How to test
the right or wrong of a message
Beware of a false prophet in the Philippine
(Part 3)
Isaiah 8 : 20 :
“To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
I n t r o d u c t i o n
One of the Old Testament prophets who prophesied a long historical background of our Laodicean Church in this time of the end is prophet Isaiah. When we could have realized that the foundation of our house of the Laodicean Church consists of only the basic Law of the Ten Commandments and the common Law of the Testimonies of Jesus, which has been developed into the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY, then let us always remember that whatever doctrinal point of view developed in our midst in this time of the end, they must unavoidably be found within the boundaries of the basic Law of the Ten Commandments and the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY only.
From the fact that the statement from prophet Isaiah should have applied fully in this time of the end, then the servant of the Lord Mrs. White told us of the function of the Isaiah’s statement as follows :
“In these days of peril we are not to accept everything that men bring to us as truth. As professed teachers from God come to us declaring that they have a message from God, it is proper to inquire carefully, How do we know that this is truth ? Jesus has told us that ‘false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many’ (Matthew 24 : 11). But we need not be deceived ; for the Word of God gives us a test whereby we may know what is truth. The prophet says : “To the law and to the testimony : if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them (Isaiah 8 : 20).“ – Selected Messages, Book 2, p. 99.
Jesus’ statement of the false prophets to come in this time of the end, should have been seriously taken in consideration. Just in this time of the end the false prophets would have come up in our midst. Because Satan is sure that if he loses now he would have failed for good and evermore. However, it is not necessary for us to be misled, because we have been provided with a powerful instrument of testing. To this the servant of the Lord Mrs. White said :
“As a people, we are called individually to be students of prophecy. We must watch with earnestness that we may discern any ray of light which God shall present to us. …………
“We should all know what is being taught among us ; for if it is truth, we need it. We are all under obligation to God to know what He sends us. He has given directions by which we may test every doctrine. – “To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” If the light presented meets this test we are not to refuse to accept it because it does not agree with our ideas.” – Ibid., pp. 300, 301.
Let us first know the Law and the
Testimony as foundation of the Laodicean Church
The Law is the basic Law of the kingdom of God which is unchangeable for good and forever. It has its origin with God the Father. Whereas the Testimony has its origin with Jesus, to be as a common Law which is developing and changeable periodically according to its function as rules of implementation of the basic Law. Example : If the Sabbath Law of the fourth Commandment is eternally binding for good to all citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven to obey, then the sixth Commandment of the Law to forbid people to kill, has its rules of implementation changed more than once.
Adam and Eve ever since the beginning had deliberately killed themselves by eating of poisonous fruits of a tree, which is forbidden in the law. Due to the transgression of the law that resulted in sin and death on and on repeatedly, then the law on meat and flesh eating was then codified by Moses in the book Leviticus chapter 11. It contains the rules of law, which is binding up to the time of the apostles, and even up to this time of the end as the law of health. And that is the law of health which applies even up to this Laodicean period of the time of the end after being modified and completed by the servant of the Lord Mrs. White in 1863 by the name “the Health Reform of 1863.” And the last as we know the servant of the Lord Bro. Houteff had added to the Law of Health the rules on Dress Reform which is tightly related to the mental and moral health of our people in this time of the end. Read : TIMELY GREETINGS, VOL. 2, NO. 38.
Adam and Eve were created by God sometime about 6020 ( 4004 BC + 2016 ) years ago. Ever since the beginning both of them had been invested with the Law of God. Although the Law in writing was just delivered to Moses about 2500 years later on the Mount Sinai, the same Law, however, was ever kept in mind of the people ever since the beginning to lead them to do their regular worship to their GOD. Thus it is clearly understood that the Law of God had its application very long time ever since and even very far to the future. Despite the basic Law is known here on earth as the simplest and the shortest one, its rules of implementation in the Bible and the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY would be the longest and the vastest in application to the future.
For us to test every new message to come we should be able to know if the message or messages are according to the Law and the Testimony of Jesus or the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY available in our midst. Or conversely if the message or messages are against them. Or maybe they are yet totally new so that we should have received them as a new light or a new truth. Or conversely they should be opposed and rejected because they are against the Law and the Testimony.
A sample case in among us today, which is very conspicuous to come from a certain Rod believer in the Philippine, who promoted himself among us to be the antitypical Elijah the prophet to succeed the late Bro. Houteff to accomplish the sealing message among us up to the accomplishment of the sealing of those 144.000 elected saints of God in the future. Now how could we apply fairly the instrument of testing of that mentioned by prophet Isaiah in his book Isaiah 8 : 20?
