Will There Be Another Prophet?
There's a man in India who claims to be the successor of Ellen White! He says he has messages for us from God!
There is a woman in France who says she is a prophet and speaks on behalf of God. They say whoever rejects her messages will burn in hellfire.
Two young girls in Brazil say they saw a vision behind their house.
A West Coast pastors wife was sick in bed, and received a message from Gabriel. She says he told her all we need is compassion, and the church will return to its original purity.
A woman in Texas is awakened each morning by Gabriel, who dictates encouraging things to her, which she writes out.
A man in the Shepherds Rod, living in Hawaii, says the Holy Spirit is a woman and sits beside him on the beach to talk to him.
A person overseas says she saw an angel, who told her Jesus was coming in a few months.
These area all instances which have occurred within the past several years.
Will there be another prophet—that is, a genuine prophet?
If a real prophet were to arise, it would be urgent that the people of God be able to definitely know that fact.
Obviously, at the same time it is important that we be able to identify false prophets.
Here are some facts you should consider:
1 - What does it matter if we accept someone as a true prophet for a time?
When we accept a prophet, we accept everything he says. This makes the whole matter very serious. Regardless of what I tell you, you are going to judge it critically—as you should. I am a frail mortal, just as you are. We all make mistakes.
But when someone is wholeheartedly accepted as a prophet—every word that person utters is accepted as total truth by his followers! So it is dangerous situation to accept a person as a genuine prophet! If you accept the wrong one as a true prophet, he can lead you to perdition.
Over 200 new prophets arise every year in our denomination. Most of them you and I never hear about. Interestingly enough, nearly all of them are women. The prophets generally claim to have seen and listened to an angel, Gabriel, or Christ Himself.
Sometimes the individual claims to have seen an angel standing nearby. At other times he reports one or more dreams, or says he has been taken to heaven in vision.
Because this is such a serious matter, God has only sent a few prophets to mankind throughout all history.
He has given us definite signs by which we can identify a true prophet.
There are a number of tests by which we can identify a true prophet. But, first, I want to tell you about a special one which most people overlook.
When I was writing the book, Prophet of the End (a book to favorably introduce Ellen White to the public—and to our own people), I came upon an interesting fact:
When Ellen White was first called to the prophetic ministry, the Lord provided a number of ongoing occurrences, which unmistakably revealed that God was using her.
But a number of years later, when she had produced enough written material to verify her prophetic status, the special evidences were no longer given very much.
Why were they not given later on?
After Ellen White had written a many, many testimonies and books—those printed materials testified to her genuineness, and the people had to accept her on the basis of what she had written.
But, for the first five years or so, special confirmations were given.
What were these special evidences?
Here are some of them:
She had visions in auditoriums and other gatherings, when many were present.
During these visions, she would not breathe throughout the time she was in vision, which could easily be thirty minutes or an hour.
Sometimes she would be laying down, and sometimes standing and walking around—all the while without breathing.
While in vision, no one could move her arms. Yet she was otherwise a frail woman.
Mirrors were held up to her nose and no indication of breathing was to be found.
There were those who held their hand over her closed mouth, and pinched her nose shut with their fingers. On one occasion (June 28, 1857), D.T. Bordeaux did this for 10 minutes. That settled the matter for him.
How would this information help us today in identifying a true prophet?
It is an intriguing fact that all the modern prophets either (1) have all their visions and dreams when no one else is around, or (2) there is only a small clique of two or three others (often also claiming to be prophets) who supposedly see that person in vision.
Because it is so crucial that we know when a true prophet is sent, we can know that the God of heaven will provide us with unmistakable evidences, as He did when He sent Ellen White with messages to us.
For the first several years, that prophet will travel from place to place, go into vision before entire auditoriums full of people, and will exhibit the same evidences: no breathing, arms that cannot be moved, etc. Tests by neutral observers will be permitted, and it will be clearly seen the person is really in vision.
On several occasions she held heavy Bibles. Twice she held a heavy Bible straight out at arms length for a lengthy period of time. On one such occurrence (early 1845), the Bible weighed 18-1/2 pounds and was held outstretched for thirty minutes. She only weighed 80 pounds at the time.
On one occasion August 1848), she held a Bible above her sight, and turned the pages, and, pointing to the passages, quoted them. A ladder was brought, and it was found that she always turned to the right text and quoted it—without being able to see what she was doing.
Such evidences as these would be given.
There are several. Here are several, from chapter four of my book, Prophet of the End:
In vision, a true prophet has no breath (Daniel 10:17), can speak (Daniel 10:16), keeps his eyes open (Numbers 24:16), and is unconscious of his surroundings (2 Corinthians 12:2, 4).
A true prophet will speak in harmony with the Bible (Isaiah 8:20; Deuteronomy 13:1-3), will exalt Christ and not self (2 Corinthians 10:5; Jeremiah 1:4-9).
A true prophet will reprove men of sin (Ezekiel 3:17-19), live a life above reproach (Matthew 7:15-20), utter predictions which come to pass (Deuteronomy 18:21-22; Jeremiah 28:9), will have visions and dreams (Numbers 12:6), and will be known by his fruits in the lives of others (Matthew 7:15-20).
There is no doubt that we live down at the close of time, and we need help guidance from the Lord. But we have the Spirit of Prophecy. A vast wealth of information is in those books, many of which few of us ever read.
