Magnificant Disappointment (C. Mervyn Maxwell)

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What really happened in 1844 … and its meaning for today.

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What really happend 1844 ... and its meaning for today

Transcript of Magnificant Disappointment (C. Mervyn Maxwell)

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What really happened in 1844 … and its meaning for today.

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Edited by Marvin Moore Designed by Tim Larson Cover Illustration by Lars Justinen Inside art by James Converse Typeset in 11/12 Adobe Garamond Copyright © 1994 by Pacific Press Publishing Association Printed in United States of America All Rights Reserved All Scripture references in this book are from the Revised Standard Version unless otherwise indicated. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Maxwell, C. Mervyn, 1 925-

Magnificent disappointment: a restored view of what really happened in 1844 and what it teaches us about Jesus and the Adventist church today / C. Mervyn Maxwell.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8163-1180-3 1. Millerite movement. 2. Miller, William, 1782-1849. 3. Seventh-day Adventists-United States. 4. Adventists-United States. 5. Sabbatarians-United States. 6. End of the world-History of doctrines-19th century. I. Title. BX6115.M38 1994 286,7-dc20

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CONTENTS Introduction...................................................................................... 5 Part 1: Arriving at the Date Chapter 1 - Best Man Available....................................................................11 Chapter 2 - How Miller Made His Mistake................................................23 Chapter 3 - How Do You Calculate 1844? ................................................35 Chapter 4 - Why October 22? .......................................................................47 Part 2: Discovering the Event Chapter 5 - What Actually Happened in Heaven? ...................................61 Chapter 6 - Investigative Judgment: A Seventh-day Adventist Invention?....................................................................................71 Part 3: Exploring the Meaning Chapter 7 - 1844 and Being “Adventist“....................................................89 Chapter 8 - 1844 and the Sabbath................................................................99 Chapter 9 - 1844 and Being Ready............................................................ 111 Chapter 10 - Investigative Judgment: Good News or Bad News?..... 123 Chapter 11 - 1844 and Worship.................................................................. 137 Chapter 12 - 1844 and Being Like Jesus................................................... 151 Chapter 13 - 1844 and Lifestyle.................................................................. 161 Chapter 14 - The Meaning of 1844 ............................................................ 173

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INTRODUCTION

WHICH IS MEANT TO BE READ What difference does 1844 make today, a century and a half after the

great disappointment? I have found that it makes much more difference than I supposed it could when I started teaching courses in Seventh-day Adventist history twenty-five years ago.

I first learned about the sorrow of the great disappointment from my mother when I was a little boy. But in recent years I have come to see that the dark cloud of 1844 had a silver lining so bright that we can speak of it as “the magnificent disappointment.” The silver lining, the magnificence of 1844, is – as I have found to my personal satisfaction – a special message about Jesus.

All Christians believe in the Christ of history who died on the cross. Millions today believe in the Christ of the future who is coming in glory on the clouds. But only Seventh-day Adventists understand in addition the work of the contemporary Christ who has been ministering grace, sanctification, and judgment in the most holy place since 1844. Thus 1844 is, first of all, a special message about Jesus.

It is also … • The basic reason the Seventh-day Adventist movement exists • The unique reason that Seventh-day Adventists are “Adventists” • The motivating reason why we keep the seventh day • The principal reason behind our vast mission program • The spiritual reason for our classic lifestyle • The most impelling sign that Jesus is coming soon • The most forcible argument for Christian education • A most persuasive reason for seeking to be “like Jesus”

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1844 was a magnificent disappointment! 1844 derives its significance from being: • The end of the 2,300 days of Daniel 8:14 • A major sign of the end time • The beginning of the final judgment • The onset of heaven's Day of Atonement • The cue for the first angel to announce, “The hour of his judgment

is come.” Thus 1844 triggers also the second angel's message, and the third.

The relationship of 1844 to the three angels' messages is particularly

important for understanding “the 1844 difference.” Because of the magnitude of 1844 and its value for today, I have

thought it best to provide some evidence for the validity of the date and of the event before going into its meaning for today. Chapters 1 to 4 talk about the date itself, chapters 5 and 6 about the event, and chapters 7 to 14 about the meaning. If you feel confident about the date, you may skip chapters 2 to 4 for now and come back to them later.

During my years of seminary teaching I have become increasingly impressed with the significance of 1844. It is my prayer that in this book I will be able to communicate this significance to you.

Please, if you would, begin your reading with a prayer for God's Spirit and also by reviewing the three angels' messages, printed on the next page.

C. Mervyn Maxwell Berrien Springs, Michigan

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INTRODUCTION 7

The Three Angels' Messages Revelation 14:6-12, RSV

First angel “6Then I saw another angel flying in midheaven,

with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; 7and he said with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water.’ ”

Second angel. “8Another angel, a second, followed, saying, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of her impure passion.’ ”

Third angel. “9And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, ‘If any one worships the beast and its image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10he also shall drink the wine of God's wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and he shall be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11And the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.’ 12Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”

Acknowledgments I would like to thank my brother Lawrence for reading the manuscript

meticulously, my brother Graham for the picture of angels welcoming a family to New Jerusalem, and my colleague P. Gerard Damsteegt for many insights into early Adventist publications. I also want to thank my students of many years for their stimulation – and particularly the irate student near the back of the room when I began teaching at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary for his incredulous question, “What-ever does 1844 have to do with Adventist history?”

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PART 1 ARRIVING AT THE DATE

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CHAPTER 1

BEST MAN AVAILABLE

You would have liked him. I mean, if you had met William Miller and gotten to know him, you

would have found him attractive and dependable. Miller's neighbors liked him and trusted him. In their little towns and

farming centers, year after year they elected him their local magistrate and justice of the peace. A thousand of the documents that he signed have been discovered in a barrel in the attic of his old home.

Soldiers liked him and trusted him. As the War of 1812 drew near, forty-seven men, whose names have been preserved, volunteered for military service on the basis that he would serve as their captain. (He did serve as a captain and fought in the pivotal Battle of Plattsburgh in 1814.) Some time after the war, two soldiers who had served under him but had since moved up near the Canadian border and become estranged from each other walked all the way to Miller's farm to ask him to help them settle their differences. The two men came to his place by separate routes, but they traveled home together, good friends again.1

Local politicians liked and trusted William Miller. In an era of staunchly partisan politics, people in both major parties counted him their friend. When a local committee of one of the political parties asked

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Miller's permission to hold its July 4 picnic on his property, he persuaded the committee to invite the other party to join the fun.2

Teenager Ellen Harmon liked him. All her later years she remembered how good she felt in 1842 when she saw “Father” Miller, at a crowded meeting in Portland, Maine, interrupt his sermon and step down into the crowded congregation to lead elderly latecomers to available seats near the front. “He was indeed rightly called Father Miller,” she recalled, “for he … was affectionate in his manner, of a genial disposition and tender heart.”3

We're glad to know that Miller's family members also liked and trusted him. In 1843, when the second coming was expected very soon, Miller could refer to his “wife and eight children” and rejoice that “I have great reason to believe they are all the children of God, and believers in the same doctrine with myself.”4

We admit, of course, that during the surging days of the Millerite excitement, from 1840 to 1844, the editors of various newspapers showed that they neither liked nor trusted him. But these editors didn't know him personally. The editor of the Sandy Hill Herald who, by exception, did know him personally (but who didn't necessarily agree with his charac-teristic theology) pointed out in his defense that “Mr. Miller is now, and has been for many years, a resident of this county [Washington County, New York], and as a citizen, a man, and a Christian, stands high in the estimation of all who know him.”5

BEST MAN AVAILABLE. The title of this first chapter is “Best Man

Available.” And that is what William Miller was – the best man available at the time to alert America to the judgment-hour significance of 1844. We're glad to be reminded that he was honest and nice, but to be the “best man available” on the subject of 1844 and the judgment, we hope that he had even more to him than being likable and trustworthy, rare and precious as such a combination of characteristics maybe.

