What is the spirit of prophecy? Many Christians through the years have wondered whether or not divine inspiration ended with the book of Revelation, and so they question, does the Bible say anything at all about last day prophets? After all, it’s been over 2000 years since the last of the Bible writers died, and could it be possible that maybe there would be some kind of update? Not something new that would change what’s already been written, but something to encourage God’s people to keep looking up; to keep pushing forward with the gospel, or perhaps that there would be some kind of renewed emphasis regarding old truth that has been forgotten. Have you ever wondered about that?

Several times Jesus did say there would be false prophets in the last days, and so did the apostles Peter and John. But what about true prophets? Two of the better known 19^th century people who claimed the prophetic gift were Joseph Smith and Mary Baker Eddy. The Mormon church claims that Joseph Smith was a prophet, as well as those who have succeeded him through the years. And Mary Baker Eddy who founded The Church of Christ Scientists was also looked upon as a prophetess that was transported into and received spiritual communications; and we could go on and on with those who are alive today who claim to have the spirit of prophecy. In fact, the charismatic movement is full of those who claim to have this gift, and we could take up the whole hour naming them, but that would be of no real benefit.

So, the question is, are we to just dismiss the idea all together that there could be a modern day prophet, as evangelical Christians do today? That there can’t possibly be any true prophets after the canon of Scripture closed? After the church fathers decided what was inspired and what wasn’t?

Now I’m not trying to throw cold water on what the church fathers decided was inspired by the Holy Spirit and what wasn’t, because I believe they were correct to include the writings they did in the Protestant Bible and not include others writings such as the Apocrypha, which Catholics include in their version of the Bible.

However, if after the canon of Scripture closed, with the understanding that there would never ever be any other writings that would be on par with the Bible, then you would think that the Scriptures themselves should state plainly that once the last of the prophets and apostles died, we’re not to expect any future revelation. Isn’t that the logical conclusion if one believes that? But what if there is a modern day prophet and we’re totally closed to that idea and just dismiss it, wouldn’t we then miss something important that God wants us to know in these last days? What if the prophetic gift has been restored to God’s last day church, and what if the Bible actually gives the time frame when it would happen, would that pique your interest?

And here’s another question to ponder; are there degrees of inspiration? In other words, was Peter more inspired than Paul, or Isaiah than Jeremiah? Any thinking Christian would say no! They’re all equally inspired by the Holy Spirit or not at all, and I would agree.

Now, if that’s true and God were to raise up a prophet in these last days that would have a final warning message to give to the world, then wouldn’t that prophet be just as inspired by the Holy Spirit as were Peter, Paul, Isaiah, and Jeremiah? I think we would also have to agree that that would be true, as long as they agree with the Bible, because that’s the ultimate proof. You see, if the men who wrote the Bible were inspired by God, which I believe they were, then the Bible has to be the standard by which to test any claims made by a modern day prophet, does that make sense? In fact, the Bible comes right out and says that there are tests that we are to apply to anyone who claims to have the spirit of prophecy. And if the Bible tells us how to test them, isn’t that an indication that there would be someone who has been called by God to be a prophet in these last days? I mean, if there was no one to test, then why were tests given? But someone says, “tests were just given for those who were alive during Bible times.” Well, we’re going to find out in a few minutes that Bible prophecy indicates that there would be someone to test hundreds of years after the canon of Scripture closed. And besides, we already mentioned that there are those not that long ago and those who are alive today who claimed to be prophets, and shouldn’t we test them to see if their claims are genuine?

In 1 John 4:1 it says, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”

So, what I’d like to do this morning is investigate whether or not some of these questions can be answered from the Bible itself to see if there’s any validity to either side of this issue. Personally I believe there is strong evidence that God has spoken directly to His church through the spirit of prophecy in these last days, and when I say these last days I mean any time after 1798, because the Bible indicates that that date in prophecy is when the “time of the end” began, and we’ll see what the Bible says about that date in a few minutes.

But if there is strong evidence that God has spoken directly to His church through the spirit of prophecy in these last days, wouldn’t we be doing ourselves a disservice to simply ignore it by sticking our heads in the sand because of preconceived ideas that one has formulated without searching diligently to see if it’s so? And after testing, if we find that they don’t pass the test, then fine, we can dismiss them altogether, but if they do, then wouldn’t we be foolish to not consider what they say?

