7 11, 2017 on Tuesday

A SPIRITUAL REVIVAL & A SPIRITUAL REFORMATION

Review and Herald, Feb. 25, 1902

Revival signifies:
1.	a renewal of spiritual life	]	Related to Personalities Of the people
2.	a quickening of the powers of mind and heart
3.	a resurrection from spiritual death

Reformation signifies:
1.	a reorganization	]	Related to the Organization of General Conference of SDA & the evangelists, pastors, and teachers
2.	a change in ideas and theories, habits and practices.

“A revival and a reformation must take place under the ministration of the Holy Spirit. Revival and reformation are two different things. Revival signifies a renewal of spiritual life, a quickening of the powers of mind and heart, a resurrection from spiritual death. Reformation signifies a reorganization, a change in ideas and theories, habits and practices. Reformation will not bring forth the good fruit of righteousness unless it is connected with the revival of the Spirit. Revival and reformation are to do their appointed work, and in doing this work they must blend.”

Revival and reformation are to do their work as appointed on the above diagram. But wherein are we to find the work specified and detailed for us to do?  As the servant of the Lord Sister White, and her associates have been charged to establish the Organization of the General Conference of SDA in 1863. And with the new light to come later in 1929, the re-organization would have been accomplished by another servant of the Lord. And that is Bro. Victor T. Houteff and his associates.

Re-organization of the General Conference of SDA,

 resulted in the establishment of the New Divinely Appointed Ministry in the Laodicean Church

  

“God has a church, and she has a divinely appointed ministry…” ”It is nearly forty years since organization was introduced among us as a people. I was one of the number  who had an experience in establishing it from the first.” – Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 24, 52. 

Ever since the beginning in 1863, the Organization of General Conference of SDA, as a divinely appointed ministry, has been established by the church and a prophet. namely Mrs. Ellen G. White. As the appointed ministry of God in the time of the end, a prophet is the highest ranking official of the ministry in the kingdom of God on earth. Thirty eight years later she has addressed the General Conference leadership by saying: 

"You have no right to manage, unless you manage in God's order. Are you under the control of God? Do you see your responsibility to Him? ............ That these men should stand in a sacred place to be as the voice of God to the people, as we once believed the General Conference to be, --- that is past. What we want now is re-organization." - General Conference Bulletin, 34th session, Vol. 4, Extra No. 1, April 3, 1901, p. 25, Cols. 1,2.

   

In her very last vision Sister White said:

“In my last vision I was shown that even this decided message of the True Witness had not accomplished the design of God. The people slumber on in their sins. They continue to declare themselves rich and having need of nothing. Many inquire: Why are all these reproofs given? Why do the Testimonies continually charge us with backsliding and with grievous sins?  We love the truth; we are prospering; we are in no need of these testimonies of warning and reproof.

But let these murmurers see their hearts and compare their lives with the practical teachings of the Bible, let them humble their souls before God, let the grace of God illuminate the darkness, and the scales will fall from their eyes, and they will realize their true spiritual poverty and wretchedness. They will feel the necessity of buying gold, which is pure faith and love; white raiment, which is a potless character made pure in the blood of their dear Redeemer; and eye-salve, which is the grace of God and which will give clear discernment of spiritual things and detect sin. These attainments are more precious than the gold of Ophir." - 1 Testimony Treasures, p. 329.

   

Then a year later, in the Review and Herald of February 25, 1902 through “The Call for a Spiritual Revival and Reformation”, Sister White again addressed the angel of the Laodicean Church in the following warning:

 

“Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.”

From the pictorial prophecy of Zechariah chapter 4, the candlestick represents the Laodicean church under the leadership, which is symbolized by the small pipes. Therefore, when the accomplishment of the work of re-organization finished, the candlestick would have been removed out of its original place, to the new one under the new divinely appointed ministry. 

Sister Ellen G. White died in 1915. Up to the time she died, the revival and reformation were not as yet taking place. And this should have been understood, because the so-called gold tried in the fire, the white raiment, and the eye-salve, were not as yet available up to the time. This means the people were yet to wait some more time up to 1929, when the angel of Revelation 18 : 1 came to unite his voice with the third angel’s message, and then to enlighten the earth with its glory (the glory of the message).

Under the New Light of the Message of the Angel

 of Revelation 18 : 1, the work of Re-Organization has been accomplished in Waco, Texas, USA.

The new light of the message of the angel of Revelation 18 : 1, the first time came through Bro. Victor T. Houteff, chairman of a Sabbath School of SDA Church in Los Angeles, California, USA, in 1929. The message was later called by the name, The Shepherd's Rod. The rules for implementing the Call for a Spiritual Revival and a Spiritual Reformation have been later arranged in a book by the name: "The Leviticus of Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist." This is one of the books of The Shepherd's Rod publications by Bro. Houteff.

