One of the evidences that God's Spirit is moving widely is the action of fanatical elements. Satan uses these to cast disrepute on God's workmen when his preferred plan of keeping things hush hush fails.
To see this in history, see the interesting events surrounding the revival of 1885-1886 under the leadership of E. P. Daniels.
Or look back to Maine and the crawling fanatics that plagued the infant lively Advent believers in 1844-1846.
But to see this in full swing today, open your eyes.
Last Sunday the ministry arm of Jeff Pippenger took out a $14,000 full page advertisement in the largest print newspaper of Tennessee. And in that ad they trumpeted that a Nuclear device will be detonated by Islamic persons in Nashville just under four weeks from now.
For the knee-jerk reactions of various affected parties (the NAD, the paper, the Muslim community) read as widely as you like.
But let me address the fanaticism directly.
Pippenger long ago developed a faulty idea of how history repeats itself. In his view, various movements in history parallel each other in incredible detail, such as could only occur if God interfered to cause it to be so.
Jeff Pippenger, who identifies himself as the speaker of the Ministry of Future for America, paid 14k for the advertisement. He is also the main agitator behind the 2520 duplicity.
And now those parallels have persuaded him and his that Trump will be the last president, and, as mentioned above, that Nashville has less than a month before disaster.
Now it is true that history repeats itself. And the reason is evident: God doesn't change. His government has eternal unchanging principles. And Satan, despite ongoing degeneration, is also very consistent in his principles of operation. And though men are fickle and selfish and easily duped, even they are moderately predictable. So when something significant happens, nations and angels and demons all react in such a way as to make history cyclical.
But not in details. Not in periods of time. Not in numbers. So while we may parallel the time of Noah, there may be nothing in our day happening in twos and sevens to parallel the animals entering the ark.
And the reason no such detailed repeats occur is simply that God gives us freedom.
But someone says, "Didn't God harden Pharaoh and make him rebel against Moses?"
No, no, God did no such thing. Quite on the contrary, God looked carefully to find a man as stubborn as Pharaoh, and then elevated him to Pharaoh for the purpose of demonstrating God's wrath.
That is what Scripture means when it says, in Romans 9, "for this cause I raised you up." Not that God took a good man and made him hard, but God selected a hard man and made him king so that his hardness would be cultivated to an extreme.
Now Pippenger made another serious mistake long ago. He concluded that his message was the Latter Rain message. And that people like me, who opposed his opinions, were dangerous people.
So what if he is right, and I am leading you astray even now?
There is no way, friend, for you to resolve such questions superficially. You will need to invest some time.
And let me offer you a couple places to look. First, the beginning 100 pages of 2SM is all about how to evaluate new movements and dreamers and visionaries. Study those pages. And my book Deeper has three chapters on Pippingers teachings (on the 2520 and on dual applications of prophecy).
Now, since the ad has had wide circulation (wider because of the negative press) we have some damage control to do. But watch yourself. If I apologize for how these persons falsely accusing Muslims of plotting to terrorize Tennessee, I've done well. But what if I apologize for speaking negatively about the Muslim religion? I could mute the mighty voice of the fourth angel! (Actually, that voice cannot be muted. But I could mute myself from participation in the mighty movement.)
And I could apologize for time-prophecy nonsense. But watch lest you inadvertently speak ill of the seventh-month movement of 1844. And it won't help in the long term to make much of how some promoters of fanaticism are no longer members of the SDA church. Why? Because plenty of persons who ARE STILL members may next be promoting such things.
So step carefully in your damage control.
Summary
Let me close with a suggestion. Do you know a fanatical family? Get to know their minor children if you can. Share with them. Ellen White says that Menno Simons had good success with the children of fanatics. And that is some history worth repeating.
The Institute of East Asia Training, with Eugene and Heidi Prewitt, serves budding missionaries from the countries of Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore and Malaysia. These young people are trained in the arts of winning hearts, selling books, teaching doctrines, planting congregations, and reaching unreached groups. Extensions of the iEAT program that serve in Indonesia are listed as a separate project.