Scott,

It's easy for you to accuse me of something untrue, but impossible for you to prove what you are saying. I also could accuse you of a lot of things, but I never did that. Now, I had quoten the Bible to substantiate my view in my previous post, so there was no need to quote it again:



And it's clear that Ellen does not disagree with Paul and neither do I. Obviously Paul is speaking of trying to keep the letter without the spirit of the law, that is, the law without the gospel, which, of course, can only mean condemnation and death, for sinners cannot obey a holy law perfectly.


There is no middle term here. If Ellen contradicts the Scriptures, she is not a prophet at all, but a liar, once she claims to receive messages from God. "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isa. 8:20).

According to this definition several prophets that wrote the Bible would be disqualified. David received messages from God but spoke many things that were pretty dark (not to mention lying and murder).

Do you suppose that if Ellen had an affair and murdered her lover's spouse you would accept her testimony?

How about Jonah? His message was that Nineveh was going to be destroyed. He never preached repentance or even the possibility of forgiveness and a change in their death sentence. What he said didn't come true. He was so disappointed that He wanted to die.

And then there is Peter who sided with the Jews against the Gentiles after He had been inspired to write his part of scripture.

And let's not forget Moses who struck the rock when told to speak to it, Abraham who told lies about his wife to save his own skin, and Noah who got drunk and passed out naked. Must I even mention Solomon?

Had Ellen done any of these would you endorse her or call her a false prophet?
Have you ever considered that you might have a different standard for a prophet than God does?

scott

Scott,

No prophet is infallible in his personal life, but when he/she is conveying a spiritual message from God, that message must be free from errors, otherwise the recipients of the message would be at a loss to distinguish what is true from what is false.


He narrated, for our benefit, his spiritual struggles, and how he overcame them. We many times experience the same feelings he experienced.


It is exactly the fact that the possibility of forgiveness wasn’t announced that demonstrates that the repentance of the people was genuine. Jonah conveyed the message God asked him to convey – and God is all-wise and had a purpose to achieve with that precise message.

Hi Rosagela,

You forgot to answer my questions!







scott

I always thought that the safeguard was the law and the testimony. If they speak not according to these things there is no light in them! The true law being God’s character of love and the testimony being the testimony of Jesus that showed us what God’s character of love looked like.





Do you suppose if Ellen wrote to God asking Him to kill her enemies mothers and smash their babies against rocks you would follow her?

scott

YES. If it passed the test of scripture.



Why would one "Follow Ellen White"?

I follow Jesus. Mrs. White has no power to save. Mrs. White did not want ANYONE to 'follow' her. She stated that her purpose was to point people to the Bible and to follow Christ.

So, it really doesn't matter what kind of life Mrs. White had or overcame. Most Bible characters were bad and sinful characters in their lives. Just because Moses was a murderer ... does not mean that we don't listen to him.

With Ellen White ... it is easy. All we have to do is to compare her words to scripture. And if they don't match up ... they she has instructed us to reject them. But we are not to reject her. For one thing we are not to 'follow her'.

This is where it gets pretty sticky doesn't it? You seem to have a pretty clean view of the prophetic gift all wrapped up in a nice box with a ribbon, but the fact is God used some pretty wild characters to prophecy and carry his words.

Jonah said that he knew God was kind and that he knew God was forgiving, but chose to preach destruction only because that’s really what Jonah wanted to see happen. Had Jonah preached like John the Baptist, cared about the people, and loved his enemies he would have interceded for them rather than displayed his narcissistic self pity. He would have preached forgiveness. He only preached the part he wanted to and left out what he knew about God.

Nice clean little prophet!

The bottom line is that Jonah said that in 40 days there would be destruction and it didn’t happen. According to the test that says if a prophet prophecies and it doesn’t come true then he is a false prophet Jonah is therefore a false prophet . . . . or . . . . there might be exceptions to the little rules.

One exception I can think of is that a prophet needs to know God and preach what He knows not just in the message, but as a friend knowing God. In other words to be a true prophet and represent God one must also represent God’s love along with the message. Ellen makes it very clear that to have a message and present it with malice or pride in one’s heart makes it a false message. So one must speak for God out of love or their message is false. That is the “law and the testimony”!

scott

Exactly, I Am His, that is what I'm trying to say. We know a true prophet if He is leading us to Christ. Christ's way, Christ's purpose, Christ's character, Christ's salvation, Christ's testimony about His Father etc. etc.

And we know what is true in the OT by the same standard. Without Christ's testimony one can justify anything from reading the OT scriptures. Christ is the cornerstone of the scriptures and the revelation that empowers us to "eat the butter and the honey, to choose the good and refuse the evil".

Christ is the standard of righteousness in the New Covenant replacing the 10C that were the standard of righteousness in the Old Covenant. You want to truly keep the 10Cs? Stop looking at them and comparing yourself to them and follow Christ!

scott

What about Jonah's message? He said that Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days, but it wasn't. That's an error.



How do you know Jonah conveyed the message God asked him to? I agree that he did, but I find your criteria, that the message be error-free, to be wanting since the message was that Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days, and it wasn't. So there must be some better criteria than this to evaluate prophecy.

Well .... I think Mrs. White would have something to say about eating the butter.