Remember what Acts 17:11 says about the Bereans? It says they were more noble than those in Thessalonica because they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures how often? Daily in order to see if what they were being taught by Paul and Silas was so. These two men didn’t say, “why don’t you stubborn Bereans just accept what we say”, after all, Paul could have said, “I’m the apostle to the Gentiles. Who are you to question me?” But no, the Bereans were commended for being more open-minded and diligent than those in Thessalonica, because they listened to the message with great eagerness, and every day they studied the Scriptures to see if what Paul and Silas said was really true.

Do you search the Scriptures daily to make sure your pastor is telling you the truth? Or do you just sit back in the pew with confidence that your spiritual leaders know what they’re talking about and that they wouldn’t lead you astray? After all, there are well over 200 different denominations and offshoots today who have pastors and leaders who believe they have the truth, and they can’t all be right, can they?

Just as we must eat good food every day to be physically healthy, so we must take the time to assimilate God’s word every day if we want to be spiritually healthy. And so, there’s no getting around it, we must take quality time, preferably in the morning and perhaps again in the evening, if we want to be able to detect falsehood from the truth. There’s nothing wrong with eating two or three spiritual meals a day, and we don’t have to worry about getting spiritually fat as long as we’re sharing the food we’re eating, because that’s also important.

The Bible is like a chart that points out every waymark on our heavenward journey and we don’t have to guess at anything. Our eternal life is too important to just take someone’s word for it, no matter how much confidence we may have in them. We need to be good Bereans and connect with God every day, don’t we? Yes! It’s imperative that we search the Scriptures for ourselves, because we are going to have to answer for ourselves to God someday soon, and “my pastor said” is not going to be a good enough excuse for why you did or didn’t do certain things, or why you believed what you did.

Did you know that there’s a time prophecy in the Bible that gives us a clue as to when we are to look for a prophet to arise in these last days? It’s true, because God cannot lie! Go with me to Revelation 12 and let’s read a few verses there. This is going to take a little time to explain as we go along because the 11 verses we’re about to look at cover thousands of years, but are described by the Holy Spirit through the apostle John in just a few short verses. And so, it’s going to take some time to fill in some of the blanks by reading elsewhere in the Scriptures of truth, and by comparing Scripture with Scripture, but when we’re done I think you’ll agree with me that it’s been time well spent.

Let’s begin with Revelation 12:7-17, “And there was war in heaven: Michael”, who is Michael? Many Christians don’t realize this, but Michael was the name Jesus went by before He was born as a babe in Bethlehem. You see, the name Jesus means “Jehovah saves”, but before He came to this world and sacrificed His life in order to be our Saviour, He went by Michael previous to that. And do you know what the name Michael means? It  means “who is like God” and He’s also referred to as “Michael the archangel”, not that Jesus was an angel, but that He was chief, or ruler of the angels, that’s what the word arch means.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:16 it says Michael the archangel is “the Lord himself” and is also the one who raises the dead when He returns, and angles don’t have the power to do that. And so, very clearly here, Michael was the name Jesus used to go by. And remember what Matthew wrote about Jesus? The angel told Joseph in a dream to “call his name Jesus, for He shall (what?) save His people from their sins”, and that’s just what He did!

“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”

And so, Satan, like Jesus, now has other names he goes by as well since he fell from heaven, doesn’t he? Before he was called Satan and the dragon and the devil, he was Lucifer “son of the morning”, or “the morning star”, which means he was the first angel God created, and that, I believe, was one of the reasons he was so able to fool the other angles that took his side, because he was always there, and in their minds he was looked upon as a special being that was able to perhaps convince them that he was like a God without beginning. Anyway, that’s what I think, but you may think differently, and that’s fine, because the Bible doesn’t come right out and say so.

But there is one thing that we can all agree upon, and that is that Lucifer is no longer an angel that sheds light and truth, is he? Now he is Satan, and in the Garden he worked through a serpent to deceive our first parents to disbelieve God, and he still continues working today like a deceptive and malicious snake in the grass.

