Episode Transcript
Are you ready to embark on a thought provoking journey of discovery, curious to explore an alternative narrative that challenges the theory of evolution? What impact has the war in heaven had on our planet? And what are the implications for humanity? What can we learn from this epic battle that is unfolding between good and evil? Here is your opportunity to unlock a treasure trove of spiritual insights from the Bible that will answer these and many other pressing questions, illuminating the path to eternal life which lies just a choice away. Here is Bill Gates presenting the spirit of prophecy gift in the Bible, God promised that he would provide a special gift of prophecy to his church in the last days of earth's history. And we find that promise in Joel chapter two, verses 28 to 31.
And it shall come to pass afterward that I'll pour out my spirit, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids. In those days will I pour out my spirit. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.
It's a great day for the saints who are saved. It's a terrible day for the lost who will be destroyed forever. But God's enemy, Satan, counterfeits much of what God does.
And here are three examples of Satan's counterfeits. Satan brings in false prophets. Satan brought in Sunday sacredness to replace God's 7th day, sacred Saturday, Sabbath number three.
Satan says the dead keep on living, even though God says the dead know nothing after they die. But God revealed this counterfeit would occur. As an inspired Bible commentator wrote in a book called third selected messages, page 84.
One thing is certain. Those 7th day Adventists who take their stand under Satan's banner will first give up their faith in the warnings and reproofs contained in the testimonies of God's spirit. The testimony of God's spirit refers to the promised spirit of prophecy writings.
The very last deception of Satan will be to make of none effect the testimony of the spirit of God. This reading is saying that Satan is making of none effect this special God given gift by having 7th day Adventist Christians ignore these writings, both in their private devotions and in public worship services. This is already happening and God's people are suffering because his people are not reading the inspired writings God promised us in the book of Joel.
Instead, they turn to the Internet and take their information from uninspired sources. Let us now trace the history of how God communicates with his people, starting at the Garden of Eden, as recorded in Genesis two, verse 15. And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
So God and mankind were to enjoy face to face relationship. What a fantastic thing to have. But sad to say, this relationship of love and togetherness lasted only for a short while.
The third chapter of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, records the fact. And it starts at verse eight. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees in the garden. So Adam and Eve disobeyed God and thereby sinned. Sin separates, for sin and God are incompatible, as our next Bible reading in Isaiah 59, verse two teaches.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you. So sin separated us from God, but it didn't separate us from his love. We had to be separated from his physical presence, because sinners cannot exist in the presence of a holy God and live.
So once face to face separation took place, God still made a way of keeping in touch with sinful man. Love always finds a way of keeping in touch. So how did God choose to communicate with mankind? Prophecy was one of the ways that God chose so that he could keep in touch.
As psalm 119, verse 105, says, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. So we have the Bible for God's doctrines, and we have the inspired spirit of prophecy books for understanding the Bible better. Eventually, these prophets words were put into written books so that we don't lose our way.
It is to be like a torch that lights up the way back to God and to heaven. So what other reason made it necessary for God to give his people the gift of prophecy writings? Well, we may lose our identity without that prophetic guidance from God. After all, if we do not know how or why we came into existence in the past, we shall not know why we exist today.
So God chose men and women he could trust to be his mouthpiece to communicate his love and plans to mankind. Among those he chose were Moses, Miriam, Samuel, Elijah, Holder, Deborah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many, many more. Notice that God chose both men and women to be his prophets and prophetesses.
But he only chose men, being the patriarchs of the family unit, to be the ordained ministers. Prophets and prophetesses were spokespeople for God. This was God's way of saying, I still love you, I care what happens to you, and I have a plan to help you.
This might seem strange because one of the objections people have about God is this. If God is a God of love, why do we have sickness, suffering, pain and death? The short answer to that is that God has an enemy who inflicts a lot of these problems onto people. And then Satan rejoices when we blame God instead of Satan.
