Does God Still Lead?
Notes
Transcript
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Bernard Elbernard Nelson is a self-proclaimed prophet who runs a ministry called Spiritlife Revival Ministries in Ghana. In his preaching he often calls someone out of the crowd and begins to tell the congregation about their life—presumably not having knowing them before this moment. He tells their parents and siblings names, reveals their financial struggles and gives them promises of blessings. Sometimes its a miracle baby he promises, sometimes it’s blessings on their business.
He claims that he is in ministry as a “divine mandate of governing the earth from heaven through humanity.”
There are many churches that claim to have the gift of prophecy, not just SpiritLife Revival Ministries. Most charismatic and many evangelical churches believe many of their members receive messages from God, though not all of them would be considered prophets—at least not all the time.
The Mormon church began with the belief that most of the members could receive special revelations from God, but soon narrowed that scope to Joseph Smith and those put into authority after his death. Today they have the office of the president and the quorum of 12 all of whom are considered apostles and prophets. Mormons elevate their prophets’ writing such as the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants to equality with the writings of prophets from the Bible, even going so far as to call the book of mormon, “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.”
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As we explore today’s topic, Does God Still Lead?, and consider the gift of prophecy in particular, I’d like to make a foundational statement. Our church and the denomination we are members of believes that the Bible is inspired by God and is the Revelation of His character and the truth about sin and God’s plan to save us. From the Bible we find the truth about ourselves, about our planet, about morality and right and wrong. It is the source of our practice as followers of Jesus. It is the document that brings correction and instruction in righteousness.
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We believe in Sola Scriptura—the reformation doctrine that the Bible is our source of truth, not pastors or priests or ecumenical councils or modern prophets.
There are some churches that have taken the foundation of Sola Scriptura and used it to reject any possibility of further revelation from God. They are called Cessationists because they believe that the spiritual gifts ended with the apostles in the early church. These churches include Presbyterians, some Baptist groups, Anglican and Lutheran churches, to name a few. To one extent or another these churches believe that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer active today—gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophecies, miraculous healings and so on. They still believe in the gifts of administration and teaching and hospitality, they just think the miracles are done.
And why should we blame them for thinking that? When most miracles today are things like statues crying tears of oil or a televangelist tapping someone’s head as he prays a flamboyant and frankly blasphemous prayer, or the spectacle of so-called miracles at churches like Spiritlife Revival Ministries? Many of the miracles are obviously ridiculous. And so many of the people who claim prophetic gifts are narcissistic, power-hungry, attention seekers. When you look at the landscape of possibilities, it seems desirable to go back to the Bible and just say, “This is enough. I don’t need another prophet or miracle to believe in Jesus.”
Jesus gave us this advice in Matthew 7
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
We shouldn’t accept someone as a prophet just because they say they are one.
But it’s not enough to just be afraid of false prophets and to shut out the possibility of the Spiritual gifts. If the Bible is our guide, then let’s ask it if these gifts ended back in the time of the apostles?
In Joel 2 God shares some details about “The Day of the Lord.” This Day of the Lord the time when God will finally bring the problem of sin to an end. Many connect “The Day of The Lord” with the 2nd coming of Jesus, but it’s a phrase that encapsulates all that God does to end sin including the lead up to the 2nd coming, the judgment, and the final destruction of evil. But notice what Joel says will happen in that time:
Then you will know that I am among my people Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and there is no other.
Never again will my people be disgraced.
“Then, after doing all those things, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions.
In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on servants—men and women alike.
When the Spirit is poured out, the spiritual gift of prophecy comes with it. Peter co-opted this passage and applied it to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early church, saying, “today this prophecy is being fulfilled.” And you might conclude that “the day of the Lord” must have been at the time Jesus was on the earth. But the Bible says there will be a double fulfillment of Joel 2. Notice what Joel says just a few verses before saying God would pour out the Spirit.
“Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.
When Peter said that Joel 2 applied to the Holy Spirit being poured out in his day, he was pointing to the early rain of the Holy Spirit. And Joel says it’s going to happen again—a latter rain.
