As many of you are aware we have written extensively on Victor T. Houteff, who we as believers in the Lord’s Elijah message, believe was the “Elijah” to come as prophesied in Malachi 4:5. But how about his wife? Who was she and what happened to her after VTH’s death in 1955?
History reveals that she took on an important role in the events that played out after brother Houteff’s death. Unfortunately most of it was not in accordance with the will of the founder of the Lord’s end time message of the Rod. Let us now look at the historical events that took place that shaped the message in ways that was foreseen by the prophet himself.
Florence Houteff was a young woman of 18 when she and Victor Houteff married in Waco, Texas. Brother Houteff was 50. This was a marriage sanctioned by Florence’s mother. As can be seen the age difference was wide and Victor had to address some who looked at it as outside the norm.
In one of the questions he received in the “Symbolic Code” he was asked to address this. He responded in part-
“As to the matter of age, the following Biblical marriages represent a great disparity of years: Abraham, the father of the faithful, certainly took to himself a wife much younger than himself, for when he married the second time, he must have been over 140 years of age, as he was a hundred years old when Isaac was born (Gen. 21:5), and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebeccah (Gen. 25:20), at which time Sarah, Abraham’s first wife was yet living (Gen. 24:67), and Keturah, his second wife, was evidently somewhere under forty years of age, for she bare him six sons (Gen. 25:1, 2), which facts present a difference of at least a hundred years between the ages of Abraham and his second wife.
Again, the Lord chose for His lineage, Boaz (a Jew), and old man, and Ruth (a Moabitess), a young woman (Ruth 3:10)–a union contrary to the principles held by Brother Houteff’s critics… Brother Houteff’s critics seem utterly to forget that he has a tremendous work, and that he does not need a wife able only to make a home for him, but rather one most able to assist him in his work. Hence, an aged woman, or one without experience in the work, would be to him a hindrance rather than a help. Therefore, God has provided for him a “helpmeet” that will really help him, as he cannot successfully carry on the work while single.” (Sym. Code, vol. 3, no. 5-6, p.7-8)
So the truth is that brother Houteff had met Florence and found a true “helpmeet”. One who could help him in his important work of writing and spreading the message of Elijah. She was known to take short-hand on his many sermon addresses, called “Timely Greetings”. She obviously helped him in many ways. His work was indeed voluminous and she provided excellent secretarial skills along with her domestic chores.
So through out their approximately 20 years of marriage she exhibited a noteworthy impression as a devoted helper and wife of VTH. I have spoken to one of the original living members of the Mt. Carmel camp, Mrs. Bonnie Smith. She reported that Florence was quite a popular figure on the camp and her and brother Houteff made a great team.
But as we continue our story, we can only conclude that something unbeknownst to human eyes was at work. All was not as meet the eye. It can be similar to the story of Judas. While Christ was alive and doing His great work upon the earth, Judas was right there among the chosen. The masses (possibly even including the apostles) no doubt thought that Judas was a real believer, a real team player. Until the end time events came.
Victor died on Feb. 5, 1955. This was truly a sad event for those who had come to know him. He had some heart trouble and towards the end of his life he had some health challenges. Nevertheless, the faithful mourned the loss of the man who had provided brilliant light from the Lord. Prophecies that had been hidden for centuries became clear as crystal through his writings and Florence Houteff was right there helping.
But the first bit of evidence that something was seriously amiss is the very next day’s events, after his death.
Florence called an executive council meeting to discuss business! The body was not even cold yet and she wants to discuss business. Among other things she requested the council make a resolution that she be provided for her welfare for the rest of her life.( Source- Wikipedia article reference no.91 “Davidian Seventh-day Adventists”.)
She also requested that she be made vice president, effectively making her the person in charge of the whole organization.
So we can see the first seeds of trouble. But Victor had been given the warning from the Lord because he said the following years before.
“Everything that can be done against God’s message of today will be done with even a greater vengeance than was manifest against Heaven’s message in the days of Christ’s first advent, for the Devil knows that if he loses now, he loses forever — that he is to have no other chance. Unparalleled, therefore, is the urgency that every eleventh-hour church member now quickly and solidly brace himself against the Enemy’s effort to deliver a knockout blow. We must be alert, too, to realize that the blow is to come from surprisingly unsuspected foes — from professed friends of the gospel, who are no less pious than were priests in Christ’s day.” (White House Recruiter, p.33)
Despite protests from some on the council, she managed to get her way. The movement was quickly and surprisingly under “new management”. But who really was behind this management? As events unfold further, there can be no doubt as to who.
