Spirit of Prophecy

who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.

Obedience is important, and we should obey our parents as long as they are following God and not asking us to disobey God. But the vast majority of the stories in the Bible aren’t telling us we should obey, they’re telling us that God is trustworthy. It’s a lot easier to obey someone when you know they love and trust you.

You often come up against trials in your life: it could be the regular stuff like lost toys, disappointments, annoying siblings, or difficulty learning something in school, or it could be really hard stuff like your parents not getting along or your family not having enough to eat all the time. What you do in those times will depend a lot on what you think about God. Is He trustworthy? Does He Love you? Will He provide in your trial?

If you think God will provide, then you’re much less likely to get angry or disobey and much more likely to go to Jesus and say, “I’m struggling and I need your help right now.”

If God can bring water out of a rock and make that rock follow the Israelites around the wilderness, then God can do whatever you need. And the promise is that God will “do you good in the end.” He is always working for your good, even when you feel like you’re in a wilderness. Before long, you’ll see what God’s plan is, if you trust and wait for Him.

Introduction

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Bernard Elbernard Nelson is a self-proclaimed prophet and 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. 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 he gift of prophecy. Most charismatic and many evangelical churches believe many of their members receive messages from God, though not all of them would be considered prophets.

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.”

We need to establish our doctrine, our faith and our practice on the Word of God. So, what should we do when someone tells us that God gave them a vision or spoke to them in some way? Should we automatically reject it? Is it possible that evil spirits can bring us a “revelation” or realization of spiritual things? Or is it possible that God does still reveal His will through prophets? How can we know the difference?

Notice these verses that counsel us to beware because there are false prophets. I would even go so far as to suggest that the majority of prophets are false, and the majority of visions are not from God.

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Matthew 7:15

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”

1 John 4:1

“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, and vision that are actually from God. 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?

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, in Abraham’s case a prophet is revealed by the fact that God speaks to them and reveals things to them.

Let’s look at another example:

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.

So, a prophet of God is one who God speaks to and who speaks on God’s behalf to others.

Let’s look at another example from the Bible:

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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 campaign against God’s enemies.

Deborah’s story opens up something new: prophets brought spiritual wisdom to God’s people, and led them into God’s plans.

Lots of prophets in the Bible provided spiritual council to kings about the direction God wanted them to go and sometimes they were put in charge of leading the people.

From Deborah’s story we also find that God gave the gift of prophecy to both men and women.

You might remember that one of God’s prophets, David, was also a king. And one day the king/prophet committed a huge sin. In 2 Samuel 12 we read the first person to stand up to David after his sin of adultery and murder was Nathan the prophet.

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. 10 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.’

In this situation Nathan the prophet was speaking on behalf of God at the peril of his own life in rebuking the sin of one of God’s servants. 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.

And finally, one of the most well-known tasks of a prophet is that of future telling. Not all biblical prophets reveal the future, so this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule of prophecy, but it is the most well-known. Here are a few examples:

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.

God uses prophets to reprove His people of sin and error

Prophets sometimes predict the future

The prophetic gift has been given to men and women

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:

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.

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.

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.

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 Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints, The Holiness movement from which came many Pentecostal churches and 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— 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/or interpreting 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 a fledging church off on its mission, to give a knowledge of the truth so people didn’t stray into man-made doctrines, and to reach the world with the gospel

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.

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 a judge was sent by God to deliver them. The stories of Gideon and Samson and Deborah are among the many stories like this.

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. Which suggests that when God’s people obey His revealed will in the Bible, then He will return the gifts of the spirit to the guide us and launch us into mission. And the good news is that when God’s people return to Him, He promises abundant pardon and He promises His Spirit will be poured out on them.

This is promised in Revelation 12:17 referring to God’s people at the end of time:

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Revelation 12:17

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

This “testimony of Jesus” could simply mean that the people believe in Jesus, or it could mean that they share the words of Jesus with others. But lets let the Bible tells us what it means. Notice Revelation 19:10:

Revelation 19:10

“And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.””

The word “angel” means messenger of God, which is the same role that a prophet plays. In Revelation 19 an Angel had just commanded John to write something down and John, overwhelmed by the angel, fell down at his feet to worship. The angel’s response clears up the meaning of “the testimony of Jesus;” he said don’t worship me, I’m a fellow servant that has the testimony of Jesus — the spirit of prophecy. And according to Revelation 12, the gift of prophecy, or the “testimony of Jesus” would be a gift that is present in the end-time church of God.

But it must be pointed out that this gift is not given simply because its the time of the end, although that’s part of the picture. Right there in the text of Revelation 12 it says it’s given to a people who keep the commandments of God—the two go hand in hand. You can’t live in disobedience to God and expect Him pour out the gifts of the Spirit. 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.”