The truth is that we do not need any more prophetic guidance. We already have so much light which we do not use.
The truth is that we are not entitled to any more guidance. God has said that only those who use what they have, will receive more. When His people do not obey His law, they will not have the guidance of His prophet (Lamentations 2:9; Ezekiel 7:26; 20:3, 12, 13-16; Jeremiah 26:4-6; Proverbs 29:18; Revelation 12:17). Our people in these last days are very, very disobedient to Gods Word.
We are not told that there will be another genuine prophet after Ellen White, and we are not told there will not. The possibility is not ruled out, but we are given little or no encouragement that it will happen. Indeed, when the brethren would excitedly tell Ellen White about the latest prophet which had arisen, she would reply, to the effect that they should realize it could not be a genuine prophet.
Ellen White specifically said that messages given, similar to hers, should not be accepted as a reason for accepting the person as a prophet. (More on this later in this tract study.)
Yes, if accepted.
The very last deception of Stan will be to make of none effect the testimony of the Spirit of God.1 Selected Messages, 48.
What better way to do this—than by sending a false prophet to subtly counterwork her messages.
Subtly?
Because they have the Spirit of Prophecy books in their hands, Adventist are knowledgeable. When a false prophet arises, Satan initially sends very smooth messages through him—messages which appear to be satisfactory, and not contrary to the Spirit of Prophecy.
One such prophet gave messages for a couple years, before beginning to oppose the Bible Sabbath. More on this later.
Just because a person, claiming to be a prophet, arises with a seemingly good message—is no reason to accept that person as a true prophet.
That is exactly the biggest weakness of our people in this regard: They, all too frequently, hang on the words alone—and do not consider the other tests of a prophet!
The present writer consistently found that the false prophets really had little of significance to say. They are messengers running without having been given a message from God to carry.
So, instead, they present oddities. We will examine some of these empty teachings later in this study.
Victor Houtiff taught his followers that they would be the destroying angels of Ezekiel, and slay the Adventists. This fact has been disputed, but the present writer has spoken with a number of individuals who confirm it as true. He also predicted that he would not die before Christ returned in the clouds of heaven.
After his death, Houtiffs wife and associates predicted that Christ would return in the late 1950s. When that did not happen, the movement tended to break up.
The Hamburg Five arose in the mid-1960s. This was five individuals (some men and some women), living in Hamburg, Germany, who claimed to receive visions from God for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. They said they received them when the five were together, and no one else was present.
One of the visions of new light, given them at the time, was of a golden triangle. This was supposed to have great meaning. Obviously, it means nothing at all.
A close friend of ours, who speaks fluent German, traveled at her own expense to Germany a couple years later, and discovered they were smoking.
Benjamin Rodin, a successor to Houtiff in the Davidian movement made a number of wild predictions which did not come true.
After his death, his wife, Lois, said that God had told her the Holy Spirit was a woman. Such a theory runs counter to everything in revealed Scripture. But, Rod followers glibly accepted it, because they regarded her as a prophet.
Two women, in the mid-1980s, claimed that the Holy Spirit came to them daily and gave them messages which they wrote down, word for word. (See our earlier studies on the Spirit Dictations, now in the White Tractbook.)
But never, never does the Holy Spirit dictate every word to the prophet. The prophet is given the views and concepts, and then writes them in his own words. The angel may be quoted, but not everything written is a quotation.
One of these two women later wrote a friend of ours and, on behalf of God, reproved him for his sins. I know the man well, and he has an enthusiastic missionary style. She told him that he should stop urging people to keep the Bible Sabbath, for that was not the message for this time.
Another woman who received spirit dictations, obtained them every morning about 5 a.m. She would write for about an hour. In view of the immense problems and transgressions in our world today, this spirit, like the others, had remarkably little to say. The present writer read through a sheaf of about 50 pages of them. One day, the spirit told her that, beginning the next day, vital new messages of crucial importance would be given her.
Next day, the spirit told her that he was going to give her counsel on the colors of the rainbow. Each day thereafter, for about ten days, he spoke about the meaning of a different color. The instruction was as vapid and useless as all the other messages. On the day that blue was discussed, not one word was said about the law of God (cf. Numbers 15).
These spirits have little to say about putting away of sin, but much to say about extraneous fluff which is of no consequence.
A young man accepted the Davidian message in Riverside (which included the Lois Roden theory about a woman Holy Spirit), and then moved to Hawaii. While there he had dreams that a woman, calling herself the Holy Spirit would come to him with new light. But the new light did not amount to anything. The present writer read transcripts of the messages.
The woman would sarcastically nag him for a time, and then, after saying a little more of no particular consequence, would disappear.
Then there is Jeanine Sautron. She lives in France and, as with the other prophets, receives all her visions and dreams secretly, so they cannot be verified—as Ellen Whites were.
When Michael Dukakis was running for president in 1988, she predicted that a man by the name of Dukakis would become president of the United States, and it would be he who would enact the National Sunday Law. That prediction is on record in her published writings. (A man in Oregon prints them all in English.)
Her followers claim that the prediction is true, and that someday someone by that name will become president. They refuse to consider the possibility that Sautron might be a false prophet.
As with many prophets in our time, Jeanine Sautron frequently utters another time prophecy. According to her, probation has already closed, and the sealing is past. A date just after the turn of the century has been announced as the year when Christ will return.