A.T. Jones: THE MAN AND THE MESSAGE

What is Our Best Hope?

Our best hope, under the Holy Spirit's guidance, is the restoration of that "most precious message" that the Lord sent, the "beginning" of the latter rain and the loud cry (Testimonies to Ministers, p. 91). It is the true context of most of Ellen White's apparently contradictory writings, and her calls for revival and reformation:

1. It enjoys her enthusiastic, repeated endorsement, never equaled.
2. It is transparently Biblical. Scripture supports the unique elements of that message, whereas our standard understandings of today are in marked contrast to the glorious Good News essentials therein. The world is truly dying for want of these truths.
3. The message has stood the test of time, plenty—a whole century. No one can find valid fault with it.
4. Rightly understood, the message appeals positively to the best instincts of both liberals and conservatives in the church, and especially to youth. It is our best hope for unity.
5. The later faults of its original messengers do not invalidate it.
6. It offers the only healing balm for the subtle disease of legalism which afflicts both liberals and conservatives.

But the function of this highly endorsed Centennial book is to destroy confidence in that "most precious message" which the Lord sent. It is like the Jews determining to have a messiah while neglecting or rejecting the One the Lord already sent them.

The reader must ask himself whom he chooses to believe—uninspired critics or the agent of the Gift of Prophecy who counsels us: "Let not the chosen of God be found in opposition to the messengers and messages He sends" (Letter J-16j, 1892 [1038]).

We believe that all Seventh-day Adventists who read and ponder Knight's book should ask themselves whether Ellen White's appeal is still applicable after a hundred years:

I know that a work must be done for the people, or many will not be prepared to receive the light of the angel sent down from heaven to lighten the whole earth with his glory. Do not think that you will be found as vessels unto honor in the time of the latter rain … if you are … cherishing roots of bitterness brought from the conference at Minneapolis … I appeal to you, men in responsible positions. … The Lord looks with disfavor upon those who … manifest a satanic disrespect toward those whom they should highly regard ("To the General Conference," B-24, 1889 [442, 443]; emphasis supplied).

Here we are a full century after Minneapolis and its history. Ellen White still asks plaintively, "Must we leave our brethren to pass over the same path of blind resistance, till the very end of probation" (Letter 0-19, 1892; [1025])?