This blessing, given on the eve of battle just after a prophet had promised them victory over a force that they couldn’t possibly defeat, demonstrates this principle. If God’s prophet says something and you reject it, then why would God speak to you any more until you accept what has already been revealed?

So, the first condition for any of the gifts of the spirit is obedience to what God has already revealed. If someone claims to be a prophet but it living in violation of God’s clear commands, then you can be pretty sure 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 messages sent by the designs of satan or the imagination of men.

tests of a prophet

In your handout I listed ten tests of a prophet:

They receive visions and dreams (Numbers 12:6-8)

A true prophet’s predictions will “come to pass” (Jeremiah 28:9)

They will glorify God rather than themselves (John 16:13)

They do not give their own private interpretation (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)

Let’s look carefully at the five most critical tests.

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God speaks to His prophets face to face or in visions and dreams

Numbers 12:6-8 “Hear now My words: 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. Not so with My servant Moses; he is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face…”

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Future telling must be 100% accurate

Jeremiah 28:9 “As for the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet comes to pass, the prophet will be known as one whom the Lord has truly sent.””

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Agree with the Bible (what God has already revealed) — God does not change.

Isaiah 8:20 “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”

1 Corinthians 14:32-33 “And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace…”

Deuteronomy 13:1-3 “If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Notice that even fulfillment of future-telling prophecy isn’t a sure sign, by itself, that the prophet is from God. They ALSO must agree with previous revelations from God Through other known prophets.

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Confesses the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ

1 John 4:1-3 “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.”

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Know them by their fruits

Matthew 7:15-17 ““Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.”

Let’s review:

Prophets have always been an active gift in the church

In order for us to have success as a church we need to follow God’s law and heed His prophets

God's True church will keep the commandments and God will restore the gift of prophecy and other spiritual gifts

We must beware of false prophets, and test to make sure they are from God

The Bible Canon and its writers

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Some people have postulated 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,

Revelation 22:18–19 ESV

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.

Let’s talk for a second about the Bible canon and where we got it.

The word “canon” simply means a collection of sacred books.

What we see today as the Bible is a list of books that were first vetted by Jewish scholars and priests, and later by Christian leaders. How did they know that a book was divinely inspired? The same way we can test a prophet today. They started with Moses and then any other sacred writings were matched up with what He wrote. If they didn’t agree with Moses then they were thrown out. If they lied or said things that didn’t come true, then they were out.

The new testament started with the same principle, but with one added caveat—the author had to actually have known Jesus personally. Matthew, John and Peter were disciples of Jesus. John Mark, who is believed to have written the book of Mark, was a boy who followed Jesus and his disciples around. Paul have been one of the representatives of the Sanhedrin who Jesus interacted with before His crucifixion, but Jesus also appeared to Him on the road to Damascus and called him to be an apostle. Judas (who wrote the book of Jude) and James were brothers of Jesus. All these men were intimately acquainted with the teachings of Christ and were instrumental leaders in the early church. The only outlier in the authors of the New Testament is Luke, but Luke probably also knew Jesus personally and all of his career as we know it was spent with Paul and other apostles. Luke apparently took great pains to interview the individuals in the stories he told and his two books, Luke and Acts, demonstrate his deep knowledge of the events of that time.

Any books written after the death of these people might have been consider a good devotional book, but it wasn’t considered for inclusion in the canon of the Bible. Although there was one that almost made it called the Shepherd of Hermas that was written in the 2nd century. It was wildly popular, but it was not included in the Bible canon by the early Christians because it teaches that you can only be forgiven for one sin after your baptism; a teaching that isn’t supported anywhere in the Bible.

Personally, I believe that the canon Of the Bible is already filled up. There is no one left who personally knew Jesus while He was on the earth. The Bible Is sufficient As it is for our instruction and salvation. But does that mean there can’t be any more prophets? No! The Bible is filled with stories of prophets who’s words were never included as books the Bible. For example:

Steven who saw a vision of Jesus in heaven (Acts 7:55-60)

Agabus who prophecied that a great famine would sweep accross the world (Acts 11:27-28)

Nicolas, another of the seven deacons that is mentioned as a prophet in Acts 13

And the four daughters of Phillip, one of the church’s evangelists, who all prophsied (Acts 21:8-9)

Ellen White

From what we’ve studied so far we know that we can expect a prophet at the end of the 1,260 year time-prophecie of Daniel and Revelation which end near the early 1800’s When the powner that persecuted God’s people for 1,260 years was cut off.

We also found that we can expect that God will not give His church the gifts of the spirit unless they are obedient to what God has already revealed through the Bible—in other words, they must keep the commandments.