Now turn to the end of the Bible: Revelation chapter 12. When the prophet John was writing about the church hiding from the attacks of Satan and His agents he said this:
Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
That phrase, “the rest of her offspring” is sometimes translated “the remnant.” You could have said it “the leftovers of her offspring” and been just as accurate. The point here is that the people of God at the end of time, the leftovers of all those who have followed Jesus throughout history, will be attacked by the dragon — also known as Satan and his agents. Notice how John identifies these leftovers, or remnant of God’s people:
They keep the commandments of God
They hold the testimony of Jesus.
Most people would agree that the commandments are self-explanatory. They are God’s ten principles—his Commandments of love. This first identifying mark of the leftovers or remnant of God’s people is pretty self-explanatory.
But what does the testimony of Jesus refer to? Is this the gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—that testify of Jesus? Is this some specific statement of Jesus, like “I am the Light of the world?”
Or, is the phrase, the Testimony of Jesus, talking about our own testimony that we have about Jesus’ work in our lives?
Or, maybe is it saying that we won’t ever stop testifying about Jesus even if we’re being persecuted.
All of these interpretations are common, and they all kind of make sense. But let’s let the Bible tell us what it means by this phrase.
Flip ahead in your Bibles to Revelation 19:10 when John was so overwhelmed by a vision that he fell at the feet of the angel who was talking with him. Notice how the angel responded:
Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
The Bible is pretty clear: “testimony of Jesus” = “spirit of prophecy.”
Notice the emphasis is not on prophecy, but on the Spirit that gives the gift of prophecy. This isn’t about the gospels or our own testimony, it’s about God’s Spirt. The point is that the leftovers of God’s people at the end of time have God’s Spirit, and receive the gifts of the spirit.
So, based on this, we can confidently say that God’s people follow Jesus by keeping his commandments of love, and they have the Holy spirit who gives all the gifts to the church.
Do you see the connection with Joel 2? God’s people, just before Jesus’ returns, have the same spirit poured out on them as the disciples did in the early church. And like the early church, Joel tells us the “latter rain” will include the spiritual gift of prophecy.
No offense intended to any other group of Christians, but the Bible makes it pretty clear that all the spiritual gifts, including the miraculous ones, will be a part of God’s church all the way to Jesus’ second coming.
Tests of a prophet
Tests of a prophet
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The fact that the Bible tells us the spiritual gifts will persist to the end doesn’t solve the problem with all the weird stuff connected to prophecy and miracles that’s going around the church. Many different denominations have adopted speaking in tongues and prophecy and so-called miraculous healings. Is there a way to differentiate between the genuine gifts of the spirit and the false revivals that have a fake version of the gifts? I believe its really important that we know what is from God and what is not. If we’re seeing a so-called spiritual gift that isn’t from God, then it’s coming from the spirit and principles of Satan’s kingdom. So knowing right from wrong is pretty important.
John tells us,
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
The fact that there are false prophets suggests that there are also true prophets who receive visions that are actually from the Holy Spirit.
Paul tells us:
1 Thessalonians 5:19-22
“Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.”
What is a prophet?
What is a prophet?
Let’s explore the idea of a prophet. What is a prophet and what does a prophet do?
Abimelech king of Gerar had taken Abraham’s wife, though he thought she was his sister, but before he could take her as his own wife God spoke to him in a dream and said,
“…return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die…” (Genesis 20:7)
What we know about Abraham is that 1) God spoke to him, and 2) made promises to him, and 3) revealed things in dreams and visions to him. So, Abraham’s story shows us that God speaks to prophets and reveals things to them.
Moses is another example.
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In Exodus 7:1 God was speaking to Moses in answer to an objection Moses had about not being able to speak well and God said, “Aaron shall be your prophet.” Aaron was a “prophet” who spoke on behalf of Moses.
Moses was a prophet of God, and Aaron was a prophet for moses. So, a prophet of God is a person who God speaks to and who speaks on God’s behalf to others.
The story of Deborah gives us a few more clues about what a prophet is all about:
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Judges 4:4-5
Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. 5 She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment.
