False Teaching to Be Revived

With such clear, definite statements from the pen of Mrs. White to the effect that she had not taught that the Seventh-day Adventist Church was Babylon, it would seem that the question should be forever settled. It would seem that no one in sincerity could ever again put forth the claim that her writings teach what she expressly denied that they taught. Yet with remarkable foresight she pointed out that similar movements in opposition to the church would arise in the future, and she gave clear instruction as to how they should be received. She declared:SDACBB 3.4

“Such messages will come, and it will be claimed for them that they are sent of God, but the claim will be false; for they are not filled with light, but with darkness. There will be messages of accusation against the people of God, similar to the work done by Satan in accusing God’s people, and these messages will be sounding at the very time when God is saying to His people, ‘Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee.’”—Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 41, 42.

“Believe it not,” said Jesus, foretelling specifically what men in the last days would teach regarding His coming. “The claim will be false,” declares the Spirit of Jesus through His servant, in foretelling “messages of accusation” against God’s people, in an attempt to revive the teaching that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is Babylon.SDACBB 3.5

In harmony with this prediction, “Such messages will come,” we do find today people claiming that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is Babylon. Moreover, these people attempt to prove their position by quoting freely from messages of reproof and counsel, the misuse of which in the early nineties called forth the articles from which the foregoing quotations are made. The doctrine that the Seventh-day Adventist Church has now become Babylon, is being taught and published at the present time, and is being urged upon our church members.SDACBB 3.6

By a leader in one of these “reform” movements the charge is seriously made that “the Seventh-day Adventist Church of the present time is beyond hope of purification, either through the means of the shaking or otherwise.”SDACBB 4.1

The very year when God is said to have finally rejected the church is specified and repeatedly referred to in the writings and teachings of these self-styled reformers. Writing in August, 1929, the author of the foregoing statement continues:SDACBB 4.2

“Twenty-six years ago, after having been persistently disobeyed, shamefully misrepresented, and most sorely grieved—and that for more than half a century—God was compelled to withdraw His divine presence and glory from His once-favored ‘House.’ The Seventh-day Adventist Church was then cast off of God—divinely condemned. And as the Lord’s servant has declared, ‘He does not cast worthless stones into His furnace. It is valuable ore that He refines’ (The Ministry of Healing, 471).

“To late, now, far too late! ‘The divine presence and glory have departed.’ Laodicea followed on year after year, determinedly and persistently, in the ‘same path as did ancient Israel;’ and today there rings out against her—and, too, against the possibility of there having been in the past or of there being in the future a return of ‘the divine presence and glory’ to her midst—these selfsame words which the longsuffering though despised and rejected Christ pronounced upon Jerusalem of old, ‘Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.’”