Introduction
I accidentally stumbled across some failed prophecies of Ellen G White (EGW) in August of 2023 while helping answer some questions some youth had posed to their local church. That started a long journey for me, because I remembered that one of the reasons I had stopped believing in her the first time was because of some very unscientific writings that I was encouraged to read in my youth.
Now after a year of studying this subject, I’m ready to open up about my findings, and not in a way that just repeats what some others have said.
This shouldn’t be confused with me being against the teachings of the church. I am with the SDA church on 26 of her 28 fundamental beliefs, but I am concerned with what is being done with the efforts to establish EGW as an infallible source of truth.
And if you say in your heart, ‘How will we recognize the word which the LORD has not spoken?’ When the prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, and the thing does not happen or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you are not to be afraid of him.
The Slawson Scam
I want to give a bit of a back story to some of these sections, because they certainly have shaped the person that I would become, and the way that I’ve learned to think.
There was a man named Dr Slawson who was a well known secret within some circles of our Adventist community growing up. This man claimed he had learned how to cure cancer, and he had apparently been put in prison by the powers that be because they would loose money if his findings were made public.
He was still secretly in the business of curing cancer, and also identifying who had cancer by testing swabs of their saliva. My mother and step father travelled out to the desert to see him in eastern Washington one weekend.
He was very old and lived with his wife in a run down single wide trailer in a very rural piece of property. During our visit he convinced my mother of his gift for science, and told her the story of being thrown in prison for trying to help people the same way he intended to help us.
Before my mother left, she gave some of her saliva for testing. Two weeks later we found out from Dr Slawson that my mother had cancer! Others were tested and they were told they had the signs of high risk for cancer since the cells were present in their saliva. Dr Slawson started selling our family very expensive bottles of primarily grapeseed tincture, and not just for us but also for my grandparents too.
Dr Slawson had a lot of machines he wanted to sell people. These were very expensive, so we did not buy one for several years, but eventually my grandfather pitched in so that the family could have one that Dr Slawson claimed would protect us from getting cancer from things like eggs if we were to place our food on top.
That device was a mainstay in my grandparents house where I grew up. Weekly it was on the counter “zapping” our eggs and making them safe to eat, or at least making us feel that we were able to eat in peace.
When I was about as tall as the countertops, this seemed like a really cool device, though later on I began to realize one needed to be nascent to scientific laws to believe it was doing anything at all.
It was a tan box with dials, and had a power supply that brought in low voltage direct current electricity to it. There were dials that could be set, that came with a list of numbers that each could be set to. Numbers that been written down on paper for us with a pen.
There was a black and a red wire coming out of it, and these were clipped onto either side of a flexible copper sheet, and the food was placed on top of it. Here is where I began to realize there was something wrong. How exactly did the electricity pass through the food, especially if it was sitting on top similar to a bird on a powerline?
One day when nobody was home, I opened the device to prove that there was no special invention inside. I thought perhapse maybe Dr Slawson would have at least put something inside to make it look like work had been done, but all there was were these dials with resistors wired in parallel, and then coming out to the wires with clips.
The amount of electricity that reached those wires had to be negligible, with the seven or eight series of resistors before it, and this was obvious since never was a spark cast when touching them together. This was besides the point though, since electricity doesn’t flow through things sitting on top of the pad if they aren’t grounded.
My mother was outraged about what I had done, because Dr Slawson had made the family promise they would never look inside the device. He wanted to keep his technology a secret, and because he was a man of God, they wanted to listen.
The whole thing was a sham, it was a way for a rather poor man to make a living. A man who had obviously been put in prison for scamming people in the past, and not a person who was truly helping people.
What made this even more obvious is that when Dr Slawson died, another man showed up within a year or two who also had different devices. But his tinctures and devices were so outlandishly expensive that it made little sense to keep listening to the rhetoric. Even those who believed started to think this man must be scamming them.
My point is, blind faith is not always good enough, and sometimes we need to look inside the box to be sure we’re getting what we were told. When it comes to Ellen G White, I always believed, until I saw there there was a sign that maybe something was wrong.
In part 1, 2, and 3, I will explain the three biggest reasons that what I found needs to be explained publicly.
Something to Be Concerned About
Summary
If you say that the Lord said, or that he sent you his angel to tell you something [which is still the Lord said by extension], then it must come true, otherwise you have been under the influence of or have taken part in being a lying spirit.