Miller did have more to him than that. Much more. We have suggested that he was a good military officer and a good civil

servant. He was also a good farmer and a good businessman. When most young Farmers in the area were still dependent on oxen, he was quickly able to buy horses. When his father died, he was able to do what his father never did – pay off the mortgage on the family farm, freeing his widowed mother from debt. In addition, he bought about two hundred acres nearby and built his own house and barns. (The house and barns still stand

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and can be visited any day from June to September.) So we're glad to learn that Miller was judicious, diligent, and frugal. But

could he reason and do research? Here is another paragraph from that Sandy Hill editorial:

All who have ever heard him lecture, or have read his works, must acknowledge that he [William Miller] is a sound reasoner, and, as such, is entitled to fair arguments from those who differ with him. … Who that has witnessed his earnestness in the pulpit, and listened to the uncultivated eloquence of nature, which falls in such rich profusion from his lips, dare say he is an impostor? We answer, without fear of contradiction from any candid mind, None! Then the editorial made a statement that for our purposes is its most

important: “Mr. Miller certainly goes to the foundation of knowledge – revelation and history – for proof .”6

Evidence fully supports this statement in the editorial. Miller did go to “revelation” (that is, to the Bible) and to “history” for his arguments, and he did so because he was studious by nature and was an earnest Christian by conversion.

He became a converted Christian in 1816. Two years after the Battle of Plattsburgh he caught himself taking God's name in vain and was mortified. In the army he had been grieved to hear the other soldiers blaspheme and had made a point of not copying them. Suddenly, in 1816, after the war was over, he realized that he too was a common sinner. For years his mother had urged him to study the Bible and accept Jesus, but he had felt no need to. Now, longing for salvation, he peeked at last into the Bible to see whether perhaps it could help him. Immediately he discovered that “the Bible did indeed present just such a Saviour as I needed,” and, he wrote later, “the Scriptures … became my delight, and in Jesus I found a friend.”7

Please pause a moment. When we talk about 1844 today, we of ten think first of William Miller. But when Miller thought about 1844, he first thought about Jesus. For when, in 1818, two years after his conversion, Miller discovered the 2,300 days, he became convinced of their importance because they seemed to say something special about his new friend Jesus!

Miller became and remained an earnest Christian – a studious Christian. He was by nature studious.

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As a boy, with no formal schooling available in Low Hampton, New York, during most of the year, he borrowed books – serious ones, many of them dealing with history – from any neighbor affluent enough to own some and generous enough to lend them. He read them at night by the open fire, Lincoln style, after his father, who was not particularly studious, was sound asleep.

When he married, he lived across the state line in his wife's hometown Poultney, Vermont. He liked Poultney because it boasted a public library with books for him to study. And the library offered a modest upstairs hall where the local intellectuals, known as deists,8 gathered to debate. Miller was of ten among them. (The old building still stands and is being restored.) Miller heartily joined in the debates, discussing contemporary issues and poking fun at the Scriptures.

When Miller became a Christian, his debating deist friends were scandalized. They eagerly reminded him that the Bible was full of contradictions and insoluble puzzles. Miller, who had formerly agreed with them, now determined to start at Genesis 1 and let the Bible explain itself, if it could. He reasoned that if the Bible really were a message to humanity from God, God must have made it simple enough for people to understand. But if the Bible could not be understood, he would know it was not from God; and in that case, he promised his friends, he “would be a deist still.”9

Whenever he found a verse that he didn't understand, he used the margin to direct him to other verses that dealt with the same subject. He used Cruden's Concordance to find verses that used the same words as in the difficult verse. After following this procedure for about two years, he came) in 1818, to Daniel 8:14, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed” (KJV). Like many people of his day, he wrongly assumed that the sanctuary was a symbol for the earth, but he rightly determined that the days were symbols for years. Because of the many links between Daniel 8 and 9, he concluded that the 2,300 years of Daniel 8:14 began with the same event in 457 B.C. that initiated the seventy weeks of Daniel 9:24-27.

With reasoning we'll understand better in our following chapters, Miller cautiously arrived at the astonishing conclusion that “around the year 1843” (later corrected to 1844), Jesus would come on the clouds to purify the earth with flaming fire and introduce the millennium – that is, “that in about 25 years … all the affairs of our present state would be wound up.”10

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Was Jesus really coming that soon? If so, everybody ought to know! A disturbing conviction caught fire in Miller's mind: “Go, and tell it to the world!”11

MILLER'S RELUCTANCE. It is important to our understanding of 1844

that Miller resisted this conviction for thirteen years, from 1818 to 1831. Miller was no end-of-the-world fanatic. He was in no sense a self-promoting sensationalist. He did not want to tell the world about the 2,300 days.

After five years of total resistance, he began to talk about Christ's near return to individuals here and there. But not until 1831, after thirteen years of refusal, did he finally agree to step out by faith and preach. He stepped out reluctantly, even angrily, arguing with God to send someone else instead.

The moving story needs no retelling here, for it has been told and retold many times in books. I have retold it myself in Tell it to the World – how in 1831 he desperately promised the Lord he would preach provided someone sent him an invitation to do so, fully knowing that at age forty-nine he had never received such an invitation; and how, within less than an hour, his nephew arrived on horseback with just such an invitation; and how Miller strode angrily into the maple grove that still stands beside his house and wrestled furiously with God before finally making his surrender.12

The point is that it was God, not William Miller, who wanted Miller to preach. Miller himself is not accountable for the great disappointment. If God had left him alone, he would never have preached the 2,300 days.

But God knew that Miller was wrong. So why did He want Miller to preach?

He evidently wanted Miller to preach, because in 1844 Jesus was planning to commence a work of salvation so absolutely vital and so magnificent that the world must be alerted to it. And Miller was the best man available to do the job.

But why didn't God show Miller his mistake and thereby prevent the great disappointment? Miller certainly wanted to be right.

One response to this important question is that when Millcr's mistake was corrected, it was corrected out of the Bible. This means that the answer was in the Bible all the time. God provided it thousands of years before Miller was born. But Miller didn't see it there. So why didn't God shine a light on the verses so Miller could see them? We don't know

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exactly why God chose not to do this, but we do remember that Jesus once said to His disciples, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12).

When a car speeds toward us at night with its bright lights on, we of ten cannot see where we're going. Too much light blinds a person! Perhaps God knew that either Miller or his followers would be confused rather than guided by getting too much light all at once.

The cross was a magnificent act by God to save the human race from sin, but at the time it seemed to His disciples like a crushing defeat. Only after the cross did the Old Testament prophecies about Christ's death make sense. We recall the walk to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-35.

Similarly, the judgment that began in heaven in 1844 was one of the most magnificent events in the history of the universe. But it hardly seemed magnificent to the Adventist believers who passed through that time.? Only after the disappointment did the Bible texts William Miller and his followers had read of ten without comprehension suddenly make sense. Only after the event did they realize that the disappointment was in fact a magnificent disappointment.

