Speaker: Andy Whitehurst
00:00
Father, I thank You for the opportunity that I have to be able to come before Your throne of grace and Father, I petition You, that You will send Your Spirit, that You will touch my lips will the coal from off Your altar, that I may present Your thoughts here today through my words and my tone of voice in my body language. Father, I pray also for those that are watching and listening that You may lead and guide them as we talk about a sensitive subject for some. As we look at the second witness, the second part of the second witness, and the writings of Ellen White, Father and her ministry, I pray that You will bless us that we may understand what You would have us to know and understand. And that You would speak through me, send angels that excel in strength to watch over and protect each and every one of us, to lead us and guide us. This I ask in Jesus name, amen.
00:50
Now, quick overview, again of the first witness, we saw that the Bible was the first witness and was really the foundation of the Reformation. And in order to alter the Reformation, you need to alter the foundation. And that’s exactly what the Jesuits have done, they’ve gone in and they’ve, they’ve altered the foundation of the Reformation, by altering the Bible.
01:12
And the second, the second witness that we looked at last time, I will give a quick review of that as well. We saw the six steps of identifying timeline prophets. And the example that we saw there, we saw that there was a timeline prophecy given by Daniel and Daniel 8:14, that was not present truth for Daniel. But at the end of that timeline prophecy, there must be a present truth prophet to arise. And in December of 1844, there was a present truth prophet to arise who was Ellen White. And she showed that Daniel 8:14 was present truth for the time, she also brought with her a judgment of message with the Three Angels Messages, and there was a remnant that was brought out at that time, which was the Seventh Day Adventists, the true Seventh Day Adventist Church. So those are just a quick overview of the first witness and the second witness part A.
02:17
Now we’re going to look at the second witness Part B. And I’m just going to bring up a few more points that I didn’t really touch on or bring into the the timeline prophecies aspect. But just a couple more things that I want to bring up. And then I’m going to kind of dive more into apologetics. And as we do that, I want to start by asking some questions. Again, I really like to ask these questions. How many religions claim the Bible? Well, there’s 1000s of religions that claim the Bible, but how many religions claim the King James? Well, now we’ve narrowed that number down to hundreds. There are many hundreds of groups that claim this one witness. But their theologies still conflict, if you notice. Why? Because it is relatively easy to twist things out of context and make them say what they want them to say. I mean, you know, let’s face it, the Bible is only a couple inches thick, and to cram thousands of years of information there, we’ve lost a lot there. But by the mean, by all means there is more than enough there. So don’t don’t think that I’m saying there’s not more than enough, because there is more than enough there. But it can be very easy to twist things out of context to the Bible. And so God has not given just one witness, He has given another witness.
03:43
And you know, there are some things that I particularly don’t like about the King James. I’m not saying that the King James is the all-in-all. My emphasis in the first witness was more the Textus Receptus and the Reformation Bible, not just pushing the King James to, to no end. There are some issues first, John 5:7-8. We know are some issues there. Some personal issues, I don’t like the word Spirit. Or sorry, I don’t like the word Ghost. I prefer Spirits not Ghost. I think they should have they should have kept things consistent. And and just gone with Spirit. Ghost, just, I just don’t like that. That’s not the best translation in my thought process. Another thing that I don’t like about the King James is a lot of the English is older English. And a lot of those words have changed definition today. And so not that that’s a problem with the King James. It’s not a problem with the King James is that that’s actually a problem with us. Because we tend to go to the King James with our modern definitions to the words, but the King James doesn’t always use them the same way. And so what we ended up doing is inserting our own thoughts, our own definitions into the King James and coming up with different thoughts. That’s not what the Bible is saying. And I see that happen quite a bit. And I know I did it a lot, and I probably still do it. I have not looked up every single word in the King James and found out how it uses it. So I’m sure that I still do that as well.
05:16
Now, you might say, All we need is the Bible. But God has given us more than one witness. You could say all we need really is John 3:16. Because the whole gospel is found in John 3:16. That’s completely true. Does that mean that we need that we should throw the rest of the Bible out because all we need is John 3:16? No, God gave us the whole Bible for a reason. And we could say, well, all we need is the Bible. But God gave us more than just the one witness. So we don’t want to throw out the other witnesses just, just to throw out the other witnesses.
