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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

#38 & #39: "History proves the utter error of this prophecy. England did not declare war on the northern states. Other nations did not join in."—Sydney Cleveland.

#38: Her prophecies about the Civil War were erroneous. The honest reader who peruses the context of the passage in question will be surprised at how solid the information really is.

"Had our nation remained united it would have had strength, but divided it must fall."—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 260. Many today assume that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Historians declare, as Mrs. White has written, that this was not the initial motivation for the war. Rather, it was fought to maintain the Union. Many enlistees thought they were fighting to abolish slavery, but those in charge of the war had no such intention. We were a nation divided.

Once Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation during the year after Mrs. White wrote these things, and the North became united in its goal of abolishing slavery, then the tide began to turn in favor of the North. We can thank the Lord that the North did unite so that our nation did not fall.

I was shown that if the object of this war had been to exterminate slavery, then, if desired, England would have helped the North. But England fully understands the existing feelings in the Government, and that the war is not to do away slavery, but merely to preserve the Union; and it is not for her interest to have it preserved.—Ibid., p. 258.

The World Book Encyclopedia says under "Emancipation Proclamation,"

As a result, it greatly influenced the North's victory in the war. . . .

As the abolitionists had predicted, the Emancipation Proclamation strengthened the North's war effort and weakened the South's. . . .

The Emancipation Proclamation also hurt the South by discouraging Britain and France from entering the war. Both of those nations depended on the South to supply them with cotton, and the Confederacy hoped that they would fight on its side. But the proclamation made the war a fight against slavery. Most British and French citizens opposed slavery, and so they gave their support to the Union.

World Book thus makes it crystal clear that England was considering entering the war. It was the North's uniting against slavery that prevented England from doing so, and this is precisely how Mrs. White described the political situation of those times.

There are other predictions that she made. For example, she predicted the demise of the South six [p. 37] months before their fortunes started sinking at Gettysburg:

In regard to the South, I was referred to Deuteronomy 32:35-37: "To Me belongeth vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste."—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 368.

Who told her that the "foot" of the South would "slide in due time" while they were still doing quite well? Who told her that that day was "at hand"?

Then there is Mrs. White's January 12, 1861, vision at Parkville, Michigan. After it she said:

"Men are making light of the secession ordinance that has been passed by South Carolina. They have little idea of the trouble that is coming on our land. No one in this house has even dreamed of the trouble that is coming.

"I have just been shown in vision that a number of States are going to join South Carolina in this secession, and a terrible war will be the result. In the vision I saw large armies raised by both the North and the South. I was shown the battle raging. I heard the booming of the cannon, and saw the dead and wounded falling on every side. I was then taken to hospitals, and saw the sufferings of the sick and wounded prisoners. I was taken in the vision to the homes of those who had lost sons, brothers, or husbands in the war. There was distress and mourning all over the land."

. . . "There are men in this house who will lose sons in that war."—Arthur White, vol. 1, p. 463.

Only one state had seceded, and the general sentiment in the North was that the whole rebellion was going to vaporize. For most, war was nowhere on the horizon, and yet Mrs. White was already predicting a terrible civil war!

"There are men in this house who will lose sons in that war." Judge Osborne and Mr. Shellhouse were present. They thought her prediction utterly absurd, but one year later they wept at the mention of the vision. The one had lost his only son, and the other had lost one son, with a second son somewhere down South in jail.—John Loughborough, Miracles in My Life, p. 57.

#39: She predicted world war. Fascinating subject. She actually predicted two world wars, as we shall see.

Other nations are making quiet yet active preparations for war . . . . When England does declare war, all nations will have an interest of their own to serve, and there will be general war, general confusion. . . . A portion of the queen's subjects are waiting a favorable opportunity to break their yoke . . . .—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 259.

The phrases "general war," "general confusion," and "active preparations for war" of "other nations" bring to mind page 268 of the same book. On that page is a prediction of two times of world war separated by a little time of peace:

Other nations are intently watching this nation, for what purpose I was not informed, and are making great preparations for some event. . . .

I was shown the inhabitants of the earth in the utmost confusion. War, bloodshed, privation, want, famine, and pestilence were abroad in the land.

My attention was then called from the scene. There seemed to be a little time of peace. Once more the inhabitants of the earth were presented before me; and again everything was in the utmost confusion. Strife, war, and bloodshed, with famine and pestilence, raged everywhere. Other nations were engaged in this war and confusion. War caused famine. Want and bloodshed caused pestilence. And then men's hearts failed them for fear, "and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth."

"When England does declare war, all nations will have an interest of their own to serve, and there will be general war, general confusion." Out of the twenty-eight nations or more that fought in World War I, England was the fifth or sixth to declare war. And in World War II, after a little time of peace, England was among the first six nations to declare war out of at least fifty-eight.

"A portion of the queen's subjects are waiting a favorable opportunity to break their yoke . . . ." England ruled about a fourth of the world's land and people, and then lost it all as her colonies sought their independence about the time of the world wars. How interesting that Mrs. White connected England's declaring war and world war with this very thing!

She never said, "When England does declare war on the United States . . . ." She said, "When England does declare war . . . ." There is a difference.

As Mr. Cleveland almost said, "History proves the utter" truth "of this prophecy."

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