Sometimes God spoke through the Holy Spirit, sometimes by the holy angels, and at other times through people whom he chose to be his messengers. During the first two and a half thousand years of human history, there was no written revelation from God. This can be understood best when we consider the genealogies and the chronology found in Genesis, chapters five and eleven.
These two chapters reveal that God needed only two men to get his teachings verbally from Adam to Abraham in just over 2000 years. This is important because Abraham was the grandfather of the israelite nation which is still with us today. So let us now look at the genealogies.
Adam was alive when Methuselah was born and so Adam could talk with Methuselah for 243 years until Adam died. Then Methuselah was alive when Noah was born and could talk afterwards with Noah for another 706 years. Methuselah died in the year of the flood, aged 969 years.
Then Noah lived 350 years after the flood and therefore was alive when Abraham was born and could talk afterwards with Abraham for about 46 years until Noah died. Therefore, the two men God used to get his messages from Adam to Abraham were Methuselah and Noah, spanning just over 2000 years. So don't take any notice of the critics who would say, if you give a line of, say, ten girl guides or ten boy scouts, a message to relay by speech, by the time it gets to the end, the message will have changed.
It can be true when large numbers of humans were involved, but not with just two people. Plus God was involved. And he ensured that the true original teachings from Adam and the patriarchs, plus the subsequent manuscripts after Moses time were accurate and protected.
The evidence that proves the point was the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. These scrolls prove the total accuracy of the ancient Bible book called Isaiah. Since the time of Moses, however, the most frequently chosen channel God used to communicate with his people has been through the channel of true prophets and true prophetesses.
As Amos three, verse seven states, surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he reveals his secret unto his servants, the prophets. And then Peter under inspiration tells us about the gift of prophecy in two. Peter chapter one, verse 21.
For prophecy never came by the will of man. But holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. God had prophets, of course, even before the great flood of Noah's day, as jude, chapter one, verses 14 and 15 shows us.
And Enoch also the 7th from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, behold, the Lord comes with 10,000 of his saints. So Enoch is the first person mentioned in the Bible who had the gift of prophecy, and he was shown by God the third coming of Jesus Christ with the saints who were returning to this earth after a thousand years in heaven. But there were many other prophets after the flood.
We find prophets and prophetesses. As I mentioned earlier, they were preachers of righteousness. They were moral and spiritual guides speaking for God.
Sometimes God revealed his will to prophets and prophetesses by visions, sometimes by dreams, but always through God, the Holy Spirit. For it is the Holy Spirit that brings these gifts unto the chosen person. On a few occasions, God spoke directly to a chosen person, such as Elijah.
But mostly God spoke through visions or dreams, as he says in numbers twelve, verse six, if there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision. I speak to him in a dream. Sometimes God's messengers were instructed to speak for God.
Sometimes they were to write or record a message from him. In fact, you could say that the original true manuscripts are the product of the ministry of the prophets. Every author was a part of God's plan.
God is still saying, I love you and I want to keep in touch with you. But God really wants to have the face to face talking with us, as he had with Adam and Eve in the beginning. And that day is coming.
All of the authors of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Paul, James, Peter, and Jude, were a part of that plan. All had the gift of prophecy. Of course, there were others during that time who were speaking for God.
Simon, Agabus, Barnabas, and Anna. And as acts 21, verse nine tells us, Philip's four daughters also prophesied. All were instruments God used to reveal his will and to encourage the early christian church.
Then Jesus came to personally demonstrate by words and actions what God is really like. But because he came to a world full of sinners, he chose to shield his divinity inside a human body. Otherwise, we would have been destroyed instantly.
As I mentioned before, never has the world witnessed a more eloquent communicator of God's love and concern than that provided by Jesus Christ. 19 centuries have passed since the death of Jesus at Calvary, yet men and women, boys and girls, still kneel in adoration and pledge undying allegiance and devotion to the saviour of the world. When Jesus returned to heaven, the Bible says, he gave us gifts which would strengthen and encourage his followers.
We read of this in Ephesians, chapter four, verses eight to 14, as follows. Wherefore he said, when he ascended upon high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. And he gave some apostles and some prophets, and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.