Just a little further in the chapter you’ll find Deborah leading God’s people in a war campaign against God’s enemies.
Deborah’s story opens up something new: prophets gave spiritual wisdom to God’s people, and led them in God’s plans.
From Deborah’s story we also find that God gave the gift of prophecy to both men and women.
Samael was another example of a prophet who led God’s people and gave them council about God’s will. Samuel and Deborah also give us another important insight about prophets—many prophets didn’t write books of the Bible. There are many of prophets who are mentioned in the Bible but never had a single word recorded in its inspired record.
You might remember David, the king committed a huge sin. In 2 Samuel 12 we read that Nathan the prophet was the first person to stand up to David after his sin of adultery and murder.
2 Samuel 12:9-10
Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’
Nathan was speaking on behalf of God at the peril of his own life when he rebuked the sin of one of the king. Thankfully, David accepted the rebuke and repented.
Elijah brought God’s judgment on king Ahab, and Jeremiah counseled the king of his time to surrender to the Babylonians because of the many sins of Israel and their king. For their unpopular advice Elijah was hunted and Jeremiah was tortured and imprisoned. Rebuking sin and upholding God’s standard of righteousness is one of the tasks of a prophet.
And finally, one of the most well-known tasks of a prophet is future telling. Not all biblical prophets reveal the future, so this isn’t a hard-and-fast proof of the gift of prophecy, but it is the most well-known example.
There was an unnamed prophet that predicted that king Josiah would tear down the altar to a false God in Samaria over 100 years before Josiah was born
Jeremiah predicted the 70 years of Israelite captivity in Babylon
Isaiah predicted Cyrus’ overthrow of Babylon 100 years before the event
Daniel predicted over 2,500 years of national and religious events covering the span of history from Babylon through the second coming of Jesus.
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Let’s summarize what we’ve learned so far:
God speaks to prophets directly or through visions and dreams
Prophets speak for God to His people
Prophets give advice to leaders, as well as lead the people themselves—acting on behalf of God.
The prophetic gift has been given to men and women
God uses prophets to reprove His people of sin and error
and Prophets sometimes predict the future
Prophets at the end of time
Prophets at the end of time
When you examine the Bible timeline you find a repeating pattern with prophets—there is always a prophet at the beginning of a prophecy, and another prophet at the end. The first prophet reveals God’s plan and the last prophet prepares the way for the plan to be fulfilled. Here are a few examples:
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Enoch prophesied judgment for the wickedness of the people — Noah prepared the way for the judgment of the flood and provided an opportunity for repentance and salvation.
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Abraham, Balaam, Micah, Isaiah and many others prophesied about the Messiah’s birth — John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus, the Lamb of God who would save His people from their sins.
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Jeremiah prophesied about the exile of Isreal in Babylon for 70 years — Ezra and Nehemiah were there to lead God’s people back to the promised land and fulfill the prophecy that the temple and the city streets and walls would be rebuilt.
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Daniel and John both prophesied about long stretches of human history with most of it culminating after a 1,260 year prophecy during which a false-christianity would torment the world and harm God’s people. At the end of that time the Bible said the false-Christian power would be cut down and removed from power.
Interestingly, at the end of that time period in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s there was a massive growth in the number of people who were claiming to be prophets. Many prophecy-centric churches formed in what we now call the second great awakening—the Mormons, The charismatic movement, the Church of God of Prophecy, and the Seventh-day Adventist church.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
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I’d like you to notice something about the early Christian church. Shortly after Jesus’ ascension to heaven, Peter, on the day of Pentecost, referenced a quote from the Old Testament,
“…this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.”…in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:16-18) (Joel 2:28)
He was talking about what was happening right then in the early church—people were prophesying and seeing visions and doing all kinds of other amazing things. Pretty much everyone who was baptized got a special gift from the Holy Spirit.