And, like all the prophets before, a modern prophet’s job would include amplifying God’s message in the Bible, providing specific guidance for the church and its mission, and may or may not include messages that reveal the future. Also, they would have the unenviable role of rebuking and correcting the church when its people and leaders fell into sin.

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 to see if it is from God or from His enemy.

I’ve considered and put aside a good number of prophets. They have all failed on a number of tests. But there is one who I believe was given the gift of prophecy by the Holy Spirit. Look at this quote from long-time radio variety show host, Paul Harvey

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“Women have been honored on American postage stamps for more than 100 years starting with one woman who was not an American, Queen Isabella in 1893.

“Since then, 86 women have been honored ranging from Martha Washington to Marilyn Monroe. Many women authors, Louisa Mae Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Willa Cather, Rachel Carson.

“I can name an American woman author who has never been honored thus, though her writings have been translated into 148 languages, more than Marx or Tolstoy, more than Agatha Christie, more than William Shakespeare. Only now is the world coming to appreciate her recommended prescriptions for optimum spiritual and physical health. Ellen White. Ellen White! You don’t know her? Get to know her!”

--Paul Harvey

Before I say anything about Ellen White, I want to underscore two things:

The Bible is our final guide for life and Christian practice. If our beliefs aren’t from the Bible then we should reject those beliefs and study the Bible to find the truth.

The gift of prophecy is a tool of the Holy Spirit for the mission of the Gospel and the edification of the church. The same Spirit who gives the gift of prophecy gives the gift of hospitality and the gift of administration. We should never be in the business of elevating one person above another. Our focus should be on the gift-giver, not the person receiving the gift.

So, with that background, who is Ellen White?

As a young child Ellen White’s parents were involved in the Millerite movement that believed Jesus was coming again in the 1840’s. By the time she was a teenager she was intimately involved in the movement. She got in an accident when she was in 3rd grade and wasn’t able to attend any more school because of persistent weakness that prevented her from focusing on reading and school-work. Instead of school, she did anything she could to earn money to buy tracts so that people would know about the second coming of Jesus. During her time of sickness and isolation she fell in love with Jesus and longed for His return.

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After the Great Disappointment of 1844 when Jesus did not come as so many believed He would, Ellen and the rest of her family searched their hearts and examined their own motives. Her brother summed up the experience the best,

“A tree is known by its fruits. What has this belief done for us? It has convinced us that we were not ready for the coming of the Lord; that we must become pure in heart. … It has aroused us to seek for new strength and grace from God.

“What has it done for you, Ellen? Would you be what you are now if you had never heard the doctrine of Christ’s soon coming? What hope has it inspired in your heart; what peace, joy, and love has it given you?”

That was October, 1844. By December there were a group of friends studying the Bible together and Ellen was among them. During the meeting Ellen White was overcome with an astonishing vision:

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“I seemed to be rising higher and higher,” she said, “far above the dark world.” Her mind’s eye opened to see a glorious vision of Jesus leading His people along a straight and narrow path until the sky ignited with myriad of angels and a rainbow-encircled throne. This vision was heaven’s way of bringing courage to these troubled believers who were so recently crushed with disappointment when Jesus did not come as they expected.

As Ellen related the vision to a group of likeminded believers in Portland, Maine, she felt, “an unspeakable awe” that she “should be chosen as the instrument by which God would give light to His people.”

While Ellen White didn’t call herself a prophet 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?

If you go online today and look for “Ellen White” you’ll find a bunch of websites and books criticizing her as a fraud. Are they true? One way to know that they are false is to look at what they are teaching. You’ll find that every one of them is teaching a doctrine directly contrary to the word of God—usually they disregard the ten commandments and the Sabbath, but they often have other problems as well. It would be difficult for them to hear a modern prophet when they reject the Revelation of God through Biblical prophets.

Reading all those websites isn’t the best way to test Ellen White’s prophetic gift. A more effective way is to spend some time reading what she wrote.

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 entry table in the Foyer that you’re welcome to take home with you.

One of those books is in the Desire of Ages in which Ellen White clearly states that Jesus is both fully God and fully human. 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.

If you take a look at her life and ministry you’ll find a woman who was above reproach morally and spiritually. She wasn’t greedy. In fact, she was the kind of woman who found out that a group of bible workers and ministers was struggling financially so she gave Her own money to supplement their income. She was the kind of person who’s grandchildren adored being around her—not insignificantly because she often gave them chocolate chip cookies with milk when they came over And she was always finding Children’s stories to read to them. She was the kind of lady who faced anger and disappointment and grief with a quiet confidence in Her redeemer and friend. She was the kind of person who had Jesus on her lips in nearly every conversation she had. Just being around her would uplift you in mind and spirit.

