Who is to Come in the Spirit and Power of Elijah?

“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.: — Malachi 4:5, 6

These verses foretelling of a prophet to come in the spirit and power of Elijah to herald the great and dreadful day of the Lord has been the subject of much controversy and discussion amongst Seventh-day Adventists (S.D.A.’s) over the years. For example, the church teaches that they are the fulfillment of this verse as a multitude of people who will give the Elijah message. On the other hand they try to explain away a plain statement Ellen White made in Testimonies to Ministers, p. 475 by saying that she is the individual who fulfills this prophecy in the latter days. Which is it? As it turns out neither response from the church is correct. Some of the questions that will be addressed in this post to clarify who it is that fulfills this Elijah prophecy, what is their message, and who it is that will proclaim it to the world are enumerated below.

• Was this scripture fulfilled with John the Baptist or does it have a future application?
• What exactly is the great and dreadful day of the Lord, is it the second coming or something else?
• Is this coming Elijah one individual or a multitude of believers?
• Is this prophet to be Elijah himself or someone in the spirit and power of Elijah?
• Is the proclamation of the three angels messages since the late 1840’s a perfect fulfillment of this prophecy? If not, what is the message that is to be proclaimed?
• Is this antitypical Elijah another prophet after Ellen White, or was she making reference to her own work?
• Who are the ones who will proclaim this message?

Was This Elijah Message Fulfilled by John the Baptist?

Most S.D.A.’s understand that the message of John the Baptist heralding the first advent of Christ was only a partial fulfillment of this scripture which is true. Furthermore, that the Elijah to come was not be be the prophet himself, but someone in the spirit and power of Elijah. However, as to the identity of an antitypical Elijah to come and make ready a people for the second coming there is disagreement. The church leaders want people to believe that it is Ellen White who came in the spirit and power of Elijah despite evidence in her own writings that points to a male prophet to come after her day. This will be addressed in more detail below.

What is the Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord?

The Seventh-day Adventist church teaches that this applies exclusively to the second advent of Christ in the clouds of glory. They do not have the added light that this great and dreadful day is actually the Lord coming unexpectedly to cleanse or purify the church to make ready the 144,000 who will go forth and proclaim the Loud Cry and gather in the Great Multitude (Rev. 7:9) from the fallen churches constituting Babylon. It is then after God has gathered His people from the church and the world, separated from sin and sinners, that He will have a people ready to meet Christ in the clouds of glory.

A Message Must be Brought by a Messenger

The Seventh-day Adventist church teaches that the Elijah message is the three angels messages of Revelation 14 that are to be given as a warning to the world. What they overlook is the fact that these messages are to be repeated and given power and force that other angel of Revelation 18 that comes from heaven and joins the three, sometimes referred to as the fourth angel (see Early Writings, p. 277). Since that angel comes down from heaven it must bear an additional message and that message is none other than the judgment for the living. The judgment of the dead commenced in 1844 and soon will close, but the present truth the flock needs now is found in the judgment for the living that will first begin with the church (1 Pet. 4:17).

Did Ellen White Predict Her Own Work as a Fulfillment of Malachi 4:5?

“Prophecy must be fulfilled. The Lord says: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Somebody is to come in the spirit and power of Elijah, [SEE APPENDIX.] and when he appears, men may say: “You are too earnest, you do not interpret the Scriptures in the proper way. Let me tell you how to teach your message.” — Testimonies to Ministers, p. 475.3

The Seventh-day Adventist church does not believe Ellen White when she predicted that another prophet, a singular male figure, was to come after her to proclaim the great and dreadful day of the Lord (judgment of the living, sealing of the 144,000). In order to maneuver around this obvious conclusion that first appeared in the volume Testimonies to Ministers a unnamed committee of leading men in the church revised the 1962 reprint of this book and added the words [SEE APPENDIX.] When one goes to this appendix written by these uninspired men they will find a long winded attempt to make it appear that Ellen White was referring to her own writings and that she was the one to come in the spirit and power of Elijah. However, this places her on the ground that she and her editorial staff had no understanding of the English language and that when she wrote “he” she actually meant “she”. If this be the case then how can we trust anything she wrote if she did not know the difference between a man and a woman, an individual versus a group of people. Of course this is an absurd conclusion made to expose the fallacious reasoning of those leading men in the church who are desperately trying to keep the flock in darkness because they themselves refuse to acknowledge that God has sent a message to His church after the ministry of Ellen White and that this message has been plainly laid out and agitating the church since its inception in 1930. This message is identified as the Shepherd’s Rod and its penman was Victor T. Houteff.