In reference to when Jesus was crucified and arose from the tomb, John continues in verse 10 by saying, “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser (that’s what the name Satan means) the accuser of our brethren (speaking of the saint on earth who the angles count as their brethren) is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they (the saints) overcame him (how?) by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. (There’s power in the blood friends, and there’s something about sharing our testimony about what God has done for us that is also powerful to influence others, and if we know God as it is our privilege to know Him, we will be willing to die rather than knowingly disobey Him, just like the martyrs of old) Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. (That is, a short time to fool the nations before he’s exposed as the great deceiver that he is) And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.”

Not just any child, but “the man child”, which is Christ. And what power did Satan work through when “the man child” was born? It was Rome. And who is the woman? It’s not Mary, but the same woman mentioned in Genisis 3:15 when God told the serpent He was going to put enmity between the devil’s seed and the woman’s seed, and neither is it talking about Eve. The word “woman” in Hebrew can also be translated “wife” and in Ephesian 5:23 it likens Jesus as the Husband of His church.

As you probably know, the book of Revelation is highly symbolic, and when it uses the symbol of a woman in Revelation 12:13-17, it represents God’s church. But how do we know that for sure? We know that for a couple reason besides what I already mentioned.

Notice what it says in Jeremiah 6:2. God says, “I have likened the daughter of Zion (which is a metaphor for Jerusalem and later of Israel, or we might say God’s Old Testament church) “I have likened the daughter of Zion to (what?) a comely and delicate woman.” And in Isaiah 51:16 notice what God says to Isaiah about Zion, “I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.”

And so, very clearly here, when we allow the Bible to interpret itself, which we must always do if we want to arrive at the truth, the “woman” in Revelation 12 who is persecuted, represents God’s church, and “the man child” represents Jesus who is the Husband, or head of the church as Paul says in Ephesian 5:23.

Back to Revelation 12:14, “And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly (where?) into the wilderness, into her place”, (in other words for hundreds of years the church of Christ found refuge in seclusion and obscurity as they were hunted down like animals by Rome, or the papacy that gained control of the Roman government. And then it says) “where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.”

And so again, we must allow the Bible to tell us what these figures mean. In this verse the word “time” = a year. Remember the story about king Nebuchadnezzar who ate grass like an ox? In Daniel 4:32 it says he stayed out in the field until “seven times passed over him”, which was 7 years. And so, a “time” equals one year, or 360 days according to the calendar that was in use at the time. And “times”, plural, would be 2 years, or 720 days, and “half a time” would be half a year, or 180 days. So when you add 360+720+180 you get 1260 days, and we’ll see more proof in a minute that those 1260 days represent 1260 years.

These were the 1260 years of papal persecution known as the dark ages. They started in 538 AD when the papacy gained power over the government of Rome, and it lasted till 1798 when Napoleon’s army captured the pope and put him in prison, which gives us the time frame I mentioned earlier when we are to look for the spirit of prophecy being restored to the “woman”, or to God’s last day church, and we’ll get to that in a few minutes.

Now, this day for a year principle is critical for a proper understanding of time prophecy, and if we don’t follow it we’ll get all mixed up and misinterpret last day events as many are doing today. When dealing with prophecy, or a future prediction that has a time element to it, a day always represents a year. Take a good Bible concordance like Strongs, which is basically a dictionary that defines in English what the Hebrew and Greek words mean, and look at the word “time” in Revelation 12:14 and you will see that it represents a year.

And there’s yet another way the Bible identifies this day for a year principle. Besides the story of Nebuchadnezzar there are two verses of Scripture that plainly establishes this day for a year principle, one in Ezekiel and the other in the book of Numbers. In the book of Numbers we have the story of when twelve men, one from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, spent 40 days spying out the land of Canaan and afterward brought back a report of what they found. Numbers 14:34 says, “After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.” This time prophecy then began Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the wilderness because of their unbelief, each day for a year. And so, whenever there is a time prophecy mentioned in the Bible, a day always represents a year.

Then let’s look at Ezekiel 4:6. This is when the siege of Jerusalem was portrayed through an analogy that Ezekiel was to play a part in. God told Ezekiel to lay on his left side for a number of days, and verse 6 says, “And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee (what?) each day for a year.” And so, here’s another time prophecy where one day represented one year.