A coworker of 23 years described her like this:

“Mrs. White’s life far transcends the life of anyone I have ever known or with whom I have been associated. She was uniformly pleasant, cheerful and courageous. She was never careless, flippant, or in any way cheap in conversation or manner of life. She was the personification of serious earnestness regarding the things of the kingdom. I never once heard her boast of the gracious gift God had bestowed upon her, or of the marvelous results of her endeavors.”

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 debt against future royalties to fund mission work shortly before she died.

In my study of her written communication I have become convinced that she passes the tests of a prophet, but let me just share two of those tests with you:

Test 1: God Speaks through visions and dreams—This was definitely true of Ellen White. There are many instances where medical doctors were present, as well as skeptics who disbelieved that she had visions. She would experience a dream and supernatural things would happen while she was in vision—things that other prophets like Daniel and Jeremiah and John talked about in their own experience of visions. Sometimes she would stop breathing for the duration of her dream. Other times she would do things that were physically impossible, such as lifting a heavy family bible over her head and pointing to verses as she spoke them without actually looking at the Bible. Sometimes times she would rise to her feet and look up into the air and let out a simple, “glory, glory, glory”, and then stay quiet, looking up for several minutes or sometimes an hour or more. Afterwards she would tell the people with her about her dream and they found that God usually gave them messages through her that helped clarify points from the Bible that they had previously struggled with. While not adding to the Scripture, her visions would help shine the light on just the right verses to help them answer their questions. Often, her visions were simply encouraging the church to stay faithful to the mission of end-time evangelism. I believe Ellen passes this test—God did speak to and through her by visions and dreams.

Test 2: 100% accurate — Ellen White’s writings aren’t filled with future-telling, but let’s look at an example of where she did prophesy about the future. Keep in ind that when God’s prophets In the Bible predicted the future some of their prophecies were conditional, such as Jonah’s prophesy of the destruction of Ninevah. That prophecy wasn’t fulfilled because the people accepted the message and repented. Other future-telling prophecies are concrete revelations of God’s plans regardless of what people do. We need to carefully examine any future telling that is done by a prophet based on the conditions included in the prophecy.

There are several fulfillments of this test in the ministry of Ellen but one of the most startling may be the 1906 San Francisco/Oakland earthquake. Having received warnings of impending judgment upon the city for many years prior, she had her final and most detailed vision regarding its destruction on April 16, 1906. She saw houses “shaken like a reed in the wind” and buildings falling to the ground. She said that in her vision “Pleasure resorts, theaters, hotels, and homes of the wealthy were shaken and shattered. Many lives were blotted out of existence, and the air was filled with the shrieks of the injured and the terrified. … It seemed that the forbearance of God was exhausted, and the judgment day had come.”

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Historical accounts reveal that there was no sign of impending doom until two days later at 5:12 a.m. when the San Andreas fault slipped along a fault-line nearly 270 miles long, crumbling the very foundations of the city. In its wake the quake left 490 city blocks in a state of total devastation and more than 225,000 homeless people, along with over 800 dead and 1,500 injured. Several insurance companies went bankrupt trying to meet the claims.

There are lots of small predictions that Ellen White made, and a few big ones. Every one that has passed so far has come true, or is clearly a conditional prophecy like Jonah’s. I believe she passes this test of accurate future-telling.

Conclusion

From my personal life 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.

It’s interesting to me that a woman with a 3rd grade education could become such a proficient writer with a written vocabulary that would rival most with doctoral degrees and a verbal vocabulary on par with the best orators of her day and ours. Research today shows that those born in poor homes and that receive little eduction grow up to be poor readers and worse writers. Whether this was simply personal discipline or a miracle from God is not the point; what is the point is that a prophet needs to be an excellent communicator because they have to communicate heavenly visions in human language. That she could do this so effectively is one more demonstration to me that the Spirit gave her the gift.

I don’t want to put any pressure on you to accept Ellen White as a prophet. Now that I’ve told you about her, I’d encourage you to do your own spirit-led research. Either you will reject her, or you’ll accept her. I can’t control that outcome nor do I want to. What I want you to conclude is that the Bible clearly indicates that God’s church will both keep the commands of God 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 the Book of Mormon—I’ve compared it to the Bible and I’ve found its teaching to contradict what God previously revealed. The Mormons want you to read their book and have good feelings about it. I want you to read Ellen White and do your due diligence. Compare her with these biblical tests of a prophet and see what you find. If she matches up, I‘m confident you’ll be blessed by studying her writings as a tool to deepen your study of the Bible.

There’s another conclusion I’d like you to come to: that God wants to pour out His Spirit on you. What He did through Ellen White is great, but the Spirit has plans for you too. 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 in everything you know? If so, then ask God to give you what you need to be a blessing to our combined worship, discipleship and outreach.