Why did Jesus choose to give gifts unto men? Verse twelve for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. How long were these gifts to remain in the church? Verse 13 says, till we all come in the unity of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And the spiritual bonus for us will be, as recorded in verse 14, that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
So the Bible says that these gifts would give stability to the church and strengthen the people. Now notice where the gift of prophecy stands in the list of spiritual gifts, as Paul calls them in one corinthians twelve, verse 28. And God has set some in the church.
First, apostles, secondarily, prophets. Notice that the gift of prophecy ranks second only to that of apostleship, and it was to be a very important and a necessary gift to help the church function properly. Paul likened the gifts of the spirit to the various parts of the human body.
He showed that the eyes, the ears, the mouth and other body parts are all necessary for the human body to function harmoniously and efficiently, just so with the church, without visions. For example, the church is spiritually blind, so the gift of prophecy stops us from being spiritually blind, and therefore we need to value this gift from God. As proverbs 29, verse 18 states, where there is no vision, the people perish, but he that keepeth the law happy is he.
Two points need to be made here, and that is this. It is God, the Holy Spirit, who chooses what gifts are given to God's people. It is not something that people can choose for themselves.
Secondly, in the context of sanctification, which is God's work in us over our lifetimes, there is a direct relationship between obeying God's word and obeying his law. Because it's when we do this that God, the Holy Spirit, is imparted to his people in a bigger way than at conversion. Acts five, verse 32 confirms this, and we are his witnesses of these things.
And so is also the Holy Spirit whom God has given to them that obey him. So ask yourself this question. When did you last pick up a spirit of prophecy book like the desire of ages or the great controversy and read it? Your faith will be greatly strengthened when you do this.
But you might ask another question here. What happened to the gift of prophecy after Christ returned to heaven and all his disciples died? Well, very early in Christianity's history, 64 AD to be precise, the christian church split into two groups when persecution came at the hands of Nero, the emperor of Rome. Firstly, there was a Bible based 7th day Sabbath keeping church who loved God and loved his holy law.
And we trace our ancestry back to that true 7th day Sabbath keeping church that God set up by Jesus in 27 AD. Then the second branch of the christian church split off in 64 AD from the true and original church to avoid being killed under Nero's decree. They did that by keeping the first day, pagan Sunday being the pagans day for worshipping the solar sun.
Thus they identified with the pagans, even though they called themselves christians, thus compromising their christian faith with paganism and place tradition over scripture to save their lives. When we study history, we find that the Roman Catholic Church can only trace its ancestry back to the split in 64 AD, and not back to Peter as they claim. But our next Bible reading in lamentations two, verse nine, makes it very clear that prophecy and visions perish if we disobey God and his holy law.
Lamentations two, verse nine, the law is no more and her prophets no longer find visions from the Lord. So notice the relationship. Love God and his law, and visions will come where God's law is not valued or where it is changed by men.
Those people no longer receive the true visions from the true God, as the early breakaway church adopted pagan rites and practises and discarded fundamental Bible truths one by one, the spiritual gifts, including the true gift of prophecy, were withheld by God. During the time of the Dark Ages, from 538 to 1798, bibles were chained to monastery pulpits. In general, they were written in Hebrew, Greek or Latin.
The common people were forbidden to own or read the scriptures. Only priests were allowed to read and interpret the manuscripts. But after the printing press was invented by Johann Gutenberg, a few faithful Christians managed to obtain portions of the Bible and treasured its truths.
And as people began to diligently search the scriptures, old truths hidden for centuries were discovered. These truths were brought to the attention of the people and a great religious awakening resulted. About this time, the early 18 hundreds there came into existence a new religious movement.
A group of dedicated Christians, some baptists, some Methodists, some Presbyterians and others began searching the scriptures and praying for more light. The Sunday keeping christians and searching the Bible and turning their backs on the traditions of men, rediscovered the 7th day Sabbath, this being the fourth of God's objective ten Commandment law as recorded in the true Bible. But it is the third commandment in the roman catholic catechism.
