SDA Issues - WACO: How to Respond

For false Christs and false prophets shall rise,...

... to seduce, if it were possible,

 even the elect.

Mark 13:22

 

Q: How does an SDA respond to those who try to smear the Church by linking it to David Koresh & the Branch Davidians of Waco Infamy?

Well,....

* The Shepherd's Rod began with Victor Houteff...a Bulgarian immigrant...he joined the church in Los Angeles in 1919....as a Sabbath school teacher he began his own interpretations of Isaiah 55-66....He was disfellowshiped (1930)...his followers followed him out...Houteff founded the Shepherd's Rod named after his publication...he was given a hearing by church leaders

(1934...including H.M.S. Richards)....The Shepherd's Rod was declared to be heresy (1936)...Houteff took his people to Texas and built the Mt. Carmel center near Waco....Houteff died in 1955 from heart failure...the peak of the Shepherd's Rod was the mid-50's reaching more than 100,000 subscribers worldwide... 

* Houteff's wife Florence seized power upon her husbands death. She made a prediction that the 42 months of Revelation were literal months (which any good Adventist knows isn't true) and would begin November 1955 & end 4/22/1959... Benjamin Rodin vied for leadership....he opposed the prediction of Florence and split off to form the Branch Davidians...Florence was discredited after April 1959....Q: So how did they have appeal to a wide swath of Adventists at the time if their teachings strayed from the Church doctrine? A: The simplified version (in my opinion) is by their decrying the lax standards in lifestyle beginning to gain momentum in the Church at the time..one can see how with this timeframe correlating with the rise of modern entertainment such as music, movies & TV could be the perfect storm to produce the Davidians...

* MAIN POINT: The 144,000-The Shepherd's Rod movement basically broke with the Church over the idea that the 144,000 to be literal number of those Adventists (of Jewish descent only) who pass the Judgment of the living (ALL other Adventists would be slaughtered by the angel of Ezekiel 9) ...AND that Christ's Kingdom would be established in literal Israel with a sort of post-millennial (a time of peace & love on earth before Christ's return) worldview & seemed to borrow heavily from the dispensational pre-millennialism which was sweeping other denominations at the time, that being their focus on literal Israel rather than Israel in prophecy as a symbol...SO THEY WERE TWISTING A LITTLE ADVENTISM WITH NON ADVENTIST POST MILLENIALLISM & DISPENSATIONAL PRE-MILLENNIALISM from other churches....quite the mix....(btw, dispensational pre-millennialism is the view known by the mass public as the "secret rapture" which stresses literal Israel as a focus of prophecy---post-millennialism stresses the 1,000 year millennium before Christ's return to earth---NEITHER view is held by Adventists)...

* RODEN(s) RIDE IN-Benjamin Roden led the Davidians to believe the judgment of the living began in 1955...Roden died in 1978...followed by his wife Lois assuming command...She taught the Holy Spirit is female (possibly influenced by the militant feminism rising in the 60's & 70's) and that the Holy Ghost is a separate being from the Holy Spirit as the daughter of God (the Mormons also 

George Roden

separate the Holy Spirit & Holy Ghost as different -is that where she got the idea?)....her son George vied for leadership and opposed his mother...

* Vernon shows up- Vernon Howell (changed his name later to David Koresh, David of the lineage of King David as in the lineage of the Messiah, and "Koresh", the Hebrew for Cyrus, the Persian predicted by Isaiah to conquer Babylon)...young Vernon had an affair with Lois Roden in her 60's...George Roden saw Vernon a rising threat to his power....the mother sided with her young lover Victor....George expelled Vernonand his followers...Vernon had the majority follow him...

* Grisly ending for Roden- George Roden dug up a casket of a recently dead Davidian on the compound grounds & challenged Vernon to a showdown of raising the dead...whichever one raised the dead body back to life would be leader...Vernon went and snitched to authorities instead...later Vernon and 7 followers went to the compound armed and a shootout ensued with Roden who was injured...at trial the 7 were aquitted and Vernon had a hung jury...later Roden murdered his roommate with an axe and was sent to a mental institution where he escaped twice...the second time his body was found dead...he had apparently dropped dead from a heart attack (1998)...

* The SINFUL MESSIAH- David Koresh was in full control of Mt. Carmel after paying the back property taxes on it.....David Koresh (formerly Victor Howell) went to Israel where the Davidians

believed they would have to be at Christ's return...Koresh was squealed on by a member to the Israeli authorities as to what he was planning (the reason why they had so many weapons was due to the belief that when they move to Israel that they might have to fight the Israeli military if they wouldn't want them there)....Koresh and his followers were banned from going back to Israel...It appears that Koresh, now that he messed up the Israel thing, saved face by claiming God was giving him visions and that Mt. Carmel in essence was to be their Israel...and that he had a "New Light" on the 7 seals of revelation and since only the Lamb could open them he must be that "Lamb"....he claimed Christ was the good Messiah and he (Koresh) the SINFUL MESSIAH (since people knew of his adultery and fornicating)....in other words he was a 2nd Messiah, Christ part 2--Christ being the 1st to found Christendom and obviously Koresh at the ending...he also had  a 14 year old wife but took 7 others and fathered many children claiming he needed 24 (not sure if he had in mind his 24 offspring to be the 24 Elders of Revelation)......and YES, Koresh did openly claim to be the Son of God...

* 1993 Ending---well documented all over the media and internet so no need to go into the WACO tragedy itself....but as a bit of not well known info there were more non-Americans than Americans at the compound that fateful April of 1993...many from Britain, Australia and Canada...he even had converts in New Zealand...

ALL THIS stemming from a man in the 1920's redefining the meaning of the 144,000 in his own head...this is why PETER WARNS US...First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation,..2 Peter 1:20 RSV


The self proclaimed
"SINFUL" MESSIAH