Originally posted by BobRyan:
You have my interest Trying2Understand - do you have "a quote" from a pro-SDA document quoting Ellen White as claiming some vision(s) that gave 4 specific dates for the 2nd coming?
Or is it "more correct" to say that she did not have a single vision predicting a specific date?
Which "detail" is correct?
Why don't you provide the quotes for the visions showing specific dates for the 2nd coming. Even "one" date will do.
I have made this exceedingly "easy" for Trying2Understand. He claims there are FOUR specific dates predicted in vision.
Knowing he will completely fail at finding four - I lower the bar FOR Trying2Understand and offer to give him the point if he can find even ONE.
Notice his failed attempts.
Trying2understand posts --
Ellen White predicts Second Coming to be in 1843:
“ I have seen the 1843 chart was directed by the hand of the Lord, and that it should not be altered; that the figures were as he wanted them; that His hand was over and hid a mistake in some of the figures, so that none could see it, until His hand was removed." Early Writings (of Ellen White)p. 74.
That "prediction" came years AFTER 1843. It was not a "prediction" of ANY future event. Rather it was a historic perspective on PAST events. The vision in question "predicted" NO date for the 2nd coming of Christ. Rather it "explained" a PAST event, a PAST failure of the Millerites.
But then that would be "the details". It is very hard to "predict" an event in 1843 when one is writing years AFTERwards.
Ellen White predicts Second Coming to be in 1844:
“and the same evidence which they had presented to show that the prophetic periods closed in 1843, proved that they would terminate in 1844.”
Early Writings, p. 236.
Another "failed" attempt by Trying2understand. Quoting ANOTHER statement by Ellen White introduced YEARS AFTER 1844. A statement that is nothing more than a retrospective look at HISTORY in the year 1844 NOT a "prediction" about any FUTURE event.
Trying2Understand
Confirmation by James White that Ellen White predicted Second Coming to be in 1845:
“It is well known that many were expecting the Lord to come at the 7th month, 1845. That Christ would come We firmly believed.”
A Word to the Little Flock (by James White) p.22.
THIS failed attempt by Trying2Understand to SHOW a "vision" quoted by Ellen White (or anybody else) that predicted ANY specific date for the 2nd coming - is poorly disguised. IN this case James White is stating that the teenage Ellen Harmon expected Christ to come in 1844 (he gets his date wrong) - BUT still it shows NO vision being quoted by Ellen Harmon (A 16 year old who had had NO visions prior to the failed dates in 1844) predicting ANY specific date for the 2nd coming.
Trying- keeps-trying our patience as he goes from one failed attempt to the next with no "specific date" being referenced by a vision "predicting" the 2nd coming. (Which was THE Point of his charge).
Trying2Understand final attempt --
Ellen White predicts that Second Coming will be in 1850:
“ In a view given June 27,1850, my accompanying angel said, “time is almost finished.” “But now time is almost finished, and what we have been years learning, they will have to learn in a few months.”
Early Writings (of Ellen White)p. 64, 67.
This is NOT a predicted "DATE". Rather it is a statement that we are in the end of time - and time is short. Other than stating that time is short and almost finished it makes NO "prediction" about a "specific date" NOR does it select a date "in the 1850's".
Paul states in 1Thess4 "WE who are ALIVE and REMAIN will be caught up together with THEM in the air" but does not "predict" a date in the first century by doing so. No specific "DATE" was predicted - only the concept that time is short.
Trying2Understand presumes again -
Ellen White again predicts Second Coming to be in 1850:
“Some are looking to far off for the coming of the Lord. Time has continued a few years longer than they expected; therefore they think it may continue a few years more, and in this way their minds are being led from present truth, out after the world. I saw that the time for Jesus to be in the most holy place was nearly finished and that time can last but a very little longer.” Early Writings (of Ellen White) p. 58.
Again - NO "specific date" and no "vision predicting a specific date".
The "only argument" trying2understand is able to "prove in the details" that Ellen White kept saying the time is "short".
1 Cor 7:29 "Time IS SHORT from now on those who have wives should live as if they had none".
Going on a crusade against those prophets that claim that time "is short" in the NT age will cut across a lot of road.
Trying2Understand attempts again --
Ellen White predicts the Second Coming to be between 1856 and some future date within a then living person's life time:
"I was shown the company present at the Conference, Said the angel: "Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus." Ellen G. White, 1Testimonies, p. 131-132. May 27,1856
Is anyone who was alive in 1856 still alive?
"WE who ARE alive AND remain will be caught up together with them (the dead in Christ) in the air" 1Thess 4:13-16.
NO specific date "predicted".
The "best" argument is that "a SHORT time" is predicted with no actual DATE - and certainly no SPECIFIC date set EITHER in the case of Paul or in the case of Ellen White.
Having failed to "show a SPECIFIC DATE" predicted by even ONE vision, trying2understand settles for showing that "Time is SHORT" and attempt to twist that into a "specific DATE set".
IF you had claimed "Ellen White claimed to have visions indicating that time was very SHORT" I would not have challenged you statements - because I would have known that "the details" supported your "claim".
But as it is - this is just "another example" of RC lack of attention to "detail".
No wonder we keep going around on the point that it was NOT the NON-CAtholics that introduced Vicarius Filii Dei in the dark ages - and it is a Catholic document that PROVES it.
In Christ,
Bob
