Would it be possible to obtain a copy of the article Ellen White wrote in Sign of Times on Dec. 1, 1881? What I would like to know does she speak against the Isrealites when they started worshipping God elsewhere because of the great corruption at the sanctuary? If you can send the article please send by the old fashioned mail as my E mail services cannot handle attachments. Or if ;you just answer the question you can use the E mail.
Thanks.
___________

Dear Brother ___________,

Thank you for contacting the Ellen G. White Estate. I have read the article you asked about, and I did not find Mrs. White expressing a judgment on the decisions the people made. This is perhaps not surprising, since her topic was not Israel in general but "The Sons of Eli." She was looking at their sin and the sin of their father in not dealing with the situation. It seems to me, as I read what she wrote here, that she noted a deplorable condition--people feeling they should not come to the sanctuary, and that they would be better off making their own sacrifices--but she was not addressing the proper way for the people to handle this matter. I do not think that one can make a statement about her view on the matter based on her silence in this article.

Here are the two paragraphs (12 and 13) which bear on this topic:

But even this departure from the Lord's commands failed to satisfy Hophni and Phinehas. They desired the fat, which the Lord had expressly stated should never be eaten, but burned on the altar as an offering to himself. As they had learned to despise the authority of their father, they now despised the authority of God, and sent their servants to demand the flesh of the peace-offerings before the fat had been separated from it. When the offerer remonstrated, "Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth," the answer was, "Nay, but thou shalt give it to me now; and if not, I will take it by force." The people stood in awe of the priests, and submitted to their unlawful claims, robbing themselves of their rightful share of the offering. Thus, appetite, selfishness, and avarice triumphed, exerting their evil influence upon the people at the very time when every heart should have been directed in penitence and faith to the great Sacrifice which was to take away the sins of the world. These things had a telling influence upon the people, and they were fast losing all sense of the sacredness of the sacrificial offerings, and of the importance of attending upon the services of the sanctuary.

The recreant priests added licentiousness to the dark catalogue of their crimes; yet they still polluted by their presence the tabernacle of the Lord, and, laden with sin, dared to come into the presence of a holy God. As the men of Israel witnessed the corrupt course of the priests, they thought it safer for their families not to come up to the appointed place of worship. Many went from Shiloh with their peace disturbed, their indignation aroused, until they at last determined to offer their sacrifices themselves, concluding that this would be fully as acceptable to God, as to sanction in any manner the abominations practiced in the sanctuary.

The next paragraph (14) shows Mrs. White's understanding that the sanctuary service was what "Jehovah himself had ordained." She deplored the fact that "the sins of wicked men" caused it to be "despised and neglected." Here's how that paragraph begins:

The worship which Jehovah himself had ordained was despised and neglected because associated with the sins of wicked men. This was a critical time for the people of God. Ungodliness, profligacy, and even idolatry prevailed to a fearful extent among them. And where now was the priest and judge of Israel? Eli was not ignorant . . . .

You may have the whole article emailed to you from our automated server. Here's how. Send an email message to (note the address, which is different from mine) [email protected], and in the Message section put these four lines:

In a few minutes you should have an email message with all the paragraphs of the article in it (actually, there are 18, not 50, but when you don't know the number it is always a good idea to overshoot so you don't miss something. The maximum you can receive is 200 hits). Let me explain to you the last line, so you may be able to use this pattern for other searches. "ST" of course stands for the periodical The Signs of the Times. The numbers are the date you asked for, with the year, month, and date expressed numerically in that order as YYYYMMDD. That's how it works! You can also use this method for getting material from a certain book and page: DA 687, COL 180, GC11 571, etc. (Note that The Great Controversy is not GC but GC11, to distinguish the 1911 edition--our current edition--from the 1888 edition (GC88) which is also in the database.)

I hope this helps. Thank you for writing, and God bless!

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William Fagal, Director
Ellen G. White Estate Branch Office
Andrews University
Berrien Springs, MI 49104-1400 USA
Phone: 616 471-3209
FAX: 616 471-6166
Website: www.WhiteEstate.org or www.egwestate.andrews.edu
E-mail: [email protected]