But even though Miller was wrong in his understanding of the precise event to take place in 1844, he was nonetheless the most nearly right Bible student on the entire planet.

God called him because he was the best man available. MILLER MORE RIGHT THAN OTHERS. That Miller was an unusually fine

Bible student we'll document briefly in our next chapter. But we don't want to leave the present chapter without agreeing that on his characteristic points of doctrine he was, in fact, more nearly correct than any of the seminary professors and big-city pastors of his time.

Some scholars and pastors in Miller's day had nothing at all to say about the second coming. Surely Miller was more right than they were! And was he not right when he described the second coming as literal, personal, near, and premillennial (coming literally at the beginning of the thousand years)? Was he not right to urge people to get ready for it?

Was he not also right when he said that in symbolic prophecy a day stands for a year, that the 2,300 days of Daniel 8:14 are 2,300 years, that they began in 457 B.C. and would therefore end “around 1843” (later corrected to 1844)? Was he not right in saying that the 2,300 days were to end at judgment hour, and that thus the time had come for the first angel's message – “The hour of his judgment is come”?

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Major characteristic points on which Miller was right and many scholars of his day were wrong:

1. Jesus is coming again, at the beginning of the millennium. 2. The second coming will be literal and personal. 3. The second coming is near. 4. By faith we should all be preparing for it. 5. In symbolic prophecy, a day represents a year. 6. The “2,300 evening-morning” represents 2,300 symbolic

days. 7. The 2,300 days represent 2,300 years. 8. They began in 457 B.C. and ended in 1844. 9. 1844marked the judgment hour; therefore, 10. It was time for the first angel's message, “The hour of his

judgment has come.” By holding all these views rather than just certain ones of

them, Miller was the most nearly right man of his day. When his other qualifications are also taken into account, he can be recognized as the Best Man Available for initiating God's message for the last days.

ERRORS OF MILLER’S CONTEMPORARIES. In contrast to Miller's presenta-

tion of the second coming as literal, personal, premillennial, near, and requiring heartfelt preparation, most of Miller's more learned contemporaries were postmillennialists, teaching that the literal return of Christ would not occur till the end of the millennium, a thousand years in the future. In the meantime, they said, the millennium was beginning with a spiritual coming of Christ that was in its own power converting the world. They pointed to the many Bible societies, missionary societies, and Sunday schools that had sprung up in recent decades and to the reform movements that were doing so much for prisons, insane asylums, slaves, women, and world peace.

Such developments, they said, proved that a spiritual coming of Christ was happening right then, ushering in the world's conversion, the kingdom of God on earth, and a thousand years of world peace.

In 1835, not long after Miller began preaching about the literal second coming, the widely respected minister Edward Beecher observed en-thusiastically in his sermons that the churches of America were “aroused

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as never before” to the belief that “a glorious advent of the kingdom of God” was near at hand. No longer did the conversion of the world seem the “distant vision of inspired prophets.”13

In 1839, the very year that Miller got his first invitation to preach in a major city (Boston), Samuel S. Schmucker appealed for Protestant denominations to unite in training twenty-five thousand missionaries on the basis that “the Son of God appears to be coming in his glory, conquering and to conquer [that is, converting] the kingdoms of the earth.”14

This erroneous mood of unbiblical optimism even attached itself to the American Civil War, a short while after Miller's death! Near the end of 1861, when the war was just well under way, Julia Ward Howe was one of many people who saw in the Northern armies, with their potential for saving the Union and releasing the slaves, one of God's means for bringing in a spiritual coming of Christ that would convert the world and introduce the millennium. After watching an impressive military parade one day, with its row upon row of brave, well-trained soldiers, Mrs. Howe wrote words that were to become classic: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” she said, and, a stanza later, “I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps.”

In 1861 Mrs. Howe thought she saw the spiritual coming of Christ at a military parade. But the terrible Civil War, lasting until 1865 and producing hundreds of thousands of casualties, shocked many Americans out of their confidence that the millennium was underway.

William Miller knew in 1818 that “evil men would wax worse and worse,” not better and better. He knew it, because the Bible says so in 2 Timothy 3:13. He began preaching in 1831 that the literal second coming was the only hope for the reconstruction of our planet.

Thus, on the salient subject of the second coming, Miller was far more right than most of his learned contemporaries. But what about 1844? Was he really right about the 2,300 days?

MILLER RIGHT ON THE 2,300 DAYS. As it appears in the Hebrew language

in which it was written, Daniel 8:14 does not actually use a term precisely equivalent to “2,300 days.” Instead, it uses an unusual idiom, “2,300 evening-morning.” Some of Miller's critics then and today say that if Miller had known Hebrew, he would never have supposed that “2,300 evening-morning” could mean 2,300 days. And if Miller had known Hebrew, they said then and still say now, he most certainly would not have

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supposed that the term could mean 2,300 years. If he had known Hebrew. But the truth is just the opposite. We'll have more to say about this subject in later chapters, but for now,

let me say that the seventy or more Jewish rabbis who, before the time of Christ, translated the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek version known as the “Septuagint” (or “LXX”) unquestionably knew Hebrew. They spoke Hebrew and were scholars in it. Yet when they came to Daniel 8:14, they translated (into Greek, of course), “evenings and mornings, two thousand three hundred days.” They knew that in Genesis God called each day of Creation week an “evening and a morning.”

In the second century after Christ, an outstanding rabbi named Theodotian made another translation from Hebrew into Greek. He too used the phrase, “evenings and mornings, twenty-three hundred days.”

But did anyone who knew Hebrew perceive Daniel 8:14 to refer symbolically to 2,300 years? Yes, indeed! Already in the ninth century A.D., one thousand years before Miller came to the same conclusion, an influential rabbi, Nahawendi by name, taught convincingly that the “2,300 evening-morning” symbolized 2,300 years. And he wasn't the only such rabbi. Nahawendi lived in Persia (modern Iran), but other rabbis who taught the same interpretation over the next few centuries were located in Palestine, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, and Algiers!15

During Miller's own time, one of his most vigorous opponents was the Rev. George Bush. As another postmillennialist who held that Jesus would not come visibly until the far end of the millennium, Bush, like Beecher, Schmucker, Howe, and many others, saw a spiritual coming occurring in his own day. Even so, he agreed with Miller that the “2,300 evening-morning” symbolized 2,300 years. He even agreed that the ending of the 2,300 years was imminent.16 Professor Bush generously added that in interpreting the 2,300 evening-morning as 2,300 years, Miller had the support of Sir Isaac Newton, the famous scientist, and also of such significant commentators as Bishop Thomas Newton, Joseph Mede, Alexander Keith, “and a host of others, who have long since come to substantially” (his emphasis) the same conclusions as Miller had.

Professor George Bush was a faculty member at New York University. His specialty was Hebrew! So the truth is that scholars who have known Hebrew have been

among those people who, with Miller, have recognized that Daniel 8:14 talks about 2,300 days and even 2,300 years.17

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Miller was a friendly neighbor, a respected public servant, a successful farmer and businessman, a natural leader, a brave soldier, and, after his conversion, a warm lover of Jesus. He was right about the 2,300 days and right about the personal, literal, and premillennial second coming of Jesus. We have reason to view him as an exceptionally fine student for his day. He was God's best man available. But he made a mistake.