You see, the catholic leaders achieved this by deleting the second commandment about making and worshipping idols. This left them with only nine commandments. So they then split the 10th into two commandments in order to have ten.
Keeping the first four commandments is how we show our love for God. But as you can see, the catholic catechism only has three. And that is because the catholic leaders had deleted the second commandment.
Keeping the last six commandments is how we show our love for our fellow mankind. But as you can see, the catholic catechism has seven on the right table instead of six. They found it necessary to split the 10th commandment into two to give them ten commandments in the catechism.
Now the reason this is so important is that God answered the prayers of those mid 1800 christians and they then discovered that the Sabbath commandment was not Sunday, but sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. The sacred day is God's great memorial of his first creation week. And God still asks his people everywhere to remember to keep holy that sacred 24 hours period of time, not Sunday, because God never made Sunday a holy day.
Still later they discovered in the last book of the Bible called revelation, two verses that give the identifying marks of the remnant church. The word remnant means the last part of anything. Ladies know that a remnant sale is a sale of the last piece of a bolt of material.
And so revelation 1217 gives us the two clues that identify the last church on earth before Jesus returns. And the dragon, which is a Bible symbol for Satan, was angry with the woman, which is the Bible symbol for a church, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus. Most people understand what the commandments of God are, but what is the testimony of Jesus? An angel answers that question for us in revelation 19, verse ten.
I am your fellow servant and of your brethren that have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
So the devil is angry because here are christians in the mid 18 hundreds rediscovering the 7th day Sabbath and thus keeping all ten commandments of God instead of just nine. This 7th day Sabbath came to mankind from the garden of Eden. According to Genesis, chapter two, verses two and three was kept by Adam and Eve, who were the first 7th day Sabbath keepers.
It was kept by Jesus and the disciples 2000 years ago and by the subsequent christians who did not compromise the faith when the christian church split into two churches in 64 ad, and it will be kept in heaven. According to Isaiah 66, verses 22 and 23, the saints of the mid 18 hundreds accepted this memorial to God's creation and began to proclaim the 7th day Sabbath truth to the world. It is God's flag of allegiance, not made from material, but made from time, holy time.
Then acts five, verse 32 in the Bible tells us, and we are his witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Spirit and God has given to them that obey him. Now that these Baptists, Methodists, presbyterians and others were advancing in their knowledge and obedience, thus beginning to keep the 7th day Sabbath holy, a new question arose. Would God raise up the special gift of prophecy among this end time Sabbath keeping people? As the book of Joel said, the answer is yes, he did, because they began to love and keep all of God's ten commandments and not just nine commandments.
So it should be clear to us that God's people are to have the spirit of prophecy books in their midst during the closing hours of earth's history, a sample of which is on the screen. Communicating with the church at Corinth, Paul made this statement concerning God's followers in one corinthians one, verse seven so that you come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we will not be left without God's power or God's gifts, including the spirit of prophecy books, which will help us understand future events, especially as it relates to our need to understand clearly the prophetic events that precede the arrival of the true second coming of Jesus Christ.
For God's people, this is the day when God will get rid of sickness, suffering, pain and death forever. And when you find the church that keeps all ten commandments and has the testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy writings, you will have found what the world is looking for, certainty of belief, firm social boundaries established by God, and an inner peace that money cannot buy. I found that out for myself when I studied with the 7th day Adventist Church in 1970.
And as a result, I can confidently say that if you choose to join this church, the 7th day Adventist church, set up specifically by God to alert the world to what is coming. You too can experience the joy of finding purpose in living and contentment. Let us now reveal the spiritual clues of God's people, who in the last days will be characterised as those who have the faith of Jesus.
They keep all of God's ten commandments according to revelation 1217 and they will have the genuine gift of prophecy. According to revelation 19, verse 1080, 5% of all Bible prophecy is now written on the pages of history exactly as God predicted. Therefore, the remaining 15%, containing some amazing Bible prophecies which are yet to be fulfilled, will happen exactly as God says they will.
