David Asscherick ReTHINK Prophecy Part One- SecondComing.org

SecondComing.org David Asscherick ReTHINK Prophecy Part One
Sharing the good news of the soon return of Jesus Christ, our Lord Creator and Redeemer.
In early Adventism, the declaration that “Where there is no vision [prophet] the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18a KJV) was a highly valued insight. This verse came to define and embody Ellen G. White’s (EGW) role in the post-Millerite movement that developed into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She became the Lord’s prophet and would shepherd the dispirited group of fervent believers who had expected the Lord would return in the fall of 1843 or 1844, or at least in their lifetimes. She would become, to this “little flock,” the conduit through whom God would reveal end time prophecies.

In what sense was EGW a prophet? To understand how she came fully to this role, we should situate her in the proximate time and events that influenced her. Ellen White (1828-1915) was born near the end of the so-called Second Great Awakening, the Protestant revival that began in the late 1790s and extended well into the mid-1830s. The three authentically American Christian denominations that have continued to our day — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormons-1830), Seventh-day Adventists (SDA-1863), and to a lesser extent, Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW-1870) — were all affected to varying degrees by the environment of this period.

Of these three, the LDS and SDA denominations had founders, Joseph Smith and EGW, who declared they communicated directly with God in ways reminiscent of biblical prophets. Ellen White more extensively than Joseph Smith. Neither Joseph Smith nor EGW had high formal schooling, and they relied on others in transcribing their encounters with God. Both leaders produced immensely important extra-biblical literature that would guide their respective churches long after their deaths. Joseph Smith had the Golden plates (precursor to the Book of Mormon) and other “revelations” — the “Doctrine and Covenants” and the “Pearl of Great Price.” Ellen White produced some 40 books, 500 periodical articles, and more than 8,300 additional unpublished documents.

All biblical prophets, the models EGW is compared to, are simply God’s mouthpieceso—not in the secular sense of press secretaries but as spokespersons for God. And as such, their roles have sometimes been pastoral. In which case, they serve as God’s shepherds, pointing out the people’s waywardness with the aim of bringing them back to God. The prophet Amos, for example, fits this role. At other times, the prophets’ pivotal roles have been foretellers or “predictors” of a distant future. The apocalyptic writer of Daniel falls into this category in predicting a future much further ahead than any of his contemporaries could comprehend.