Jezreel Letter 3
Dear Elders and Laity:
Because the hour is late, and because you
Elders continue to spurn God's urgent plea that you fill your empty vessels
with the golden oil (Matt. 25:1-13) now flowing from the golden bowl (Zech. 4)
so that your path be lightened; and that you anoint your eyes with "eyesalve" so that you be no longer blind, Inspiration
has this concluding counsel for you:
Now is your final chance to obtain the badly
needed oil for your lamps, and the badly needed salve for your eyes, Elders,
(Rev. 3:18). If you fail now, you fail
forever. I am sorry that in this, as in
previous letters to you, the Spirit of Truth has no alternative but to continue
to uncover your shame (Rev. 3:18). You
can yet save the day if you turn away from the "Abominations" that
are being fostered and cherished in your midst, even in the house of God. Here we shall mention but a few:
Truth challenges you, Elders, to point out
wherein the Bible teaches either by word or by example that the Sabbath and the
church were made for raising goals, for auctioning, for selling literature and
for taking subscriptions. The Bible does
not teach or recommend even a plate collection (a custom which
Your answer that the things which you merchandise
"are in the interest of the Lord's work, is no excuse
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at all. In fact,
you condemn yourself the more by making it appear that the Lord Himself
transgresses the Sabbath which He hallowed and Himself set the example of
observing it by resting from all His works (Gen. 2:2). The wares which you Elders display and
dispose of on the Sabbath in the house of God are not, you must know, more
sacred or more important than were the sacrifices (lambs, oxen, and pigeons,
etc.) which the Jews sold in the temple, and for which purchase the money
changers were there.
Can you not see that as the Lord angrily
drove them out with the whip, He will with even greater fury drive out not only
you Elders but also the laity who continue to participate in your "unholy feasts." Yes, He
will deal with you even more severely than He dealt with the Jews, because you
are desecrating both the
Elders, do not longer presume that the Lord
has "forsaken the earth," His people, or His church. He died to save them and He has not given
them up. Nor will He let you run away
with them. Forsake your wicked works,
Elders, for why should you perish for filthy lucre? The Spirit of Prophecy long ago condemned your
unholy practice but you continue on and on.
Since you have now reached your limits, and since God's patience is
exhausted, this is the Spirit's last call for you to give heed to His
instruction:
"A great mistake has been made by some
who profess present truth, by introducing merchandise in the course of a series
of meetings, and by their traffic diverting minds from the object of the
meetings. If Christ were now upon earth,
He would drive out these peddlers and traffickers, whether they be ministers or
people, with a scourge of small cords, as when he entered the temple anciently,
'and cast out all them that sold and
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bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money
changers, and the seats of them that sold doves. And said unto them, It
is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer but ye have made it a
den of thieves.' These traffickers might
have pleaded as an excuse that the articles they held for sale were for
sacrificial offerings. But their object
was to get gain, to obtain means, to accumulate." -- Testimonies, Vol. 1,
pp. 471, 472.
As to your boast about the multiple millions
of dollars raised annually by the Denomination, Inspiration has this to say:
The patience and generosity of the laity (not their blindness) does deserve
praise, but what about your works, Elders?
Since the Bible does not teach any plate gatherings, but only freewill
offerings (and not for your own use either), then by high pressuring the laity
with your speeches, your pleas, and plate-passing all in the name of Christ,
you make Him an extortioner of the worst kind. And by your harvest ingathering and other
such campaigns to get money from the Gentiles, you make Him also a begger of the worst kind.
Your repeated plate collection, which in some instances number as many
as ten or more in one Sabbath morning, is blasphemy and robbery, not a blessing
and freewill offering.