Look at the list Paul gave in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12. These are gifts the Holy Spirit gave to His people so they could work together for the common good of God’s cause in discipling His followers and taking the Gospel to the world:
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Wisdom
Knowledge
Healing
Miracles
Service
Teaching
Exhortation
Philanthropy
Prophecy
Discernment
Speaking and interpreting foreign languages
Leadership
Acts of mercy
Cheerfulness
And the early church had all of these things in spades. The point of these “gifts of the spirit” was to start off a fledgling church on its mission. These gifts provided the leadership and wisdom and truth necessary so the church didn’t jump into bad practices and false doctrines. And they gave the church the power to read the world with the gospel in a very short period of time.
But something happened. These gifts of miracles and healing and prophecy seemed to come to a halt about the middle of the 2nd century.
What changed?
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Lamentations 2:9
Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; the Law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord.
Jeremiah wrote this about Israel when they committed apostacy against God. This was also true in the times of the Judges when the Israelites went back and forth between disobedience to God and repenting of their sins. When they disobeyed they received no word from the Lord and when they repented and turned back to God a judge was sent by God to deliver them. The stories of Gideon and Samson and Deborah are among the many stories of God returning the gifts of the Spirit to Israel.
Notice this passage about the parallel between disobedience and a decline in God’s communication with us:
Proverbs 28:9
“One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”
The reason these gifts of the Spirit were removed from the church is because the church turned away from God’s law to follow the traditions of men. The loss of special revelation from God happened when the Old Testament believers rebelled against God’s law, it happened when the New Testament believers turned away from God’s law, and it makes sense that this would also be true in our day too.
That reminds me about Revelation 12:17 which tells us that the leftovers of God’s followers at the end of time will be known for keeping the commandments of God and having the Spirit of Prophecy at work in their midst. When God’s people obey His revealed will in the Bible, then He will return the gifts of the spirit to guide us and launch us into mission.
You can’t live in disobedience to God’s revealed will in the Bible and still expect Him speak to prophets. Read what Jehoshaphat said to the people of Israel after they had just received a message from God:
2 Chronicles 20:20
Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.”
I love this story, but we can’t get into it in any detail. I’ll just tell you this tidbit: the people had repented and were praying for help as a huge army was marching against Jerusalem. In the middle of the prayer, a man stood up from among the people and said, “Thus says the Lord to you, Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s. Tomorrow go down against them…” This prophet’s name was never given. There is no indication he received a message from the Lord before this, or after this. But in that moment, king Jehoshaphat recognized the moving of the Holy Spirit and he believed. “Believe His prophets and you shall prosper,” he said.
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Here’s the principle: If God’s prophet says something and you reject it, then why would God speak to you any more until you accept what He already revealed?
So, the first condition for any of the gifts of the spirit is obedience to what God has already revealed in His Bible. If someone claims to be a prophet but is living in violation of God’s clear commands, then you can be confident that they aren’t a prophet of God.
And with that in mind, let’s turn our attention to understanding how we can discern between messages sent from God through his prophets, and prophets who talk from their own or from Satan’s agenda.
tests of a prophet
tests of a prophet
Here are ten tests of a prophet:
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They receive visions and dreams (Numbers 12:6-8)
A true prophet’s predictions of the future will “come to pass” (Jeremiah 28:9)
They will glorify God rather than themselves (John 16:13)
Their interpretations are testable by the Bible (2 Peter 1:20, 21)
They point out sin (Micah 3:5-8)
They warn of coming judgment (Isaiah 24:20, 21)
They edify the church (1 Corinthians 14:3, 4)
Their message harmonizes with the Bible (Isaiah 8:20)
They teach that Jesus came in the flesh (1 John 4:1-3)
They have a godly character (Matthew 7:16-20)
They are obedient to the will of God (Deuteronomy 18:18)
The Bible Canon and its writers
The Bible Canon and its writers
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Some people have suggested that God will not give His church another prophet because the canon of the Bible is sealed—nothing is to be added to it. That’s a legitimate concern. A church that proposed to add to the Bible has to due battle with one of the last passages in the Bible that says,
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
That’s hard to get around. It does appear that the Bible is a uniquely special book that ended with Revelation. It is the standard. And it is not to be added to.