We are liberated from fearing such a prophet, and unfortunately in this scenario, EGW was so specific, that what she said can’t be undone. While I do believe she said most things in accordance to the bible, her words can no longer be considered infallible, since here we can establish that she has spoken presumptuously.
And if you say in your heart, ‘How will we recognize the word which the LORD has not spoken?’ When the prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, and the thing does not happen or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you are not to be afraid of him.
Setting Time Limits on Christs Return
The first time I spoke to an SDA pastor about EGW having a specific prophecy that didn’t come true, he said something like, “as long as EGW doesn’t say, ‘the Lord said’ , then I suppose it’s okay [if she gets it wrong]”.
Regarding this idea that we can just assume it’s okay to fail a little bit in prophecy: where do we draw the line between when she says the “Lord said”, and not? Is it when EGW says “I was shown” as if she received something from the Holy Spirit, or is it when she receives a vision from an angel from God who brings the message personally? Is this in the name of the Lord?
This first example of a getting a prophecy wrong will be regarding a direct message from an angel in vision that EGW believed was an angel from God, though the implications were evident from the beginning that she should have not just received it without question. This didn’t just happen once, so i will speak of it in context of the group of events.
Ellen White told several groups of people that she had a vision of those people specifically still being alive when Jesus came back, and she did this over tens of years in time.
The most striking account was at an Adventist conference in 1886. Here it is in her own words, and there is no way in her language to try to say that the interpretation of words is incorrect, because she was so specific.
I have studied this with some who try to defend it, and we’ve read the entire chapter together to be sure. This isn’t taking it out of context. If anything I think there are other signs in this particular chapter that show she did not have the right spirit with her, but it’s outside of the scope of this document.
The following quote was taken directly from the book Testimonies from the Church Volume 1, page 131:
“I was shown the company present at the Conference. Said the angel: “Some food for worms, [Sister Clarissa M. Bonfoey, who fell asleep in Jesus only three days after this vision was given, was present in usual health, and was deeply impressed that she was one who would go into the grave, and stated her convictions to others.] some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus.”
1T 131.3
Let’s break this down, because I have had a lot of people try to discredit it without even thinking it through.
Context here is the people present at the conference, not some other group. She says that some will die, some will die in the seven last plagues (referencing those who were alive that day), and most importantly that some would remain alive upon the earth until the return of Christ.
I’ve spoken with people who say say it meant that Christ would raise these people from the grave before he returns so that the prophecy can be fulfilled, but I reject that, because she said they would remain-upon-the-earth until the return of Christ. Secondly, the EGW Estate nor the church has taken that stance because they can’t defend it.
There is a major red flag here, because she never took her words back. The Ellen White Estate [and by extension the SDA church] argues that this is merely a conditional prophecy, but this position is unfaithful for several reasons.
- It was not brought to her attention at a later date that the promise had been reversed. She took these statements to the grave, and never recanted them, unlike biblical prophets like Moses and Jonah who were shown the conditions had changed due to certain matters.
- We were warned by the mouth of Jesus that no man, nor angel, nor the Son of God knows the time of Jesus’ return.
- Matthew 24:36 says, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
- Jesus re-confirms this in Acts 1:7, and even tells us that the Father has set the time of Jesus’ return, it is not a day that will change, for the word he uses in Greek (ἔθετο) means that the day was put in place, fixed like a nail. It is a day predestined. If it has been destined for a specific day since the time of Jesus, then anyone who says something else is not in accordance with the Bible.
- Acts 1:6-7 says, “So when they came together, they asked Him, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed (ἔθετο) by His own authority.
- Acts 1:6-7 says, “So when they came together, they asked Him, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
- This defence of saying that this was merely a conditional prophecy and clearly acceptable also sets a new precedent for the bible. It’s literally antibiblical.
- If God not coming back was due to the unfaithfulness of a few people as they claim, then we must rejoice and praise God for the sins of those people because only through their unfaithfulness did we receive a chance to also be born and go to heaven. Right? Because then God was willing to end it early. To believe this is to say that God had no plan on allowing those who are alive today an opportunity to enter heaven.
- But this contradicts Psalm 139:13-16, which says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be..”
- And John 10:27-29 witnesses to this, saying, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”
- This conclusion is entirely unbiblical, because Jesus said the reason for his return is that no good man should be left alive upon the earth unless he returns at that time. So how can Ellen White remain faithful in her statements? How can the church argue against the logic of Jesus? Has God lengthened the days that he said must be cut short? Did he prevent the wicked from becoming wicked?
- Matthew 24:22 says, “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.”