Due to the fact that the coming of the end time prophets of the Laodicean Church have been long beforehand prophesied either of their personal identities and duties or of their messages, we therefore, have to trace all the prophecies one by one through their interpretations in the Spirit of Prophecy by Mrs. White and in the message of the Shepherd’s Rod by Bro. Houteff. This is just the way according to the procedure given us by the prophet : TO THE LAW AND TO THE TESTIMONIES …….. WHEN THEIR EXISTENCE AND ALL THEIR TEACHINGS ARE NOT IN ACCORD WITH ALL THE PROPHECIES and their interpretations in the SPIRIT OF PROPHECIES of Revelation 19 : 10, let them all be opposed and rejected. They would certainly be the agents of the Enemy to destroy us from within our own ranks.
Let us beware of them and their teachings, because the Enemy would not employ them to attack us when they are themselves factually weaker and more ignorant than ourselves.
In the case of the false prophet in the Philippine we must be very careful, because he is skillful and of good background of education. The way he presented his teachings is amazing and very admirable. However, as one of the Indonesian sayings goes : “As high as a squirrel leaps from one branch to another she would have unavoidably to fall too on the ground.” As his misapplication of the message to sustain his position as an antitypical Elijah could no more be maintained, he should have to see face to face with the fact that he is not coming from Jesus and His testimonies, but just from the Great Enemy of God and Man ever since the beginning.
The L a w and the Testimony as the instrument of testing
For us to test a case it is not necessary that the Law and all the Testimonies of Jesus to be implicated in. It is enough for us to deliberate the Law and the Testimony which is closely related to the case. So in the case of the false prophet in the Philippine who professed to be the antitypical Elijah as the last prophet following Bro. Houteff in the time of the end, it is enough for us to open all the prophecies related to the last prophet of this time of the end and all his message, that might also be prophesied apart by another prophet of the Old Testament. All those should be found in the Bible, in the Spirit of Prophecy by Mrs. White and in the Shepherd’s Rod message by Bro. Houteff. In short, all of those should be found in the golden bowl of the prophecy of Zechariah chapter 4. Thus for us to test the teaching of the false prophet in the Philippine, let us follow several instruments of testing presented here below and their interpretations in the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY as follows :
- The Law and the Testimony in the prophecy of Zechariah chapter 4.
- The Law and the Testimony in the prophecy of Amos 3 : 6, 7.
- The Law and the Testimony in the prophecy of Malachi 3 and 4
- The Law and the Testimony in the prophecy of Isaiah 28 : 9 – 13
- The Law and the Testimony in the teaching on “type” and its “anti-type”, given by Bro. Houteff in his Answerer Book 3, Question no. 52.
- The Law and the Testimony in the Book : Fundamental Beliefs of DSDA, p. 27.
- The Law and the Testimony in the Timely Greetings, Vol. 1, No. 23, p. 6
- And so on.
Let it be understood, therefore, that everyone of us as member of God’s family should first have for himself the Law and the Testimony or The SPIRIT OF PROPHECY before he could try his best to test every new light or new truth ever offered to him or found by himself.
The seven samples of the Law and the Testimony of Jesus or the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY presented above must first be fully understood before they could be applied as instruments of testing. Because if they fail to be thoroughly understood people could also take them to justify the false prophet and his doctrinal points of view.
The whole seven samples of the Law and the Testimony above, and still possibly many more, are just only some of the many more “instruments of testing” could be applied specifically for testing the false prophet and his teachings in the Philippine.
Due to the fact that the false prophet has no message of his own, that all those things taught by him are but the Shepherd’s Rod message of Bro. Houteff (the message of the angel of Rev. 18 : 1) and the Spirit of Prophecy of Mrs. White. Read : Early Writings p. 277. Combination of those two messages in the golden bowl of Zechariah chapter 4 represent the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY of Rev. 19 : 10. Thus it is clear, that the Law and the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY of Rev. 19 : 10 would be the only instrument of testing prophesied by the prophet in Isaiah 8 : 20.
How to test a product
of time setting of the coming event of the Lord Jesus
In the near future
J E S U S :
“BUT OF THAT DAY AND HOUR KNOWETH NO MAN, NO, NOT THE ANGELS OF HEAVEN, BUT MY FATHER ONLY.” — Matthew 24 : 36.