05:58
I want to read something to you and pay attention, Patriarchs and Prophets. 364.2. I want you to think about this: “If man had kept the law of God, as given to Adam, after his fall, preserved by Noah, and observed by Abraham, there would have been no necessity for the ordinance of circumcision.” So if man had kept the law of God, circumcision would not have come about. Okay, she keeps going. “And if the descendants of Abraham had kept the covenant, of which circumcision was a sign, they would never have been seduced into idolatry, nor would it have been necessary for them to suffer a life of bondage in Egypt; they would have kept God’s law in mind, and there would have been no necessity for it to be proclaimed from Sinai, or engraved upon the tables of stone. And had the people practiced the principles of the Ten Commandments, there would have been no need of the additional directions given to Moses.”
06:58
So friends, the point that I’m drawing here, from the second witness is that if God, if man would have kept the law of God, then there would have been no need for circumcision. Now had they kept the covenant of which circumcision was a sign, then there would have been no need for, you know, they wouldn’t have gone into Egypt. But there would have been no need for the proclamation of the Ten Commandments from Sinai, nor the need for them to be written upon tables of stone, nor they, the need for the additional directions given to Moses. So you see, the law of God should have been all we needed. But because of darkness and ignorance, the Psalms and prophets were given. So the Torah ultimately, should have been all we need. And friends, I like to always be able to trace everything back to those first five books of the Bible. But that should have been all we needed. But because of darkness and ignorance, the Psalms and the prophets were given. For brothers and sisters, the Jews, the Hebrew people still missed the Messiah, even with all of that. So the New Testament was given. But because of darkness and ignorance, more had to be given.
08:18
So to follow what God has said, we should look for another witness. And we’ve seen that there is another witness, the the writings of Ellen White. And so I want to touch on a couple of more things to support this. Revelation 12:17, has this to say, and the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Now, again, my goal is not to get into prophecy. But I want you to think about what is being said here. And I want you to think about the time period that is spoken up here. It’s after the Bible is completed and compiled. And it’s dealing with after the rise of the United States of America. Okay, after the completion and compilation of the Bible, and after the rise of the United States of America, while it’s speaking of a remnant group that have the testimony of Jesus, after this time period, okay, during and after this time period. Now, you’re probably all gonna say: Well, okay, so Revelation 19:10 is coming next. And yes, you’re right. Revelation 19:10 is coming next, the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy. But what I want to drive home is this remnant group, that is, during this time period spoken of and after, has the Spirit of Prophecy. There’s a remnant group during this time period that has the Spirit of Prophecy. And if we look at first Corinthians 12:10 and 11, we see that Paul says: “To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy.” And that’s the point that I want to get to, to another prophecy. And then he says, skipping over some, he says: “But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to make every man severally as he will.” Now the Spirit of Prophecy is the gift of prophecy given by the Spirit.
10:30
This friends is why in Revelation, it talks about, we see very clearly that Jesus is the one speaking to the churches. But then after the churches, it says here: “He that hath an ear to hear”, you know, “hear what the Spirit sayeth to the churches.” Why? Because the Spirit is Jesus speaking. And so the gift of prophecy is given by the Spirit, which is Jesus. It is the Spirit of Prophecy given by Jesus. And so there’s a group of people at this time period that have the gift of prophecy. So those are the additional verses that I wanted to bring in on this topic. And now I kind of want to shift gears and go into apologetics. There’s a lot that I have dealt with in my lifetime struggling with trying to figure out where Ellen White stands in all of this. And so I’m, most of these are things that I personally have dealt with there. There’s a couple of things that I’ve thrown in here that I want to talk about, that I have heard brought to my attention that I’ve also dealt with. And you know, I went to the internet, when I finally figured out, I saw the timeline prophecy thing. I studied that and and it just opened my mind to understanding that Ellen White was a second witness. And with that, I said, Okay, Lord, then then I need to be able to answer the questions that I’ve that I have had and the others have had on this topic. Now, I obviously have not answered every single question that there is out there. That can be a rabbit trail. So I’m not going to try to even go down that road. But what I did do is I did get on the internet, and I searched a bunch of things and, and I answered everything to my own personal satisfaction. I wanted to make sure that I can answer these questions that I saw. And again, I did not answer 100% of the questions, I’m sure. I’m sure there’s questions out there I’ve never heard of. And the most of the questions that I answered, I’m not even going to deal with here, because just too much time involved. And I don’t, I don’t want to give that much time to the devil. So I’m not going to deal with all of the questions that have arisen. All of the questions that I dealt with, I’m just going to deal with maybe the primary ones. So if you throw some in, you know, in the comments, I may and I may not even even bother to to deal with them. So don’t take it personal if I don’t deal with them. Just because I’ve dealt with so many in my personal experience. And I want this to be about you dealing with these things in your own personal experience, not not just taking my word for it. This I want for each and every one of you to figure these things out on your own. And so I’m going to give you my understanding and my studies of the tip, the different things that were kind of typical. And again, is in no way meant to be, ‘this is the way you need to take this type of thing.’ Okay? These are my thoughts. These are my things that I came up with in my studies.