In our next chapter we'll try to understand how Miller made his characteristic error. It was the kind of mistake that only a serious Bible student would have made.

1. Sylvester Bliss, Memoirs of William Miller (Boston, 1853), 61, 62. 2. Ibid.,64. 3. Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, 1:22. 4. William Miller, 4 February, 1843, to Signs of the Times, in Bliss, Memoirs

of William Miller, 180, 181. 5. Sandy Hill Herald in Signs of the Times, 1 March 1843; in Bliss, Memoirs

of William Miller, 181, 182; and in Francis D. Nichol, The Midnight Cry (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1944), 132, 133, emphasis supplied.

6. To make clear that “revelation and history” are what the editor meant by “the fountain of knowledge,” I have substituted dashes for commas.

7. William Miller, Apology and Defence (Boston, 1845), 5. 8. Deists believed in a creator God who organized the universe under such

perfect laws of cause and effect that He could safely leave It to run on its own. They rejected prayer for miracles, arguing that it would be asking God to violate His own perfect laws. They saw Jesus as a very good man, but the virgin birth and the resurrection, being miracles, they denied. Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers of the United States were deeply influenced by deism.

9. Miller, Apology and Defence, 5, 6. 10. Ibid., 12. 11. Ibid., 15-17. 12. See, for example, Paul Gordon, Herald of the Midnight Cry (Boise: Pacific

Press Publishing Assn., 1990); Nichol, The Midnight Cry; and R. W. Schwarz, Light Bearers to the Remnant (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Publishing Assn., 1979).

13. See Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Abingdon Press, 1957), 225.

14. Samuel Simon Schmucker, Fraternal Appeal to the American Churches, with a Plan for Catholic Union, on Apostolic Principles (2d. ed., New York, 1839), 139, 140; in Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform, 226.

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15. Le Roy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1946-1954), 1:713; 2:194-240.

16. See Nichol, The Midnight Cry, 439,440. 17. Not every biblical scholar who has known Hebrew has concluded that the

“2,300 evening-morning” represents 2,300 days. The argument here is simply that a rich knowledge of Hebrew does not keep a person from reaching the conclusion that Miller reached. Of ten such knowledge has helped scholars reach this conclusion.

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CHAPTER 2

HOW MILLER MADE HIS MISTAKE

If Miller was God's “best man available”, how could he have been so

conspicuously wrong? The question is important. If we are expected to have sufficient

confidence in 1844 to base our lifestyles on it, we need to know where Miller went wrong so we can evaluate his mistake For ourselves.

I find encouragement, personally, in knowing that the mistake Miller made was the kind of mistake that only an expert Bible student would have made.

Most people don't know enough about subatomic physics to make an intelligent mistake when discussing quarks. Similarly, hardly anyone, it seems, knows enough to make the mistake Miller did when discussing the climaxes to the four parallel prophecies in Daniel.

It bears repeating that Miller really was an excellent Bible student. His characteristic package of teachings on the literalness and nearness of the second coming – the arrival of the judgment hour, the timeliness of the first angel's message (“the hour of his judgment has come”), and the year-day interpretation of the “2,300 evening-morning” of Daniel 8:l4 – was far better than anyone else's in the world.

From time to time over the years, Seventh-day Adventists have

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reopened the question about Miller's correctness. For instance, not so very long ago, the fine Old Testament scholar Dr. Lynn Wood and the world-class archaeologist Dr. Siegfried Horn reevaluated the evidence that 457 B.C. is the “seventh year of Artaxerxes,” King of Persia (see Ezra 7:7), the date Miller took for beginning the 2,300 years.1 Wood and Horn probed several kinds of arcane data, some written on Persian clay tablets, some on Egyptian papyri, and so on, and concluded that, yes, 457 B.C. was indeed the seventh year of King Artaxerves. William Miller was right on that crucial point, the starting date for the 2,300 days.

In 1980, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists appointed a Daniel and Revelation committee to restudy Daniel verse by verse. The committee commissioned scholars to write professional papers, then had the scholars read the papers to one another and listen to each other's questions and criticisms. Out of this grueling process have come seven volumes.

The first of the seven volumes, Selected Studies on Prophetic Interpretation, is composed of papers or chapters by the Old Testament scholar and chronologist William H. Shea. One of the chapters takes up the paramount concept of a year for a day in time prophecies. This chapter provides not one or two lines of biblical evidence in favor of the year-day principle, but more than twenty lines of evidence supporting it!

William Miller's characteristic presentation that the 2,300 days symbolize 2,300 years and began in 457 B.C. and ended in 1844 bears the weight of very penetrating modern analysis.

Nonetheless, you should know that modern Seventh-day Adventist scholars do not accept every one of Miller's positions. In fact, Adventist pioneers rejected some of his positions long ago. Miller had a sermon2 about the “seven times” punishment (Leviticus 26:18-28), in which he assumed that the seven times were seven “prophetic years” or 2,520 actual years (7x360). But most commentators and translators, including most Seventh-day Adventist scholars, see the “seven times” as having a very different meaning, as when a teacher might say, “Write out this assign-ment seven times.”

We should note, however, that Miller's sermon about the “seven times” discusses the seven times only near the end. Most of the sermon is a very practical, very sensible, and very spiritual appeal for repentance. Miller's primary goal was to win souls for God's kingdom. In 1834 he shared with a friend his joy in “having God for paymaster,” because God “pays in souls.”3

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Miller was constantly concerned about the implications of 1844 for people's lives.

One of Miller's minor errors had to do with the bridegroom, the midnight cry, and the marriage, in the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. (We'll have more to say about the parable of the virgins in chapter 6.) Correction of this particular group of mistakes led within hours after the great disappointment to a truer understanding of what Jesus really did do in 1844.

Miller was wrong when he assumed that the “sanctuary” to be “cleansed” at the end of the 2,300 years (Daniel 8:14) was the earth rather than the sanctuary in heaven. But in his defense we can say that no one, not even his most learned opponents, challenged him on this error.

Miller certainly knew that there is a sanctuary in heaven. The books of Hebrews and Revelation make this plain. But, like almost all other Christians, he could not conceive that the heavenly sanctuary would ever be defiled or in need of eleansing.4 In a sixteen-page pamphlet, Miller cited seven things or persons called “sanctuary” or “temple” in the Bible. The second on his list was “heaven,” but he dismissed any possibility that it might apply to Daniel 8:14 with the simple statement, “Not … heaven, for that is not unclean.”

But didn't Miller's Bible contain Hebrews 9:22, 23?

Almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission [of sin]. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these (KJV).

If, on first reading, you missed the significance of this passage, let me repeat it, this time with some words in italics and some explanations in brackets.

Almost all things [in the earthly sanctuary system] are by the law [the ceremonial law] purged with blood [with animal sacrifices]; and without shedding of blood is no remission [of sin]. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens [the earthly sanctuary as a pattern of the heavenly sanctuary] should be purified with these [that is, with animal sacrifices]; but the heavenly things themselves [the heavenly sanctuary itself] with better sacrifices than these [with the sacrifice of Jesus].

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With explanations in brackets and some words in italics, the meaning of the passage becomes clear. Whereas the earthly sanctuary was purified by animal sacrifices, the heavenly sanctuary requires purification with “better sacrifices,” that is, with the sacrifice of Jesus.

There it is! Hebrews 9:22, 23 says that the heavenly sanctuary did need to be purified. And, yes, Hebrews 9:22, 23 was in Miller's Bible.

