Patriarchs and Profits

Introduction

by Dirk Anderson

As a young, confused Seventh-day Adventist, I felt the urge to get closer to God. Someone suggested the book Patriarchs and Prophets. I knew the author. I had been instructed that she was God's prophet and her books were inspired like the Bible. I looked forward to the unusual insights she would reveal to me as I opened the pages. As dust gathered on my KJV Bible, I plowed through the lengthy book.

Then I reached the chapter on Jacob's night of wrestling, and I began to shudder. With grave concern I read on page 201 that during the Time of Trouble, "Jesus leaves His position as man's intercessor before God" and that "the people of God will be in peril from the wicked who are seeking to destroy them." On the following page I read that "none of our offenses are forgotten" by God. I began to imagine that God was constantly thinking about my past offenses.

I could not imagine living without an intercessor. Jesus was the only hope I had ever known. Yet here I saw a time when He would no longer intercede for His people, while Satan would be bringing their past sins before them and wicked men would be trying to destroy them.

What concerned me was not simply the thought of persecution. It was the thought that I might not be good enough when that day came. I knew that i must somehow reach a state of sinless perfection before Christ's intercessory work ended. The question that haunted me was: Could I ever be perfect enough to satisfy God?

Later, on page 574, I found the words, "as God is perfect in His sphere, so we are to be perfect in ours." That didn't comfort me. It deepened the burden I was already carrying. I looked at my own life and saw everything that was wrong with me — every failure, every sinful thought, every weakness I could not seem to conquer. If sinless perfection was the price of standing before God without an intercessor, I knew I was in trouble.

I thought I was reading God's instructions. I believed Ellen White was God's prophet. I believed these words had come through her from heaven. Thus, if the book told me that I had to become perfect before Jesus could no longer plead my case, I believed it.

As a result, guilt and fear became my constant companions. I tried harder. Prayed harder. Studied harder. At first I gave up meat, and then I went totally vegan. I was trying everything to achieve perfection but it seemed elusive.

Eventually something happened that changed everything. I met Dale Ratzlaff. He gave me his book Cultic Doctrine of Seventh-day Adventists. I discovered that the theory of living without an intercessor is not taught in the Bible. I discovered the Bible teaches that the Atonement was not just started at the Cross but completed there. I began to see that salvation was not an uncertain reward waiting at the end of my successful performance. It was a gift I could experience now.

The difference was overwhelming. The Jesus I discovered in Scripture was not asking me to save myself by reaching for sinless perfection. He was calling me to trust that his grace was sufficient for me.

With that realization my life of guilt and condemnation turned into a life of freedom. The chains of legalism began to fall away. Looking back, I realized something else. The source of my confusion was a religious system that had placed another authority alongside Scripture and had taught me to interpret the Bible through the lens of Ellen White.

That realization changed the way I read Ellen White. I stopped asking, "What new truth is God revealing through her?" and began asking a much more important question: "Is this actually true?"

That question is the reason for this book.

This book investigates a claim of enormous consequence: Was Ellen White speaking for God? If her writings were the voice of God, then they deserve our trust and obedience. If, however, they were the product of human minds, then readers are in danger of being led astray.

If you are a believer in Ellen White and are afraid to turn the pages to the next chapter, may I remind you:

Truth loses nothing from investigation. Cults lose everything.

Let the investigation begin!

— Brother Anderson