Last week we talked a little about how the Bible documents were collected by the Israelites and then by the Christians. These are the documents that the church resolutely believes were inspired by God. We should be wary of any attempt to add to these documents by person and any church.
Ellen White
Ellen White
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If you’re sitting in this sanctuary, you probably know that the Seventh-day Adventist church believes that God gave the gift of prophecy to Ellen White, along with two men, as the 1,260 year prophecy was coming to an end at the end of the 18th century. Don’t worry if you don’t know much about that prophecy. We won’t talk about it today, but it’s one of the most well established time prophecies in the Bible. You can find it in Daniel 7:25, Daniel 12:7, Revelation 11:2-3, Revelation 12:6-14, and Revelation 13:5. No other time prophecy is repeated so frequently and with so much detail. We believe that this prophecy was important enough for God to give the gift of prophecy to a group of people that was genuinely seeking to follow God’s word with all their hearts.
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It makes sense that if God gave the gift of prophecy to a fledgling group of believers, they would act like prophets have always acted. They would receive visions, speak to the people on God’s behalf, give guidance and wisdom, and bring messages of correction and rebuke to individuals who had fallen into sin. And that’s exactly what you see in the life and work of Ellen White.
As someone who loves the Bible and hates the idea of fanaticism, I am naturally leery of the idea of a modern prophet. When I hear about a modern prophet like Bernard Nelson I immediately turn to cynicism. I expect that they’re in it for their own fame or greed. I look for the problems and the errors and the places they disagree with the Bible—and that‘s what we should do. The Bible tells us to test the spirit behind the gift to see if it is from God or from Satan.
I’ve considered and put aside a good number of prophets. They have all failed on a number of biblical tests. But as I’ve tested Ellen White, I believe she was given the gift of prophecy by the Holy Spirit.
If you go looking around on the internet for the story of Ellen White you’ll find a lot of people who really hate the idea that she’s a prophet. They try their best to prove that she was a fraud. They generally do a bad job of it—taking what she said out of context to make it say something she didn’t mean, or misinterpreting the Bible to try to show that she’s got bad doctrine. Some people from our own faith community have read these arguments against Ellen White being a prophet and they have left our community of believers because they felt like this gift of prophecy idea was a fake. I respect their desire to know the truth and their honest testing of the spirit behind the prophet.
Even the Christians who were part of the great awakening when Ellen White was first called by God struggled to believe her visions and messages were from God. Not because she didn’t exhibit all the tests of a true prophet, but because no one wants to be duped into believing a lie.
Ellen White never called herself a prophet, but it’s clear from her visions that she was either a prophet or a fraud. Many people in her day tested her and questioned her spiritual gift. Even those in her own church got angry with her—mostly because she called out their sin and told them to live according to the Bible. At one point late in her ministry she challenged the president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which was at that time based in Michigan. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he was militant on one particular point of doctrine that was at best a small point and his attitude was encouraging division among the church. She confronted him on several occasions and he did not like it. He made it clear that she was not welcome in the united states and strongly recommended that she go to Australia where the church was basically in frontier mode and where her letters would take weeks to get to him.
The church in her day had to wrestle with Ellen White and decide whether or not she was a prophet.
What about you, how could you know if she was or was not a prophet? And what does it matter either way?
Reading all the websites that try to disprove Ellen White is not the best way to test Ellen White’s prophetic gift. A more effective way is to spend some time reading what she wrote and compare it to the tests of a prophet from the Bible.
I could spend a lot of time up here wading through all the tests of the prophetic gift to see if Ellen White matches up or not, but that’s really something you should do in your own study. There’s a couple books on the table in the foyer that you’re welcome to take home with you if you’d like to test her out for yourself.
One of those books is in Steps to Christ in which Ellen White clearly presents Jesus Christ as the God of salvation. That meets one of the tests we looked at. You’ll also find that she amplifies the Word of God in the Bible—refocusing our attention on the Bible in every paragraph. Meeting another of the tests.