A few weeks ago I was surfing YouTube, as I do occasionally. I found a video entitled, “The Shepherd’s Rod EXPOSED by their own references”. As one who is well versed in the Lord’s Elijah message I was naturally curious what this guy had to say. As I listened my mouth became wider and wider in dis-belief. Hence the reason and need for this post.
You see, Satan has not changed his game plan since the beginning. His very first work of deception was bearing “false witness” against God and His truth. God said “don’t eat” and Satan said “no He didn’t say that”. The same applies today and especially in regards to the last message, which he very well knows, once successful in securing the 144,000 true servants of God, it’s the beginning of the end for him.
So he get’s his own servants, those who bear false witness, to dispute and malign the Lord’s message. To spread falsehood and hopefully hood wink those who lean on flesh, who make men their arm.
Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. (Jer. 17:5)
So how does this all connect to Florence Houteff? Because she and her council made the well-known false prediction that brought scorn and wide-spread doubt to the message and it’s effects are seen even to this day. Thus many today are spreading her false prediction as “proof” that the message was false. They pawn it off on brother Houteff and the Shepherd’s Rod teachings.
In the video, the guy repeats the Satan lie that in 1959 the Shepherd’s Rod message from Victor Houteff predicted that Ezekiel 9 church judgment would take place around the world. That the warning called on all SDA members to save their lives and come to Mt. Carmel, Waco Texas, in April of 1959. To sell everything and get ready for the trip to Israel for the setting up of the pre-millennial kingdom. Many did do this (some say over 1000).
The truth of this matter is that Florence Houteff and her gang (her cronies on the council) set that date of April 1959 as the date of Ezekiel 9 to take place in the SDA churches around the world. But she claimed it was her husband’s interpretation that pointed to that time. The fact is that no where in all of Victor’s writings is found any prophetic prediction of Ezekiel 9 and its fulfillment date. (Good history of this is found in Don Adair’s –“A Davidian Testimony” chapters 19-21).
As we have often mentioned Satan and his devils are fighting for their life. And the best way to survive and delay their time is to tear down God’s message and even it’s messengers. As another example, the guy in this video starts going into how David Koresh was a latter-day follower of the movement started by VTH. If one knows the truth, this is such a blatant deception , it can only be called Satanic.
The 9th Commandment says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor.”(Exodus 20:16)
Bearing false witness is serious before the Lord. In times past God did indeed “wink” at certain things, but since His own Son’s blood was shed, it’s all for real now.
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”(Acts 17:31)
Florence Houteff and her council found out on that fateful day after their false prediction that the Lord had not spoken to them. So did over 1000 people around the world who had convened on Mt. Carmel in Texas that April day in 1959. But Satan was pleased. A big blunder had occurred that would serve as the “knock-out blow” that the prophet had predicted a few years before. Today this foul trick has hoodwinked many souls and accomplished its goal to throw many people off His last message of Elijah. The guy’s video is just one example of it.
So unfortunately after the disaster, Florence Houteff continued to make further blunders. Soon she and her council decided that, contrary to the prophet’s clear instructions, they would take the Elijah message to the world. Ignoring the fact, that the message taught that the Lord’s church was to receive this message first and foremost. The church, not the world, is about to be “spued out” and must prepare. The anti-type was to meet type. Elijah went to his people and not the world, so anti-type Elijah message must do the same.
Then after one dis-jointed plan after another she finally exposed her true colors and announced she was quitting the movement. The camp closed down in 1962. Although the faithful regrouped and headed to California. Seven years of blunders had run their course.
As can be expected, Florence Houteff later renounced her husband’s message and even Ellen White! Is it no wonder? Wouldn’t we also want to run and hide if the church community knew we had made false prophetic predictions?
As a amazing side note, Florence later remarried a man whose last name was Eakin. So she became known as Florence Eakin. Pronounced the same as Achan (the thief) of the solemn Bible story in Joshua (Chapter 7). Was this divine happenstance?