The day and hour mentioned above was meant by the Lord Jesus to the day and hour of His second advent in the air. This is His answer to the disciples’ questions presented to Him on the matter. It is not the day and hour of his coming to stand on the Mount Sion with the 144.000 elected saints mentioned in the Revelation 14 : 1. Because they were still in the dark of the doctrinal points of view on the 144.000 elected saints of God at that time. Even the book of Revelation itself was not as yet available in their midst.
And due to the fact that only the d a y and the h o u r were concealed, it is impossible that the date, the month and the year of that glorious coming should have been kept in mystery also. However, the majority of Christian world today seemingly are taking side with the Enemy to oppose everything related to the knowledge of time of the coming of our Lord Jesus. Even ever since the time of William Miller and his Philadelphian Church the majority of Christians of the time were opposing the so-called “the Time setting”, and even up to this very moment in among our own present Truth believers. To this end Mrs. White said :
“The preaching of “definite time” called forth great opposition from all classes, from the minister in the pulpit down to the most reckless, heaven-daring sinner. “No man knoweth the day nor the hour,” was heard from the hypocritical minister and the bold scoffer. Neither would be instructed and corrected by those who were pointing to the year when they believed the prophetic periods would run out, and to the signs which showed Christ near, even at the doors. Many shepherds of the flock, who professed to love Jesus, said that they had no opposition to the preaching of Christ’s coming, but they objected to the definite time. God’s all-seeing eye read their hearts. They did not love Jesus near. They knew that their unchristian lives would not stand the test, for they were not walking in the humble path marked out by Him. These false shepherds stood in the way of the work of God. The truth spoken in its convincing power aroused the people, and like the jailer, they began to inquire, “What must I do to be saved ?” But these shepherds stepped in between the truth and the people, and preached smooth things to lead them from the truth. ……” – Early Writings, pp. 233, 234.
At this time the false prophet in the Philippine is also known of his own time settings of his own findings. For us to test the time settings, specifically on the coming of Jesus which is first to stand on the Mount Sion with the 144.000 elected saints of God, which is mentioned in Revelation 14 : 1, we must first have our own instrument of testing, which is God’s own instrument of testing consists of the Law and the Testimony. We have provided for our kind hearted readers through the website as follows : www.bible-prophecies.org. You are kindly invited to find the articles by their names here below :
(1) But of the day and hour knoweth no man
(2) The Sealing Time of the 144.000 and the establishment of the kingdom
Please read carefully those articles by yourself and you will find several of the times set indirectly in the message by the Lord Jesus Himself to be used as your instrument of testing, to test the false prophet and his teaching of time settings. And please understand that the times found therein are not the result of my personal fabrication taken from within the message. Therefore, if there are yet people who want to find fault with the articles, let them first produce their own instrument of testing of the Law and the Testimony to prove before us that those articles above could not stand their test : TO THE LAW AND TO THE TESTIMONY, and should be pronounced FAULT AND INVALID. Thus it is, that when me as the author of those articles could be shown my fault clearly to repent, and you readers could be free from sin for having warned me earlier before too late.
One more case that should
be tested is the type and its antitype
“Type and antitype” is a method of interpretation known in the law science which also mostly applied by the servants of God Mrs. White and Bro. Houteff to teach their messages of Present Truth for this time. Bro. Houteff had ever said :
“In the Old Testament is brought to view a religious Movement which is an “ensample,” or type, of a counterpart in the New Testament. And just as God yesterday organized and led the one to emancipate His people from a cruel bondage to heathen masters, so also will He do with the other today. Likewise as He instructed the one, so will He instruct the other as to how to expect to be liberated and established in the land of their inheritance, the kingdom of freedom, peace, and plenty. In assurance of this, He declares: “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” 1 Cor. 10:11. And “there shall be an highway for the remnant of His people, which shall be left, from Assyria, Like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.” Isa. 11:16. – The Answerer Book 3, Question No. 52.
As well as the Old Testament Israelite in their exodus movement had been brought out of Egypt by the guiding hands of Moses and his Shepherd’s Rod up to the time they entered the Promised Land of Canaan, the land of their ancestors, even so will the Israelite of this time of the end in our second exodus under the guidance of the antitypical Shepherd’s Rod of today would have been brought to the Promised land to have the kingdom of the antitypical David again established there in the Palestine.