You sell the
And still worse, though the Denomination
takes
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away from the laity everything possible, she does nothing
for them in time of need! But for you
Elders she does everything that is to be done, although it is the laity who by
hardship and sacrifice provide the means! Yes, you
spend your last days in respect comfort, and luxury, but when the laity get old
and sick, or die empty-handed, you commit their cases to the world's charity
institutions! What selfishness! What hardness of heart! What inequality and reproach against
Christ! By taking their living away from
them, and by doing nothing for them in time of need, you have thus forced them
to take life insurance and thus to sin against God!
It is high time, Elders, for you to know
that there is to be a stop to this robbery and that there is to be a reckoning,
too, that there is a just God that taketh vengeance
upon the unjust. Let us now turn to the
more sure word of prophecy and see what it has to say on the subject:
"Son of man, prophecy against the
shepherds of
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Here you note, Elders, that this scripture
is not condemning your wicked deeds by way of example. It directly condemns the deeds of the
shepherds of the
Moreover, since this scripture promises
peace and security such as have never been since sin came in, and since it
predicts the reformation now taking place among the laity throughout Laodicea, these are sure signs that this scriptures is now
being fulfilled right before your eyes; that God has dismissed you Elders as
much as He dismissed king Saul of old for taking what he had plainly been told
not to take; that antitypical David and the perfect peace are at hand, that
"those who have proved themselves unfaithful will not then be entrusted
with the flock" (Testimonies, Vol. 5, p. 80); that now "in the
shaking testing time" the hidden faithful servants (the faithful laity)
are being "disclosed to view"; that "few great men will be
engaged" in this solemn work; that now "the gold will be separated
from the dross." -- Testimonies, Vol. 5, pp. 80, 81.
Inspiration thus plainly reveals that
Ezekiel 34 points to this very time, and that it is a Heaven-sent message
especially for you, Elders. God forbid
that you should overtook this freshly revealed truth,
or neglect to take heed to it and to reform.
It is only because God yearns to save you
that He in Isaiah's latter-day prophecies again expose
your incredible wickedness:
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"O My people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. The Lord standeth
up to plead, and standeth to judge the people. The Lord will enter into judgment with the
ancients of His people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the
vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat My
people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith
the Lord God of hosts." Isa. 3:1215.
This scripture itself, you note, points out
that it is speaking to the people at the commencement of the judgment of the
living. The charge is that ye have
misled the people, that ye have "eaten up the vineyard,"
that "the spoil of the poor is in your houses." The rest of the chapter goes on to say that
in some instances you have taken the living of the poor and have bestowed it
upon your daughters, the which they lavish and wickedly display upon
themselves. Since it is obvious that you
will not much longer be allowed to "grind the faces of the poor," why
not repent now? Why keep on with your wickedness, and why perish in it?
There are thousands of cases such as Brother
A. L. Friis' from whom the conference took thousands
of dollars for their annuity fund, but did nothing for his care and for his
medical bills in his old age. And when a
suggestion was sent to them by mail, pleading that they should at least pay
part of his funeral expenses, they denied him this, too, by complete silence.
God has ordained that the ministry be
supported by the tithe, but you elders are consuming everything -- tithe,
freewill offerings, plate collections, harvest ingathering, legacies and what
not! And though the Spirit of Prophecy
instructed you years ago to pay the ministerial college teachers from the tithe
(Testimonies, Vol. 6, p. 215), you still continue to pay them by collecting
tuition and entrance fees from the students!
You thus
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cheat the students in order to use on yourselves their
rightful part of the tithe! The Sabbath
and the church you have turned Into institutions of
gain instead of rest, prayer, praise, and study. All this you do to feed yourselves and still
you do not have enough. What a
bottomless pit your stomachs must be! Do
you still deny that you have eaten up the vineyard?
If your literature is any good at all, it
should not be sold at such high prices, but instead it should be given away
free of charge and thus be scattered everywhere as the leaves of autumn. On the contrary, though, books that should be
sold for $1 per copy you are selling for $2 or $3. If the literature is given
away free, and if it is convincing, it should bring added multitudes of souls
and thus yield more in tithes and offerings than its purchase price now brings. Your love of money, though, makes you afraid
to take that chance. If there is any
literature ever given away, the laity are called upon
to pay for it, too. All these plain
facts taken together, Elders, prove that the sons of Eli had nothing on
you. Did they?