As we mentioned previously, just as Judas was led to fall from grace, it appears the Florence Houteff story is a similar case. Sad endings indeed!
The Scriptures say “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear..” (1 Peter 3:15)
In closing, let us learn and understand the truth behind some of the false lies spread by the haters of Truth. We can be ready to answer the charge of Victor Houteff making false predictions, when in fact they lay at the feet of Florence Houteff.
And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household ( Matt. 10:36)
(For a specific report detailing some of the committee minutes and decisions made by Florence Houteff and her council after the passing of VTH, see this link (reference 91 and 92) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davidian_Seventh-day_Adventist
Godsloveandlaw's Blog 
February 17, 2018 at 5:43 pm |
the shepherds rod is delusional like the 2520 crowd
February 17, 2018 at 9:24 pm |
Carry on brother we shall see.
March 10, 2018 at 12:47 am |
Nope she was 17 he was 52. E g white said no more than 14 years difference in age. You suppose he didnt know that or just blatantlt fisregarded it. He was wrong and finite and the message suffered afterwards because of this mistake. Your saying a 30/35 year old woman was too old for him. We dont live back in ancient time. We have to live within the norms of respectable societal expectations so as not to bring reproach on Gods name. I can never understand why he did such a thing. If she had turned out to be faithful i could have accepted it. I just cant get it.
March 10, 2018 at 4:42 am |
You may be right as to the specific ages, so I won’t argue this point. The bottomline is the age disparity was above and beyond the normal customs for today. Yet the very man you have no faith in brings an answer–
What Will the Poor Preacher’s Answer Be?
Question No. 160:–As we are troubled with many accusations against Brother Houteff, and as we do not know the exact truth of these charges, we kindly ask the Code to give us the true setting of them, so that we may be able intelligently and truthfully, and with meekness and fear, to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason for the hope that is in us. One of the greatest sins of which they are accusing Brother Houteff is that he has two wives, the former of whom left him because she cared not for the Present Truth, the latter of whom is too young for him. Are these things so?”
Answer:–Satan never tells the truth; thus he has used his agents to spread many false reports such as the foregoing ones concerning Brother Houteff; who was a single man when, eighteen years ago, he came in contact with the Seventh-day Adventist message, and who at no time during these years has divorced any one, or married any one save the one with whom he now lives. –
As to the matter of age, the following Biblical marriages represent a great disparity of years: Abraham, the father of the faithful, certainly took to himself a wife much younger than himself, for when he married the second time, he must have been over 140 years of age, as he was a hundred years old when Isaac was born (Gen. 21:5), and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebeccah (Gen. 25:20), at which time Sarah, Abraham’s first wife was yet living (Gen. 24:67), and Keturah, his second wife, was evidently somewhere under forty years of age, for she bare him six sons (Gen. 25:1, 2), which facts present a difference of at least a hundred years between the ages of Abraham and his second wife.
Again, the Lord chose for His lineage, Boaz (a Jew), and old man, and Ruth (a Moabitess), a young woman (Ruth 3:10)–a union contrary to the principles held by Brother Houteff’s critics.
Moreover, the Jewess, Esther, who was forbidden by the common rule of the Jews to marry outside of her own nation, was blessed in her affinity to the old Medo-Persian king, in that her nation was thereby preserved.
Still further, Joseph married the daughter of the idolatrous priest of Egypt, and Moses took for a wife an Ethiopian woman.
Thus we see from the above unions that no set rule can be fixed to govern each individual’s case. Moreover, had we lived in the days of the aforementioned unions, and had judged them by our own standards, we would have separated ourselves from Abraham, in whose bosom the righteous are protected from hell’s burning torments (Luke 16: 23-25); from Joseph, in whom the life of the ancient world was spared; from Moses, by whose hand the first-born in Egypt were either spared or destroyed, and all Israel freed from the Egyptian bondage; from Esther, by which act we, as Jews, would have destroyed ourselves at the hand of the wicked Haman; and from Christ, Who is our only life.
Brother Houteff’s marriage is far more in accordance with the accepted customs of today than were the above marriages in their day. Abraham’s case alone is sufficient to satisfy those whom the truth can convince.(3 SC, no, 5-6, p.7-8)