Now, Catholics will tell you that this woman that flees into the wilderness represents Mary, the mother of Jesus, but if that were true, then where is this wilderness she flew into, and how was she persecuted for 1260 years? That doesn’t make sense. This Catholic interpretation of these verses of Scripture were concocted in order to take the heat off the papacy as the very one that persecuted the woman for the 1260 years of the dark ages. It’s a well-known fact of history that the papacy persecuted Christians that refused to go along with its dictates, and millions of them were martyred for their faith.

I don’t want to get too far off subject here, but today the papacy has to admit to this persecution, because facts are stubborn things. However, she now claims that these were times of ignorance, and that the church has now changed. But don’t you believe it, because as soon as she is able, she will team up with apostate Protestantism through the ecumenical movement to persecute the remnant church that keeps the commandments of God and has the Spirit of prophecy, and we’ll read that in just a minute.

Yes, the Church of Rome may present a fair front to the world today, covering with apologies her record of horrible cruelties, and even though she clothes herself in Christlike garments, she is unchanged, friends. Because every principle of the papacy in past ages still exists. The doctrines she held during the dark ages are still held. The Protestant world that today gives honor to the papacy is the same that ruled in the days of the Reformation when men of God stood up at the peril of their lives to expose her sins of cruelty. In fact, the papacy is just what the prophecy of 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4 declared that she would be, the apostasy of the latter days. For over a thousand years her crimes have been written with the blood of the saints, and because of that, and because of the fact that she claims infallibility; that she has not erred in the past nor will she ever err in the future, she should not be acknowledged today as a part of the church of Christ?

Let me read you a short quote from one of the greatest Protestant reformers who ever lived. After visiting Rome for the first time, Martin Luther wrote the following, “It is incredible what sins and atrocities are committed in Rome; they must be seen and heard to be believed. So that it is usual to say, ‘If there be a hell, Rome is built above it. It is an abyss whence all sins proceed.” (History of the Great Reformation by d’Aubigne, page 169) Luther also identified the papacy as the antichrist of the last days, as did all the Protestant reformers, but unfortunately the same churches that were raised up by these great men no longer look upon the papacy the same way, and are today cozying up to Catholicism through the ecumenical movement, and together, even though they claim to be God’s church, they will once again persecute the wife of Christ in the very near future.

Revelation 12:15, “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood  after the woman (that is, a flood of persecution in an effort to cleanse the world of Christ’s followers), that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. (You see, the devil wanted to get rid of the church all together by carrying on the same war he started in heaven) And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.”

And how did the earth help the woman, or the persecuted church? It helped her by providing secluded places for persecuted Christians like the Waldenses, the Albigenses, and the Huguenots to live and hide out, until finally the 1260 years of papal persecution ended in 1798 when the pope was taken captive. And when that time period ended, according to Revelation 13:11-18, there was a nation rising out of the earth, as President Lincoln put it, that was built upon a Republic that was “of the people, by the people, and for the people”, and that new nation that was rising to power, would continue to be a refuge for “the woman”, based upon the religious freedom of its Constitution, and of course that new nation was America. But America, according to the verses I just mentioned, is transformed from a gentle lamb-like beast and begins to speak as a dragon, or to do the bidding of Satan before the end comes, and unfortunately we can already see this change from a lamblike beast to a dragon beginning to take place, but that’s the subject for another time.

Verse 17. Now listen carefully, because this verse holds the punchline, “And the dragon (Satan) was wroth with the woman (God’s last day church), and went to make war with (who?) the remnant of her seed (or the last part of her offspring. The word “remnant” means, “A small remaining quantity of something.” This would be the remaining church that was left after 1798. In other words, Satan is going to come after the last day church that would be just like the early church that Jesus established, just as a small piece of remnant material is exactly like the bolt it was cut from. And this remnant church is identified by two characteristics), they keep the commandments of God (all ten), and have (what?) the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

And we don’t have to guess about what the testimony of Jesus Christ is, because Revelation 19:10 gives us a clear answer. Let’s go there to see what it is. The context of this verse is speaking of the time when the saints will get to partake of the marriage supper of the Lamb, and as the apostle John listened to the angel and realized what was going to happen in the end, he writes, “And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren (thy who? “thy brethren”, and it’s important that we allow the Bible itself to tell us who “thy brethren” represents) and of thy brethren that have (what?) the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy,” or the witness of Jesus, or the evidence given by Jesus through the Holy Spirit to the prophets of old. And so, when the angel tells Johns about his “brethren”, he’s speaking specifically of those of his brethren who have the “spirit of prophecy.”