In my mind, it's a sensible thing for people to know and understand what those remaining prophecies are, especially as we know these prophecies will affect all people on planet earth before the genuine Jesus Christ returns. Yes, God still wants to keep in touch. He still has something to say to this generation.
But you might ask, what about the possibility of deception? How can we tell the difference between a genuine prophet of God and a false prophet? The possibility of deception has always existed, especially as God has an enemy called Satan who also uses false prophets to deceive God's followers. But do not panic, there are five main biblical tests that anyone claiming to have the genuine gift of prophecy must pass. So knowing what these five tests are enables us to quickly pick a false prophet.
The first test is this one. A true prophet's message will be in complete harmony with God's word and God's law. Thus a new prophet's messages will not contradict an old prophet's messages, but sweetly complement them.
As Isaiah eight, verse 20 says to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. The second test, a true prophet's predictions must come to pass or always be fulfilled, unless the prophecy had conditions and the conditions were not met. Jeremiah 28, verse nine confirms this for us.
When the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known that the Lord has truly sent him a third test. A true prophet's prophecies always prophesy to edify the church, not edify himself or herself as one. Corinthians 14, verse four reveals.
But he that prophesyeth edifyeth the church. One of the reasons God has given the gift of prophecy is to build up his church. If we to discover the true gift, we must also discover the true church, for they are linked together.
The fourth test is that the true prophet will exalt Jesus Christ as the son of God and the saviour of mankind. There are 125 Old Testament prophecies identifying the characteristics of the true Messiah, and Jesus Christ fulfilled them all. According to Dr.
Peter Stoner, former chairman of the departments of mathematics, astronomy and engineering at Pasadena College in California, applied the principle of probability to this question. He calculated the ods of just eight of these 125 prophecies being fulfilled by just one man as one to the power of 33 knots. That is astronomical.
Ods for just eight of these prophecies. But what would the ods be of all the 125 prophecies of the Messiah being fulfilled by chance alone? Impossible. It simply could not have happened by chance.
The fifth test is that a true prophet or prophetess can be known by their fruits, in other words, by his or her own life and works, as Matthew seven, verses 17 to 20, reveals. Even so, every good tree brings forth good fruit, but a bad tree brings forth bad fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit.
Neither can a bad tree bring forth good fruit. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. Based on these Bible texts, it becomes obvious that not everyone who professes to be a prophet of God is a true prophet.
Some making this claim will indeed be false prophets. A true prophet's message, their life and actions must support and strengthen the prophetic messages already found in the Bible, including the instructions and commands of God. So no matter who claims to speak for God, have them report to the senior church leadership, who can then apply the five tests.
If they don't meet those tests, then follow Christ's warning to treat them as false prophets. I shall now share the true story of how God chose to keep in touch with his people over the last 200 years. It was a time when the Adventists, comprising the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and others, were making known to the world the Bible truths which had been hidden for centuries.
It was during the great religious awakening early in the 19th century. This great religious awakening was brought about by the fulfilment of a very long time prophecy spanning 1260 years and ending in 1798, and it involved the papacy. The papacy received its political power at the hands of the last roman emperor, named Justinian in 538 AD.
Exactly 1260 years later, the papacy lost its political power, just as God prophesied. And that happened at the hands of Napoleon in 1798. Having a prophecy spanning 1260 years fulfilled exactly on time led to the great religious awakening that I've been talking about from 1798 onwards.
And of special interest to them were the prophecies of Daniel and revelation. Please remember that these people were not 7th day Adventists. They had not yet come into existence as an official church entity.
But they were Adventists who were looking for the second advent of Jesus Christ. Faithful Bible students studied the Bible prophecies in Daniel and revelation, and eventually they concluded that Jesus Christ would come back in their day. They based that decision on the Bible rule that in prophecy, a day stands for a year.
They applied this to the prophecy found in Daniel eight, verse 14, spanning 2300 prophetic days, which translates to 2300 literal years ending in 1844. As they continued to study the Bible, they settled on the date of the 22 October 1844. However, that date came and went, and the glorious return of Jesus Christ did not take place.
