Chapter 8—Meeting the Claims of False Prophets

What We May Expect

I have been shown many who will claim to be especially taught of God, and will attempt to lead others, and from mistaken ideas of duty they will undertake a work that God has never laid upon them. Confusion will be the result. Let everyone seek God most earnestly for himself that he may individually understand His will.—Letter 54, 1893.

There will be those who will claim to have visions. When God gives you clear evidence that the vision is from Him, you may accept it, but do not accept it on any other evidence; for people are going to be led more and more astray in foreign countries and in America.—The Review and Herald, May 25, 1905.

The Visions of a Misled Child

[In communications about, or to, the Mr. Garmire referred to in chapter 7, is counsel and information which may serve in dealing with those who claim to have special light.—Compilers.]

I am compelled to state that I have not had the least faith in Mr. [J. M.] Garmire or his work. The pamphlet that was issued last fall at the time of our Jackson camp meeting had not the least sanction of our people. They were sent broadcast by stealing the Review and Herald list.

The daughter of Mr. Garmire claims, or he claims for her, to have visions; but they bear not the stamp of God. They are of the same character as many such things we have met in our experience—a delusion of Satan.

I plainly stated at the Jackson camp meeting to these fanatical parties that they were doing the work of the adversary of souls; they were in darkness. They claimed to have great light that probation would close in October, 1884.

I there stated in public that the Lord had been pleased to show me that there would be no definite time in the message given of God since 1844; and that I knew that this message, which four or five were engaged in advocating with great zeal, was heresy. The visions of this poor child were not of God. This light came not from heaven. Time was short; but the end was not yet. A great work was to be accomplished to prepare a people to be sealed with the seal of the living God.—An Exposure of Fanaticism and Wickedness, 9, 10, (Pamphlet) (1885).

A Message to J. M. Garmire

Satan has arranged things so that you should be ensnared. Fanaticism, deception, and strong delusion hold you captive. You have talked your ideas in your family, misinterpreting scripture, wresting the Word of God from its true interpretation, and have thus led them to believe that the views held and advocated by our people are not correct. Your interpretations of scripture are not in harmony with the positions taken by Seventh-day Adventists

The mold you have given to your children’s minds savors of the errors that have corrupted your own mind. You have educated them to see spots and stains in others, and to criticize them. By your words and example in thus talking against your brethren and picking up their faults, you have set in motion a train of circumstances that, through your own power combined with satanic agencies, has resulted in the visions of your daughter. All this fault-finding, this accusing of your brethren, is satanic....

The Divine Credentials

Your expressing so much faith in the testimonies, and making them so prominent, is no help to me or my work, because you place the false visions of your daughter on the same level with those the Lord gives to me, and thus lower the sacredness and exalted character of the work God has given me to do.

The Lord has plainly shown me that what you regard as communications from God to you and others through your child Anna, are not from Him. They do not bear the divine credentials. It is another spirit that controls the child. It is the enemy that works in her. Such manifestations will be more and more common in these last days. They do not lead to unity, into all truth, but away from the truth.

One decided evidence we have that these exercises are not of God, is that they concur with your views, which we know to be erroneous. Things she says she sees in vision are not sustained by the Word of God, but are contrary to it. Satan is constantly at work to imbue her with his own spirit, that through her, under a cloak of righteousness, he may bring in commonness, heresies, and defilement. As you regard her utterances as from God, your faith in the true testimonies is valueless; and thus Satan hopes to disconnect you, and all who have any confidence in your ideas, from the agencies that God has ordained, that you may be left to believe a lie. The Scriptures speak of those who are deceived and are being deceived. This is your case. You deceive your daughter; she deceives you—the blind leading the blind. The enemy seeks to accomplish his purposes by various means, as shall best meet the circumstances and situation of those whom he sees he can allure by temptation.

I tell you plainly, the messages of your daughter Anna are not from God. This the Lord has shown me, and He will not lie. She may say many good things, may speak much that is truth, but so does the enemy of souls. The counterfeit will in many respects resemble the true. It is the fruit borne that testifies of the character

History Repeated

In the work in which my husband and I were called by the providence of God to act a part, even from its very beginning in 1843 and 1844, we have had the Lord to devise and plan for us, and He has worked out His plans through His living agents. False paths have been so often pointed out to us, and the true and safe paths so clearly defined in all the enterprises connected with the work given us to do, that I can say of a truth I am not ignorant of Satan’s devices, nor of the ways and works of God. We have had to tax every power of mind, relying upon wisdom from God to guide us in our investigations, as we have had to review the different theories brought to our attention, weighing their merits and defects in the light shining from the Word of God and the things God has revealed to me through His Word and the testimonies, in order that we might not be deceived nor deceive others. We surrendered our will and way to God, and most earnestly supplicated His aid; and we never sought in vain. Many years of painful experience in connection with the work of God have made me acquainted with all kinds of false movements. Many times I have been sent to different places with the message, “I have a work for you to do in that place; I will be with you.” When the occasion came, the Lord gave me a message for those who were having false dreams and visions, and in the strength of Christ I bore my testimony at the Lord’s bidding. The most terrible denunciations were hurled against me, which they said were from the Lord, because I was opposing His work. They said that terrible calamities would come upon me, just as your Anna has prophesied; but I passed along perfectly conscious of the guardianship of heavenly angels.

During the past forty-five years, I have had to meet persons claiming to have from God messages of reproof to others. This phase of religious fanaticism has sprung up again and again since 1844. Satan has worked in many ways to establish error. Some things spoken in these visions came to pass; but many things—in regard to the time of Christ’s coming, the end of probation, and the events to take place—proved utterly false, as your prophesyings and Anna’s have done. Yet they would try to excuse the blunders by twisting the statements about, and giving them another meaning, and go on in the same way, deceiving and being deceived.