And there’s one more text that substantiates this. Revelation 22:8, 9 tells us which brethren in particular the angel is referring to as he talks to John at the close of the book of Revelation. “And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: (This is the second time John did this and was told not to. Why?) for I am thy fellow servant (I’m a servant of the God of heaven as you are, and here’s the important part), and of thy brethren (who?) the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.”

So, just to recap, because I want this to be very clear in your mind. In Revelation 12:17 God says the remnant church, sometime after 1798, or after the end of the dark ages, would have the “testimony of Jesus Christ”, and in Revelation 19:10 He says, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” In other words, the last day church would be just like the early church in its teaching and in the reception of the same prophetic gift. So when we’re dealing with the term “Spirit of Prophecy”, we should understand that it’s a phrase or description of the gift that is given to all the prophets.

So when we read in Revelation 12:17 that the last day church would have “the testimony of Jesus”, and when we read Revelation 19:10 that tells us “the testimony of Jesus” is “the spirit of Prophecy, it’s telling us that this gift of the Spirit would be restored to the remnant church not long after 1798, according to the time prophecy we read earlier where it speaks of a time, times, and half a time. The question is, did it happen? Did God raise up a prophet that would have a last day message to give to the world? And I’m happy to tell you that He did.

Was it Joseph Smith? He was born in 1805 and died in 1844, so he fits the correct time frame, but when we apply the tests of a prophet to this man, he fails on several counts. What about Mary Baker Eddy? She was born in 1821 and died in 1910, so she also fits the correct time frame, but also fails when the Biblical tests of a prophet are applied to her. And I say this of these two individuals because there are three basic tests of a true prophet, and there are others, but if they fail any one of the three basics, then why do we need to look any further?

The three basic tests are as follows: Number one, a true prophet will never contradict the Bible. Number two, they will have moral integrity. And number three, they will have predictive accuracy. In other words, what they say must come to pass, or they are a false prophet, and as we’ll see, these three tests alone will suffice in order to take Joseph Smith and Mary Baker Eddy out of the running.

When we apply the test of moral integrity to Joseph Smith, he fails miserably because of his polygamy, and was killed at a young age by the towns men of Carthage, Illinois for his Philandry. He and his brother were in the Carthage jail and the men of the town didn’t trust the authorities to render justice, so they took the law into their own hands. A mob of about 100 men who were fearful that the sinful lifestyle of these two men would spread far and wide, decided to end it then and there and they killed them both.

Years ago I was studying with two Mormon missionaries, and I asked them what the church’s stand was on polygamy these days, and their answer was that “Abraham was a man of God and he had two wives, and so it was Biblical”, but they said, “not everyone is ordained to have more than one wife, but those who are ordained, it’s perfectly fine.” What do you think about that? Truth is, God calls it adultery no matter who they are, and if you realize the consequences of Abraham’s bad decision at that point in his life when he took another wife, and how it has affected history with constant wars between the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael, or modern day Israel and the Palestinians, then that’s pretty good evidence as to why monogamy is the Bible standard, and why God says, “thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Now what about Mary Baker Eddy? She had spiritual communications alright, but they were not from God. She attended seances and dabbled in spiritualism her whole life and became addicted to morphine and said she was able to contact her dead brother Albert, and in Isaiah 8:19 God forbids that kind of thing, and in Leviticus 20:27 it was a death sentence, because when a person tries to contact the dead, they’re not speaking to the dead at all, but to evil spirits, or familiar spirits as the Bible says. So we need look no further at her life to know that she was not a true prophetess.

Now, I want to leave that right there for a minute and look at a few Bible texts dealing with the gifts of the Spirit that will help shed light on our subject today. The first is in 1 Corinthians 1:4-8 where Paul writes, “I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in everything (in what? In everything) ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ (or the testimony of Jesus) was (what?) confirmed in you: So that ye come behind in (how many gifts?) no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (sounds like this promise will hold true till the Lord comes, doesn’t it?): who shall also confirm you unto (what?) unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We just read that the testimony of Christ was confirmed in the Corinthian church, and what was the result? They came behind in no gift. Are we not justified then to conclude that when the remnant church is fully confirmed in the testimony of Christ that they too will come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of the Lord? Seems logical to me.