It was a most bitter disappointment for them. It provoked much public and private ridicule, scoffing and misrepresentation. Later, however, through further diligent Bible study and much prayer, they discovered the cause of their disappointment.
They discovered that the date 22 October 1844 was correct, but the event was wrong. They had thought that the sanctuary mentioned in Daniel eight, verse 14, was planet earth, but in this they were mistaken. That date 1844 marked the end of the 2300 year time prophecy, which then marked the time when Jesus moved not to planet earth, but to the second apartment of the heavenly sanctuary to begin the judgement work.
This must take place prior to Jesus Christ coming back the second time to gather the saints and take them to heaven to live forever. So once the Adventists understood about Jesus beginning the judgement phase of salvation, it explained their great disappointment. So they then entered into preaching again with enthusiasm.
For now they had made a major discovery. Judgement Day had arrived. And now the times in which we all live are urgent.
This judgement work would involve the final vindication of God's character and his government before the unfollowen angels in heaven. And these angels would then see the perfect outworking of God's mercy and his justice. And the judgement also determined who had met God's conditions for entering the second kingdom of glory in the third heaven.
There are no conditions for entering God's first kingdom of grace here on earth, other than to repent of my sins and accept Jesus Christ as my personal saviour. But discovering that Jesus Christ was not coming back to planet earth at that time caused some to leave the faith and give up on the Bible prophecies. Their disappointment seemed unbearable.
But a loving God never forsakes the sincere seeker for truth, and he didn't forsake these advent believers, at this moment of their crisis, he wanted them to know that he cared, that he loved them and wanted to help. So at this most crucial moment, God chose to restore the gift of prophecy to his people. It is a fascinating and factual story.
Right from the very beginning, God chose two men to be his spokesman, but they both said no to God. So he then chose a frail 17 year old girl and gave her a vision of the final triumph of God's plan of salvation. Her name was Ellen Harmon and this was in December 1844, just two months after the great disappointment.
She was shown the Advent people travelling on an elevated road to heaven with a brilliant light illuminating the pathway. And she shared that with her fellow believers. What an encouragement that message was to the small and scattered group of Advent believers which would later become known as 7th day Adventists.
This young woman, who married and became Ellen White was faithful to her calling for more than 70 years. She spoke, wrote, taught and counselled as God instructed her. And remember, her education stopped when she was aged only nine.
Although the scope of her ministry and expertise is astounding, her greatest work, as she put it, was to lead men and women to the greater light, which is the Holy Bible. I read this from Cole Porter, ministry, page one, two, five. Little heed is given to the Bible and the Lord has given a lesser light to lead men and women to the greater light.
She championed the holy scriptures as the final Court of Appeal in all doctrinal questions to some who were criticising the word of God. She wrote in a book entitled first Selected Messages. Page 18 cling to your Bible as it reads and stop your criticism in regard to its validity and obey the word and not one of you will be lost.
No woman has ever produced as much published religious material as Ellen White did. She wrote books, magazine articles, tracks, pamphlets and personal letters to individuals and committees. In fact, Wikipedia says her writings exceeded in volume all of the writings of William Shakespeare.
That's amazing, isn't it? Her messages of counsel and reproof that she received from God were shared with his people throughout her lifetime. Her writings include counsel on victorious christian living, diet, health, prenatal care and drugs, marriage, the home, child guidance and education. Young people were given special information which has been published in a book called messages to young people and she wrote much, much more.
She has been quoted by professors, doctors, news commentators and others as an authority in many of these fields. That is understandable when you consider that much of what she wrote came from God himself, the creator of all mankind. Just to give you an idea of how highly esteemed her writings are held, let us notice what Dr.
Clive McKay, the late professor of nutrition at Cornell University, had to say about her contribution to the science of nutrition. From the book entitled Natural Food and Farming, dated May 1958, I read the writings of Ellen G. White have been cited because they provide a guide to nutrition that comprehends the whole body.
