Opposition to Ellen White’s ministry
As predicted in Scripture, the remnant church has been granted a manifestation of the prophetic gift in the life and work of Ellen G. White. Unfortunately, some people feel that although her messages were necessary to founding the church in the nineteenth century, they aren’t relevant today. Others simply ignore her, reject her, or openly oppose her. She predicted all this. “The very last deception of Satan will be to make of none effect the testimony of the Spirit of God. . . . Satan will work ingeniously, in different ways and through different agencies, to unsettle the confidence of God’s remnant people in the true testimony” (1SM 48).GP 119.4
Opposition or indifference to the writings of Ellen White usually is the result of one or more of the following:GP 119.5
• A failure to read enough of her writings to recognize and understand her overall, well-balanced instructionsGP 119.6
• A failure to understand the proper relationship of her writings to ScriptureGP 120.1
• A failure to recognize the true nature of divine inspirationGP 120.2
• A failure to recognize the principle of time and place in connection with the counsel she has givenGP 120.3
• A failure to acknowledge that her counsels are still relevant todayGP 120.4
• A failure to recognize that while sufficient evidence is given to convince the honest in heart, the Lord doesn’t remove opportunities for doubtGP 120.5
• An unwillingness to sacrifice some cherished habit, practice, or belief that seems out of harmony with the counsels Ellen White has givenGP 120.6
Most opposition to Ellen White’s ministry would disappearGP 120.7
• if we would stop using some pet sentence or paragraph as a club with which to hit someone else.GP 120.8
• if we would apply the counsels to ourselves instead of trying to apply them to someone else.GP 120.9
• if we wouldn’t “quote” her when we don’t know where the quote is found. (There are many apocryphal sayings.)GP 120.10
• if we wouldn’t discuss something she wrote without having studied everything she wrote on that particular topic. (Partial knowledge can be more dangerous than no knowledge at all.)GP 120.11
• if we would recognize that people’s failure to live up to or carry out Ellen White’s counsels has nothing whatsoever to do with the inspiration and reliability of those counsels. GP 120.12
In 1870, J. N. Andrews wrote,GP 120.13
The object of spiritual gifts is to maintain the living work of God in the church. They enable the Spirit of God to speak in the correction of wrongs, and in the exposure of iniquity. They are the means whereby God teaches his people when they are in danger of taking wrong steps. They are the means by which the Spirit of God sheds light upon church difficulties, when otherwise their adjustment would be impossible. . . . In short, their work is to unite the people of God in the same mind and in the same judgment upon the meaning of the Scriptures. GP 120.14