1 Thessalonians 5:19-21. These three verses are among the shortest in the Bible, but very powerful. Paul says, “Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things (like the Bereans did); hold fast that which is good.” And this is exactly what I’m encouraging you to do today, especially as it relates to prophets in these last days.

Let’s look also at Ephesians 4:11-13, “And he (Christ, the context being when Jesus ascended to heaven, according to verse 8, and gave gifts unto men) “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying (or the building up) of the body of Christ: (for how long?) till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”

Has the church come to that point yet? Obviously not, because if it had we’d be in heaven by now. The point is, all the gifts are needed in order to accomplish “the perfecting of the saints”, and this must happen before Jesus comes. And so again, this is an indication that the Spirit of Prophecy is a necessary gift in God’s last day church.

And so, the remnant church will have all the gifts, and according to Revelation 12:17 war will be waged against them because they keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ, or the Spirit of prophecy.

Friends, the devil hates this last-day church, and he will do everything possible to destroy it, and so far he’s done a pretty good job. But it’s clear that a remnant will survive, and there’s only one church and one person who perfectly fulfills the prophecies we’ve been discussing today. That church is the Seventh-day Adventist Church and that person was a woman by the name of Ellen Harmon who after her marriage became Ellen White. She was born in 1827 and had a fruitful ministry of 70 years. She came at the right time fulfilling the three basic tests of a true prophet by not contradicting the Bible in all her teachings, by having all of her predictions come true, and by having moral integrity, and no one through the years has been able to show that she violated these three basic tests. And as I said, there are more than three tests, but we’re not going to have the time to talk about those other tests, but she passed those as well.

And just in case you’re wondering, because there are many Christians today who question whether or not God would use a woman in a male dominate world to be a prophet, especially during Bible times, but I want you to notice that there are 9 women mentioned in the Bible who received the prophetic gift. There was Isaiah’s wife, Philipp’s four daughters, Huldah, Miriam, Deborah, and Anna. During the first half of the 19th century God called two men to fill the role of a prophet in these last days, and when they were found unworthy, he called a young woman to fill that spot in prophetic history, and that was Ellen Harmon who became Ellen White.

Let me share just one short story about her moral integrity. Ellen had many critics during her lifetime, mostly because she was a woman and spoke about unpopular truth, but one man in particular was extremely antagonistic toward her. However, when Ellen died he showed up at her funeral and as he stood there looking at her lying in the casket he’s recorded as saying the following four words, “A good woman gone.” Even her most ardent critic had to admit that she was a good woman who had moral integrity.

And as far as her many predictions, they have all been verified as coming true except for the few that deal with the closing events of this world’s history and the coming of the Lord, and the only reason they haven’t been proven true is because they haven’t happened yet, but because of her past track record of predictive accuracy, they will, and very soon.

Over the past 50 years I’ve read just about everything she ever wrote, and I can testify that I have never read anything that contradicts the Bible. One of the tests that I have applied to her is found in Isaiah 8:20 where it says, “To the law (the ten commandment law) and to the testimony (of all the Bible prophets), if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” This is why I said at the beginning that the Bible is the ultimate test, or proof as to whether or not a person has the truth. If they don’t agree that the Ten Commandment Law is to be obeyed and if they don’t agree with all the other prophets, it’s because there is no truth to what they say, and they cannot possibly be a true prophet. They can be a false prophet, but not a true prophet.

And last but not least, Sister White, as she’s affectionately called, helped established the remnant church we read about in Revelation 12:17, giving renewed emphasis to an old truth that had been forgotten, and it’s no coincidence that it’s the one command God said not to forget when He warned, “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” God knew people would forget about the seventh day Sabbath, and so that became a point of truth that needed to be rekindled in the hearts and minds of God’s people in these last days. And remember, keeping the commandments (all ten) is one of the identifying marks of the remnant church, and the other is that it would have the testimony of Jesus Christ, which is the Spirit of Prophecy. And if the church you attend does not emphasize these two points, I’m sorry, but it cannot possibly be the remnant church, and if it’s not the remnant, what are you doing there?