So how did he miss it? Perhaps because it speaks of “things in the heavens” rather than expressly saying, “heavenly sanctuary.” And it uses purified instead of cleansed. When Miller was originally studying the words in Daniel 8:14 and was using his concordance to look up the use of sanctuary and cleansed in other parts of the Bible, his concordance did not lead him to this passage in Hebrews. For this passage, unlike Daniel 8:14, uses things in the heavens and purified instead of sanctuary and cleansed.

Failing at an early point in his study to see the significance of Hebrews 9:22, 23, Miller went on believing what everyone else believed, namely, that the heavenly sanctuary could never be defiled or need cleansing. He didn't even see the connection when he read Hebrews later in his life, for his mind had been made up.

But it was a mistake that everyone else made. Rather than “making” this mistake, Miller failed to recognize it and “unmake” it. Let's not forget that no one else knew the Bible well enough to correct him. Miller was a superb Bible student. The rules of interpretation that he set for himself command our respect.5

MILLER'S RULES OF INTERPRETATION. Miller's first rule for interpreting

the Bible was that “every word must have its proper bearing on the subject presented in the Bible.” Miller was determined not to be satisfied with a superficial reading of a passage or with casually guessing at its meaning. “Every word” was to be accorded “its proper bearing.”

His fourth rule expanded his first one, taking in the whole Bible. “To understand doctrine, bring all the Scriptures together on the subject you wish to know; then let every word have its proper influence.”

His fifth rule put the Bible above all human commentaries. “Scripture must be its own expositor, since it is a rule of itself.” Here is the great Protestant principle: “The Bible and the Bible only.”

Miller's tenth rule recognized that God gives us common sense and expects us to use it even when studying the Bible. If a conclusion we come to is both out of harmony with the rest of the Bible and silly, then it is obviously wrong. “The right construction will harmonize with the Bible,

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and make good sense; other constructions will not.” His thirteenth rule shows how very cautiously he went about looking

for the fulfillment of prophecy in history. It is a rule that should be honored by every student of prophecy today. When comparing a historical event with a Bible prophecy that you think was fulfilled by a particular historical event, he said that “if you find every word of the prophecy … is literally fulfilled, then you may know that your history is the true event; but if one word lacks a fulfillment, then you must look for another event, or wait its future development; for God takes care that history and prophecy shall agree, so that the true believing children of God may never be ashamed.”

Miller's. fourteenth and final rule was spiritual, involving a willingness, by faith, to make any sacrifice that Bible study might lead to. “The most important rule of all is, that you must have faith. It must be a faith that … if tried, would give up the dearest object on earth, the world and all its desires, – character [reputation], living [livelihood], occupation, friends, home, comforts and worldly honors. If any of these should hinder our believing any part of God's word, it would show our faith to be vain.”

Miller's integrity and sincerity were revealed in his adherence to his own good rules. He laid aside all commentaries, letting the Bible stand on its own. He used margin and concordance to let the entire Bible speak to each problem text. He used history books to help him compare history with prophecy, and – after resisting God for thirteen years – he gave himself unstintingly, at great physical and monetary sacrifice, to the proclamation of the message his Bible study had led him to.

It is well that he did go out and preach, for he was God's best man available, and he had a vital, life-changing message that the world needed to hear. That is why, for thirteen years, God begged and begged him to preach.

But Miller was wrong on his most conspicuous point. He said that 1844 was crucially important. Here he was right. He dated the judgment and the first angel's message to that year and said that thinking about them should induce repentance and change lives. Here again he was right. He said that Jesus was soon to return to earth literally and personally. Here, too, he was right.

But then he said that 1844 was important because Jesus would come to earth literally and personally in that year, and here he was tragically wrong.

How could a man who was so nearly right, who was such a superb

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Bible student, be so conspicuously wrong? Partly, perhaps, because God mercifully kept him from being blinded

by too much light. (Remember from our first chapter that Jesus withheld information from His disciples because they could not bear it yet. See John 16:12.) Miller was wrong also because he knew his Bible so well that he made a mistake that only an expert would think of.

HOW MILLER MADE HIS MOST CONSPICUOUS ERROR. Miller didn't make his

most conspicuous error by reading Daniel 8:14 alone: “Unto two thousand three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Seventh-day Adventists who cannot find the second coming in Daniel 8:14 are not blind, and neither was he!

As we just saw, Miller's fourth rule for Bible interpretation stipulated, “To understand doctrine, bring all the Scriptures together on the subject you wish to know; then let every word have its proper influence.”

Serious Bible students have recognized for centuries that Daniel has four parallel prophecies.

As every Seventh-day Adventist knows, Daniel 2 uses a metal and clay image to forecast a sequence of empires – Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece, and Rome – followed by a breakup of the fourth empire into the nations of Europe. In parallel fashion, Daniel 7 uses wild animals and horns to predict the same sequence of empires followed by a division into the “ten kingdoms.” Once more in parallel fashion, Daniel 8 traces the future history of Media-Persia, Greece, and Rome; and Daniel 10-12 does so a fourth time, in considerable detail. The chart on page 29 illustrates this point visually.

Miller was by no means the first to notice that Daniel presents these four parallel prophecies, but in doing so, he noticed something else that many Bible students have not noticed or have ignored, and that is that each empire sequence is followed by a Christ-centered climax.

The climax to the vision in Daniel 2 is a stone that destroys the image and grows into a great mountain, which is given to God's people (verses 44,45).

The climax to the vision of the wild animals in Daniel 7 is the judgment that sits and annihilates earthly kingdoms and assigns the earth to God's saints (verses 9-14).

The climax to Daniel 8 is the cleansing of the sanctuary (verse 14).6 The climax to Daniel 10-12 is Prince Michael standing up to deliver

God's people from the time of trouble and to resurrect His sleeping saints.

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Daniel 2 Daniel 7 Daniel 8,9 Daniel 10-12 BABYLON Gold Lion PERSIA Silver Bear Ram A King GREECE Brass Leopard Goat Mighty King ROME Iron Monster Horn Robbers EUROPE Iron & Clay Horns Horn Contemptible

Person CLIMAX Stone

hits Judgment sits

Sanctuary cleansed

Michael stands

JESUS as The Stone Judge High Priest Prince MILLER'S VIEW

The end The end The end The end

CORREC-TION

End of the end time

Beginning of end time

Beginning of end time

End of the end time

Notice these climaxes on the chart in bold-faced type just below the center.

Each of these four climaxes is a message about Jesus. In Daniel 2, Jesus is the Stone or Rock that will dispose of all national governments (see Luke 20:18; Romans 9:23). In Daniel 7, Jesus is the Son of man who comes to the judgment (see John 5:22). In Daniel 8, Jesus is the “apostle and high priest of our faith” (Hebrews 5:1) who cleanses the sanctuary. And in Daniel 12:1, 2, Jesus is “Michael, the great prince” who stands for His people, delivers them from trouble, and raises them from the dead (see Genesis 48:16; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Jude 9).7

Inasmuch, then, as the empire sequences in these four prophecies are parallel, William Miller concluded that the four Christ-centered climaxes are also parallel.

His insight was brilliant. But the conclusion that he drew from his insight was not quite so

brilliant. It was partly right, but not completely so. Miller concluded that if the climaxes are parallel (and they are), then if

we can date any one of them, we can date them all. And we can date one of them. In Daniel 8:14, God Himself gives the date for the cleansing of the

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sanctuary. He says it was to be cleansed at the end of the 2,300 days, in 1844.

