WHAT THE PEOPLE ARE SAYING
October 3, 1955
Executive Council
Davidian Seventh-day Adventists Mt. Carmel Center
Waco, Texas
Dear Brethren:
By the time this letter is in the mail, many will have received their copies of the first letter. And by the time they receive this word they will have read and digested the first.
Because of the shortness of time, these letters are written so simply that the most unschooled will have no trouble understanding them.
It is the desire of this organization to keep its people well posted on the happenings of the day. Each layman, each child, is to know the most secret things, even of the highest branch of the organization.
The NOTE in the first letter sounded an alarm in the Davidian Seventh-day Adventist church. This letter must be the second trumpet that Joel wrote about. The children of Israel blew the trumpets for ten days before the Atonement. These trumpets will be heard throughout the Davidian Seventh-day Adventist church for ten days.
This movement began with a fast (Joel 1:14). It will spread to all honest Davidian Seventh-day Adventists. October 10 IS THE DATE SET for this most solemn occasion. As in the days of Israel, all will want to be there that day. This, therefore, must be the first direct fulfillment of Joel’s trumpet.
“Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel (144,000, “for they are virgins.” Rev. 14:4), turn again, to these thy cities.” Jer. 31:21. No doubt, this meeting, October 10, will be one of the waymarks recorded here in Jeremiah’s prophecy.
“How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the Lord hath created a new thing (a new message) in the earth. A woman
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shall compass a man (before the spiritual birth).” Jer. 31:22.
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Isa. 1:18.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9.
Now, if the message of 1929 did all of this for us, and there is not one sinner among us as a people, then Jeremiah 31:22 and the last part of Nahum 1:15 were fulfilled at that time.
If Brother Houteff did not sin after receiving the message of 1929 – a Heaven-sent message, we all agree – he is the man prophesied in Jeremiah 31:22 – a man compassed by a woman – a full grown Christian, with the Righteousness of Christ imparted to him.
John says, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” 1 John 3:9.
If the Scriptures here quoted were the burden of the message in 1929, we can easily see it was wrongly named Shepherd’s Rod. It should have been called The Branch, “The Lord our Righteousness.”
Ezekiel saw the same man, as recorded in Ezekiel 9, as Jeremiah saw in Jeremiah 31:22. The sixth man in Ezekiel’s vision had a writer’s inkhorn by his side, a weapon in his hand, and had on a linen suit (linen is the symbol of Christ’s Righteousness). Therefore, if Brother Houteff is to fulfill the work of the man in linen, he must hastily come forth from the grave, announce the Judgment Day (of the living), and rename the literature.
In Chapter 3, Zechariah saw Joshua clothed, first with his own righteousness, then with Christ’s after the Lord rebuked Satan.
At first, Isaiah saw himself an unclean person, living among an unclean people. Then he saw himself after the Seraphim gave him “a live coal (symbol of purification or baptism of the Holy Ghost).” Isa. 6:6. Will Jeremiah, or Zechariah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Brother Houteff or someone else fulfill these prophecies?
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These are some of the questions the people are asking us.
Another example is Ezekiel 37. We all know that the Shepherd’s Rod teaches that the Seventh-day Adventist church is Judah – law giver two tribes, and that the ten tribes (Ephraim) are scattered throughout the world. It also teaches that the 144,000, or 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes are sealed while in the true church – virgins. How do we account for this?
God tells Ezekiel to take one stick and write on it, or point out who is Judah; then take another stick and write on it, or point out who is Joseph.
“Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions.” Eze. 37:16.
There must be a type for this prophecy recorded somewhere in the Bible. Where there is no type there is no truth (or antitype). The Bible gives us a record of just such a division. The twelve tribes were divided when Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, became king. The new king put a double burden upon the people and this caused the ten northern tribes to pull away from the Union. Jeroboam became their king. His kingdom was known as Ephraim, Joseph, or Israel, and sometimes is called Samaria. The two southern tribes, with Rehoboam as their king, became known as Judah. Their capital city was Jerusalem; so they became known also as Jews. This happened according to prophecy and the Lord’s will, so the Bible says.
Paul tells us these things were recorded for our learning; or, what they did, we will do. Sister White says, “We are repeating the history of that people.” –Testimonies, Vol. 5, p. 160. We have an exact parallel to that division of Israel in the Advent Movement. When the Lord gave Brother Houteff the message in 1929, it came as a fulfillment of prophecy. Whatever he did, it was prophesied and it was the Lord’s will.