Joseph Smith didn’t keep the commandments of God, or His moral law, because he broke numbers 4 and 7 that we know of, because he never espoused the seventh-day Sabbath, and he committed adultery. Neither did Mary Baker Eddy keep the Sabbath, and James 2:10 says if you brake one you’re guilty of breaking them all. And so, you can search high and low, but you will never find another person other than Ellen White, or another church other than the Seventh-day Adventist church that fits the description given in Revelation 12:17.

Now just to be clear, one can transgress God’s law, or sin, and be forgiven and cleansed when there is confession and repentance, but we’re not talking about ordinary people here, we’re talking about prophets, and God doesn’t give the spirit of prophecy to just anybody. When He calls a prophet, that prophet will give evidence that they are in line with the truth and are obedient to that truth, else they won’t retain that gift very long, and there’s no indication that Joseph Smith and Mary Baker Eddy had the truth to begin with, but certainly there’s plenty of evidence that they disobeyed the truth.

Now, after having said all these glowing things about the Seventh-day Adventist church, I would be remiss if I did not tell you that the current Seventh-day Adventist church is no longer following much of the counsel the prophet has given, or advocating many of the same truths that the early church taught while the prophet was alive. We don’t have time to go into all the areas where the church has diverged from the designation given to the remnant, however, I will tell you that as far back as 1975 the highest ranking official in the church, while under oath during a civil court case, denounced the prophets writings by consigning them “to the historical trash heap so far as the SDA Church is concerned.”

Because of this striking admission, and several other key points of doctrine that the church now espouses in order to be accepted by the rest of apostate Protestantism, they are more closely aligned today with the ecumenical movement that seeks to bring all the various churches back to the Mother of Harlots described in Revelation 17 rather than expose the papacy as the antichrist of the last days. I’m very sad to have to tell you this, but it’s true. Some church leaders are more interested in having fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness than they are in proclaiming the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14:6-12.

There are only a handful of small ministries and home churches here and there today that have been forced to separate from the church they once loved, and are endeavoring to follow and proclaim all the counsel in the Bible and writings of God’s last day prophet, whereas the majority of church members today are blindly following denominational leaders down a road that will end in a place they don’t expect. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is so, and I would have your blood on my hands if I said otherwise.

I was a loyal Seventh-day Adventist church member for over 20 years and did my best to counsel with leadership as to how the church was no longer proclaiming the specific truths it was raised up to proclaim, and I know of many others who have done the same, but to no avail, and at the end of the day there has been no attempt on the part of leadership to listen to the voice of reason, and therefore I must cry aloud and spare not.

The truth is, you can attend just about any Seventh-day Adventist church today on the seventh-day Sabbath and hear the same kind of sermon you can hear in most Sunday churches on the first day of the week, with few exceptions. Rather than standing strong and proclaiming the truths it was raised up to proclaim, the ministers now preach smooth things and the plain unvarnished truth is not acceptable.

Most church members today are just playing follow the leader, but God is not the leader. Either that, or they see that the church has indeed gotten off track, but wrongly conclude that they must stick with the church because they believe God is going to put it back on track before the Jesus comes. But it’s a fatal error to believe that, because God has never worked upon that principle throughout all past ages. When a church proves unfaithful to the Lord, He has always raised up others to take their place, and it’s no different today, because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Let me give you a couple examples of this coming out, or the separation of God’s people from various churches of the past. Think of the Jewish church. They were once God’s chosen people, weren’t they? But when they crucified Christ, Jesus said their house was left unto them desolate, didn’t He? And because God’s presence was no longer there, the disciples of Christ left the Jewish church and formed the Christian church. Afterward the time came when the main church in Rome apostatized and the Protestant reformers left the church of Rome and formed the various Protestant churches.

You see, all through history the people who formed God’s true church had to leave the various churches they loved because of apostasy, which is to deny the truth they once had. Then a few hundred years after the Protestant Reformation we finally come to the time of the remnant church, and guess what? There has to be another coming out, but there’s something different taking place this time that never happened in the past. This time there’s nothing after the remnant to go to. The remnant is all that remains of God’s true church just before Jesus comes. So what happens? Because the majority cling to falsehood and worldliness, the true remnant, or those who are unwilling to disobey God at any cost, becomes smaller and smaller.

And so, now we have a remnant of the remnant so to speak! That’s all there is and that’s all there will ever be this side of heaven! You can’t go beyond what’s left of Christ’s church after the time of the end arrived in 1798. In other words, the majority who claim to be the remnant are no longer such, because they’ve decided to leave the truth, and now form a part of Babylon the great, the mother of harlots; the mother being the papacy and the harlot daughters being those churches that follow the example of Rome by abandoning the truth.

