A NEW WAY TO GET
RID OF ELLEN WHITE’S BOOKS —
Replacing the Spirit of
Prophecy
Well, you have been expecting it for years; and it has
finally happened: They are starting to rewrite the Spirit of Prophecy—and
doing it in a way that entirely replaces them.
I am not referring to an abridged edition in her own
words, which is clearly stated as such. Our own Basic Steps to Christ,
which is in the front of our 1888 Great Controversy is such a
production. Every basic point in the book is included, but only in her
own words. This enables the reader to read the complete pathway to
Christ—without making our Great Controversy over a thousand pages
in length. Many have compared our Basic Steps to Christ with the
complete book and no one has found any problem with it.
What I am referring to is the new book, Messiah,
written by Jerry Thomas and published by Pacific Press. —It is a total
rewrite! Thomas, a book editor at Pacific Press for 10 years, has produced
a book which, it is hoped, will be read by our people—and everyone else—instead
of Desire of Ages.
Thomas’ book is being heavily promoted by Pacific
Press in local Adventist churches throughout North America, with
videotaped endorsements by well-known church leaders and with featured
"camp-meeting" discounts.
Obviously, only her words are inspired; so such a
rewrite would appear to be an attempt to get rid of one of the primary
inspired books which God has given for our time in history.
More rewrites will probably follow.
The advantages of such books for our church publishing
houses is that the new books provide them with clear copyright control,
something they no longer have on the Spirit of Prophecy books. Pacific
Press will own this book; and not even the E.G. White Estate can dictate
any requirements they must follow.
The advantages for the liberals are many. This is a new
step away from the books they so much dislike.
To whom should you send your protests? Friends working
there in the mid-1980s told me that Pacific Press had to please the
General Conference, or it could withhold permission for them to print
certain books, including certain Sabbath School materials. So if you wish
to write protests, it would be good to send them to the General Conference
(not only to Pacific Press). The Press is a General Conference
institution.
Here is Thomas’ rewrite of Desire of Ages, 83:4-5.
Compare it with the original. His rewrite reduces two paragraphs of eight
sentences to one differently worded paragraph of four sentences.
"It would be good for us to spend an hour every
day thinking about the life of Jesus. We should use our imagination to put
ourselves in each story, especially the stories from the last week of His
life. The more we think about His great sacrifice for us, the more
confidence we’ll have in Him, and the more love we will feel. The more
we study and think and talk about Jesus, the more like Him we will
become."—Messiah, p. 54.
In addition, not one Bible quotation in the entire book, Messiah, is
from the King James Version. Add to that the fact that a very large number
of Scripture quotations have been totally omitted. Her books are a
treasure-house of Bible quotations—but both must go.
BOOKS OF A NEW
ORDER
"The enemy of souls has sought to bring in the
supposition that a great reformation was to take place among Seventh-day
Adventists, and that this reformation would consist in giving up the
doctrines which stand as the pillars of our faith, and engaging in a
process of reorganization. Were this reformation to take place, what would
result? The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the
remnant church, would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The
fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty
years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be
established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of
intellectual philosophy would be introduced. The founders of this system
would go into the cities, and do a wonderful work. The Sabbath of course,
would be lightly regarded, as also the God who created it. Nothing would
be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement. The leaders would
teach that virtue is better than vice, but God being removed, they would
place their dependence on human power, which, without God, is worthless.
Their foundation would be built on the sand, and storm and tempest would
sweep away the structure."
— 1 Selected Messages, 204-205
NSL: THE CRUCIAL
COMING EVENT
Friends on the West Coast are concerned about a strange
new teaching that is being taught by Marvin Moore. Because he is senior
editor of Signs of the Times, he is in an extremely influential
position, not only at Pacific Press and with everything printed in Signs,
but also in his camp meeting and other lectures.
Moore is teaching that the crucial coming event will be
falling meteorites!
Our leading missionary periodical, Signs of the
Times, has for years been strangely silent about certain historic
Adventist beliefs. Among these is its refusal to say anything negative
about the Catholic Church, either in past history or today.
You may recall that, until the 1950s, Signs was
our only missionary paper. It was printed weekly on low-cost newsprint and
distributed in the millions by our people. I recall many sessions, in the
late 1940s, at our local church, where we would hand address copies of Signs
and mail them to people all over the city we lived in.
Then, in the 1950s, These Times (originally
called Our Times) began being published by Southern Publishing in
Nashville, as an expensive glossy monthly missionary periodical. Until the
mid-1950s, Signs editor Arthur S. Maxwell (1896-1970) clearly
presented our truths in the Signs. But, because he refused to be
hushed up about Rome, the General Conference decreed that henceforth both
missionary papers would be monthly and printed on glossy paper. This
jacked up the price of the Signs immensely. By Vatican II, none of
our new denominational publications said anything negative about Rome.
Now Moore is telling us that it is not the National
Sunday Law, but meteorites, that the world should look forward to as
the coming crisis! This is another backward step in soft-peddling the
truth about Rome.
You may recall the 1989 Signs article which
lavishly praised Pope John Paul II as the world leader in promoting peace
and stability (Appreciating the Pope [WM–207].
The situation steadily grows worse. The focus of
attention is being turned from the Sunday Law crisis to the blowing of a
trumpet, which Moore says will produce one or more desolating meteorites,
while another writer says the great coming event will be a massive
earthquake.
Scan through the Spirit of Prophecy Index, Vol. 3,
pp. 2864-2865, and see what Ellen White said about trumpets! Not one
word about the trumpet of Revelation.
David Koresh also captured people’s minds with his
almost exclusive focus on the Seals and Trumpets of that book.
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