13:51
So I want to deal with the first thing that probably is is one of the most common things that I hear. And that is Sola Scriptura. Now, ironically, usually, this one comes in, when a discussion comes up. I always like to start with the first witness. And that’s why the witnesses are laid out the way they are. I start my studies with the first witness and then it goes go into the second witness. And then I go into the third witness and you have to come back to the third witness. Because I’m not going to tell you what that one is right here. But, in discussions, I always go to the first witness and generally things usually very quickly go to the second witness. I’m like, okay, so let’s go to the second witness, then fine. You want to bring that up.
14:41
So then I bring in statements and quotes from the second witness and, and a lot of times when people are just staunch, they’re just going to stand where they’re going to stand regardless of of any information. That is when I will hear at that point Sola Scriptura. Well, in my immediate thought processes is, now wait a minute, you’re the one that drug this conversation into the second witness. Why are you all of a sudden saying, Oh, no, we need to throw Ellen White out. You know, these things don’t make sense. But the reason for that is because of evidence. So I want to deal with the Sola Scriptura thing real quick. And I’ve got two points on this. Point number one is the context of this phrase, I want to, I want to dive into the context. Now, Sola Scriptura means scripture only. Sola or only or solely, solely something, solely the scriptures. Scripture only is what it means and it was used by the Reformation in the context of being in opposition to tradition as a source of salvation. In the context of tradition, as a source of salvation. Now, when this phrase was used, to say, we don’t need Ellen White, then it’s taken totally out of context. Why? Because Ellen White is not a source of tradition, nor is she in opposition to the Bible, but is under inspiration, expounding upon the way of salvation in complete harmony with the Bible. So, reason number one, that we cannot use Sola Scriptura to do away with the published works of Ellen White is because she’s not a source of tradition. And that was is what Sola Scriptura was about, was being against the traditions of man as a source of salvation.
16:37
Now, point number two that I want to bring up on the Sola Scriptura is scripture only, okay? So put it in English, Scriptures only. Now what I want to do is I want to take just a moment, and I want to look at what Scripture is. Scripture means, simply means, that which is written. So if you go into the Bible, and you look at the Greek, you’ll see it’s, it’s that which is written. That’s what scripture means. Now, with that in mind, let’s take a look at Romans 16:21 (Correction–Romans 16:26) and then I’m going to ask you some questions based on Romans 16:21 (Correction–Romans 16:26). So, Romans 16:21 (Correction–Romans 16:26), the Word of God says: “But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets,” and that word scriptures is the writings of the prophets, “according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.” Okay, so here we see by the writings of the prophets, by the scriptures of the prophets, the writings of the prophets, according to the command of the everlasting God. And the other point is by the obedience of faith.
17:46
So, first question, I have to ask, is Ellen White a prophet? Because this talks about the scriptures or the writings of the prophets? Is Ellen White a prophet? Yes, I think we’ve already established that, or at least I’ve already established it in my mind. Now, if you may want to go back to the part, part A. If that’s not been established very thoroughly. So is Ellen White, a prophet? Yes, absolutely. Does she have writings? Yes, she does. Were they given by God? Or in other words, were they given under inspiration? Yes, they were. Do they point us to the obedience of faith? Yes, they do. So then, her writings fall under the term scripture. I want you to think about that. her writings then would fall under the term scripture, at least as the way the Bible uses the word. Was she somehow a lesser prophet than Paul? Think about that. A lot of people will say yes, and brothers and sisters, I will say no, there is no such thing as a lesser prophet. Not in that sense.
