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A Response to the Video:
Seventh-day Adventism, the Spirit Behind the Church

by Bob Pickle

Answers to Questions Raised by:
Mark Martin, Sydney Cleveland
Dale Ratzlaff, The White Lie
. . . and Others

Discern Fact from Fiction

Her Predictions and Views

#36: "Mrs. White did not confine her prophesying to the events surrounding the coming of the Lord, but prophesied how foreign governments would act against the United States. In 1862 Ellen White predicted the downfall of the United States following a great war involving many nations."—Sydney Cleveland.

#36: She predicted the downfall of the United States. Not really. Technically, she predicted that if our nation remained divided, then it would fall:

England is acquainted with the diversity of feeling among those who are seeking to quell the rebellion. She well knows the perplexed condition of our Government; she has looked with astonishment at the prosecution of this war—the slow, inefficient moves, the inactivity of our armies, and the ruinous expenses of our nation. The weakness of our Government is fully open before other nations, and they now conclude that it is because it was not a monarchial government, and they admire their own government, and look down, some with pity, others with contempt, upon our nation, which they have regarded as the most powerful upon the globe. Had our nation remained united it would have had strength, but divided it must fall.—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, pp. 259, 260.

It would be hard to refute such an assessment. But Mrs. White did not say that our nation would definitely remain divided.

In the same chapter she wrote at length about how the North had often mistreated escaped slaves and returned them to their southern masters, in direct violation of the Word of God (Deut. 23:15). Yet the government, rather than righting these wrongs, declared a day of fasting and prayer to ask God's blessing on the war effort!

And yet a national fast is proclaimed! Saith the Lord: "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?" When our nation observes the fast which God has chosen, then will He accept their prayers as far as the war is concerned; but now they enter not into His ear. He turns from them, they are disgusting to Him. It is so managed that those who would undo the heavy burdens and break every yoke are placed under censure, or removed from responsible stations, or their lives are planned away by those who "fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness."—Ibid., p. 258, italics added.

Clearly, this is a conditional prophecy (see #35). When the North would seek to break every yoke, then God would hear their prayers and bless. But if the North remained divided over the slavery question, then it would fall. [p. 36]

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