Brother Houteff, like Rehoboam, spoke harsh words to the people and put a double taxation upon them. When we were Seventh-day Adventists we paid one tithe. To be a Davidian Seventh-day Adventist we must pay the second tithe. This is what caused the shaking in the church.
“I asked the meaning of the shaking I had seen, and was shown that
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it would be caused by the straight testimony called forth by the counsel of the True Witness to the Laodiceans. This will have its effect upon the heart of the receiver, and will lead him to exalt the standard and pour forth the straight truth. Some will not bear this straight testimony. They will rise up against it, and this is what will cause a shaking among God’s people.” – Early Writings, p. 270.
You see, friends, we have two groups of Advent people. Seventh-day Adventists (Ephraim) looking for Jesus to come in the clouds and take them to Heaven; Davidian Seventh-day Adventists (Judah – law giver) looking for Jesus to come and purge the rebels from among us, and take us to the Kingdom; therefore, two sticks.
This information adds power and force to the fact that the Advent people are spiritual Israel of today.
God told Ezekiel to write the names on the two sticks (Eze. 37:16). We know that God would not have told Ezekiel to do something and not have told him how to do it. He is not like we are. He is very exact in His business. These statements are true and cannot be denied.
The Advent people are shown also in Ezekiel 23. “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother: And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; …And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters (converts). Thus were their names; Samaria (Seventh-day Adventists, Egypt, and Assyria) is Aholah, and Jerusalem (Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, Assyria and Babylon of Chaldea) is Aholibah.” Eze. 23:2-4.
“Behold, everyone that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter. Thou art thy mother’s daughter, that lotheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister (Davidian Seventh-day Adventists) of thy sisters (Seventh-day Adventists), which loathed their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite. And thine elder sister (Seventh-day Adventist) is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister (Davidian Seventh-day Adventist), that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.” Eze. 16:44-46.
One person could accuse another of wrong conduct and the accusation be true, but the guilty, by words, proves himself innocent. When God points out our sins He does not give place for argument. Then,
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friends, are we going to accuse God, and say, “let man be true,” or do we say, “let God be true, and every man a liar?” Rom. 3:4.
Are we going to be like the Laodicean angel who says, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing;” when God says he is “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked?” Rev. 3:17.
Isaiah tells us what we really ought to do: “Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a STONE of stumbling and for a rock of offense to BOTH THE HOUSES OF ISRAEL, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” Isa. 8:13,14.
In 1929, God set a stumbling block (a message – Righteousness by Faith) before the Laodiceans and many stumbled over it. If those that stumbled will humble themselves, rise up and shake off the dust, the Lord can save them.
At this time God lays a stone of stumbling or a stumbling stone (a much harder saying, or message – The Righteousness of Christ) before his people (Davidian Seventh-day Adventists). If we fall on the stone (Christ) and be broken, He will save us. If we stumble over the stone (message) the Stone (Christ) will fall on us and grind us to pieces.
The following are a few more of the many things the people are saying which apply to us:
“Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom (Davidian Seventh-day Adventists), pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. Neither hath Samaria (Seventh-day Adventists) committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast JUSTIFIED thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done.” Eze. 16:49-51.
“When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate. For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride.” Eze. 16:55,56.
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These verses of Scripture evidently mean that Ezekiel is a person who took pride in the church and did not expose her sins. It may mean also that he more or less tried to shield her from criticism. In other words, Ezekiel does not trust his own wisdom.
Now that God has given him a message of stern rebuke, it is not his own words he uses, but God’s. When the two sisters, Sodom (Davidian Seventh-day Adventists) and Samaria (Seventh-day Adventists), verse 55, return to their first love and innocence, then Ezekiel will (verse 55, last part) have no more to say against them. Where God speaks, Ezekiel speaks and where God is silent, Ezekiel is silent. This shows that he is God’s representative on earth and God’s mind or will is in him.
The people say that the prophets, Zechariah, Isaiah, Malachi, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah did not see a person being raised from the dead to be God’s representative, but that all five saw him as one living and receiving Christ’s righteousness in the place of his own righteousness; also, they say Brother Houteff proves in , p. 23, that he is not this person.
They say furthermore, brethren, that the people are not only saying these things but that God is saying them too. This should erase from our minds all doubts as to the identity of the “man in linen” and “Elijah.”
So, brethren, we assume that you have notified all of our people of this most solemn event; also, that you will be looking forward to meeting with the Lord on October 10.
Yours to finish the task that God has set before us,
THE BRANCH