- Shall we then conclude that God changed his mind and decided to save many more generations purely based on the unfaithfulness of the Adventist church in the 1800s?
- If God not coming back was due to the unfaithfulness of a few people as they claim, then we must rejoice and praise God for the sins of those people because only through their unfaithfulness did we receive a chance to also be born and go to heaven. Right? Because then God was willing to end it early. To believe this is to say that God had no plan on allowing those who are alive today an opportunity to enter heaven.
This is not the only time that Ellen White failed in regards to prophecies of those living right then being part of the hundred and forty four thousand, as she believed it.
She wrote in the Review and Harold in 1888:
“The hour will come; it is not far distant, and some of us who now believe will be alive upon the earth, and shall see the prediction verified, and hear the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God echo from mountain and plain and sea, to the uttermost parts of the earth
In the Ellen White Biography (this is an official book provided by the Ellen White Estate), a call porter named Haskell who went on to become a Baptist preacher, listed out his reasons for leaving her team while she was in Australia, many reasons of which are also relevant to other discussions. In regards to this subject today, reason number 9 on Haskell’s list is quite relevant since it shows that she had a habit of still telling visions of those present being part of the 144,000 (Revelation 14:1-5).
Quoting reason number 9:
“9. That in some meeting where a number of the brethren were, myself [Haskell] included, you saw that we all would live till the Lord would come and that we would all be saved, but many are dying, to our confusion.
Conclusion
Ellen White’s claim to being an instrument of God comes with special instructions from God that can not be ignored.
Deuteronomy 18:21-22 says, “21You may ask in your heart, “How can we recognize a message that the LORD has not spoken?” 22When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD and the message does not come to pass or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.”
Ellen White has written many profitable things, and if we live by them in accordance with the bible, they will benefit us. Yet somehow this is being used to make EGW sound as though she is infallible. There is some idea in the the church that somehow one can not do the work of God but still be unfaithful. Ellen White said this her self many times, that she either can do the work of Satan or God but not both.
To that matter, we should all be able to agree that she can not do both at the same time, but she can do one after the other if she is not careful, for even Saul prophesied while being filled with the Holy Spirit (1 Samuel 19:23-24).
In regards to the church and it’s stance that this was a conditional prophecy. To claim that a failed prophecy can be held under a conditional context, then it still must remain within pre-established biblical teachings.
I have read many commentaries by Adventist scholars on this particular failed prophecy of EGW, but the argument is weak. They claim verses such as in 2 Peter 3:12, which says, “as you anticipate and hasten the coming of the day of God, when the heavens will be destroyed by fire and the elements will melt in the heat.”.
Can we except that this means some people were never written in Gods book before they were born, the way Psalms say? Can we assume Jesus never said the day was fixed? Peters statement must still be held in context of the words of Jesus first, and not EGW first. The time is fixed, and all we can do is do our part along the way.
God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
I fear that the church may be in danger of loosing her foothold based on trying establish EGW as an infallible prophet. If the churches prophet is pitched as a sign that God has chosen this church above all else, then she must achieve being a prophet that must be feared. Anything less is based in pride.
“Whenever you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him,
The bible tells us that God winks at our ignorance (Acts 17:30-31), and I am sure he can wink at blind faith in Seventh day Adventism the same way that he does in the other churches. But please, don’t let this self glorying that has taken hold be part of your own heart, because it will not be profitable.
Hope for the best, try to learn from the best, but always test the spirits (1 John 4:1).
No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
Jesus had already said, “Be on the alert then, because you do not know the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:13), so there was really no point in hearing from an angel that the time would happen within the lifetime of EGW. It defied the purpose of what Christ was telling us, that every generation should be prepared.
When Israel couldn’t enter Canaan, God told Moses about it. When Nineveh wasn’t destroyed, God told Jonah why. So why did EGW take this particular prophecy to the grave without a follow up? For a prophet to be a prophet, there has to be follow up.
When the prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, and the thing does not happen or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you are not to be afraid of him.
Alas, here in this document lies one of the first discoveries when I first believed that EGW deserves to be measured properly against Gods word. I’m going to continue writing about what I’ve found, and when I’m done with the process, I’ll still believe there is goodness in the Seventh day Adventist church. I hope you will too.
The problem I’m trying to solve is that it is unbiblical to judge others based on your own performance, your own gifts, your own role in Gods work. That, and maybe a lot of human intuition that is being sold as divine inspiration.
God’s village, his “pueblo”, it’s a people without distinct borders, but they do obey his word. Wouldn’t you agree?