Following the logic that if you can date one climax you can date them all, Miller concluded that the stone of Daniel 2 would destroy the image in 1844, Christ would stand up and deliver and resurrect His people in 1844, the judgment would convene in 1844 (here he was right!), and in 1844 the Son of man would come to earth on the clouds of heaven.

Whenever I present this line of reasoning to my students or to campmeeting congregations, I notice how solemn they get. The reasoning seems unanswerable even today. Imagine how it sounded when Miller preached it, Bible in hand, in his earnest, friendly manner in the 1830s and early 1840s!

Imagine how it sounded when buttressed by the mistaken understanding held by most Christians that the final judgment is confined to the second coming, that the “marriage” is to take place on earth, and that the sanctuary of Daniel 8:14 cannot be the one in heaven.

But evidently something was wrong. WHAT MILLER OVERLOOKED. Miller was an expert Bible student. He

wrestled with things that most people haven't even thought about. Even so, he did not adequately question other people's assumptions. And he did not adequately notice the differences among the four visions or take into account the precise wording of Daniel 7:15.

The precise wording that Miller overlooked in Daniel 7:13 is this: “With the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he

came to the Ancient of Days.” He came “to the Ancient of days”! Miller assumed, like almost

everyone else who read the verse, that it seemed like such a clear reference to the second coming of Christ when Miller read it, because Daniel said the Son of man came “with clouds of heaven.” What Miller failed to notice is that Jesus did not come on these clouds to the earth. He came “to the Ancient of days.” This little phrase, so easy to see now but overlooked by almost everyone for centuries, proved a major key for explaining the great disappointment.

Look at the illustration on the cover of this hook. The artist shows it right there: Jesus coming into the presence of the Father on a cloud of angels. The artist gives us a faint glimpse into what must have been a magnificent event in the heavenly sanctuary. If the Adventist believers had understood this, they would surely have proclaimed October 22, 1844,

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a magnificent disappointment. But God wasn't ready for them to understand it that way yet. As Miller compared the four major visions in Daniel, he noticed that

they were parallel, but he failed to notice that they are not identical. Every Seventh-day Adventist today knows that Daniel 2 is easy to

understand, that Daniel 7 is harder, and that interpretation of Daniel 11 requires unusual skill. The basic message in each vision is similar, but the overall message of each is unique. The empires in Daniel 2 are symbolized by a polished image “of exceeding brightness” (verse 31). In Daniel 7 the same empires are symbolized by ferocious wild animals. In Daniel 8 the empires are symbolized by farm animals used in the sanctuary services; and in Daniel 10-12, they appear as quarrelsome human beings.

Just as the four visions, though parallel, are not the same, so the four climaxes, though parallel, are not the same.

The stone in Daniel 2 proves that even at their outward best the nations of earth are no match for the King of heaven, who will easily grind them to powder.

The judgment scene in Daniel 7 shows that when governments choose to condemn and torture God's people, God will call them to account on judgment day and acquit the people they persecuted.

The cleansing of the sanctuary in Daniel 8 directs us to study the Old Testament tabernacle rituals for insights into God's dealings with people and nations.

And the standing up of Prince Michael in Daniel 12 teaches us that no matter what evil deeds earthly kings and princes may perpetrate, God's people have a Prince of their own who will have the last word, who will even raise to life the saints whom the persecutors executed.

So the climaxes are definitely parallel, but they are not precisely the same.

Furthermore, although all the climaxes pertain to the end time, they cannot all apply specifically to the very end of the end time. If the Son of man in Daniel 7 comes to the Ancient of days at the beginning of judgment hour and does not at that time come to the earth, the beginning of the judgment must be at a time earlier than the second coming.

Analysis shows that the judgment (Daniel 7) and the cleansing (Daniel 8) were to begin at the beginning of the end time, whereas the crushing of empires (Daniel 2) and the resurrection of the saints (Daniel 12) will occur at the end of the end time.8

We'll have more to say about these things in chapter 6. In the

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meantime, we're going to review how to calculate the prophetic numbers that lead to 1844. (If you feel confident about calculating the prophetic numbers, you may, if you wish, skip over to chapter 7.)

1. See Siegfried H. Horn and Lynn H. Wood, The Chronology of Ezra 7, 2d. ed.,

rev. (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1970). 2. In the 1842 edition of Miller's sermons, Evidence from Scripture and History

of the Second Coming of Christ, about the Year 1843; Exhibited in a Course of Lectures, reprinted by Leaves-of -Autumn Books, Box 440, Payson, Aria., his message on the “seven times” is Lecture XVII, 250-265.

3. William Miller to Truman Hendryx, 28 November, 1834, in Francis D. Nichol, The Midnight Cry (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1944), 56.

4. See William Miller, Letter to Joshua V Himes, on the Cleansing of the Sanctuary (Boston, 1842).

5. Miller's rules of interpretation may be found in Isaac C. Wellcome, History of the Second Advent Message and Mission, Doctrine and People (Yarmouth, Maine., 1874), 45,46.

6. Some modern translations give be restored to its rightful state or justified in place of the KJV term, be cleansed. Careful analysis reveals that the unusual Hebrew term translated here does mean “cleansed,” along with several other meanings.

7. First Thessalonians 4:16 refers to “the” archangel, not to one of several archangels. Evidently there is only one archangel, popular legend notwithstanding. Also in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, “the” archangel raises the dead, which is what Michael the Prince does in Daniel 12:1, 2, and what Michael does for Moses in Jude 9. Genesis 48:16 is speaking of Jesus when it mentions an “angel“ who is our Redeemer. The word angel means “messenger,” and Jesus is God's supreme Messenger or Angel, sent to bring us the message of the gospel. But being both God and Angel, Jesus is necessarily the Prince of the angels, which is what the term archangel means. Bible study thus leads to the conclusion that Prince Michael who raises the dead in Daniel 12:1, 2 is Jesus, the Archangel who raises the dead in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and Michael, the Archangel who raises Moses in Jude 9. 8. whereas modern Westerners like to see topics arranged in a sequential pattern, A B CD, ancient readers of ten preferred topics arranged in a mirror like pattern, A B B A, called a “chiasm.” (Every normal face is arranged like a chiasm: Left ear, left eye, nose, right eye, right ear. Couples of ten sit in meetings in chiastic order: First husband, first wife, second wife, second husband.) Daniel's arrangement – End of the end time (chapter 2), Beginning of the end time (chapter 7), Beginning of the end time (chapter 8), End of the end time (chapter 12, – is thus a chiasm.

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35

CHAPTER 3

HOW DO YOU CALCULATE 1844?

Miller discovered 1844 only after he had been converted, had studied

the Bible till it became his “delight,“ and had found in Jesus a personal friend. The year 1844 struck him as dramatically significant because it said some dramatically significant things about Jesus.

The purpose of our study together in this book is to help you understand and cherish some of the “dramatically significant” things that 1844 says about Jesus so that 1844 can have a “dramatically significant” effect on your life too, and the magnificence of the great disappointment will glow in your soul.

But, you say, I can't explain even to my best friend how to arrive at 1844 from the Bible, let alone apply its meaning to my life.

You're not alone. Many North American Seventh-day Adventists think they can't explain 1844. Really, this is surprising, because the earliest Adventists, who weren't nearly as well educated as many Adventists are today, could explain 1844 with grace and ease.

