<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Justin Torossian

EGW vs WWW

This afternoon's message is entitled Ellen White versus the Internet EGW versus www and before we begin I invite you to bow your heads with me for a word of prayer.

Our Father in heaven Lord we thank you for your holy word.

We thank you that you tell us in your word to sanctify the Lord our God in our hearts and to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks the reason of the hope that is within us with meekness and with fear.

And Lord, this afternoon as we study how to answer the challenges, the accusations, the things that have been posed against your messenger and your messages, we pray that you would speak to our hearts and minds.

Most of all, Lord, we pray that you would inspire us to leave from this place and go study these things out for ourselves, that we may have an answer for our friends, loved ones, and even strangers who have a question about the hope that is within us.

Thank you for the message that you have given us.

We pray that you will speak again this afternoon, for we ask it in the precious name of Jesus.

Imagine with me that you are speaking in an evangelistic series, and as you are toward the end of your meetings, there is a family who has come faithfully every night to your evangelistic series, and as they have been coming night after night, you've seen them accept Bible truth.

They've accepted the truth about Christ as the only way of salvation.

They've accepted the truth about the state of the dead and what takes place after we die and that death is just sleep.

They've accepted the truth that Jesus is literally, physically, audibly coming again in the clouds of heaven 1 day soon.

And this family who has accepted all of these truths 1 after another, makes their way down to the front of the church after your message 1 evening And they tell you, you know, Pastor, we have been so blessed by these meetings and we've learned so many new and exciting Bible truths.

But you know, we went on the internet last night and we discovered that There are a lot of websites out there that are attacking the Adventist church.

And we just want to know what is your answer to some of these things?

Let me ask you, what would you answer them?

Honestly, I believe the best answer to give them is, well, praise the Lord.

The reason for that is because you can honestly tell an individual that 1 of the characteristics of God's last day church is that the devil will be furious with them.

Turn in your Bibles with me to Revelation chapter 12.

A very familiar chapter to us as Seventh-day Adventists.

And no doubt many of us have this verse memorized.

Now here we find 2 characteristics of God's remnant church.

And really there are 3 characteristics here, but we often overlook the first 1 and emphasize the second 2.

Here the Bible says, And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, number 1, and have the, what?

Now, oftentimes we emphasize those 2 and overlook the fact that in the beginning of the verse, the Bible tells us that the dragon was wroth with the woman, which represents God's church.

In fact, the Greek word here actually carries the connotations of breathing heavy, as if in a murderous rage.

The devil is furious with God's people, and this is a characteristic of God's last day church.

It is no wonder that they are spoken ill of.

1 of the conditions of God's last day church, 1 of the reasons, rather 1 of the reasons why the devil is furious with God's people in the last days is because of that second characteristic and really it's both.

The Bible says that these people will keep all of the commandments of God.

And Secondly, they have something that is called here the testimony of Jesus.

Turn with me now to Revelation 19 verse 10 to discover what the testimony of Jesus is.

Here in Revelation 19 verse 10, John is in vision and he is so moved by what he has seen in vision that he falls down to worship at the feet of the angel and this is what the Bible says, the angel replied, see that thou do it not, I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus.

Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

So here we see that the testimony of Jesus by definition here is the spirit of prophecy.

Another 1 of the characteristics of God's people in the last days is that they will have the gift of prophecy among them.

This is a reason why the devil is furious with them.

And You know, we can point to the fact that the devil is throwing accusations at God's Last Day Church, that the Adventist church is under fire in many ways, being attacked by people, and we can praise God for it, because Christ said that it would happen to His true and faithful followers.

Turn with me to Matthew chapter 5 as we examine what Jesus said here in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew chapter 5, Matthew chapter 5 verses 11 and 12.

Here Jesus says, Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

It's no wonder that Ellen White is the point of attack of so many individuals who are critical of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Jeremiah, his messages were rejected not just by anybody, but by God's own people to the point that he was called the weeping prophet.

It's no wonder that God's messenger, Ellen White, in these last days is being blasted so to speak, is being evil spoken of.

He said this isn't cause for crying and weeping.

He said rejoice and be exceeding glad For great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you You know, I'm happy to be able to tell you today that the accusations that you may hear or the questions that you may hear raised that instill doubt in people's minds about Ellen White's ministry and her writings and even her personal life, all of these accusations are old news.

All of these accusations have been answered already in the past.

You know, there is not a single accusation that has been made against Ellen White, or that is made against Ellen White that isn't old.

You see now all of the accusations are more prevalent than ever because of the internet but they're old and just repackaged and basically rehashed over and over again.

I mentioned that the fact that God's prophet is spoken ill of in these last days is a good thing because it shows that according to the Bible, the devil will be furious with God's people.

So it illustrates that we are indeed in the right place, that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is God's remnant church.

But they're a bad thing, of course, because many people don't study things out.

The doubt slips into their minds and rather than seeking the answers to the questions, they just let the questions sit in their minds which lead to doubt.

Let me just ask how many people here have stumbled across some kind of anti Ellen White website before or know of a friend who who has stumbled across an anti Ellen White website all right, that was a vast majority of those here as I mentioned all of the accusations that are out there and we're going to examine some of the greater ones today.

All of the accusations that are out there are simply the same old arguments and accusations in different packaging.

Canwright was basically the grandfather of Ellen White accusations.

And DM Canwright, a very interesting book, I highly suggest you buy it and read it, is called I Was Canwright's Secretary.

It's available, I believe, from Teach Services.

But it's a powerful book, and DM Kenwright, at the end of his life, actually recanted, and he recognized that he had been in the wrong, and that he was running away from God's appeals to him.

Kenwright, although 1 of the brothers from the Seventh-day Adventist Church said, well, why don't you return?

Why don't you come back and acknowledge your wrong?

But DM can write the grandfather, so to speak of all of the Ellen White accusations was the 1 who initially started many of the attacks on Ellen White and the gift of prophecy.

And it puts a kernel of doubt in their minds.

And questions are a good thing, so long as we seek the answers to the questions.

But questions can actually, if we don't seek the answers, can actually instill doubt in our minds if we just allow it to settle in our mind without seeking the answer.

And many Seventh-day Adventist people's faith has been rattled because of these accusations that are out there.

Some people leave the church not knowing how to answer.

Others remain in the church, but they lose faith in the authenticity of the writings and messages of Ellen White.

You know, naturally as people, we don't want to be different.

We all, the natural human tendency is to want to fit in.

We as people don't want to be different than everybody else by human nature.

Because when we are not firmly rooted in our understanding of the spirit of prophecy, the gift of prophecy, being active in the last days and how that is completely biblical, when an individual comes up to us and they say, oh, you're a Seventh-day Adventist, so your church has a prophet, right?

If we're not solid biblically in what we believe, like the things that we covered last night, we may say, oh, well, yeah, yeah, we do.

Or, well, She said that she's not a prophet, she's a messenger.

And by the way, when Ellen White said that, she was saying that her ministry was broader than that of simply a prophet.

But the devil wants to make us doubt and really be afraid of sharing our faith.