Whenever God rebukes sin in His people, or gives His servants messages of approaching doom, it means that hope still lingers for the salvation of those to whom these messages are directed. When the Lord ceases to give such messages to those who continue in sin, it may well be assumed that hope is disappearing.
One of the most devastating verses in all the Bible is the one in which God declared through the prophet Hosea: “Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone” (Hosea 4:17). Ellen White speaks of how those who fail the test of the Laodicean message, persisting in their attachment to cherished sins, will receive a similar verdict from God [1].
Ellen White underscores this principle in a very stern testimony to an indulged daughter, in which she writes: “I do not consider your case hopeless. If I did, my pen would not be tracing these lines” [2]. This principle is again reflected in a letter she wrote regarding the case of John Harvey Kellogg, as the pantheism crisis was accelerating:
I have lost all hope of Dr. Kellogg. He is, I fully believe, past the day of his reprieve. I have not written him a line for about one year. I am instructed not to write to him [3].
In other words, the rebuke of sin by God’s servants means there is still hope for the person being rebuked. The problem arises when persons claiming to be messengers of God pronounce doom without offering hope. Such a pattern stands quite apart from that of God’s appointed servants across the ages. Noah didn’t simply warn the world of a coming Flood; he also followed God’s instructions for providing a place of safety for those wishing to escape the coming judgment. Jeremiah didn’t simply tell the people of Judah that Babylon was coming to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple; he also made it clear that after seventy years God would allow His people to return home (Jer. 25:11), and that a new covenant would be established with those seeking faithfulness in the wake of the captivity (Jer. 31:31-34). John the Baptist didn’t just condemn the sins of the people in his day; he offered them a path to repentance and reformation through the grace and mercy which the coming Savior would offer (Matt. 3:7-8,11).
Doom Without Hope
But not every prophecy of doom in sacred history has been attended by hope. Ellen White gives one example of such a prophecy in her account of the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D:
For seven years a man continued to go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, declaring the woes that were to come upon the city. By day and by night he chanted the wild dirge: “A voice from the east! a voice from the west! a voice from the four winds! a voice against Jerusalem and against the temple! a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides! a voice against the whole people!” This strange being was imprisoned and scourged, but no complaint escaped his lips. To insult and abuse he answered only, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” “woe, woe to the inhabitants thereof!” His warning cry ceased not until he was slain in the siege he had foretold [4].
To my knowledge, Ellen White says nothing further about this strange man, in the context of the above statement or elsewhere. But the historian Josephus identifies him as a peasant farmer by the name of Jesus ben Ananias, who began his proclamation of coming destruction while the Feast of Tabernacles was being celebrated, during a time of comparative peace and prosperity [5]. The Jewish authorities turned him over to the Roman governor Albinus, who inflicted on the man a severe scourging. Josephus recounts what happened as a result:
When Albinus, the governor, asked him who and whence he was and why he uttered these cries, he answered him never a word, but unceasingly reiterated his dirge over the city, until Albinus pronounced him a maniac and let him go. During the whole period up to the outbreak of war he neither approached nor was seen talking to any of the citizens, but daily, like a prayer that he had conned, repeated his lament, "Woe to Jerusalem!" He neither cursed any of those who beat him from day to day, nor blessed those who offered him food: to all men that melancholy presage was his one reply [6].
We know nothing of this man’s religious affiliation, whether he had any contact with the Christian message or not. One can’t help but admire his courage and spirit, as neither insult nor mistreatment caused him to complain or reproach those who obviously resented his warning.
Like Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus ben Ananias understood the pending and ruinous calamity that awaited Jerusalem and the Hebrew nation, recognizing the truth regarding the once-favored city that “your house is left unto you desolate” (Luke 13:35). But unlike his namesake, Jesus ben Ananias offered his hearers no hope, no way of escape from the coming catastrophe. Whether or not he was familiar with the Savior’s warning to flee the city, we are not told; all we know is that while “not one Christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem" [7], Jesus ben Ananias failed to flee, and as the modern prophet recounts, “was slain in the siege he had foretold” [8]. According to Josephus, he was struck by a stone from a Roman catapult while preaching his message of doom [9].
Such is the fate of those who pronounce doom without offering hope.
Conclusion
Many years ago, when I was a college student during the Desmond Ford controversy, another doomsayer who considered the organized Seventh-day Adventist body to be in a hopeless spiritual condition, circulated a series of tapes describing how corrupt and far removed from the divine ideal the Seventh-day Adventist denomination had become. (In fairness to the man, who I’m not sure is still alive, he later repudiated his hopeless attitude toward the organized church.) Much of what the man said in this series was true, though his message both lacked the hope of the church’s final purification through the shaking process and was tragically mingled with right-wing political conspiracism and paranoia about the now-extinct Soviet Union.
Ironically, the final sermon in this doom-laced series included Ellen White’s narrative of the destruction of Jerusalem, as well as the story of the man who prophesied the city’s desolation but failed to escape it. The sermon in question compared the organized Seventh-day Adventist Church to Jerusalem as it faced destruction by the Romans, making it quite clear that the speaker anticipated the same fate to befall Adventist officialdom. Toward the end of the sermon he insisted that no pastor could preach the true Laodicean message and still be licensed by his local Conference. On what basis he could offer such an outrageous allegation, he didn’t explain. Without question, far too many—now as then---fail to exercise the courage necessary to deliver needful rebukes to God’s people. But I am happy to say I know many pastors, and others, who do in fact possess such courage.
Rare as such extremism is within our larger denominational context—the peace-and-safety message remains much more popular—the prognostication of hopelessness concerning organized Adventism still rears its ugly head, from time to time, among the striving faithful in God’s remnant church. Like the man who delivered the series noted above, there are those whose studied purpose seems to be the public exposure of every misdeed and shortcoming in the church that crosses their awareness. Almost never do such reports include the inspired assurance that the apostate majority will ultimately be purged from the visible body of Seventh-day Adventists [10], and that our responsibility as we strive for faithfulness and total consecration is to make sure we will not be among those finally shaken out.
May the lesson of the hope-bereft doomsayer in the streets of Jerusalem not be lost on us as we survey, both within and without the church, the multiplying signs of our Lord’s approach and strive through His grace to be among the “called, and chosen, and faithful” (Rev. 17:14).
REFERENCES
1. Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 1, p. 187.
2. Ibid, vol. 2, p. 562.
3. ----Letter 333, 1905, quoted by Arthur L. White, Ellen G. White, vol. 6: The Later Elmshaven Years, 1905-1915 (Washington, D.C: Review and Herald Publishing Assn, 1982), p. 67.
4. ----The Great Controversy, p. 30.
5. “Jesus ben Ananias,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_ben_Ananias#:~:text=Jesus%20ben%20Ananias%20(%22the%20son,Jerusalem%20prophesying%20the%20city's%20destruction.
6. Ibid.
7. White, The Great Controversy, p. 30
8. Ibid.
9. “Jesus ben Ananias,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_ben_Ananias#:~:text=Jesus%20ben%20Ananias%20(%22the%20son,Jerusalem%20prophesying%20the%20city's%20destruction.
10. White, Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 380; Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 89; The Great Controversy, p. 608; Manuscript Releases, vol. 12, p. 327; vol. 20, p. 320.
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan