Ellen G. White: The Early Elmshaven Years: 1900-1905 (vol. 5)

The Magnitude of the Threat Revealed in Vision

Concerning the magnitude of the threat to the very existence of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as shown to her in vision, she wrote a few months later: 5BIO 423.3

Had the theories contained in Living Temple been received by our people, had not a message been sent by the Lord to counteract these theories, the third angel's message would no longer have been given to the world, but pleasing fables would have been proclaimed everywhere. Men would have been led to believe a lie instead of the truth of the Word of God. An army of those who take pleasure in unrighteousness would have sprung into action. 5BIO 423.4

The roll was spread before me. The presentation was as though that against which the Lord was warning His people had actually taken place. I shall not attempt to describe the presentation, but to me it was a living reality. I saw that if the erroneous sentiments contained in Living Temple were received, souls would be bound up in fallacies. Men would be so completely controlled by the mind of one man that they would act as if they were subjects of his will. Working through men, Satan was trying to turn into fables the truths that have made us what we are.—Letter 338, 1905. 5BIO 423.5

In document after document in the months that followed the 1905 General Conference session, she not only wrote of the threat of the Kellogg teachings but dealt explicitly with the error of Ballenger's positions on the sanctuary truth, basing her warnings on repeated visions. [See Appendix for excerpts from documents aggregating more than fifty pages of letters and manuscripts.] She made it clear that if there was one fundamental truth that had come to the pioneers by Bible study and revelation, it was the sanctuary truth, and she indicated that Satan would bring one attack after another on this fundamental point. 5BIO 423.6