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Messenger of the Lord - Contents
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    Contrary to Contemporary Optimism

    Ellen White’s general predictions made in the waning years of the nineteenth century seem like a review of modern newspapers. Some could say that she was simply using the same sagacity that other thoughtful people were using when contemplating the future. But what she wrote and what thought leaders in her day were projecting were light-years apart.MOL 159.6

    The period between 1890 and 1914 is noted for “millennial” predictions, a time when the future looked bright with promise. In most all areas of Western society, whether in medicine, economics, technology, or scientific inventions, the picture of peace, prosperity, and a golden future was a prevailing sentiment. 58For a sampling of turn-of-the-century “peace and prosperity” sentiment, note the following: “Since the Exhibition [London, 1851], western civilization has advanced steadily, and in some respects more rapidly than any sober mind could have predicted—civilization, at least, in the conventional sense, which has been not badly defined as ‘the development of material ease, of education, of equality, and of aspirations to rise and succeed in life.’ The most striking advance has been in the technical conveniences of life—that is, in the control over natural forces. It would be superfluous to enumerate the discoveries and inventions since 1850 which have abridged space, economized time, eased bodily suffering, and reduced in some ways the friction of life, though they have increased it in others. This uninterrupted series of technical inventions, proceeding concurrently with immense enlargements of all branches of knowledge, has gradually accustomed the least speculative mind to the conception that civilization is naturally progressive, and that continuous improvement is part of the order of things....
    “In the seventies and eighties of the last century [19th] the idea of progress was becoming a general article of faith. Some might hold it in the fatalistic form that humanity moves in a desirable direction, whatever men do or may leave undone; others might believe that the future will depend largely on our own conscious efforts, but that there is nothing in the nature of things to disappoint the prospect of steady and indefinite advance. The majority did not inquire too curiously into such points of doctrine, but received it in a vague sense as a comfortable addition to their convictions. But it became a part of the general mental outlook of educated people....
    “Within the last forty years every civilized country has produced a large literature on social science, in which indefinite progress is generally assumed as an axiom.” J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress (New York, N.Y.: Dover Publications, Inc. 1955), pp. 331, 332, 346, 348.
    The spirit of optimism at the turn of the century is reflected in church historian Arthur Cushman Giffert’s sermon entitled, “The Kingdom of God,” delivered several times during 1909: “The modern age is marked by a vast confidence in the powers of man. For many centuries it was the custom to think of man as a weak and puny thing. Humility and self-distrust were the cardinal virtues, pride and self-reliance and independence the root of all vice. The change is not the fruit of speculation, a mere philosophical theory as to man’s relation to the universe, but the result of the actual and growing conquest of the world in which we live.... Characteristic of the present time is its faith in the future, based upon its solid experiences of the past.... The great task of the Christian church of the twentieth century is ready to its hand. Upon the church devolves the chief responsibility for the bringing of the kingdom.... We are on the eve of great happenings. No one familiar with history and able to read the signs of the times can for a moment doubt it.” Cited in H. Shelton Smith, Robert T. Handy, Lefferts A. Loetscher, American Christianity, An Historical Interpretation With Representative Documents (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1963), pp. 286, 290
    MOL 159.7

    Some of the predictions Ellen White made contrary to the spirit of her age focused on the social world: “Step by step, the world is reaching the conditions that existed in the days of Noah. Every conceivable crime is committed. The lust of the flesh, the pride of the eyes, the display of selfishness, the misuse of power, the cruelty, and the force used to cause men to unite with confederacies and unions ... all these are the working of Satanic agencies.... The whole world appears to be in the march to death.” 59Manuscript 139, 1903, cited in Evangelism, 26.MOL 159.8

    “I am bidden to declare the message that cities full of transgression, and sinful in the extreme, will be destroyed by earthquakes, by fire, by flood.” 60Ibid.MOL 159.9

    “I have been shown that the Spirit of the Lord is being withdrawn from the earth. God’s keeping power will soon be refused to all who continue to disregard His commandments. The reports of fraudulent transactions, murders, and crimes of every kind are coming to us daily. Iniquity is becoming so common a thing that it no longer shocks the senses as it once did.” 61Letter 258, 1907, cited in Last Day Events, 27.MOL 159.10

    She turned to the development of international tensions and war: “The tempest is coming, and we must get ready for its fury.... We shall see troubles on all sides. Thousands of ships will be hurled into the depths of the sea. Navies will go down, and human lives will be sacrificed by millions. Fires will break out unexpectedly, and no human effort will be able to quench them. The palaces of earth will be swept away in the fury of the flames. Disasters by rail will become more and more frequent; confusion, collision, and death without a moment’s warning will occur on the great lines of travel.” 62The Signs of the Times, April 21, 1890, p. 242.MOL 160.1

    “Last Friday morning, just before I awoke, a very impressive scene was presented before me. I seemed to awake from sleep but was not in my home. From the windows I could behold a terrible conflagration. Great balls of fire were falling upon houses, and from these balls fiery arrows were flying in every direction. It was impossible to check the fires that were kindled, and many places were being destroyed. The terror of the people was indescribable. After a time I awoke and found myself at home.” 63Letter 278, 1906, cited in Last Day Events, 24, 25.MOL 160.2

    “Soon great trouble will arise among the nations—trouble that will not cease until Jesus comes.” 64The Review and Herald, February 11, 1904, p. 8.MOL 160.3

    Another perceptive insight ran cross-grained with the phenomenal optimism prevailing in 1909, the year of the following prediction regarding increasing economic and social impasses: “There are not many, even among educators and statesmen, who comprehend the causes that underlie the present state of society. Those who hold the reins of government are not able to solve the problem of moral corruption, poverty, pauperism, and increasing crime. They are struggling in vain to place business operations on a more secure basis.” 65Testimonies for the Church 9:13. Current books, magazines, and TV programs seem in concert in their lament regarding worldwide economic problems inherent in various degrees of government socialism, job dislocations caused by “the information age,” the moral corruption connected with drugs and alcohol and their contribution to the astonishing rise in crime worldwide, the stunning rise in teenage pregnancies, etc. All these problems have contributed to rising government costs and increased taxation.MOL 160.4

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