Conclusion

Will there be another genuine prophet of the Lord for the Seventh-day Adventist Church before the return of Jesus? Certainly, on the basis of Joel 2:28-32, we must say that the possibility exists. Informed Seventh-day Adventists speak of Ellen White as a “further” fulfillment of that prophecy following the experiences of William Ellis Foy and Hazen Foss in the middle 1840s not as the final fulfillment.HONL 26.2

If God sees fit to bestow the prophetic gift again on one of His remnant people before the end of time, such a person might have a role quite different from that of Ellen White, even as the role of John the Baptist was quite different from that of Moses.HONL 26.3

In any event, if someone comes along today and says, “I am a prophet,” the church has an obligation to test this claim, even as the community of faith has had to test every prophet from the very beginning. All of the tests must be applied. The body of testing material (authenticated inspired writings from the prophets of the past) has grown to enormous size today—a formidable standard to be met by any person who claims the gift of prophecy.HONL 26.4

The church has already been informed that it should expect counterfeit prophets just before Jesus returns. See Matthew 24:24. Thus it is particularly imperative that the church today demand clear evidence before accepting the testimony of any would-be prophet as divinely inspired. Furthermore, Satan’s counterfeits will contain some truth (in certain instances, perhaps even much truth), which makes them all the more dangerous to the body of genuine believers. ^{42Selected Messages 2:86-88.} The predictions of some false prophets may, in a limited degree, even come to pass.HONL 27.1

Satan works on the “wedge” principle with his human counterfeit prophets:HONL 27.2

Many things in these visions and dreams seem to be all straight, a repetition of that which has been in the field for many years; but soon they introduce a jot here, a tittle of error there, just a little seed which takes root and flourishes, and many are defiled therewith. ^{43Selected Messages 2:87.29}

Therefore the fact that there is “nothing objectionable” in the utterances of a person who claims to have received the gift of prophecy does not of itself provide the clear evidence which Ellen White declared the church must possess before it accepts such a claim.HONL 27.3

Let all move with caution and care, lest Satan come in and wreak havoc in the church, as he has done before, with tragic consequences for all.HONL 27.4