After successfully won several followers to the message in 1930, they then arranged together to move to Texas to establish their own Headquarters somewhere there near the Lake of Waco, which was later known up to now as The General Association of Davidian SDA in Waco, Texas. Thus the work of re-organizing the General Conference of SDA according to the book of Leviticus of Davidian SDA has been accomplished in 1935.  In the PREFACE of the book of The Leviticus of Davidian SDA, Bro. Houteff said:

“Provisional in set-up as well as in name, the Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist Association exists solely to accomplish a divinely appointed work within the Seventh - day Adventist denomination, wherein it therefore strictly confines its activities. As its work there within  draws to a close , and the “servants of our God” (Rev. 7 : 3) are sealed, its name will be changed (Isa 56 : 5; 62 : 2; 65 : 15) and its purpose and its work will become all-embracing to the gospel (Matt. 17 : 11; Acts 3 : 21; Isa 61 : 4 – 7). Then its Constitution and the By-Laws as herein codified will become fully operative.”

 

Regarding the name and the objective of the re-organization he further wrote:

The Davidian Seventh - day Adventist

C O N S T I T U T I O N 

A r t i c l e   I  :     N  A  M  E

S E C T I O N    1:   This Association shall be known provisionally as The Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists, the prophetic offspring of the parent Seventh-Day Adventist, the Laodicean, church.

The Name, DAVIDIAN, deriving from the name of the king of Ancient Israel, accrues to this Association by reason of its following aspects: First, it is dedicated to the work of announcing and bringing forth the restoration (as predicted in Hosea 1 : 11; 3 : 5) of David’s kingdom in anti-type, upon the throne of which Christ, “the Son of David,” is to sit. Second, it purports itself  to be the first of the first fruits of the living, the vanguard from among the present day descendants of those Jews who composed the Early Christian Church. With the emergence of this vanguard and its army, the first fruits, from which are elected the 12.000 out of each of the tribes of Jacob,  “the 144.000 “ (Rev. 14 : 1; 7 : 2 – 8) who stand on Mount Zion with the Lamb (Rev. 14 : 1; 7 : 2 – 8), the reign of antitypical David begins. 

The name Seventh - day Adventist, which this Association inherits from the parent denomination, is provisional (Isa. 62 : 2) and only for the duration of its work within the parent denomination.

S E C T I O N    2:   The Associations literature, The Shepherd’s Rod Series, draws its title from the rod of Moses the shepherd of Median. In the exodus of his day, it was that rod which emancipated the children of Israel from the Egyptians and later smote the waters of the Red Sea, providing a haven of refuge for the fugitives and setting a death-trap for their pursuers. For this reason the literature takes the name “The Shepherd’s Rod” to identify and distinguish its special work, of which Isaiah wrote : “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathos, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea” (Isa. 11 : 11); and to call attention to the singular fulfillment of Micah prophecy : 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.” Mic. 6 : 9.

A r t i c l e    II   :   O B J E C T

S E C T I O N   1:   The object of this Association is to bring about among God’s people that reformation called for in the Testimonies for the Church, Volume 9, page 126 as the prerequisite movement to sounding the “Eleventh-Hour Call”         (Matt. 20 : 6, 7) of  “the everlasting gospel …… to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” Rev. 14 : 6. Through this call, the Loud Cry of the three angels’ messages, it is to gather “the people of the saints of the Most High” (Daniel 7 : 27) into the kingdom “which shall never be destroyed …but ….shall break in pieces and consume all ….kingdoms.” Daniel 2 : 44. Thus it shall usher in the reign of Christ as Lord of lords and King of kings over all the earth forever and ever.

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Now with the establishment of the re-organized divinely appointed ministry of the Laodicean Church in 1935, the Lord would have had the lukewarm angel of the Laodicean Church spewed out of His mouth. It is impossible for the Lord to have two Organizations representing Him on the earth at the same time. While the one is striving to accept the call for a spiritual revival and reformation according to the rules and regulations of The SPIRIT OF PROPHECY (under the ministration of the Holy Spirit), whereas the other is striving to reject the call indirectly by blocking the message of the SPIRIT OF PROPHECY to reach the people. And this is the reason why that the candlestick should have been replaced, and then to be placed under the new leadership of the re-organized divinely appointed ministry.

Dear Readers!  “God calls for a spiritual revival and a spiritual reformation. Unless this takes place, those who are lukewarm will continue to grow more abhorrent to the Lord, until He will refuse to acknowledge them as His children.”