A Final Note

In June 1858, with the manuscript for The Great Controversy about half completed, Ellen White was called away from her writing one day to attend the bedside of a Sister A. S. Hutchins, who was seriously ill and believed near death. While praying for her, Ellen was taken off in vision, during which her angel shared some interesting facts:GVEGW 73.6

“I was shown that in the sudden attack at Jackson, Satan designed to take my life to hinder the work I was about to write; but angels of God were sent to my rescue, to raise me above the effects of Satan’s attack. I saw, among other things, that I should be blest with better health than before the attack at Jackson.” ^{51Spiritual Gifts 2:272.}GVEGW 73.7

For good measure, God raised up Sister Hutchins as a result of Ellen’s prayer!GVEGW 73.8

This news should have come as no surprise to Ellen—nor to us. For while Satan hates all of the prophets with a passion—they, after all, expose the wiles of this “roaring lion” who rampages among Christians, “seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8)—he especially hates apocalyptic-writing prophets, who particularly expose his depredations and demise in the end-time.GVEGW 73.9

It is a matter of record that Satan attempted to have Daniel killed in a Persian den of hungry lions, doubtless to prevent the book of Daniel from being written (Daniel 6). Likewise, Daniel’s counterpart in the New Testament, John the Beloved, was thrown into a vat of boiling oil, at the order of Roman emperor Domitian (instigated, doubtless, by the devil, again probably to keep the Revelation from being written).GVEGW 74.1

But just as Daniel was preserved from hungry lions, and just as John “was removed [unhurt] from the caldron by the very men who had cast him in,” ^{52The Acts of the Apostles, 570.} just so was Ellen’s life preserved from the malicious attack of Satan in 1858. She had work to do; God wanted a special book to be written!GVEGW 74.2

Is it any wonder, then, that Ellen White appreciated The Great Controversy “above silver or gold,” and that she desired for this book a greater circulation than for any other of her literary works!GVEGW 74.3