She never gained money or position because of her gift. She wrote dozens of books and the royalties paid her salary. But she kept very little of her royalties, preferring to give any money she had to start schools, fund missionaries, or build health sanatariums. She was selfless with her money to the day she died, even taking out a $90,000 loan against future royalties to fund mission work shortly before she died.
Conclusion
In my study of her written communication I have become convinced that she passes the tests of a prophet.
But I want to acknowledge that there is a wide diversity of opinions about Ellen White in our church community. We all agree that the Adventist church would not exist as it is today without her. She was the driving force behind the development of our educational system and our medical institutions and our community service. Without her influence much of what we see in the structure of our church would be dramatically different. There is no doubt that she had a profound influence on this church community, and she still does.
However, many see her as an instrument of God for the development of the church rather than as a modern-day prophet whose broad writings are still relevant and worthwhile for us today. Some would dismiss her as a pastoral commentator on the Bible who has no more authority than any other pastor who writes a book.
I suspect that people who knew Nathan and Nehemiah and many other prophets would have had to struggle with these same questions about their gift. Is everything a prophet says or does inspired by God? How do we differentiate between the Ellen in Australia who writes to the press who is selling her books in America frustrated that they have delayed paying royalties for months? Is that letter inspired by God? We don’t have to ask those questions about Peter—we only have two little letters. But what if we had everything he ever wrote? What if we even had the conversations he had with his wife, or the pictures of him and his kids? or the kinds of food he enjoyed most? Or his posts to instagram? The question of inspiration is a difficult subject, and it’s one our church has long struggled with.
From my personal experience and the blessing I have received by reading what Ellen White has written, I believe that God spoke through her. I find her to be refreshing, deep, hopeful, challenging, and most of all biblical. You can’t go wrong reading the books she herself wrote. Now, since she died some people have assembled a wide variety of books that take little quotes from her on this subject or that, and those books are, in my opinion, not worth your time. Read Steps to Christ, the Desire of Ages, The Story of Redemption, or Sketches from the Life of Paul and you’ll come away with a deeper love for Jesus, and you’ll understand what Ellen White intended when she wrote those books. Some of the compilations of quotes skew her meaning, taking her ideas out of context, and promote extreme ideas that she would never have endorsed.
I do not intend to bring you to a certain belief on the subject of Ellen White. I am content to leave you in the midst of the struggle. Partly because God asks you to study to show yourself approved. And partly because I don’t want you to say that I told you to believe something—your faith needs to be grounded in the Bible. But I also don’t want to tell you what to believe about this subject because I do not believe that Ellen White’s ministry or her writings are the one sign that Revelation 12:17 is talking about when it says that the leftovers of God’s people at the end of time will have the Spirit of Prophecy.
Whether you accept Ellen White as a prophet or not is not the point of this message. Do your own research. Decide for yourself.
What I want you to conclude is that the Bible clearly indicates that God’s church will both follow God’s revelation through keeping His commandments, and receive the gifts of the Spirit, including the gift of prophecy. And with that foundation I encourage you to do what the Bible says, “test the spirits” to see if they are from God.
I’ve done this with other so-called prophets. I’ve done this with Ellen White. And I suspect I’ll need to do this with others who claim the gift of prophecy. And so will you, because Joel says that there’s going to be an outpouring of God’s Spirit, a Latter Rain just before the coming of Jesus. If Ellen White was a part of that, she was a little part many years before the flood of gifts the Spirit intends to pour out. And if Satan’s attempt to lead the broader Christian community to accept false gifts from HIS spirit are any indication, the latter-rain outpouring of God’s Spirit isn’t far away.
I believe that God wants to pour out His Spirit on you. What He did through Ellen White and all the Christians back in the day was great, but the Spirit has plans for you in this time in earth’s history. Whether he wants you to be a prophet or not is entirely up to Him. I think he gives all the gifts to the church to build us up as a community, and to launch us into mission.
Are you in a place in your life where He can give you His gifts? Have you surrendered yourself to Him? Are you following Him and everything He has revealed to you through His Word? If so, then ask God to give you His Spirit and all the gifts you’ll need in order to be a blessing to God’s church and His mission.