As further proof of the misleading practices of the Seventh-day Adventist church leadership and their efforts to bury the true message of revival and reformation one has to recognize that the original publication of Testimonies to Ministers that came out in 1923 made no reference to an appendix which attempted to explain away the obvious meaning of the passage. Nor was there any appendix added to the 1944 reprint edition of this same volume. It was only in 1962 that this man-made appendix appeared, the year after Florence Houteff and her council abandoned the SRod message and the Spirit of Prophecy, a time in which the church leaders were doing their best to extinguish the SRod message and hope that it would never surface again.

The 144,000 Will Proclaim the Elijah Message During the Loud Cry

So who are going to be the ones who go forth to proclaim the three angels messages when they are to be repeated being joined with the forth angel of Revelation 18 which grants them much power and force? This will be the 144,000 who escape the slaughter of Ezekiel 9 and will gather their brethren from the fallen churches of the world into God’s latter day kingdom church (Isa. 66:15-20). In this sense several passages from the Spirit of Prophecy, such as the two given below, will meet their perfect fulfillment.

“In this age, just prior to the second coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven, God calls for men who will prepare a people to stand in the great day of the Lord. Just such a work as that which John did, is to be carried on in these last days. The Lord is giving messages to His people, through the instruments He has chosen, and He would have all heed the admonitions and warnings He sends. The message preceding the public ministry of Christ was, Repent, publicans and sinners; repent, Pharisees and Sadducees; “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Our message is not to be one of peace and safety. As a people who believe in Christ’s soon appearing, we have a definite message to bear,–”Prepare to meet thy God.”

Our message must be as direct as was that of John. He rebuked kings for their iniquity. Notwithstanding the peril his life was in, he never allowed truth to languish on his lips. Our work in this age must be as faithfully done. . . .

In this time of well-nigh universal apostasy, God calls upon His messengers to proclaim His law in the spirit and power of Elias. As John the Baptist, in preparing a people for Christ’s first advent, called their attention to the Ten Commandments, so we are to give, with no uncertain sound, the message: “Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come.” With the earnestness that characterized Elijah the prophet and John the Baptist, we are to strive to prepare the way for Christ’s second advent (SW March 21, 1905):” — SDA Bible Commentary, Vol. 4, p. 1184

“Thus the message of the third angel will be proclaimed. As the time comes for it to be given with greatest power, the Lord will work through humble instruments, leading the minds of those who consecrate themselves to His service. The laborers will be qualified rather by the unction of His Spirit than by the training of literary institutions. Men of faith and prayer will be constrained to go forth with holy zeal, declaring the words which God gives them. The sins of Babylon will be laid open. The fearful results of enforcing the observances of the church by civil authority, the inroads of spiritualism, the stealthy but rapid progress of the papal power–all will be unmasked. By these solemn warnings the people will be stirred. Thousands upon thousands will listen who have never heard words like these. In amazement they hear the testimony that Babylon is the church, fallen because of her errors and sins, because of her rejection of the truth sent to her from heaven. As the people go to their former teachers with the eager inquiry, Are these things so? the ministers present fables, prophesy smooth things, to soothe their fears and quiet the awakened conscience. But since many refuse to be satisfied with the mere authority of men and demand a plain “Thus saith the Lord,” the popular ministry, like the Pharisees of old, filled with anger as their authority is questioned, will denounce the message as of Satan and stir up the sin-loving multitudes to revile and persecute those who proclaim it.” — Great Controversy, p. 606.2

Summary

Let us bring together an understanding of Malachi 4:5 that meets its perfect latter day fulfillment. The someone to come in the spirit and power of Elijah was to be an individual male prophet subsequent to the ministry of Ellen White that would prepare the S.D.A. church for the great and dreadful day of the Lord, the soon coming judgment of the living. This day is to be a day of judgment in which God will separate the wheat from the tares in the church as specified in the ninth chapter of Ezekiel. This message and its messenger came right on time in 1930 as predicted by the prophecy in Ezekiel chapter 4 and has been identified as the Shepherd’s Rod, a series of books and tracts detailing not only the great and dreadful day of the Lord, but also many other prophecies, especially from the minor OT prophets that have never been understood nor explained in conventional SDA theology. Those who accept this deep seated message of revival and reformation and are sealed for translation will be the numbered company of the 144,000 who are to be the ones who go forth and proclaim the three angels messages with power and force to gather in a great multitude from the fallen churches constituting Babylon during the Loud Cry. Once these two groups of saints, one from the SDA church and one from the world, the first and second fruits of the earth’s final harvest of souls are gathered, then God will have His people prepared to meet Christ in the clouds of glory and go with Him to heaven for a 1,000 years.

As this post is only a very brief summary, we encourage all who read this to investigate further the original SRod message for themselves and see if these things are so, especially the tract entitled 1950 General Conference Special which makes plain how to know and identify the antitypical Elijah and his message.

Tagged as: Elijah, Elijah message, Malachi 4:5, spirit and power