18:58
Now, there’s an, I got a study where I go into prophets. There are two different types of prophets. There’s a prophet, like what I’m doing right now, is speaking to the people for God, but I’m not somebody who receives dreams and visions. I’m not a prophet in the sense that Ellen White was or that Paul was. A prophet can be used from the sense of somebody who stands behind the pulpit or even doesn’t even have to stand behind the pulpit, but somebody who speaks to the people for God. Elijah came up with the school of the prophets, was he teaching them how to have dreams and visions? No. There are two different types of prophets.
19:37
So in that sense, that’s not what I’m talking about. Was Ellen White, somehow a lesser prophet than Paul? Prophet is a prophet is a prophet. So bottom line, Sola Scriptura, cannot be applied to do away with the writings of any prophets. Now, if you’re going to use use Sola Scriptura, to do away with the writings of the prophet of Ellen White’s, then you must also be able to use that to do away with the writings of Paul or with Daniel or any other prophet. Brothers and sisters, that is a slippery slope. You don’t want to go down that way. And that is exactly why sister White tells us that once you do away with the testimonies, which were once believed, you end up going that slippery slope. So I hope that is clear.
20:32
So I want to look at another one. Now, Ellen White was not as inspired as the Bible because she herself said we should check her writings by the Bible. So this is kind of segwayed in to this one from the the previous one. And again, some people say, Well, she was not as inspired as the Bible because Ellen White herself said, you should check her writings by the Bible. Let’s go to Acts chapter 17, and verse 11. Acts 17 and verse 11, the Word of God says: “These,” speaking of the Bereans, “were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Now, the Bereans were spoken of in a positive light, because they checked everything that was told to them by the Old Testaments. Okay, this is New Testament time period, the New Testament wasn’t available. So what they’re checking against is the Old Testament. And who are they checking this against? Paul. Brothers and sisters, I want you to realize this, the Bereans were spoken of in a positive light, because they were checking every thing that Paul said, against the Old Testament. Does this mean that Paul was less inspired than those of the Old Testament? No, it does not. The Spirit of Prophecy is not a lesser Spirit now than it was in Paul’s day or in Daniel’s day. Friends, we were to check the revelation from one with another for a couple of reasons. A couple of reasons. And I’m sure there are more reasons. I’m sure that, you know, there will be some really good reasons put in the post or in the down below the video. But I’m just going to give a couple of reasons that have, that I’ve pondered. A couple of reasons why we should check the revelation from one with another is to check the potential source of the Spirit of Prophecy, it against an already established source of the Spirit of Prophecy. So, at Paul’s time, the established source of the Spirit of Prophecy was the Old Testament. Do I need to constantly check the New Testament against the Old Testament? No. Why not? Because the the New Testament is an established source now. But at that time, Paul was still speaking to the Bereans and so they were checking him, which was a potential source of the Spirit of Prophecy, against that which had already been established, the Old Testaments. So we always want to check a potential source of the Spirit of Prophecy to that which is already been given. So if some brother comes up and says that he’s got the Spirit of Prophecy, or the gift of prophecy, then, then brothers and sisters, you need to check that against that which is already established. And if it doesn’t line up, then it needs to be thrown out. So that’s one reason that she said that we should check her writings against the writings of the Bible.
