by Brent King
CHAPTER FIVE
"Christ took upon Himself not the flesh of a sinless being,” Alonzo said, “but of sinful man. The flesh that He assumed had all the weaknesses to which fallen human nature is subject, even though He never sinned.”
Alonzo’s voice rose to clear and piercing heights as he raised his hand from the pulpit and continued.
“In Jesus Christ, as He was in sinful flesh, God has demonstrated before the universe that He can so take possession of sinful flesh as to manifest His own presence, His power, and His glory instead of sin manifesting itself."
“Do something!” I cried, as fear filled my heart. “This kind of preaching will be the death of us.”
“We have been doing something for years,” said Lucifer with a leer. “We have no more to worry about here than we did at Kadesh-Barnea. Stop listening to the message, and take a look at the response to it.”
Lucifer paused, and the resonant voice of Alonzo continued to ring in our ears.
"The flesh of Jesus Christ was our flesh, and in it was all the tendencies to sin that is in our flesh, drawing upon Him to get Him to consent to sin."
A few voices rose in agreement. One of them belonged to Ellen, the prophet.
"Amen,” she responded from the front row, “there is much light here."
Yet as my eyes focused beyond the prophet and the impassioned countenance of Alonzo to the expressions on the faces of the attentive Seventh Day Adventist leaders and delegates, I began to see Lucifer’s point. Sure signs of resistance marked their faces. Frowns clearly displayed resentment toward Alonzo and his companion. I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.
As the days went by, we fanned the flames of opposition as Alonzo and Ellet delivered their impassioned messages to the assembly.
"Christ is to be in us, just as God was in Him,” Ellet cried before the representatives, “and His character is to be in us, just as God was in Him. This cooperation of the divine and the human—the mystery of God in you and me—is the third angel's message. The only way we can be completely obedient to God’s law is by having the mind of Christ within us, the personally experienced presence of Christ that comes to us through the work of the Holy Spirit."
The older leaders of the church vigorously and sharply apposed the young men. The General Conference president even sent a message to the leaders from his sickbed at the Battle Creek Sanitarium.
“Stand by the old landmarks,” he said. “Resist the heresy of these young upstarts!”
In answer, Alonzo’s voice rang through the meeting place.
"Perfection,” he said, “perfection of character attained in human flesh in this world is the Christian goal. Christ attained it in human flesh in this world and thus made and consecrated a way by which, in Him, every believer can attain it."
Yet while God’s cries resounded in the meeting hall, church leaders mocked the message in their dwellings at night, mimicking Alonzo and Ellet’s mannerisms and laughing them to scorn. They celebrated with us and, let me tell you, we were celebrating! Lucifer’s voice rose above the men’s laughter.
"Alonzo said that before probation ends there will be a people so complete in God that, in spite of their sinful flesh, they will live sinless lives.”
He paused to chuckle hellishly, and it echoed throughout our dark assembly.
“Most of the leaders and delegates are so far from living sinless lives in mortal flesh that it doesn’t matter whether or not God has demonstrated that men can live sinless lives in sinful flesh through the power of Jesus living in them."
“Hear! Hear!” I added, “Let them preach! For many years we have surrounded them with dark, faithless thoughts and selfishness. We have crowded their lives with skepticism and doubt. Now they are full of quibbling and jealousy and ripe for rebellion and open opposition against God’s message.”
“Like Kadesh-Barnea,” Lucifer continued, “1888 will become a term synonymous with failure.”
His voice surged above the delighted shrieks of demons.
“It will reap a bitter harvest for God. Pride of opinion, stubbornness, warnings scorned, grace resisted, privileges abused, and conviction smothered will entrench a rebellion that will completely derail God’s purpose for his church and permanently delay the coming of God by sending his people to the wilderness indefinitely. They will all die there, sealing our victory. His church will never recover!”
Ellen stood up in the midst of our revelry, and the Minneapolis First SDA Church became so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. All eyes focused on her.
“My heart is saddened by our contention,” she said. “The Lord in His great mercy has sent a most precious message to us through Brother Jones and Brother Waggoner.”
She paused and smiled faintly at Ellet and Alonzo on the platform.
“They are able to present righteousness by faith in a way that I can not. This message, understood in its true character and proclaimed in the Spirit, will lighten the earth with its glory and bring us quickly to God’s kingdom. Do not reject the message borne by these men, for in doing so you reject Christ, the giver of the message.”
I watched the leaders stone-faced in their seats. Clearly, not even a prophet could soften their hearts. They were closed and bolted against the truth. In that moment I knew for sure our lives were spared against the will of God.
“Do not close and bar the door against the Spirit's entrance,” Ellen continued, “against the heavenly current that can sweep away all evil."
The silence of a tomb rested on the assembly as she took her seat. They could not see her turn and face Lucifer. Her eyes flashed with the glory of God.
“Here is the word of the Lord to Lucifer and his hosts,” she said. “You can attack the message; you can bring delusion and stir up a spirit of resistance; you can malign the prophet; you can even ban God’s people to the wilderness for hundreds of years, but you cannot thwart God’s purpose for His people in the end. God will have a perfect people on earth so that the entire universe may see that His law is just.”
Lucifer seethed. He spoke in a low and measured voice, dripping with hatred.
“It will never be different than it is now,” he said. “The pathetic history of God’s people is proof of that. He can no more enable them to overcome sin than he can enable me. The best part is that He forgives them…”
Lucifer began to laugh.
“…because in the end he will be forced to forgive me too.”
Ellen shuddered and began praying, but Lucifer wasn’t through with her.
“Foolish mortals!” his frame shook as he spat out the words with a hiss, “You are squandering your time Miss. Ha! Do you think you are dealing with some cosmic light-weight here?!”
Lucifer twisted low and advanced on the prophet until they were eyeball to eyeball.
“You should fear me more than you do,” he said, his visage smiting Ellen with vile hatred. “Through this disaffection I will bring down your reputation and honor into the dust. Because you have resisted me and endorsed a message contrary to the hearts of the leaders of the church, you will be completely rejected. Your words and writings will be attacked and ignored until their credibility is entirely lost.”
The meeting adjourned, and we followed the delegates to their homes while Ellen lingered in her pew to pray.
Lucifer was right. In spite of Ellen’s considerable influence to assist Alonzo and Ellet, she could not stay the negative tide that enveloped the conference. The church leaders largely resisted their theological position, and she concluded that it was evident that a delusion was upon the brethren.
While the Seventh Day Adventist Church continued to celebrate growth and victory, they lingered long years in a dark world. In defiance of God’s plan, their institutions became nearly totally corrupt, and the words of the prophet were largely disregarded.
They exiled Ellen and largely disregarded her for the rest of her life. From afar she lamented the loss of the Day of Pentecost that might have been.
&nbs
p; “An unwillingness to yield up preconceived opinions, and to accept this truth,” she said, “lay at the foundation of a large share of the opposition manifested at Minneapolis against the Lord’s message through Brethren Waggoner and Jones. By exciting that opposition, Satan succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them. The enemy prevented them from obtaining that efficiency which might have been theirs in carrying the truth to the world, as the apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost. The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away from the world.”
Even in her final years, I relished the sound of God’s grief through her words:
“This has been the greatest, the most terrible sorrow of my life…” she said.
What did she expect? I wondered when all men would realize that Lucifer was right. There could be no doubt that we would permanently delay the coming of God by sending his people to the wilderness indefinitely. Not only was it impossible for men to keep the commandments of God, but also there would be no one left to keep the faith of Jesus for they would all die in that wilderness.