The Great Controversy (1911), page 508, paragraph 2:

Satan is continually seeking to overcome the people of God by breaking down the barriers which separate them from the world. Ancient Israel were enticed into sin when they ventured into forbidden association with the heathen.

In a similar manner are modern Israel led astray. “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” 2 Corinthians 4:4.

All who are not decided followers of Christ are servants of Satan. In the unregenerate heart there is love of sin and a disposition to cherish and excuse it. In the renewed heart there is hatred of sin and determined resistance against it.

When Christians choose the society of the ungodly and unbelieving, they expose themselves to temptation. Satan conceals himself from view and stealthily draws his deceptive covering over their eyes.

They cannot see that such company is calculated to do them harm; and while all the time assimilating to the world in character, words, and actions, they are becoming more and more blinded.

In this first passage, Ellen White seems to say that Christians should not associate with ungodly people.

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Gospel Workers (1915), page 273, paragraph 1:

Our Saviour calls for faithful witnesses in these days of religious formalism; but how few, even among the professed ambassadors for Christ, are ready to give a faithful, personal testimony for their Master!

Many can tell what the great and good men of generations past have done, and dared, and suffered, and enjoyed. They become eloquent in setting forth the power of the gospel, which has enabled others to rejoice in trying conflicts, and to stand firm against fierce temptations.

But while so earnest in bringing forward other Christians as witnesses for Jesus, they seem to have no fresh, timely experience of their own to relate.

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Geneive Claude left a comment asking about Ellen White’s view on sports.

In his book Ellen White’s World, George Knight has a passage about sports in Ellen White’s day.

Starting on page 130, he writes that around the late 1800’s leisure became more of a reality for the common folk. Before that time, most people spent much of their time working. They did not have time for leisure activities.

However, with the inventions of time-saving machines, the common people had less working hours and more time for leisure activities. Two of these leisure activities were watching and participating in sports.

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Sherman Cox II points us to a transcript of a devotional talk by James R. Nix, the director of the Ellen G. White Estate. Nix spoke about a survey by the North American Division a couple years ago. One of the survey questions asked if the respondents regularly read Ellen White’s writings. 2,848 were classified as readers and 5,375 were non-readers. After crunching the data from the other survey questions, these findings were published in Ministry magazine in October 1982.

I just borrowed a couple of books from our library. One of them is Meeting Ellen White by George R. Knight.

As I was flipping through this book, I noticed a helpful resource at the end of the book. In the last chapter, Knight makes a good case for these seven major themes in Ellen White’s writings.

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Since most of us here at the Ellen White Research Center are young, I thought it would be interesting to do a search in Ellen White’s writings on the word “youth.”

I fired up the search program, set it return 200 documents, typed in “youth”, and clicked on the Process Query button.

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In my last post, I wrote about how clear Ellen White was on the atonement of Christ. The atonement of Christ is Christ’s death on the cross in my place for my sins.

I only gave one Ellen White quote, so here’s some more quotes to think about. Happy Sabbath! Keep reading →

A couple days ago, a colporteur¹ came to my house. I bought a book called Triumph of the Trinity, because I wanted to help her financially. I didn’t plan on reading the book because of my busy schedule. I did scan through the book quickly and noticed many quotes from Ellen White’s books.

A couple days later, I met the wife of the author of Triumph of the Trinity. She told me the book had great quotes from Ellen White on Christ’s atonement².

I had been studying about the cross and Christ’s atonement, so I began reading the book especially the part about Christ’s atonement.

I think many Adventists overemphasize Ellen White’s statements on Christian lifestyle and behavior.

I can recall many Adventists telling me what Ellen White said about movies, health, vegetarianism, veganism, card games, the Sabbath, end-of-time persecution, the time of trouble, prayer, Bible reading, and sports.

However, I can recall very few Adventists telling me Ellen White’s views on the cross and Jesus’ sacrifice. Keep reading →