AFTER
THE NEW ESSENES,
THE
PENTECOSTALS!
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"While
I was praying at the family altar, the Holy Ghost fell upon me, and I
seemed to be rising higher and higher, far above the dark world.”
The Essenes were a separatist group in 1st century
Judaism that sold their “worldly goods” and lived holy lives in
monasteries, such as the now well-known monastery at Qumran, by the Dead
Sea.
As Ellen Harmon goes on to describe what she saw, she describes a
"path" identical to how the Essenes decribed their "WAY"
(their doctrines, their teachings, their customs) -- Ellen saw her
Adventist associates on this path or "WAY" on their way
to a city at the end of this path, which Ellen thought was the New
Jerusalem in Heaven, but that I am suggesting is Qumran pictured
above, the "New Jerusalem of the Essenes. After and indeterminate period of time in
Ellen's first vision, some of her associates "stumbled",
and fell off the path, but of those that remained, Ellen starts using
Pentecostal expressions and descriptions instead of the Essene expressions
she started out with.
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Now, in the 21st century, some Seventh-day Adventists are
questioning the relevance of their early prophetess Ellen G.
White. Her
books sit on thousands, perhaps millions of book-shelves all
over the world gathering dust.
Only those parts of
those books promoting Evangelical Christianity are being
excerpted and sold paperback with brilliantly colored new
covers. Jesus
has failed to return in the manner and at the time she
expected him to do so.
And yet she talked to him and to her other angel
repeatedly. The
one she called “my young man”.
Or “the angel”.
Now Doctor Holt is discovering that once we notice the
Essene language of Sister White’s earliest visions, the
mist of misunderstanding clears, and we can see her
prophecies clearly.
And the Essene theology she was called upon to
present to the modern world.
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EARLY WRITINGS page 15
"
If they kept their eyes fixed on Jesus, who was just before them,
leading them to the city (to Qumran with its Essene doctrines,
teachings, and customs) they were safe. But soon some grew
weary, and said the city was a great way off, and they expected to
have entered it before.
Then Jesus would encourage them by raising His glorious right arm
(raising one's arm or arms during a religious meeting is a Pentecostal
custom, not an Adventist custom), and from His arm came a light which
waved over the Advent band, and they shouted, 'Alleluja!'
This one coded sentence in Ellen's description of her
first vision in December 1844 forecast both the 'Health Reform'
message among Adventists -- and the Pentecostal Revival in
America! The latter an event that did not
occur until more than 50 years after Ellen had this vision!
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The
REVIVAL that started in an old mission building on AZUZA
street in San Francisco has now been listed among the top
100 events of the 20th century on a web site quoting LIFE
magazine. It
led to the formation of Pentecostal churches world-wide!
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of
the WELSH REVIVAL that preceded the now famous AZUZA
STREET revival.
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Another web site, this one
British, reminds us that before there was anything like this
happening in California, there was already such a REVIVAL in
Wales. The
bearded newspaper reporter seen here on the left reported it,
and it soon had world-wide attention. Whole congregations were
weeping, falling down in trances, and speaking in “other
tongues”.
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The people
these things were happening to were in Churches, not in bars
or pubs. They
were praying to Jesus, not the “Devil”.
And they were certainly not engaging in any “Satanic
Rituals”. And
they were quoting heavily scriptural texts referring to
similar events connected with the 12 apostles’ ministry
right after Christ’s death and resurrection.
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After
her one sentence description of the early 1900s Pentecostal Revival
(destined to continue for the entire 20th century) Ellen Harmon
returned immediately to her listeners, destined to be "Latter Day
Essenes"
“Others rashly denied the [
ESSENE] LIGHT
behind them and said it was not [
JESUS as God, part of
the ‘Trinity’] that had led them out [ away
from Orthodox theology] so far.
The [ ESSENE] LIGHT
behind them went out , [ no more ‘Spirit of
Prophecy’ ] leaving their feet in perfect DARKNESS, and they STUMBLED
[ into standard Christian belief in ‘Cheap Grace’]
and lost sight of the MARK [of the Beast, Catholic Theology,
that was now Adventist Theology ] and
of the [ human Essene ] Jesus,
and fell off the path down into the dark and wicked [ nominal Christian]
world below.”
A
short, but amazingly accurate picture of what happened in Adventist
theology between 1888 and the 1950s, at which time Adventists had
become orthodox Trinitarians to avoid the stigma of being called a
"cult".
KEY CONCEPT: NONE
OF THE ESSENES, EVEN THE GNOSTIC ESSENES WERE EVER "TRINITARIANS"
IN THE SENSE DECIDED ON BY THE CHRISTIAN BISHOPS AT NICAEA -- ONE CAN
ONLY SURMISE THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS DISAPPOINTED THAT THOSE PEOPLE HE
TAUGHT THROUGH ELLEN'S VISIONS THAT HE WAS A (TOTALLY HUMAN) HIGH
PRIEST -- BACK-SLID AFTER A MERE 44 YEARS! AND BY 100 YEARS LATER WERE
WHAT ELLEN CALLED NOMINAL CHRISTIANS (OR EVEN MORE COLORFUL -- "DAUGHTERS
OF THE WHORE OF BABYLON!")
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“TESTIMONIES
for the CHURCH volume 1.
Given after a vision recieved in 1856, only 12
years after her first vision.
Ellen White’s counsel after this
vision begins at the top of page 131. The title of the whole section
or “testimony” is “CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD”.
“I was shown the conformity of
some professed Sabbath-keepers to the world.”
Ellen saw it as happening right
then in 1856, but it is a common thing in visions and dreams to see
things in the present that will happen in the future.
Indeed this may be the norm, not the unusual!
"Oh, I saw that it is a disgrace
to their profession, a disgrace to the [ ESSENE] cause
of God. They give the lie
to their profession. They
think they are NOT LIKE THE WORLD [ I.e. holy like the Essenes
] but they are so near like them in dress, in conversation, and
actions, that there is no distinction.”
Indeed, after the 1950s there was no real difference
between Adventist theology and other Evangelical Christian theology.
I shall not bore my audience
with the 6 1/2 pages describing in great detail what Adventists
WOULD BE DOING after the 1950s, but it suffices to say it’s all
there!
The increase in bodily
adornment, [jewelry, etc.]. The
desire for wealth and prestige.
The tendency to fill one’s time with entertaining worldly
amusements [movies and television].
The assumption that the name
of “Seventh-day Adventist” means salvation, while those
bearing that name live no differently than anyone else in the
Evangelical Churches [called “the World” in this vision].
Lightness, joking, and trifling would be the norm for
Adventists as well as other professed Christians.
And real Bible study will
become a rarety.
However, we shall not be
able to see the forest for the trees if we just look at the
details here.
It was the ministers and
General Conference officials who wished to destroy the
differences between Adventism and the other Evangelical
churches. They
saw this difference as a cause of shame.
In her 1856 vision Ellen
White is taking her angel’s view that it is this very
DIFFERENCE that God is using to identify His OWN from the
mediocre crowd.
And so the Church
officials worked with Martin and Barnhouse to use those Bible
texts that seemed to indicate “Justification by Faith” is
all that is necessary for Christians to be “saved”, a
doctrine that is entirely
contrary to everything written on pages 131 to 137 of “TESTIMONIES
for the CHURCH volume 1.
NEXT!
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