During the long journey of the past there were several important events to remember, even some well-known people and their services had been documented in their related books of the Bible to let the history live up to this time of the end. And if those people and events as types should be sought each of them their antitypes in these times of the antitypical Exodus of today, there would be more and more anti-types to be found, and the story of the present Exodus would be a very long-long story to be explored.
However, since the Bible and all its interpretations in the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY contain the Law of the Kingdom and its r u l e s of implementation, whose Authors are o n l y God the Father and the Son, we may be sure that only those things of value in the sight of God that needed be taught to our people through the teaching method of type and its antitype. We are not allowed to make any object of this time of the end Exodus to be an antitype of a certain thing or people of the past Exodus movement to be its type. That is the reason why that we must stick tightly to the written word of the Law. Not neither to add something to the word nor to subtract something out of the word.
We have, therefore, to beware that our young Davidian Brother in the Philippine is now being implicated in the sin of adding to or subtracting from the message as those prohibited in the Revelation 22 : 18, and 19. He has deliberately promoted himself to be the antitypical Elijah to succeed Bro. Houteff after his death in 1955, is indeed a fact of a flagrant sin. May God bless him and all his followers to understand, because this is not merely a simple case in the sight of God and His Son Jesus Christ. To the Law and to the Testimony his personality is not at all known therein. Even no message of his own was ever predicted to come from him. He is indeed a strange prophet sent to us by his own god without any message of his own. To this end let us go to the Lord Jesus, when he ever warned His disciples face to face in the following words. Maybe His warning words would have also met their fulfillment in this time of the end after the great tribulation in 1798. For He had said :
“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved : but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there ; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” — Matthew 24 : 21 – 24.
Mark carefully the statement by the Lord Jesus, that false Christs and false prophets should have come after the 1260 years of the great tribulation ended in 1798. After the year 1798 we have the period of the Philadelphian Church of the servant of the Lord the late Bro. William Miller. Not as yet heard of the so-called false Christs and false prophets. And after 1844 we have our own period of the Laodicean Church of SDA. And after the angel of Laodicea being spewed out of Jesus’ mouth in 1935, came our period of the Laodicean Church of Davidian SDA. And after the death of the last prophet named Zerubbabel of the prophecy of Zechariah chapter 4, then the Laodicean Church of Davidian SDA began to split into several Mount Carmel Centers in USA even up to now. Whereas we all forget the fact that “the little ones” of those associations of Davidian SDA who survived the death of Bro. Houteff in 1955 prophesied in Zechariah 13 : 7 still exist. We forget that the Lord hands are now guiding them wherever they are. And out from among them will come the divinely appointed teachers of whom Bro. Houteff said :
“………… we must therefore, as teachers of the Shepherd’s Rod (the official publications of the Davidian SDA Association) teach only in the light of the Rod those passages which in one way or another need to be interpreted. Thus only will all Present Truth believers ever become of the same mind, seeing eye to eye, and speaking the same things. (1 Cor. 1 : 10; 1 Pet. 3 : 8; Isa. 52 : 8).“ — Fundamental Beliefs of Davidian SDA, p. 27.
So with the emergence of the one in the Philippine professing himself to be a prophet to succeed the late Bro. Houteff. And with his Headquarters by the name “THE LAYMAN MOVEMENT” calling us to hurry up to enlist, enlist, enlist with the Organization Headquarters in the Philippine, we are wondering how could he get our people to see eye to eye, to have the same mind, and to speak the same things. Whereas according to Bro. Houteff it should be the painstaking efforts of teachers of the Rod. Not only one teacher nor a prophet.
No wonder if long beforehand the Lord Jesus Himself should have warned us by saying : “If any man shall say unto you : Lo, here is Christ, or there ; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” — Matthew 24 : 21 – 24.
The very elect mentioned above would be none other than the Davidians of those candidates of the 144.000 elected saints of God in the future.
Any man shall say unto you : “Lo, here is Christ, or there.” Since Christ in His greatness and holiness could no more be found here on earth physically, He must inevitably be represented by His own Testimony in the Bible and the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. So when the Bible and the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY in the hands of false prophets presented to you, they would become false Christs and not the false prophets. “Believe them not,” says the Lord Jesus. The name of Christ would have been tarnished by the so-called false prophets, who are to emerge in this time of the end. They would have taught us by saying, let us enlist, enlist, enlist with the Headquarters of Layman Movement in the Philippine, or let us return to the Mount Carmel Center in Waco, Texas, or to join in the Elk, Texas, or to affiliate with the Salem Headquarters, or to enlist with the Mountain dale Headquarters or with some other else. But the Lord Jesus said : Believe them not !
