1. Denominational detour. The message which the Lord sent to His people in 1888 was rejected by responsible leadership, to the extent that Satan "succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the power of the Holy Spirit" and "light" was "kept away" from the world in a "great degree"[1] We took the wrong road and the cause of God suffered a serious set-back. Fourteen years after 1888, Ellen White continued to appraise our history in words unmistakable:
"I have been instructed that the terrible experience at the Minneapolis Conference is one of the saddest chapters in the history of the believers in present truth."[2]
2. Leadership Actually Insulted the Holy Spirit. This sad chapter of defection was far more than superficial theological differences among "ministering brethren." It was resistance to the Holy Spirit. This fact has been reiterated to the church in statements beyond dispute; the counsel is crystal-clear:
"I told them plainly [that] the position and work God gave me at that conference was disregarded by nearly all. Rebellion was popular. Their course was an insult to the spirit of God."[3]
"They were moved at that meeting by another spirit, and they knew not that God had sent these young men, Elders Jones and Waggoner, to bear a special message to them, which they treated with ridicule and contempt. ... I know that at that time the Spirit of God was insulted."[4]
"Those who opened the door of their hearts to temptation at Minneapolis ... will realize, if not now, in the future, that they resisted the Holy Spirit of God, and did despite to the spirit of grace."[5]
Is it not time now to realize what was then "future" and recognize the "despite"? The extent of the resistance against the Spirit of the Lord, His messengers, and against precious light, was immense.
"The Spirit of the Lord has been upon His messengers whom He hath sent with light, precious light; but there were so many who had turned their face away from the Son of Righteousness that they saw not its bright beams."
3. The Crucifixion Was Repeated. As our history is reviewed the tragedy of Minneapolis is increasingly highlighted. That Satan succeeded "in a great measure" there is no question. That the Holy Spirit was insulted is painfully affirmed by the Lord's messenger. And along with that affront, the record states plainly that "had Christ been before them, they would have treated him in a manner similar to that in which the Jews treated Christ."[7]
Without a trace of euphemism this says that had Jesus been in our midst physically, we would have crucified Him as verily as the Jews did 2000 years ago. What can make end-time Israel understand what "we" have done? They (we) chose Barabas instead of the Saviour, and thus rejected the Word that became flesh and who tasted death for every man (Heb. 2:9).
4. Spirit of Prophecy Disregarded. Having traveled this road of insubordination, rejection of light, insult to the Holy Spirit, crucifixion of the Saviour, our next transgression was to disregard the calls to repentance especially ministered to this people through Ellen White. The barricade of prejudice that was set up in 1888 has never been torn down. Increasingly, voices are proclaiming that she was influenced by "attitudes commonly held by Protestant churches of the 19th century."[8] Her interpretations of some portions of Scripture are called in question. It has even been suggested that "advancing research," as if scholastic acumen could in any way revise our history[9]. This is the fulfillment of what she said less than two months after Minneapolis, as she wrote a 13-page letter to a conference president who was a member of the General Conference Committee:
"There can be no harmony in our work when our brethren are so completely blinded that they cannot recognize the Spirit of God as it worked through me at Minneapolis."[10]
She had a continuing concern for the disregard of her counsels, a disregard that permeated leadership. On December 31, 1890, she wrote a 12-page letter to a prominent worker which sets forth the contempt church administration held for the testimonies:
"There will be a hatred kindled against the testimonies which is satanic. The workings of Satan will be to unsettle the faith of the churches in them, for this reason: Satan cannot have so clear a track to bring in his deceptions and bind up souls in his delusions if the warnings and reproofs and counsels of the Spirit of God are heeded. ... My brethren have trifled and caviled and criticised and commented and demerited, and picked and chosen a little and refused much until the testimonies mean nothing to them. They put whatever interpretation upon them that they choose in their own finite judgement and are satisfied."[11]
Seldom does the Lord's messenger put together such a chain of powerful verbs portraying our transgression and Satan's delusions.
The heart-felt scorn and indifference heaped upon her and her counsel at that time caused her to predict what would happen in the future. Satan would work to nullify God's leading of His people by instruction given through the Spirit of Prophecy. Current history in the church make it clear her forecast has come to pass. She said in 1890:
"Satan is ... constantly pressing in the spurious--to lead away from the church. The very last deception of Satan will be to make of none effect the testimony of the Spirit of God. 'Where there is no vision the people perish' (Prov. 29:18). Satan will work ingeniously, in different ways and through different agencies, to unsettle the confidence of God's remnant people in the true testimony."[12]
Notes: