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The Spirit of Prophecy gave us perhaps the greatest counsel on the Holy Spirit, let us read —

“The nature of the Holy Spirit is a mystery. Men cannot explain it, because the Lord has not revealed it to them. Men having fanciful views may bring together passages of Scripture and put a human construction on them, but the acceptance of these views will not strengthen the church. Regarding such mysteries, which are too deep for human understanding, silence is golden.” {AA 52.1}

Now those words are packed with powerful truths about our subject. As we go into this post let us keep these clear and unmistakable words of God in mind.

As we have posted so many times before, Satan in all his craftiness, studies us inside and out, especially those of the household of faith, to see if he can snare us one way or another. And one of the greatest snares for many years now is making the understanding of the Holy Spirit a test of faith. In other words, you may be lost if you do not understand the Holy Spirit correctly. Oh how our enemy is so crafty and sneaky!

Yet nevertheless, we should know what kind of ploys are employed by him today in regard to the Holy Spirit. This issue, along with keeping the feast days, and the church is Babylon is perhaps the three greatest snares that he has foisted upon the unsuspecting in our church.

But let us be sure, our all-knowing and foreseeing Lord saw down to this day the contentious issues we would be involved in as a church. Let NO ONE think the Lord did not know beforehand what to do about it! Thus He promised —

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” (Mal. 4:5-6)

And knowing already what He promised in that Scripture when He walked this earth,  He settled the reason why He would need to send His last prophet to the church —

“And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elijah truly shall first come, and restore all things.” (Matt. 17:10-11)

As present truth believers, we know that the Elijah to come had a double application, as Jesus said to His disciples that John had played that role for His first advent (Matt. 17:12). However, we today know very well that another prophet was sent for these last days and this servant has opened up to us marvelous things from the word of God, writing out the Lord’s final message (Elijah message aka the Shepherd’s Rod (Micah 6:9).

“..as John was a messenger to God’s own people at that time, just so at this time the Elijah of Malachi’s prophecy represents a message which is to be delivered not to the world, but to the professed people of God. As John was their last prophet, his message was their final means to fit them for the Messiah’s appearing, for which cause said the Master, “If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. (Matt. 11:14) Likewise, Elijah’s message of today must be to the professed people of God, and is to be their last means to fit them for Christ’s appearing at this time.” (1 SC 4:5)

To be sure, the issue of the Holy Spirit was one of those “restored” things (teachings) that the Lord sent through His prophet. So this being the case we MUST go to this final message to get clarity and restoration and to stand upon the solid Rock of Jesus–HIS WORD.

Our first and most important area to know about this issue is to review our present truth Fundamental Beliefs. These are, as we know, our core beliefs, our foundation. So let us look here first —

FUNDAMENTAL BELIEFS   Emerging in 1930 from within the Seventh-day Adventist denomination (“the church of the Laodiceans”), the Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Association has ever been committed to the prophetic work (predicted in Isaiah 52:1) of preparing the Laodicean church, the last with “the tares” among “the wheat,” for the final proclamation of the gospel “in all the world.” Matt. 24:14.

   This Association, in common with the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, holds ”certain fundamental beliefs, the principal features of which, together with a portion of the Scriptural references upon which they are based,” are originally summarized as follows:

   “1. That the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were given by inspiration of God, contain an all-sufficient revelation of His will to men, and are the only unerring rule of faith and practice. 2 Tim 3:1517.

   “2. That the Godhead, or Trinity, consists of the Eternal Father, a personal, spiritual Being, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, infinite in wisdom and love; the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father, through whom all things were created and through whom the salvation of the redeemed hosts will be accomplished; the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, the great regenerating power in the work of redemption. Matt. 28:19. (FB Tract, p.3-4)

In the above we notice that there is mention of “Trinity”, yes “Trinity”. We need to point that out because Satan has stirred some to say, “That is a Catholic doctrine, it’s from Satan!” Ok, then if the Lord calls it Trinity is He following Satan?? Let’s get real here! This clearly ESTABLISHES that the word Trinity is correct and proper to call the Godhead.

Then we notice something that cannot be misconstrued. “Person”, what does that mean? Is it a force, is it energy, is it part of another being? No, let us read —

Google Dictionary

The message tells us to pay close attention to “each word”.

“..when we take into consideration the meaning of each word instead of making thoughtless and hasty conclusions, the Scriptures prove to be not only most perfect and wonderful and yet simple, but also inspiring, making wise the humble — and lightening the path of him who as did Christ, delights to do the will of God.” (Sym. Code, vol. 2, no. 2, p.3)

Thus we see that when we read carefully and simply, childlike, we cannot escape the FACT that Jesus says through His end-time prophet, that there is a third PERSON in the Godhead and a part of the TRINITY. That means that each Being, God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct individual Beings but of ONE PURPOSE– a Triune God.

Lets go back to Ellen White now. The “only Two Beings” crowd often tries to deny and explain away her many references that confirm the Trinity Godhead as taught in our SDA FB’s and confirmed in our DSDA FB’s.

This Ellen White Estate article is eye-opening and calls out her critics for their ploys —

“Third Person of the Godhead”

For most Adventists, Ellen White’s published statements are conclusive as to her teaching on this question. In The Desire of Ages she writes that “sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power” (p. 671).

This is how the text has read since its first publication in 1898. So how do opponents escape its natural interpretation that there are three distinct persons in the Godhead?

First, by suggesting that the expression found its way into The Desire of Ages through the influence of Ellen White’s assistants and/or Herbert Lacey or W. W. Prescott.1 Second, by pointing out ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS 19 that the words “third person” are not capitalized in the original 1898 printing, signifying to them that the word “person” is used in a more “general sense.”

Third, by suggesting that while there are in reality only two persons in the Godhead, “the net effect for us is that there are three divine beings,” since the Holy Spirit is called “another Comforter.” In this view, the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit (presence) of the Father and/or Christ,” and not in actuality a distinct third divine person….

The White Estate often receives this type of inquiry from persons who question the reading or teaching of a published statement. Some are surprised when we tell them that Ellen White
did not write out her chapters by longhand as they appear in books like Steps to Christ and those in the Conflict of the Ages Series. She was certainly the author of the text, but most of the material
comprising the chapters as we have them was compiled from her many earlier works, including her sermons, letters, and articles.

So to find the original manuscript for any given passage in a book like The Desire of Ages, we must determine the source document and whether a handwritten draft of that document is extant.
What, then, is the source for this sentence on page 671 of The Desire of Ages? We find it in a letter Ellen White addressed to “My Brethren in America,” dated February 6, 1896.

She wrote,
“Evil had been accumulating for centuries, and could only be restrained and resisted by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified
energy, but in the fullness of divine power.”

This letter was copied and sent from Australia to church leaders in Battle Creek, where the General Conference president, O. A. Olsen, published it the next year in a pamphlet circulated among church leaders  20 ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006 and ministers (Special Testimonies, No. 10, pp. 25-33). This contemporary publication provides another evidence—beyond the obvious copyright date—that this passage in The Desire of Ages reads as it did when first published in 1898.”

Click to access TheTrinity.pdf

May we suggest that the above article be read in full for those who are stuck in the TWO BEINGS teachings. If that article is carefully read, you will be set straight. Trying to undermine EGW’s teachings that there are THREE PERSONS in the Godhead is unfruitful work and a ploy of Satan. God is not mocked!

So how can we conclude our report? There is no doubt that if you call yourself a present truth believer you must agree that the Lord CONFIRMS the plain clear teachings of THREE BEINGS (PERSONS) all acting as one, yet each with their own BEING and individuality.

Christ our King warned us to be careful in regards to the Holy Spirit —

“And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.” (Matt. 12:32)

Again, the Lord, through the Spirit of Prophecy warned us above, that we cannot truly understand the nature of the Holy Spirit. What we do know is that His final message of Elijah tells us —

a. There is a TRINITY, Three individual Beings comprising the Godhead, and that

b. the Holy Spirit is a PERSON, an Individual Being.

The message also teaches from the chart below that John Knox, founder of the  Presbyterian church, was the Barley and he brought the true understanding of the Holy Spirit (See Chart below).  Below is what the Presbyterian’s doctrine is on the Holy Spirit. We would have to call the Rod’s Ezek. 4 Chart as teaching error, if we think that there is not a Trinity but only Two beings. This non-Trinity teaching has lots of holes as we can see, it’s built on shifting sand, let’s stand upon the clear Rod teachings.

“Presbyterian theology, like Christian theology, begins with the triune God. The Trinity is the basis for understanding who God is. The three persons are one God. Who we see in Jesus Christ is God. What we see the Holy Spirit do is God. The God who is revealed in the Old Testament is God. All the work of God is one work in that it is carried out by the one God. But God works as three divine persons, united in the divine love. The Bible distinguishes the work of the persons of the Godhead. But we believe in and worship, as the hymn says, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”(TheThoughtfulChristian.com)

Our adversary has worked for many years on this issue and now it seems a sizable crowd of church members, even some claiming to be Davidian SDA, are falling for this trick. They spend their time trying to explain the Holy Spirit, His nature and His true definition. THIS WILL NOT STRENGTHEN THE CHURCH as SOP says.

There are crafty men and women today who are doing what we call “private construction” trying to construct this passage here with that over there and then say “Ah, see there is only Two Beings”. They are so enamored with this idea that they mount the judgment seat and say that all who believe and teach the Trinity are lost! Shades of Korah and his followers all over again!

Another confirmation from the message —

“Thus being as they were the product of the omnipotent power of the three persons of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost at work for 40 days through the personal ministry of their triune representative, Christ, this preternatural little group consequently preserved and continued  the line of the church.” (Tract 3, third edition, p.91)

We did a prior post called Rabbit Trails which highlighted how some get so worked over an issue that they believe restores the truth, yet they fall for a dead end rabbit trail in the end! Don’t be one of them. Stay on the straight clear path that the Lord has restored for us. His Elijah is to be listened to not the “sayings of men”.

https://godsloveandlaw.com/2015/10/31/rabbit-trails/

“Every wind of doctrine will be blowing, false revivals and reformations will be at their peak.  Everything that can be done will be done to distort the Truth and thus distract and dishearten believers and draw their attention to something other than the message of Elijah.

   Thus will be the Devil’s deal while the day of God is approaching, and while Elijah is making the announcement of it as the scroll unrolls and while the prophecies concerning the day of God are being unsealed.   His work and his interpretation of the prophecies for the great day will identify him as the promised Elijah the prophet (“Testimonies to Ministers,” p. 475), and this will enrage the Devil as never before. 

Nevertheless, one’s only safety will be in the teaching of Elijah, for there will be no other voice of timely Truth and authority to whom one may turn.  Any others will lead their victims blind-folded into perdition.” (GCS, p.7-8)

“All present truth believers should now see the necessity of shunning every wind of doctrine regardless how plausible or reasonable it might appear to be.  Remember the words: “Behold, those that go toward the north country have quieted My Spirit in the north country.” (See p. 27 of Tract No. 2, The Warning Paradox, — Zech. 6:1-8.)  Get your doctrine, Brother, Sister, only from the golden bowl (see The Shepherd’s Rod, Vol. 2), and be not like the waves of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed — be not carried about by the many winds of doctrine that are blowing wildly from every direction to cause you to lose your way to the everlasting kingdom.” (Tract 11, p.12)

Throughout history, there have been God’s authorized mouthpieces to give us the truth we need for our time, the message gives us such clarity on this issue that none should be in ignorance —

Chart showing seven tubes coming from the top of the Golden Bowl to the seven candlesticks.  Zech. Four Lesson. (Answerer, vol. 3, Q-55)

“Here it is seen that the candlestick, as interpreted by Revelation 1:20, is symbolical of the church membership; the tubes extending from the golden bowl to the candlestick, are symbolical of the ministry (Testimonies to Ministers, p. 188); the olive trees are symbolical of the Old and New Testament Scriptures (The Great Controversy, p. 267); and the two golden pipes, which carry the golden oil from the trees to the bowl, are symbolical of the Bible interpreters, the inspired messengers from God, for the symbolism immovably shows that they are the only ones whom Inspiration enables to draw the oil from the olive trees—to interpret the Scriptures. And the bowl, the container of that which the pipes (interpreters) place therein, can be only the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy.

  As a necessary and natural sequent, God will have but one mouthpiece to teach His people in the establishing of His Kingdom, as He prophetically tells us in unmistakable language: “And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even My servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and My servant David a prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it. And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.” Ezek. 34:23-26.

“The Lord’s voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the Rod, and Who hath appointed it.” “Feed thy people with thy Rod the flock of thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I shew unto him marvelous things.” Mic. 6:9; 7:14, 15. (Answerer, vol. 3, Q-55)

We see that our truth for today has established without doubt that the Holy Spirit is part of the Godhead, a separate third Being. This is confirmed by the Lord through His Elijah prophet. Let us not make our own doctrines, putting our own pipes as it were, into the Golden Bowl and extracting our own ideas and doctrines.

God’s message says it, we believe it!

This entry was posted on June 29, 2019 at 5:22 am and is filed under Elijah Interpretations, Holy Spirit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.