If they could explain it, so can we! WORTH. First off, let's remind ourselves that 1844 is worth explaining. It is

fundamental to what we believe. It has tremendous potential for our

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lifestyles. And it's about Jesus where He is today, as our High Priest, cleansing the heavenly sanctuary and also cleansing from sin those people who believe in Him.

HELP. Jesus wants to help us understand this Bible prophecy. On the

Tuesday night before His crucifixion, He referred to Daniel's prophecies and said, “Let the reader understand” (see Matthew 24:15). We remember that “all His biddings are enablings.”1 Inasmuch as He wants us to understand, we know that He's ready to help us understand.

Jesus wanted to help Daniel himself understand the prophecy, or at least begin to understand it. It is true that the fullest understanding would have to wait until our day, the time of the end. A heavenly Being said to Daniel, “Shut up the words, and seal the book, until the time of the end” (Daniel 12:4). But in the immediate context of Daniel 8:14, a heavenly voice (probably Christ's) said to the angel Gabriel,2 “Make this man [Daniel] understand the vision.” Immediately Gabriel came to Daniel's side and said, “Understand … that the vision is for the time of the end” (Daniel 8:16,18).

EASY MATHEMATICS. Jesus wants us to understand. That is encouraging.

So let's start with the mathematics. It's not impossibly hard. You have probably heard already that the 2,300 days began in the

autumn of 457 B.C. Taking 457 B.C. as the beginning year, all you need to do to locate the ending year is to subtract the 457 B.C. years from the 2,300 years. The remaining years will automatically be A.D. years.

2300 – 457 = 1843

Surprise! Something went wrong. We expected to get 1844 and got 1843 instead.

Then someone reminds us that between B.C. dates and A.D. dates there is no zero year, making it necessary for us to add one to our A.D. years. Adding one to 1843 brings us to 1844.

2300 – 457 = 1843 + 1 = 1844

There we have it. And it wasn't hard, was it? William Miller did not at first think about the zero-year problem. This

is why he talked about 1843 before he made the correction to 1844. (If you would like to know the reason why there is no zero year and also what

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A.D. means precisely, see the Added Note at the end of this chapter.)

WHY 457? If reviewing how to do the mathematics is all the help you needed for calculating 1844, you may go on now to chapter 4. But if you would like to know why 457 is the beginning date, stay by. The explanation is not difficult, once you realize that Daniel 9:20-27 is a continuation of Daniel 8.

First let us go to the bottom line. The year 457 B.C. was the “seventh year of Artaxerxes” mentioned in Ezra 7. This was the year in which Artaxerxes I (ART-a-ZERK-seez), king of Persia, in fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel 9:20-27, issued a decree authorizing the Jews to “restore and build Jerusalem.” But let's go through the argument step by step, for any friend you may try explaining this to will want to be sure that the decree of Artaxerxes was in fact a fulfillment of prophecy and that it was in fact the beginning of the 2,300 days.

DANIEL 9:20-27 AND DANIEL 8. The secret, as we just mentioned, lies in

realizing that Daniel 9:20-27 is a continuation of Daniel 8. This involves seeing first how Daniel 8 is organized.

Daniel 8, the chapter that contains the prophecy about the 2,300 days, is divided roughly into two halves. The first half (8:1-14) contains prophetic symbols, while the second half (8:15-27) provides an explan-ation of the prophetic symbols.

The first half is also divided into two smaller subsections. The first subsection (8:2-12) consists of symbolic animals and horns, which Daniel saw. The second subsection (8:13,14) contains the announcement about the 2,300 days, which Daniel heard.

In the second half of Daniel 8, Gabriel is commissioned (verses 15,16) to help Daniel understand the vision and its symbols, and he attempts (verses 17-26) to fulfill the commission.

Gabriel had little trouble helping Daniel understand the symbolic animals and horns, for Daniel was already acquainted with the world's future kingdoms from the image of chapter 2 and the wild animals of chapter 7. But when he told Daniel that one of the horns symbolized a great king who would “rise up against the Prince of princes” (8:25), Daniel fainted before Gabriel could finish. Daniel was quite elderly by this time. All that Gabriel could get in about the 2,300 days was that they were “true” and that they pertained to “many days hence.” Then Daniel “was overcome and lay sick for some days” (8:27). He was “appalled“ by what

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he had learned about the great king who would attack the Prince of princes, and he says that he did not understand the prophecy about the days (see verses 26, 27).

Daniel's sickness prevented Gabriel from completing his commission to make Daniel understand the vision. Gabriel had to try again on a later occasion, as we shall now see.

According to chapter 9, “in the first year of Darius,” which was 558 B.C. and some thirteen years after the vision of chapter 8, Daniel set himself most earnestly to plead with God to forgive the Jews and let them go back from Babylon to Jerusalem to restore the temple there. Jerusalem had been in ruins since Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it in Daniel's youth. Now, while Daniel was “speaking and praying,” Gabriel, whom he “had seen in the vision at the first” (verses 20, 21), came back to complete his commission.

Gabriel's first words prove that chapter 9:20-27 is indeed a continuation of chapter 8. Said Gabriel, “O Daniel, I have now come out to give you wisdom and understanding. … Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.“

THE SEVENTY WEEKS. Gabriel's words in Daniel 9 contain the key to

help both Daniel and us to understand the vision of the 2,300 days. This key was a new prophecy about the seventy weeks.

In chapter 8, as we saw a moment ago, Gabriel explained the animals and horns. However, faced with Daniel's sudden illness, he was unable to explain the 2,300 days. No doubt Daniel hoped that when Gabriel returned some day, he would start directly with an explanation of the days, showing whether they were literal or symbolic and indicating when they would begin and end.

Daniel was not disappointed. Gabriel's very first sentence of explana-tion in chapter 9:24 focused directly on time and also indicated when the time was to begin. (Please pay close attention to the definitions inside the brackets.) “Seventy weeks of years,” be said, “are decreed [amputated] concerning your people [the Jews] and your holy city [Jerusalem]. … Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word [the issuing of a decree] to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince [Jesus Christ]” (9:25), shall be sixty-nine weeks, followed by a seventieth week, during which the Messiah would be killed.

Here is the prophecy about the decree to restore and build Jerusalem, the prophecy that we said Artaxerxes was going to fulfill in 457 B.C. But

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let's make sure your friend understands what Gabriel said. TOUGH TEEMS DEFINED. You noticed that when we quoted Gabriel, we

put several definitions in brackets. Some of the definitions are obvious enough, while others may not seem so clear.

The “coming of an anointed one, a prince” obviously refers to the baptism of Prince Jesus in A.D. 27. The Holy Spirit descended on Jesus at His baptism. A short time later, in Nazareth, Jesus chose to read from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me” (Luke 4:18; see also verse 16). Jesus is the preeminent “anointed one.” His name, Christ, means “anointed one” in Greek and is the equivalent of Messiah in Hebrew.

The translation in brackets, “issuing of a decree” in place of “going forth of the word,” is a matter of skilled preference. Outstanding Bible translations like the New International Version and the New American Standard Bible prefer the translation “issuing of a decree.” The Hebrew word dabar, which underlies the English translation “decree,” has the basic meaning of “word” or “message.” In Bible times, the kind of “word” or “message“ that would authorize the restoration and rebuilding of a capital city like Jerusalem had to be a decree issued by a great king.