23:49
Now another reason that we should check her writings or check any revelation from one with another is to make sure that we understand the totality of God’s word. Now, Martin Luther didn’t like the writings of James, in the Bible, he, he thought there was a conflict between James and Paul. But in fact, there’s not a conflict. Now if, when we take Paul and James both, and we put them together, we harmonize the Word of God. And when we harmonize the Word of God, then it just fits together perfectly, and it gives strength to the Word of God. Paul was describing one aspect and James was describing another aspect of the exact same thing, faith and works. If we throw out James, or we throw out Paul, then friends, we’re throwing out an aspect that we need, in order to understand, have a better understanding of the Word of God. And so if we throw out the writings of Ellen White, then we are throwing out a source of God speaking to us. And we need that source. Because of the darkness and the ignorance. We need that to be able to help understand. But we again, yes, we should always go to the Bible first. And I’m not. I’m not doubting that. And that’s how I do it. That’s also why this series is set up the way it is. The first witness is the Bible. And that’s for a reason. But those are my two thoughts on that. So the reason we’re to check her writings is number one, to get a full understanding of what God has to say on a topic. And number two, to, to check a potential source of the Spirit of Prophecy against that which is already established. Now I can tell you, the Old Testament’s already established source of the spirit of prophecy for me, I don’t question it. The New Testament is an already established source of the spirit of prophecy for me. I don’t question it. And I went through the gambit of trying to figure out are the writings of Ellen White’s a source of the spirit of prophecy? And brothers and sisters? I can tell you, I believe yes, no questions asked. I have figured it out. In my mind, I’ve settled everything in my mind. And without a question, the, the published works of Ellen White are a source of the Spirit of Prophecy. So to me, that is an established source at this point for me. Now, it may not be for you, that is up to you. And I want you to continue to study that, look at these things. And hopefully, this video will help you in understanding this, at least from where I’ve come from.
26:45
So I want to move on. I don’t want to continue to belabor any one point, I’ve got a lot of information. Sometimes people use the excuse that Ellen White plagiarized. So they will throw her out because of that. Now, and I will give an example of that. Review and Herald August 6, 1914, paragraph one, she says: “In him is life that is original, unborrowed, underived life. In him is the fountain of life. In us there is a streamlet from the fountain of life. Our life is something that we receive, something that the Giver takes back again to himself.” Now, this was plagiarized from John Cummings Sabbath Evening Readings on the New Testament of St. John, page 5, 1856. But what he said was: “In Him was life.” Now I just want to point that out. She said is life, he said was life that is original unborrowed, underived. In us there is a streamlet from the fountain of life in him that was the fountain of life. Our life is something we receive something that the Giver takes back again to himself. Now, here Ellen White clearly copied from someone else and didn’t give credits. With one different sentence, he said was past tense, she said his current tense, present tense; but this is a fairly common thing for her. Does this discredit her as being inspired? Now before you answer that, don’t answer it. I just want you to think about this before you answer because I don’t want you to answer wrong. If this discredits her as being inspired then brothers and sisters, you also have to discredit the writings of Paul. Let’s go to Romans 8:6. Paul says: “For to be carnally minded is death.” Do you know who Paul quoted that from, whether intentionally or unintentionally? Paul quoted that from Plato who said: “To be carnally minded was death.”
28:50
Now Paul quoted again, intentionally or unintentionally, I have no idea. I can’t ask Paul. There’s not a whole lot of information on it. I don’t know if he did it knowingly, if he did it unknowingly. I don’t know. The bottom line is, it’s a plagiarized statement from Plato. Plato said it before Paul. Okay, so Plato, he quoted from Plato, with one difference. Plato said was past tense, and Paul said is present tense, which I think is very interesting. I think there’s something to that. Now, does this mean that Paul was was not inspired? No. You see, brothers and sisters bottom line is that God inspires thoughts, and allows His prophets to portray those thoughts as they wish. If someone else says it better than the prophets, the prophets have been known to use those sayings to portray the truth.
29:47
Now I will often times say: “If you can’t say it simply, then you don’t know it well enough.” And the majority of the time, I will tell you that that came from Einstein. I absolutely love that saying. I try to live by that saying. I try to make everything I say as simple as possible. So simple that a child can understand it. That’s what I try to live by. And if I don’t. and if there’s times that I don’t do that, I apologize. I try to make things as simple as I possibly can. But if I did not tell you that that came from Einstein, would it make it any less true? No, it wouldn’t. Bottom line is, if you can’t say it simply then you don’t know it well enough. Whether Einstein said it, whether I said it, whether I quoted it from Einstein, or whether I came up with it on my own. Whether I plagiarized Einstein, the bottom line is, it’s true. So, does that somehow make this statement untrue? No. Does that somehow mean that Ellen White wasn’t inspired? Brothers sisters, if you’re going to go down that road, then you’re gonna have to throw out Paul as well. Yet again, my point is, you start throwing out the testimonies were for once believed, and you begin down a slippery, dangerous slope. And I have seen so many brothers go this route. So many sisters go this route. And I am putting these videos out, hoping and praying brothers and sisters, that you will see this, that you will stand firm on the platform.
