Ellen G. White and Her Critics

“Who May Hear the Truth?”

In the next issue is an editorial entitled “Who May Hear the Truth?” which opens thus: EGWC 609.6

“Answer. ‘He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.’ Revelation 3:13. This verse immediately precedes the call to the Laodiceans to buy ‘gold tried in the fire,’ ‘white raiment’ and ‘eye-salve,’ and the exhortation to them to be ‘zealous’ and ‘repent.’ If, therefore, we are living in the period of the Laodicean church, then he that now hath an ear to hear may hear. EGWC 609.7

“The Prophet speaks of those [Jeremiah 6:10] whose ‘ears are uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken.’ ‘The word of the Lord is unto them a reproach: they have no delight in it.’ The condition of the Jewish Church, as a body, after they had rejected the first advent of Christ is described as follows by the prophet Isaiah: ‘Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.’ Acts 28, 26, 27. The mass of the present generation, having rejected the doctrine of the Second Advent, are in a similar condition, having ears, but have no disposition to hear the truth. The condition of those who once rejoiced in the advent faith, and have since pronounced their past experience the work of some unclean spirit, is no better. EGWC 610.1

“As the large mass of mankind have not an ear to hear the word of God, the Spirit of God, gives us no message for them. But, thank Heaven, there are those who have an ear to hear the truth, and we say of such, ‘let them hear.’ Those whose hearts are not hardened in sin, who have not wickedly trampled on offered mercy, who have not understandingly rejected the glad tidings of the coming kingdom, and who can feel the power of truth, ‘let them hear.’ We never felt greater liberty in pointing out the way of life to sinners in past years, than to such now. EGWC 610.2

“Many of our brethren in this state, who are fully with us in our views of the message of the third angel, had no part in the messages of the first and second angels. And quite a number of young people are fully with us, who have recently found Jesus, and experienced his pardoning love.”—The Review and Herald, February 17, 1852, p. 94. EGWC 610.3

The only reason, says this editorial, why they had “no message” for “the large mass of mankind” was that the majority of men had no ear to hear. To all others they were preaching, the editor adds, with great “liberty” and converting “many.” And all this had been taking place between 1844 and 1852, when this editorial was written. EGWC 610.4