“The Lord in His great mercy sent a most previous message to His people” in the 1888 message, a message that was intended to bring about the genuine revival and reformation of His people, and to swell into the “Loud Cry” (cf. TM 91). The people would have responded. There is no doubt about that. This is the true Church, and “Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.” What happened? We dare not theorize, or rationalize. In 1888 Re-examined some 600 exhibits were used from the writings of Ellen G. White. Here is another one. This is also at present unpublished, and dated January 2, 1903, but it gives a direct answer, clear and unequivocal, as to what happened:
For many years I have carried a heavy burden for our institutions. I have borne many messages from God. Yet I knew that those for whom these messages were intended were not heeding them. Sometimes I have thought I would attend no more large gatherings of our people, for my messages seem to leave little impression on the minds of our leading brethren after the meetings have closed, although I bear a heavy burden, and go from the meeting pressed down as a cart beneath sheaves.
At this time when God’s people should be bearing a plain, clear message, filled with earnestness and power, many who have been appointed to preach the truth are departing from the faith.— Special Testimonies, Series B. No. 6.
How could it be that the post-1888 leadership “diligently fostered various ministerial Institutes in which Righteousness by Faith was stressed [and] fostered the study of the Spirit of Prophecy” and yet in reality exerted an influence that “spread like the leprosy, until it has tainted and corrupted the whole”? (Compare Movement of Destiny, page 363 and Ellen G. White Letter, May 31, 1896.) The following letter to Elder O. A. Olsen, dated February 2, 1896, helps to answer this question:
One night I was in Battle Creek [in vision of the night or dream] , and was bearing a decided testimony to the church. I was invited to attend a committee meeting, but I said, “No, I cannot trust my message to your committees. Not all of those who compose your committees have a vital connection with God, and they will not comprehend the message that God has given me to bear. The church must hear my message, and I must speak in language that cannot be misinterpreted in the same way that messages have been misinterpreted again and again in Battle Creek, so that men have been led to turn from the counsel of God, and to follow their own ideas and imaginations. You have evaded the true meaning of the message.”—”Norfolk Villa,” Prospect Street, Granville, N.S.W., Feb. 2, 1896.
Consider now the very end of Elder Olsen’s nine year administration. Movement of Destiny informs us that “most of those who first took issue made confessions within the decade following 1888, and largely within the first five years, and thenceforth ceased their opposition. … Only a small hard core of ‘die-hards’ continued to reject it. These left the faith.” Pages 267, 268. But nearly a decade after 1888 Ellen G. White’s view of the “revival and reformation” in Battle Creek is entirely different:
To my brethren in Battle Creek:
The work that will meet the mind of the Spirit of God has not yet begun in Battle Creek. When the work of seeking God with all the heart commences, there will be many confessions made that are now buried. I do not at present feel it my duty to confess for those who ought to make, not a general, but a plain, definite confession, and so cleanse the soul-temple. The evil is not with one man or two. It is the whole that needs the cleansing and setting in order.—Letter, “Sunnyside,” July 27, 1897.
The General Conference Committee members themselves comprising the post-1888 leadership made the following confession on April 8, 1897:
Several times of late the Lord has been obliged to state that His Testimonies have been really disregarded by those who thought they believed them. He says, “The reproofs and warnings from the Lord have been evaded, and interpreted and made void by the devices of men.” One device to evade them, He says, was to “frame flimsy excuses.” He says they were interpreted and made void, by men “putting their own construction upon them saying that they did not mean thus and so.” He says—the Testimonies have been “argued away.” He says, “They mean just as stated;” but that “those whom the Lord has warned, feel that the warning means something else; they explain it to signify the opposite of that which the Lord has said.”—Statement of the General Conference Committee introducing Special Testimonies for Ministers and Workers, No. 9, April 9, 1897.
What were Sister White’s true feelings about the spiritual history of the post- 1888 leadership? We insist that her evaluation of the situation is far more accurate than anyone’s opinions who did not have the gift of prophecy as she did. Bear in mind that the critical issue under discussion is the Lord’s call to denominational repentance (“Be zealous therefore, and repent,” Revelation 3:19). Is that call to repentance echoed in our 1888 history and does it vitally affect our preparation for the Latter Rain and Loud Cry? Another unpublished document that came into our possession years ago is the original unedited transcript of Ellen G. White’s remarks made in the Battle Creek College Library on April 1, 1901, at 2:30 p.m. which presents clear-cut evidence:
When we see that message after message that God has given, has been taken and accepted, but no change—just the same as it was before, then we know that there is new blood must be brought into the regular lines. . . . Not that anyone means to be wrong, or to do wrong; but the principle is wrong, and the principles have become so mixed and so foreign from what God’s principles are, and the message has been going constantly in regard to principles, sacred, holy, elevated, ennobling, in every institution, in the publishing house and in all the interest of the General Conference—everything that concerns the handling of the work, it requires minds that are worked by the Holy Spirit of God. … There should be a renovation without any delay. . . . This thing has been acted and reacted for the last fifteen years or more, and God calls for a change. … Our standstill has got to come to an end; but yet every Conference, it is woven after the very same pattern. … Enough has been said; enough has been said over and over and over again, but it does not make any difference; they go right on just the same, professedly accepting it, but they do not make any change. Well, now, that is what burdens me; that is what burdens me. … “You have lost your first love,” you have lost it.
If we were asked, “Did the post-1888 leadership ‘professedly accept’ the 1888 message? “ we would have to answer “yes.” But “professedly accepting it” and “not making any change” will never finish God’s work, even in a thousand years. It is this “professedly accepting it” which has confused certain sincere denominational historians into assuming that such lip service meant heart- acceptance. Isn’t it time now to consider the truth?