Your hoarding the spoil of the poor,
misinterpreting the Scriptures, undermining confidence in the prophets, and
keeping God's people in darkness concerning the judgment for the living
("great and dreadful day of the Lord') are wickedness such as never was! If you are doing these wicked things blindly
then why not now confess to the Lord that He is correct in saying that you are
"wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" -- in need
of everything instead of in need of nothing (Rev. 3:17). Repent of your unbelief and be forgiven.
To back up what we have said about your
boasting of Denominational prosperity, we present the following figures:
Jezreel Letter, No. 3 7
According to the Denomination's 1952 Year
Book, the tithes and offerings for missionary work in the twelve-year period,
from 1938 to 1950, amounted to $313,732,091.49 and the gain in membership was
286,761. These figures show that the
laity from 1938 to 1950 have paid to you Elders exactly $1,094.05 for every
member you have added to the church.
The picture becomes still worse when we take
into consideration that the children that are raised in Seventh-day Adventist
homes over the same period exceed the gain in church membership. It has been estimated by actual figures that
a church of a hundred members in twelve years (the age at which a child may
join the church) would raise at least 84 children to that age. According to this
ratio 469,951 church members -- the membership in 1938 -- would have by 1950
yielded 394,758 church members raised in Seventh-day Adventist homes if all of
them stayed in the church. Here you see
that the children that were raised in Seventh-day Adventist homes in the past
12 years out number the gain of church members by 107,957 souls over the same
period of time.
The actual facts stand out thus: If the
entire increase in membership has come from the Gentiles, then the laity have lost all their own children, 394,758 strong, and for
$313,732,091.49 they have brought 394,758 Gentiles! And if they had saved all their own children,
then the increase without even one Gentile would have been 394,758 instead of
286,761, and the laity's $313,732,091.49 hard-earned money would have been in
their own pockets instead of yours, Elders.
Is this anything to boast about? Prosperity? What
kind?
What has driven the S.D.A. children into the
world instead of into the church? And
what keeps the laity from bringing their neighbors and friends to the church? Also what drives out through the
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church's back door almost as many newly made converts as are
brought in through the front door? -- The answer is obvious: your constant goal
raising and plate passing all through the services, and your
starving them by the absence of pure, wholesome spiritual food.
We hope you will never again accuse us of
stepping off the "platform," but instead you yourselves, Elders,
hastily get back on it.
Too, we would have you know that the laity
is not so blind as you think they are to your falsely boasting of a
soul-gathering prosperity which you never back up by absolute facts. Such success never takes place here in the
homeland, but always in far-away lands, lands where no one of us has a way to
check up on you. Why not do something
here? Are the heathen closer to your
hearts than we of the homeland?
Your constantly accusing us of saying that
you practice "priest craft," is not doing away with this truth,
Elders, and the sooner you know it the better for you. A system of priest craft is entirely different
from a system of robbing the poor.
Moreover, we are not accusing you of anything, we merely call your
attention to what Inspiration Itself says; we merely comply with what It
commands us to do. Here follows our
commission:
"Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy
voice like a trumpet, and shew My
people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.... Is not this
the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens,
and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal
thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy
house? when
thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that
thou hide not thyself from shine own flesh?
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and shine health shall
spring forth
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speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the
glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward." Isa. 58:1, 6-8.
Your gossip that you have squelched the Rod, that it is dying out, is another false statement. No, not the Rod. Do not forget that graft like yours is what
nailed the thesis to the doors of the
We are sure that you now plainly see what
caused the beast's deadly wound to be healed (Rev. 13:3). We are also sure that you are now aware of
the fact that the Devil's taking the church captive is what made the whole
world wonder after the beast (cannot be the whole world without the church).
