Ellen G. White and Her Critics

“All the Wicked World Which God Had Rejected”

We come now to the last part of the sentence: “All the wicked world which God had rejected.” We have already quoted Mrs. White as declaring that that clause should be understood as follows: “The wicked of the world who, having rejected the light, had been rejected of God.” That interpretation obviously would relieve all of the tension. It is a very reasonable interpretation of the disputed clause. The author herself says that that is what the clause means. And there we leave the matter. The reader can decide whether the critic’s interpretation or Mrs. White’s interpretation of the disputed clause is the correct one. EGWC 213.3

But in leaving the matter at this point, we ask only that the reader be consistent in his decision. God said to Jeremiah, “Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.” Jeremiah 7:16. The Lord’s words, “this people,” apparently suggest no exception. Here is the same kind of sweeping statement as “all the wicked world.” It seems to make no exception for anyone in Israel. EGWC 214.1

But would anyone contend that the Lord is here telling Jeremiah that there were none in Israel who loved God and whose prayers God heard? We think not. God has always had a remnant. When Elijah thought he was the only one in Israel who served God, the Lord reminded him that despite the national apostasy that had brought a judgment of God upon the whole nation, the Lord still had seven thousand in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal. (1 Kings 19:18.) EGWC 214.2

Even after the Lord allowed His people to go into Babylonian captivity, He still had among them a faithful elect, and when the seventy years’ captivity was ended, there were thousands who turned their faces again toward Jerusalem to rebuild the Holy City and God’s temple. But there stand the words of God to Jeremiah, “Therefore pray not thou for this people.” This is only one of numerous passages in the Bible, as all Bible students know, where an apparently all-inclusive sweeping declaration is to be understood with definite limitations. EGWC 214.3