When I was first wrought upon by the Spirit of the Lord, I was shown that I would be brought in contact with those who claimed to see visions, but that the Lord would not permit me to be deceived. My work was to unveil this falsehood, and to rebuke it in the name of the Lord. As the end drew near, I was to see more of these manifestations.

“I Have Not Sent Them”

Letters have come to me from different ones, relating visions that they said God had given them; but the Lord Jesus tells me, “Believe them not; I have not sent them.” Some write to me, saying that God has revealed to them that Sister White is in error, that she is influenced by the leaders to believe some things that are not true, and to reject some things that are true. But the word comes again, “Heed them not; I have not spoken by them, nor given them any word or message. They have spun lying words, from the suggestions of Satan.”

Some have come to me claiming to be Christ, and have apparently worked miracles. They have said that the Lord led me in many things, but the Sabbath was not a test question; that the law of God was not binding upon men; all we had to do was to accept Christ, and they themselves were Christ. I have had experience with all these pretentious claims, and I have no faith in them. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20^L).

In one place, four in one family professed to have communications from the Lord, reproving wrong, and they predicted things that actually did take place. This inspired confidence in them. But the things that did not take place were kept in the dark, or were treated as something mysterious, which would be understood later. Whence did these receive their inspiration?—From satanic agencies, which are many. The Lord laid it upon me to meet these things, and bear a decided testimony against them

I have seen several fall in vision; but when I rebuked the spirit which controlled them, they immediately came out of vision, and were in great distress of mind.

Cheap, Common, Earthly Matters

Such experiences as these came to be very common. Several in one family were under this species of deception.... Messages would be given for different members of the church, telling some poor trembling soul, “You are proud”; another, “You are unbelieving; you will be lost.” The Lord gave me light in this instance to speak words of comfort and encouragement. I bore my testimony to those deceived ones, whether they would hear, or reject it. Their visions were Satan’s work. The things revealed were often common, earthly matters, such as, who should get breakfast the next morning, who should prepare the dinner, who should wash the dishes. Mingled with these frivolous things were sacred truths, which they had found in the Bible and testimonies. Satan’s hand was in all this, to disgust people, and cause them to spurn everything in the nature of visions. Thus the false and the true would be rejected together. And even those who were engaged in the deception, when they should become weary of it, would be inclined to doubt all visions.

After a very solemn meeting with these deceived ones, confessions were made that they threw themselves into attitudes resembling Sister White, as nearly as they could. It was all a farce, a deception. Yet many things they told came to pass as they predicted.

I was asked how this could be if the visions were all false. I told them that it was Satan’s purpose to mingle truth with error, that through these deceptive exercises he might make of none effect the genuine work of God. From that time all their many visions ceased. What has become of those who had the visions, and those who encouraged them? Several now living are skeptics, have no belief in the gifts of the church, no faith in the truth, no religion at all. Such, I have been shown, is the sure result of spurious visions.

The manifestations of your daughter are a similar deception. And your encouraging these things in her will prove her ruin, and the ruin of others, unless something breaks the deception. You called these false visions and meaningless dreams the wonderful light of God, but it is like the chaff to the wheat. This is a serious matter. It will have a decided influence upon your family. While you regard your daughter’s words as spoken under the influence of the Spirit of God, it will be the same to you as though they were true. You are under strong delusion of Satan. You will claim to credit them, and thus your confidence in the veritable, genuine messages from God will be uprooted. And so will it be with all who believe as you do. This is why Satan is so constantly pressing in the spurious—to lead away from the truth.

The very last deception of Satan will be to make of none effect the testimony of the Spirit of God. “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18^L). Satan will work ingeniously, in different ways and through different agencies, to unsettle the confidence of God’s remnant people in the true testimony. He will bring in spurious visions to mislead, and will mingle the false with the true, and so disgust people that they will regard everything that bears the name of visions as a species of fanaticism; but honest souls, by contrasting false and true, will be enabled to distinguish between them

Take Heed How Ye Hear

Oh, how deceptive is the human heart! How easy it is to harmonize with that which is evil! There is nothing more detrimental to the soul’s interest, its purity, its true and holy conceptions of God, and of sacred and eternal things, than constantly giving heed to and exalting that which is not from God. It poisons the heart, and degrades the understanding. Pure truth can be traced to its divine Source, by its elevating, refining, sanctifying influence upon the character of the receiver. The Author of all truth prayed to His Father, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:20, 21^L). Things will be constantly arising to cause disunion, to draw away from the truth. This questioning, criticizing, denouncing, passing judgment on others, is not an evidence of the grace of Christ in the heart. It does not produce unity. Such work has been carried on in the past by persons claiming to have wonderful light, when they were deep in sin. Heresy, dishonesty, and falsehood were all blended in them.

The present is a time of great peril to the people of God. God is leading out a people, not an individual here and there. He has a church on the earth, that abide in the truth; and when we see, not only men, but young girls, crying out against the church, we are afraid of them. We know God has not sent them, yet they ran, and all who do not accept their erratic ideas are denounced as warring against the Spirit of the Lord. All such things are in Satan’s line, but the work of God will go forward while there are now and ever will be those who work directly against the prayer of Christ. The work will advance, leaving them with their satanic inventions far behind....

“Take heed, therefore, how ye hear” (Luke 8:18^L), is an admonition of Christ. We are to hear for the sake of learning the truth, that we may walk in it. And again: “Take heed what ye hear” (Mark 4:24^L). Examine closely, “prove all things” (1 Thessalonians 5:21^L), “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1^L). This is the counsel of God; shall we heed it?—Letter 12, 1890.