Since the false Christs and false prophets would no more be sent by their gods to the Christian world of Babylon, nor even to the spewed out angel of Laodicean Church and their diehard followers, they must unavoidably be sent to the Davidian SDA Associations in all Davidian who had ever survived the death of Bro. Houteff in 1955. Let us, therefore, be very careful, my Dear fellow Believers in the Rod of God, that our Lord Jesus Christ in the Bible and in the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY in the hands of those false teachers of the Mount Carmel Centers in USA would have manipulated the message for their own benefit, to win the heart of the people to their Mount Carmel Centers.
The Acts of adding to and subtracting from …..
Long beforehand to every one of us, who believe in the Bible, the Spirit of Prophecy and the Shepherd’s Rod message, we have been warned seriously through Apostle John in the following words :
“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book ; And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”– Revelation 22 : 18, 19.
Though the false prophet and his teachings in the Philippine are very amazing and admirable, those teachings could not be likened to the same things produced by the prophets of God in the Bible and in the testimony of Jesus, which is the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY in the golden bowl of Zechariah chapter 4. Therefore, when all of them could not stand the test : “TO THE LAW AND TO THE TESTIMONY ………., they all not only partially of them, should have been opposed. They all should be left alone for good so that we will no more be implicated in sin of neither adding to nor subtracting from the message as those prohibited in the Revelation 22 : 18, 19. To this end the servant of the Lord Bro. Houteff said :
“Teach the message as it is — add nothing to it, neither take anything from it. Do not feel that it is your duty to answer everybody’s questions, or to explain the whole Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. Only a silly person attempts such a thing. The scroll is not yet unrolled that far. Do not go beyond what the Shepherd’s Rod has explained.” — Symbolic Code, Vol. 1, No. 4.
It means that though the scroll should have been completely unrolled now in this time of the end, we are not allowed to teach more than those interpreted and available in the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY, which is the combination of the message of the Shepherd’s Rod and the Spirit of Prophecy in the golden bowl. We are, therefore, not allowed to justify someone else to succeed the late Bro. Victor T. Houteff and his message of the Shepherd’s Rod, because such act of doing things are totally contradictive to the purity of the message of Inspiration that come from God Himself through His mouthpiece, Bro. Victor T. Houteff. There is no single fact could ever be found to sustain us to teach such a falsehood in the Church of God.
Let us never for a moment think that we are in need of a prophet like the one in the Philippine, because our knowledge have been much more developed now by him. I dare say that our Heavenly Father knows much more of what we dearly need now for our salvation. To this end ever since long beforehand the Lord had ever said :
“There are in the Scriptures some things which are hard to be understood, and which, according to the language of Peter, the unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruction. We may not, in this life, be able to explain the meaning of every passage of Scripture ; but there are no vital points to practical truth that will be clouded in mystery. When the time shall come, in the providence of God, for the world to be tested upon the truth for that time, minds will be exercised by His Spirit to search the Scriptures, even with fasting and with prayer, until link after link is searched out, and united in a perfect chain. Every fact which immediately concerns the salvation of souls will be made so clear that none need err, or walk in darkness.” – Counsels on Diet and Food, p. 187.
C o n c l u s i o n
To my dear fellow believers in the Philippine, and to all of you wherever you are in the world, let us ponder for a moment the following word of the Lord Jesus through His simple messenger Mrs. Ellen G. White here below, when she said :
SINCERITY ALONE WILL NOT SAVE
“Faith in a lie will not have a sanctifying influence upon the life or character. No error is truth, or can be made truth by repetition, or by faith in it. Sincerity will never save a soul from the consequences of believing an error. Without sincerity there is no true religion, but sincerity in a false religion will never save a man. I may be perfectly sincere in following a wrong road, but that will not make it the right road, or bring me to the place I wished to reach. The Lord does not want us to have a blind credulity, and call that the faith that sanctifies. The truth is the principle that sanctifies, and therefore it becomes us to know what is truth. We must compare spiritual things with spiritual. We must prove all things, but hold fast only that which is good, that which bears the divine credentials, which lays before us the true motives and principles which should prompt us to action.” – Letter 12, 1890.” – Selected Messages Book 2, p. 56.
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