knew

Loving Father in heaven, we thank you for this opportunity that we have to come together in fellowship and worship and once again to turn the pages of history back and look at the life of John Norton Loughborough.

As we examine his challenges and successes and failures, we pray that we may learn some lessons that will be practical for our own lives to help us be better Christians today.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

You know, in his many diaries, pamphlets, books, and articles John Loughborough never revealed that his real name was not Loughborough.

His humble Irish ancestors had called themselves Lough, L-O-O-F, Loughboroughs.

In the 1740s, they emigrated from England to New Jersey.

In 1806, however, the family moved to the tiny village of Victor, New York, a few miles south of Rochester.

And there they saw the falling of the stars in 1833, and believe this foreshadowed Christ's soon coming.

Loughborough, died of typhoid fever when little John was only 7, his mother Minerva, who already had 4 children, sent him to live with his grandfather and grandmother for 8 years.

John's grandfather shaped John Jr.'s future in a number of ways.

A carpenter cabinetmaker by trade, Nathan also instilled in John a deep loyalty to his country and an ability to build things, cabinets, bookshelves, chicken coops, and even a house when John was 72 years old.

His grandfather Nathan was a former infantry lieutenant, a patriot loyal to his country, and he instilled in his grandson a firm commitment to law and order.

John would apply that love of order as he organized churches and conferences around the world.

As a Methodist class leader and a circuit riding preacher, Nathan's family worshipped every Sunday in the churches that he had built in Victor and Canandaigua, New York.

At the age of 3 little Johnny attended the Methodist Church School taught by Miss Bibbins, where he learned to recite poems for school programs.

At the age of 5, he attended Joseph Hollister's Presbyterian School, where he learned from the study of Webster's spelling book to eat slow and chew your food fine.

This interest in diet would lead him to establish our very first sanitarium in Battle Creek in 1866 and he would write many articles and 1 book on the subject of health reform for the church papers.

At 5 he was awestruck by the red flashes of the Aurora Borealis during the winter, and he felt sure that Jesus was coming soon.

His passionate love for astronomy would later inspire him to paint 2 dozen wonders of the heavens charts using full-size bedsheets to demonstrate God's end-time heavenly signs for his evangelistic meetings.

The traveling menageries, those are kind of like early country traveling zoos that came through rural New York in the 1830s, developed within John a deep love for animals of all kinds.

Wherever he lived, John would own horses, a cow or 2, cats and dogs, and flocks of Rhode Island Reds.

Like his father and grandfather, John also possessed remarkable mechanical skills.

At the age of 6, he made his first homemade matches using his mother's brimstone, some candle wax, and sticks.

At the age of 13 Johnny Loofborough crafted a violin that produced such beautiful tones that a local physician bought it from him.

His classmates nicknamed him the philosopher because he managed to produce every single machine that was listed in Comstock's physics book.

Throughout his long life, Loughborough would demonstrate this unique ability to invent useful things not only for his own home, but for churches and society.

Now like most other farmers and artisans in antebellum America, the Loof Burl's lives centered around church activities.

John enjoyed listening to members' tear-filled testimonies, participating in the communion services, and joining in the rousing singing classes.

When John was 6 years old, his Sunday school teacher led her pupils in reciting Revelation chapter 22 as tears of joy ran down her face.

Later in life John would write a book and dozens of articles about the saints' inheritance in the new earth.

But John was also troubled by a fear of death and uncertainty regarding his salvation.

Grandpa Loofborough, I'm afraid, deepened the boy's anxiety by telling him that he must pray every single night before he went to sleep, or he would go to hell.

His uncle, Miles Carter, informed him that hell was a thousand times hotter than the iron nail rods they were melting in the blacksmith's fire.

Deeply convicted of his sins, John feared that he was indeed predestined to hell.

But it was the Millerite movement that delivered him from that fear.

In 1843 the entire Leupold family attended the six-week meetings of Elders Berry and Adams in Rochester, New York.

Grandpa Nathan began subscribing to the Midnight Cry, the signs of the times, and the voice of truth.

And his grandson, Johnny, peddled these papers around the neighborhood.

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Young Pioneers

Will the Real Ellen White Please Stand Up

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