IF WE are as near the Advent as events about us would indicate, we should be on the alert for the omega apostasy Ellen White warned would threaten the church just before the re turn of our Lord. "Be not deceived; many will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. We have now before us the alpha of this danger. The omega will be of a most startling nature." —Selected Messages, book 1, p. 197.
It is well for us as leaders in God's work to study closely some of the distinguishing marks of the early apostasy—the alpha—when views advanced by Dr. J. H. Kellogg came close to fracturing the church soon after the turn of the century. If we understand that which constituted deadly error and devastating action of the alpha, we may better detect the apostasy that is to strike the church before the work is finished.
There are certain identifying marks of the alpha on which the Spirit of Prophecy, some church historians, and interested researchers agree:
1. Dr. Kellogg became infected with the liberal theological thought of his day. The apostasy was catalyzed by the subtle infiltration of doctrines foreign to the message God had given the Advent people.
2. His theological heresy was taught in the Battle Creek Sanitarium, the Battle Creek College, and the medical school. It crept into a few of the presentations at two General Conference sessions (1897 and 1899).
3. The new doctrine offered differing theological presuppositions that would have necessitated bypassing Adventism's message.
4. Basic Adventist theology would have been changed. This would have undermined the foundations of Adventist faith.
5. There were overt as well as subtle attacks on the Spirit of Prophecy in an effort to destroy or diminish faith in God's gift.
6. The methodology employed was to bring in the "new light" beside the old; but it was mingling error with truth.
7. Kellogg's new doctrine appealed especially to the intellectual elite, and some prominent physicians and ministers joined him in advocating his views.
8. There was an endeavor to rechannel denominational energies into humanitarian activities, to the detriment of the preaching of the last-warning message.
9. The leaders of the new "movement" were determined to take over the leadership of the sanitarium and perhaps of the church from the men who had been duly elected to bear these responsibilities.
10. Prompt action on the part of church leaders, guided by the counsel of the Spirit of Prophecy, spared the church the traumatic division that appeared almost inevitable. When the servant of the Lord said to meet it, the leaders courageously and successfully carried out the Lord's command.
Go back over those ten points one by one, carefully. As a leader you need to be well-acquainted with Satan's plans for the omega apostasy that will inevitably come—perhaps sooner than we have believed. Could the apostate "angel of light" even now be sowing seeds that will bear the awful harvest the church will experience before the end?
Writing in the Review and Herald of October 23, 1930, Editor F. M. Wilcox could look back upon the subtle alpha assault of the evil one and state: "When this warning was given, twenty-five years ago, the danger was recognized, and earnest steps were taken to avert the threatened catastrophe. God blessed the effort. But this was not to be the end of the satanic campaign to corrupt the truth of the gospel as held by this denomination. We were definitely warned that the wicked philosophy which was met twenty-five years ago was the alpha of error, but that the omega of error would be developed later, that the erroneous teaching of the past would again be repeated, and that the church of God would be called upon to face another crisis."
"To be forewarned is to be forearmed" is an old adage, and it is a wise one.
In the October issue of THE MINISTRY we will consider the omega apostasy.
"So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me" (Eze. 33:7).