It is certain that if you are to escape
alive from the vengeance of God, these facts you Elders now dare not deny,
neither dare you refuse to arise and as loud as you possibly can proclaim
revival and reformation throughout the breadth and length of Laodicea. No, these
are not vain words, Elders. Hear what
the ensuing paragraphs say:
"What greater deception can come upon
human minds than a confidence that they are right, when they are all wrong! The message of
the True Witness finds the people of God in a sad deception, yet honest in that
deception. They know not that their
condition is deplorable in the sight of God.
While those addressed are flattering themselves that they are in an
exalted spiritual condition, the message of the True Witness breaks their
security by the startling denunciation of their true condition of spiritual
blindness, poverty, and wretchedness.
The testimony, so cutting and severe, cannot be a mistake, for it is the
True Witness who speaks, and
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his testimony must be correct." -- Testimonies,
Vol. 3, pp. 252,
"God has not changed toward His
faithful servants who are keeping their garments spotless. But many are crying, 'Peace and safety,'
while sudden destruction is coming upon them.
Unless there is thorough repentance, unless men humble their hearts by
confession, and receive the truth as it is in Jesus, they will never enter
heaven. When purifications shall take
place in our ranks, we shall no longer rest at ease, boasting of being rich and
increased with goods, in need of nothing.
"Who can truthfully say, 'Our gold is tried in the fire, our garments are unspotted by
the world'? I saw our instructor
pointing to the garments of so-called righteousness. Stripping them off, He laid bare the
defilement beneath. Then He said to me:
'Can you not see how they have pretentiously covered up their defilement and
rottenness of character? "How is the faithful city become
an harlot?" My Father's house is
made a house of merchandise, a place whence the divine presence and glory have
departed! For this cause there is
weakness, and strength is lacking.'" -- Testimonies, Vol. 8, p. 250.
What more "cutting and severe"
testimony than this do you Elders expect?
This, Elders and laity, is indeed the voice
of prophecy, and, therefore, now there is no question in your minds as to why
we are working strictly within the church rather than for the world. Now is seen who uses the Testimonies out of
their setting. Now there is no doubt of
the laity's rising with one accord, and tearing off the shackles that bind the poor
and that keep back the progress of the gospel.
Now to summarize the matter, we in Truth and
in the name of Christ say to you Elders and laity: Shall you not praise God
that for your lives' sake,
Jezreel Letter, No. 3 11
Truth in three consecutive
letters, including this one, has unveiled to all of you that in his blindness,
self-deception and lukewarmness, the angel of the
church of the Laodiceans has of the house of God made
a den of thieves, by the gospel of Christ has he made merchandise of His
people, and by twisting the Scriptures he has attempted to undermine confidence
in the prophets. Review our former
letters to you.
Your marvelous ingenuity to cover up all
this rottenness of character and make it appear as a garden of roses under a
clear sky, is something! And the cause of your
stubbornly keeping the laity from coming in contact with the Rod literature and
with its adherents is now to all perfectly understandable. There is now only one thing to do if you are
to save face and regain favor and respect with God and men, and that is for you
to take your stand on Truth's side, then put your
wonderful ability into action throughout
I hope that I have not become your enemy,
Elders, for telling you the plain truth in the fear of God and for your own
eternal good. Rather deal with the
issues involved, and do what you can to escape the overflowing scourge that is
now at your door, and at the door of every one who fails to sigh and cry for
the abominations that are in your midst (Ezek. 9 and Testimonies, Vol. 5, pp.
80, 81).
This, you note, is not Brother Houteff but the layman's movement, imbued with the Spirit
and at work.
Sincerely yours for
immediate action and for complete revival and reformation,
V.H Jezreel,
H. B.
(Director of S.D.A. Layman's
Movement)
5 T 80, 81
VHJ:cc
Jezreel Letter, No. 3 12