31:25
I want to keep going though. Ellen White at times gave her own opinion so therefore we need to throw her out. I’ve heard that one before. And I struggled with this one as well. But 1 Corinthians 7:6-7 Paul says, but I speak this by permission and not have commandment. For I would that all men were even as I myself, but every man had his proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that. So, Paul, also gave his opinion, even found in the Word of God. He gave his opinion. Did this make Paul any less inspired? No, absolutely not. But I do want to give you something to further help with the writings of Ellen White, because there’s a lot of information that’s still coming out. Somehow sister White is still writing books from the dead. And I’m just going to be honest, that irks me. You know, I don’t have a problem with somebody compiling her material. But don’t say from, from Ellen White. Say from so and so, compiled from Ellen White. So many people pick up these post humans compilations, and they think, oh, sister White wrote this, like the book Evangelism? No, I’m sorry. She didn’t write that. There are some headings in the book Evangelism that are misleading and missguiding. The book Evangelism was not written by Ellen White, it was not compiled by Ellen White. It was compiled by Leroy Froom and his cohorts. And it needs to say so on the book, so that people realize, and just my personal opinion, they also need to put in small letters, or actually big letters underneath, many statements taken out of context.
33:30
So I want to give you something that was a real revelation for me when I began to understand this statement and what this meant. It helps me to weed through the writings of Ellen White and figure out what is solid and for sure, and what is maybe not 100%, at least in my mind. And so those things I kind of set aside to figure them out individually. It doesn’t mean I throw them away. It means I set them aside to figure them out individually. And I’ll read the statement and hopefully this will make more sense. Testimonies, Volume 5, p. 696.1. And we are told here: “And now to all who have a desire for truth. I believe that each and every one of you are here because you have a desire for truth. And she says: I would say do not give credence to unauthenticated reports as to what sister White has done or said or written. If you desire to know what the Lord has revealed through her, read her published works. Are there any points of interest concerning which she has not written, do not eagerly catch up and report rumors as to what she has said?”
34:46
So, this for me, once I understood this, this set so much peace upon me, because now I knew if it’s a posthumous compilation, I’m sorry, but I don’t take it as inspired any more than I take somebody’s Bible study, as inspired. Okay, you can in the back of my book, in the back of I’ve got a Thompson chain reference Bible. And in the back of it, you look up the seventh day or the Sabbath and you get all these verses, you look up the first day of the week, and you will get Revelation 1:10. Under that subheading of the first day of the week, I was in the spirit on the Lord’s Day. Friends, I’m sorry, he was not in the spirit on Sunday, that was the Lord’s Day. Mark 2:20 You go back and look, throughout the Bible, you find that the Lord’s day is the Sabbath. So is Revelation 1:10 inspired? Absolutely. But the subheading is not. The compilation is not. So that’s how I deal with with her writings. I look at her published works, the works that were published during her lifetime, as the Lord speaking. And there were some other issues that arose that I dug into with her secretary putting things in that shouldn’t have been in and God revealed that to Ellen White and her secretary was fired, you know. And I’m not going to go into depth on those things. That was years of study going through all of this. And I’m trying to cram it into one short little section here, okay? But I have become assured of what is inspired of her, and what may be questionable. And what I do is those things that are published works, I take them as they are the Lord speaking to me. Those things that were not published during her lifetime, I take them and I always compare them back to an established source, which is that which is a published works, okay? Now, if it’s, if it’s in agreement, then I’m like, okay, then this is okay. But there are some things that are not in agreement because they were stenographic, for example, there there are many statements like, for example, the three holiest beings or the three beings. Ellen White didn’t even say that. But they’re put in as though Ellen White said that. That was a stenographer, stenographer’s work. Okay, Ellen White didn’t say that. And when you compare it to everything that of the published works, you begin to see, well, there’s a conflict here. Why is there conflict? Because the stenographer got something wrong. That’s why there’s a conflict. So we need to go to her published works, is the main point. And I will let that lie for there, I could probably do 30 minutes for almost any one of these points. But I’m, I’m trying to keep it boiled down.
