Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Mrs. White’s Words Explain Her Use of Text

“This is a very important hour with us. Satan has come down with great power, and we must strive hard, and press our way to the kingdom. We have a mighty foe to contend with; but an Almighty Friend to protect and strengthen us in the conflict. If we are firmly fixed upon the present truth, and have our hope, like an anchor of the soul, cast within the second vail, the various winds of false doctrine and error cannot move us. The excitements and false reformations of this day do not move us, for we know that the Master of the house rose up in 1844, and shut the door of the first apartment of the heavenly tabernacle; and now we certainly expect that they will ‘go with their flocks,’ ‘to seek the Lord; but they shall not find him; he hath withdrawn himself (within the second vail) from them.’ The Lord has shown me that the power which is with them is a mere human influence, and not the power of God. EGWC 219.2

“Those who have published the ‘Watchman’ have removed the landmarks. I saw, two months ago, that their time would pass by; and then some honest souls, who have been deceived by this time, will have a chance to receive the truth. I saw that most of those who preach this new time do not believe it themselves. I saw that our message was not to the shepherds who have led the flock astray, but to the poor hungry, scattered sheep.”—Page 64. (Parentheses hers.) EGWC 219.3

Mrs. White is here speaking very particularly of those who published an Adventist paper called The Watchman, and who had been setting new times for the Lord to come. She said that in thus setting time they had “removed the land-marks.” But she had seen that “their time would pass by.” She goes even further, and brings the heavy charge of hypocrisy against some of them, when she declares: “I saw that most of those who preach this new time do not believe it themselves.” The record of the post-1844 days reveals that there were certain individuals of easy conscience who did fasten upon a possible time, in order to create a fervor of excitement and to win converts of a certain brand to their banner. EGWC 219.4

In view of this we can understand her next sentence: “I saw that our message was not to the shepherds who have led the flock astray.” That statement would go right along with some of the declarations that Christ made to the scribes and Pharisees. But what about the flocks and herds of these shepherds. She says that these “honest souls” “will have a chance to receive the truth.” She is emphatic that “our message” is “to the poor hungry, scattered sheep.” EGWC 219.5

Note again that qualifying word “honest.” That is the key to the whole passage, and indeed to all of Mrs. White’s statements in the series of debated passages in her writings in the years immediately following 1844. She has a message of hope for “honest souls,” that is, for those who have not willfully rejected light, for those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for those who seek the Lord in humility. And have the prophets of the Bible, from first to last, had any other message than this? True, the apostles went out to preach to the heathen, who had no hunger and thirst after righteousness, and no love for the truth, but their attitude of mind could be excused on the grounds of ignorance. However, when this ignorance was removed and some still proved rebellious, the disciples went elsewhere to preach. EGWC 220.1