And here’s one more point I’d like to make before we have to close. This remnant that I just mentioned is not and cannot be Babylon or a part of Babylon. It’s the Seventh-day Adventist church organization that is Babylon, because they have, by virtue of their teaching, and errors, and worldliness, left their post of duty as the remnant. In other words, the faithful remnant have not left “the church”, but “the church organization” has left the remnant. In other words, the remnant and the Seventh-day Adventist denomination are not the same entity, and you can’t equate the two. You can be a member of the denomination and be lost, but if you’re one of the remnant and remain so, you will be saved.

Perhaps I should read you just one inspired statement that came from the pen of Ellen White just so you will know that she never made any promises that God would not reject the Seventh-day Adventist denomination if it failed to follow the counsel that He gave her to give to the church. On the contrary, she plainly said that they would be rejected for repeating the history of ancient Israel because of disobedience.

This is taken from Manuscript Releases, volume 13, page 379, and I could keep you here another hour reading statements similar to it, but this one will have to suffice. “In His Word the Lord declared what He would do for Israel if they would obey His voice. But the leaders of the people yielded to the temptations of Satan, and God could not give them the blessings He designed them to have, because they did not obey His voice but listened to the voice and policy of Lucifer. This experience will (not maybe) will be repeated in the last years of the history of the people of God, who have been established by His grace and power. Men whom He has greatly honored will (again, not maybe) will in the closing scenes of this earth’s history pattern after ancient Israel.”

Friends, we are in the closing scenes of this earth’s history right now, and today these words are fulfilled in your ears! And just as all of Ellen’s predictions have come to pass, so has this one, sad to say. One might ask, who then are God’s people today; who are the remnant; who are the little company spoken of in Revelation 12:17? I’ll read you one more statement from the prophet herself. In the devotional titled “The Upward Look”, page 315 she states the following:

“God has a church. It is not the great cathedral (it’s not some fancy building), neither is it the national establishment (it has nothing to do with the government), neither is it the various denominations (including the Seventh-day Adventist church. Who then is it? Listen carefully); it is the people who love God and keep His commandments. ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name (said Jesus), there am I in the midst of them’  (Matthew 18:20). Where Christ is even among the humble few (the remnant of the remnant), this is Christ’s church, for the presence of the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity can alone constitute a church.”

And so, God’s church is designated as such by two things, love to God and obedience to what He says, and if a church does not love God supremely and does not obey what He says, then it’s not His church, regardless of what they claim, and regardless of what name they post upon the sign outside. And if it’s not God’s church, it belongs to someone else, and that someone else is the one who was cast out of heaven. Is the truth really that simple? It really is!

Now, all this negativity could get a person down, I understand that, but it doesn’t have to, because it’s an indication that the end of all things is at hand and that our redemption draweth nigh, and besides, all this apostasy going on today does not negate the fact that the writings of God’s last day prophet are still true and should be studied and followed along with what all the Bible prophets have written. As I said, I wish I could tell you in good faith that you can go to any Seventh-day Adventist church you want to and hear the truth, but I cannot say that. But what I can say is that you can still study your Bible and compare it with the “spirit of prophecy” as it was manifest in the life and teachings of Ellen White and become better grounded and settled into the truth, and that’s a good thing.

What I would encourage everyone to do, if you’ve never read anything Ellen White wrote, is to read one of the main books she has written called The Great Controversy and see for yourself what kind of testimony she bore. If you’ll contact me at gospel.workers.ministry@gmail.com, I’ll see to it that you receive one at no charge.

Ellen White is the most translated American author of all time, and the most translated non-fiction female writer in history. She has also been named one of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time by Smithsonian Magazine, and it’s amazing to me that most people have never heard of her and have never read any of her writings. Will you look into it my friend? I appeal to you to do so, and to decide for yourself if these things are so? I hope you will, and if you will, I know you won’t be disappointed.

May the great God of heaven bless you as you think about these things, and may the Saviour draw you by His loving kindness into a more intimate relationship with Himself and with those of like precious faith is my prayer for you and for myself. May it be so!

The Spirit of Prophecy