And as far back as 1864, Ellen White wrote about a body destroying product called tobacco. And this is what she wrote. Tobacco is a poison of the most deceitful and malignant kind.
It is all the more dangerous because its effect upon the system are so slow and scarcely perceivable. It wasn't until 1957 that the American Heart association concluded that smoking was a causative factor in lung cancer. In her day, those in the medical field must have questioned her, for at that time it was thought that tobacco and cigar smoke were an effective cure for lung disease.
In 1905, Mrs. White wrote about a major source of cancerous germs. She stated in the book entitled Ministry of Healing, page three, one, three.
People are continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculosis and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer, and other fatal diseases are thus communicated. Of course, today we would use the word virus.
93 years later, Newsweek magazine carried a story dated June 18, 1956, entitled viruses are activating factors in cancer. Dr. Wendell Stanley, University of California, a virologist and Nobel Prize winner, stated without qualification that he believes viruses cause most of all human cancer.
She was also shown future events in the natural world, as we shall see when we read from manuscript 1902, page one, one, four. In 1902, Ellen White warned that San Francisco and Oakland would be visited by the Lord because they were becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah. In the Boston Post front page news.
Four years later, the paper's headline, red fire follows earthquake, heart of city is in ruins. The great San Francisco earthquake occurred just as predicted. The prophecy was true, but she was also shown political and religious events still to take place.
Just notice the next prophecy about America found in a book entitled last Day events, page one, three, three. When our nation, the United States of America, and its legislative councils shall enact laws to bind the consciences of men in regard to their religious privileges, enforcing Sunday observance and bringing oppressive power to bear against those who keep the 7th day Sabbath, the law of God will to all intents and purposes be made void in our land, and national apostasy will be followed by national ruin. We have been preaching for 131 years now that the second beast of Revelation, chapter 13, which is the symbol for the United States of America would one day pass a national Sunday law.
That law will make it compulsory for all Americans to gather for congregational worship at a church of their choice on Sunday and back in 2015, listen to what Senator Sylvia Allen of the Arizona district had to say about legislating Sunday as a compulsory day for church attendance. You want to do violence, you'll use a clock in a courtroom, or you can use knives, or you can use whatever. It's the soul that is corrupt.
And how we get back to a moral rebirth in this country, I don't know. Since we are slowly eroding religion at every opportunity that we have, probably we should be debating a bill requiring every american to attend a church of their choice on Sunday to see if we can get back to having a moral rebirth. Astounding, isn't it? A prophecy given by God through the prophet John Way back in 90 AD and recorded in the Bible Book of Revelation, chapter 13, verses 16 and 17 is explained for us by God through Ellen White.
In 1888, a prophecy that would seem absolutely impossible to happen in a democratic country is now appearing. When Mrs. White saw the fulfilment of any prophecy in her day, this is what she said in life sketches, page one, nine, six.
As I see what the Lord has wrought, I am filled with astonishment and with confidence in Christ as leader. As we see the beginnings of a fulfilment of a prophecy that for a hundred years was considered to be an impossibility, we should be thrilled as we see the vindication once again that God was and still is right. The quotation continues, we have nothing to fear for the future except as we forget the way the Lord has led us and his teachings in our past history.
Mrs. White's achievements are astounding when we consider the overwhelming obstacles and handicaps which confronted her throughout her lifetime. So who was Ellen White? The answer takes us back to November 26, 1827.
At the age of nine, an accident changed her life forever. While returning home from school, Ellen was seriously injured by a stone thrown by a classmate. For three weeks she was unconscious.
She was only nine years old and unable to continue her schooling, and it appeared that she would not live long. She never got beyond the early grades of formal schooling. Years later, Ellen looked back with mixed emotions on that 9th year of her life.
True, it was heart rendering, not being able to attend school, not being able to run and play with her sisters and brothers. But as one phase of her life seemingly ended, another began. Ellen became an avid student of the Bible.
She attended camp meetings, revivals and cottage meetings, and after attending a Methodist camp meeting in Buxton, Maine, Ellen was baptised. On June 26, 1842, she became a member of the Methodist church. In 1831, William Miller, a Baptist farmer, began to preach near to where the whites lived.