37:49
Now, I have heard this one, this will be my last one. Not many people probably go this route. But I have heard this one. And so I just want to throw this one out. People will say well, Ellen White was a woman. And this is part of the reason that some people have for throwing her out. Well, yet again, there are going to be some major problems because the Word of God, the test, the first witness tells us in Exodus 15:20, that Miriam was a prophetess. And in Judges 4:4 Deborah was a prophet. And in 2 Kings 22:14 and 2 Chronicles 34:22, the first witness tells us that Huldah was a prophetess. And then Luke 2:36, the Word of God tells us that Anna was a prophetess.
38:37
Friends, if we’re gonna throw Ellen White out, because as a prophet, because she’s a female than, we’re gonna have to throw out the whole first witness. Because it supports women as prophets. You can also look in verses dealing with end times. We know that, you know, Joel, we know that there’s going to be the Spirit is poured out upon young women, so on and so forth. But, you know, I just, I want to point this out. Number one, Ellen White was not God’s original intent. Okay, so we’ve got Foss and Foy, that were God’s original intent. And I’m not going to go into, you know, the discussion as to what happened with them. But Foss and Foy, we do know were God’s original intent. So Ellen White was not the original intent. Not that this is in any way shape or form diminishing from Ellen White, it’s not.
39:39
But something that I really want to draw forth here is that Ellen White was not the Spirit of Prophecy, friends. Ellen White was not the Spirit of Prophecy. She had the Spirit of Prophecy. There is a huge difference. Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy, not Ellen White. And so this was also something that I had initially struggled with, you know, the pendulum swing. I was, I had not accepted Ellen White as a prophet. And then, and then I saw the timeline prophets. And so my pendulum started swinging in it and it just kept right on going. And I ended up putting Ellen White up on this pedestal. And as I continued to study and learn, I realized, no, I’ve got to take Ellen White off that pedestal and I’ve got to bring that that pendulum back down into center. Ellen White is not the Spirit of Prophecy, friends, she had the Spirit of Prophecy, but she is not the Spirit. That’s Jesus. It is Jesus speaking through her, not her. Okay? So Ellen White was actually submissive to her husband. Ellen White was actually submissive to her husband. I wanted to say that again, to repeat it. When, when they came to speaking at different churches or camp meetings, so on and so forth, Ellen White would defer to her husband, James White to speak, unless she had been asked specifically, or the Lord had given her something specific to speak on. Then she would defer to her husband to speak. Brother and sisters, she, Ellen White, the sister, was submissive to her husband. But the Spirit of Prophecy is submissive to no man. So though Ellen White was submissive to her husband, when God gave her a vision for him or for anyone else, and there were times that there were things for him, he would say: “Speak, Lord, for I am listening.” He wasn’t calling Ellen White his Lord, okay? He was calling Jesus his Lord, because it was Jesus speaking through her.
42:06
And I just want to drive that home. We need to take Ellen White down off that pedestal brothers and sisters and we need to put Jesus on the pedestal. We need to get that pendulum swing balanced. Jesus needs to be on the pedestal. But we need to recognize Jesus speaking through Ellen White. So how many religions claim the Bible? Thousands. How many religions claim the King James? Hundreds. How many religions claim the writings of Ellen White? Maybe a dozen. You see how with each witness, brothers and sisters, we narrow things down, that each witness begins to shed the riffraff, the dross, off. So thousands believe in the Bible, or profess, and again, these are professing they don’t truly, obviously, but going based on their profession, there are thousands that profess the Bible, there are hundreds that profess the first witness, which is the King James or the Textus Receptus. And there are dozens now that profess the writings of Ellen White, such as Pioneer Seventh Day Adventists, of which I’m a part, and then we’ve got another group, corporate Seventh Day Adventists. And then we’ve got the Reform Movement and the Shepherd’s Rod and the Church of God Armstrong, to some degree, a lot of them believe in the writings of Ellen White, and then we’ve got the Torah movement within Corporate Adventism. And there’s even a few others all claim the first two witnesses. But remember that the Bible says: “In the mouth of two or three witnesses, shall the thing be established.”
44:03
So next time, we’re going to look at the third witness, and then we will look at how all three witnesses interlink, to provide the best stability in a time of shaking. So the first witness, the Reformation Bible if you will. The second witness, the published works of Ellen White. The third witness, you have to come back for that one. Until next time, God bless and Maranatha.