Ellen White had to wage a constant battle against those who maligned her and ridiculed her message.

She faced her toughest challenges when she was still young and frail. Humanly speaking, there is no way in which she could have exercised the authority she did without the direct intervention of God. God chose the weakest of the weak to confound the strong.

The authority she had was the authority of God. The Word of God did the cutting. Without this authority, the pillars of the Advent faith would have long ago been torn down, but they are sustained by the Word and will stand until the end of time. Ellen White explains this:

I am instructed to say to those who endeavour to tear down the foundation that has made us Seventh-day Adventists—we are God’s commandment keeping people. For the past fifty years every phase of heresy has been brought to bear upon us, to becloud our minds regarding the teachings of the word—especially concerning the ministration of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, and the message of heaven of these last days, as given by the angels of the fourteenth chapter of Revelation.

Messages of every order and kind have been urged upon Seventh-day Adventists to take the place of the truth which, point by point, has been sought out by prayerful study and testified to by the miracle-working power of the Lord. But the waymarks which have made us what we are, are to be preserved, and they will be preserved, as God has signified through His word and the testimonies of His Spirit. He calls upon us to hold firmly with the grip of faith, to the fundamental principles that are based upon unquestionable authority (Manuscript Releases Volume 4, 246).

Did Ellen White exhibit the good fruit of a true prophet?