Later, Aaron and her family attended some of these meetings held in Portland, Maine. Miller had been a former army captain and had been diligently studying the Bible. And because he advocated the soon coming of Christ, he and his followers were labelled Adventists, or millerites.
Listening carefully, the Harmon family were convinced of the truthfulness of Miller's messages. However, Miller's prophecies about the return of Jesus Christ did not happen, and this led to the great disappointment that I referred to earlier. The white family, along with many others, were devastated.
She wept, she prayed, and she studied God's word for an answer, as did many of the advent believers. Then it was that God called her to be his prophetess so that she could encourage the disappointed saints. But Ellen only ever referred to herself as a messenger of God.
Physically, she didn't appear to be what you'd expect of a prophetess. She was a 17 year old girl fighting tuberculosis, and she had a heart condition. Yet in December of 1844, God chose to speak to Ellen in a vision.
In her own words, she tells of her reaction in a letter number three, dated 1847. After I had the vision and God gave me light, he bade me deliver it, but I shrank from it. I was young, and I thought they would not receive it from me.
Although feeling inadequate and physically incapable of the responsibilities of this calling from God, in faith she accepted the mission for God that would last her lifetime. Ellen and her husband James, work together in sharing the light that God gave. Their triumphs and their devotion are shared in many of her writings and throughout her life.
Ellen White was a committed Christian, a tireless servant of God, and a devout mother. She was loved by her husband, her family, and thousands around the world. I've even seen the house that she lived in in Auckland and New Zealand for three months.
On August 6, 1881, Ellen's husband James died in Battle Creek, Michigan. Standing by his graveside was Ellen, pledging to press on in the work that they both had sacrificed and relentlessly pursued for over 35 years together. Some of Ellen's most beautiful and inspiring writings appeared after this date, and she worked alone for another 34 years.
Her prophetic ministry took her to several countries, guiding, instructing, and counselling the believers as the Lord led her. The life and labours of Ellen White closed on July 16, 1915. She was past 87 years of age and was buried at the side of her husband in Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek in Michigan.
A few weeks after her death, the New York Independent newspaper edition, dated August 23, 1915, published this statement. She showed no spiritual pride and she sought no filthy Luca. She lived a life and did the work of a worthy prophetess, the most admirable of the american succession.
Yes, her voice is stilled, her pen is at rest. But the priceless words of counsel, admonition, instruction, and encouragement of this faithful spokesperson for God will continue to guide God's people to final victory. One of her books, called the desire of ages, was acknowledged by a librarian at the New York Library as the finest commentary on the life of Jesus Christ she had ever read.
Ellen White's legacy to the world is a gift of love from God, a message to earth from across the universe, from a God of love who still wants to keep in touch with his children here. Then the lesser light will pale as we stand in the glorious light of his presence once again to see in fellowship with God, face to face in all his glory, just as it was in the beginning when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. So what is the moral of today's presentation? Two chronicles 20, verse 20 answers the question for us.
Believe in the Lord your God and you shall be established. Believe his prophets and you shall prosper. Are you excited to know that the 7th day Adventist Church is the church that has the genuine spirit of prophecy books? God is encouraging us to value this precious gift, for its role is to illuminate the Holy Bible, as Peter said in two Peter one, verse 19.
We have also a more sure word of prophecy, where unto you do well, that you take heed, written in plain and modern English. And as I just said, these inspired writings help us to understand our bibles much better. And ever since, I've had a piece that money cannot buy.
God wants you to have that peace also, to summarise, the doctrines come from the Holy Bible. The understanding of the Bible is enhanced not when we read the Internet, but when we read the spirit of prophecy writings. All of the Bible and the spirit of prophecy books, messages are designed to prepare you and me for the greatest event the world will ever see, the true second coming of Christ.
To gather the saints and take them back to heaven. May you end up being one of those happy people, and you can be if you make the right decision today. May God bless us all and our loved ones forevermore.
Amen.
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