The most interesting of our definitions in brackets is “amputated.” It is a translation of the Hebrew word chathak (kah-thal), which is used only this one time in the Bible but is well-known from its use outside the Bible. The widely respected Hebrew-English dictionary by Gesenius says that chathak means to “cut” or “divide.” Ancient Jewish teachers (the rabbis), who employed this Hebrew word in connection with preparing animals for sacrifice, used it with the meaning of “amputate.”3 The point in Daniel 9 is that seventy weeks were to be “cut off” or “amputated” from a longer period. Furthermore, these seventy weeks were to be devoted in a special way to the well-being of the Jews and were to include the earthly life and death of the Prince Messiah, Jesus Christ.

You should know that some modern Bible translators believe the seventy-week prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 does not refer to Jesus Christ, but refers rather to the little king Antiochus Epiphanes (an-TIE-okus e-PIF-anees), who prevented temple sacrifices from being offered during the years 167-164 B.C. Translators who believe this tend to translate the Hebrew words in such a way as to make them fit Antiochus Epiphanes. However, when we allow the words to speak for themselves, they clearly refer to Jesus Christ.

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THE DAYS ARE SYMBOLIC. Because the 490 days of the seventy weeks (7x70-490) stretch from the issuing of the decree to “restore and build“ Jerusalem until the time when Jesus would live and die on the earth, the days of the seventy weeks are plainly symbolic, representing years. Four hundred and ninety literal days would have covered less than a year and a half.

So if the 490 days of the seventy weeks are symbols that represent years, then the 2,300 days are also symbols and represent 2,300 years, since the 490 days were “amputated” from the 2,300. Anything that is amputated from something else has to be smaller than the something else. A finger is amputated from a hand and a leg from a body, not the other way around.

In chapter 2 of this book we referred to a volume in which William H. Shea presents more than twenty evidences from the Bible that when a “day” is a prophetic symbol, it represents a year. To keep our present discussion simple, it is sufficient to remind ourselves that when the Israelites were coming out of Egypt, God specified “a day for a year” when sentencing them to wander forty years in the wilderness (Numbers 14:34). Thus the concept of “a day for a year” was imprinted firmly in Jewish consciousness from the very beginning of their nation. Second, God reminded the Jewish people of this “day for a year” concept through the prophet Ezekiel, who was an exile in Babylonia at the same time Daniel was, and who lived only fifty miles or so away from Daniel. In connection with a very symbolic assignment, God expressly specified to Ezekiel, “I assign you, a day for each year” (Ezekiel 4:6).

We conclude that the 2,300 days represent 2,300 years – and that they began with the decree of Artaxerxes in 457 B.C.

THE 457 DECREE. Now it's time that we look at the decree itself. You will

have to depend on scholars such as Lynn Wood and Siegfried Horn, whom we mentioned in chapter 2, and on a host of other scholars whom we haven't mentioned, for the conclusion that the “seventh year of Artaxerxes” was in fact 457 B.C.4 But you can definitely show your friend what happened in that seventh year of Artaxerxes to start the seventy weeks and the 2,300 days.

Help your friend find Ezra 7. As you read through Ezra 7, notice the references to Artaxerxes and Ezra in verse 1 and to the “seventh year of Artaxerxes the king” in verse 7. Verses 7 to 10 tell about Ezra's trip from Babylonia to Jerusalem and his arrival there in the “fifth month,” which, according to calendars in those days, was probably August or September.

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Ezra 7:12 begins the decree that King Artaxerxes issued. Think of the decree as an authentic ancient document, and you'll find it unusually interesting. The decree gives Jews living in Babylonia permission to move to the ruined city of Jerusalem and to take money with them. It also gives Ezra a sizable grant of money and supplies. But the last two verses of the decree (25, 26) interest us the most right now:

And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God which is in

your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River [the province in which Jerusalem was situated], all such as know the laws of your God; and those who do not know them, you shall teach. Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed upon him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment. This is the “word” (RSV) or “decree” (NIV) to “restore and build

Jerusalem” that fulfilled the prophecy of Gabriel in Daniel 9:24-27. Gabriel delivered this prophecy to Daniel in 558 B.C. Within a year or

two, the great King Cyrus issued a decree providing for the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple (see Ezra 1:2-4), and another Persian king later reconfirmed this first temple-building decree (see Ezra 6). But it was not until 457 B.C. that King Artaxerxes issued the decree for rebuilding the ruined city of Jerusalem. This decree specified that the Jewish governor was to “appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province” (Ezra 7:25). This specification restored Jerusalem to capital-city status.5

To put teeth into the restoration to capital-citystatus, the decree added that “whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king” was to be punished with fines, imprisonment, exile, or death (Ezra 7:26).

In order to carry out this authorization, Jerusalem would have to house the appointed magistrates and judges. It would also have to house the police and soldiers needed to enforce the orders of the magistrates and judges. And the magistrates, judges, soldiers, and police would have to be assisted by merchants and craftsmen, who could provide food, clothing, furniture, and so on. And all of these people would need builders to provide government offices, public streets, city walls, shops, and human dwellings. The builders would have to be guided by architects and engineers, who also would need to be housed, fed, and protected. Thus

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the decree of 457, which provided for Jerusalem to be a center for magistrates and judges fully authorized to enforce both religious laws and the king's own laws, envisaged the restoration of Jerusalem to capital-city status and necessarily also envisaged the rebuilding of the city.

The decree that Gabriel foresaw when he spoke of a “word“ or “decree” to “restore” and “build” Jerusalem was this decree of 457 B.C.

This is the decree that was to start the seventy weeks. And inasmuch as Gabriel's reference to the decree was intended to help Daniel and us understand the 2,300 days, we know that the 2,300 days also began in 457 B.C.

CHRIST THE CENTER. Be sure your friend realizes that this talk about

chronology and ancient history is also talk about Jesus. For without question, the center and focus of the seventy-week and 2,300-day prophecies that began in Daniel 8 and ran over into chapter 9 is our loving, living Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

He is the Prince who was “anointed” at the end of the sixty-ninth week and “cut of” in the middle of the seventieth week and who “anointed the most holy place” upon His ascension to heaven after His resurrection (see Daniel 9:24-27). Jesus is the High Priest who was to cleanse the heavenly sanctuary at the end of the 2,300 days.

The Christ-centeredness of Daniel 8 and 9 is revealed even in the choice of symbols to represent Media-Persia and Greece. In Daniel 2 these empires were symbolized by metals – silver and brass. In Daniel 7 they were symbolized by wild animals – a bear and a leopard. But in Daniel 8 and 9 the same empires are symbolized by a ram and a goat. In Old Testament times, rams (male sheep) and goats were the most promi-nent animals used for sacrifices. Supremely, the special annual day for offering a male sheep was Passover (see Exodus 12). Jesus our Passover Lamb (see 1 Corinthians 5:7) was sacrificed on the cross on Passover day.

Supremely also, the special annual day for offering a goat was the Day of Atonement, when a goat's blood was used symbolically by the high priest to cleanse the earthly sanctuary (see Leviticus 16).

Jesus as our sacrificial Lamb provides forgiveness of sin. Jesus as our High Priest provides victory over sin, the eradication of sin from our characters, and the blotting out of even the record of confessed sin from the most holy place in the heavenly sanctuary. All Christians believe in the Christ of history who died on the cross. Many Christians look forward to the Christ of the future, arriving on the clouds at the second coming.

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Seventh-day Adventists are among the Christians who cherish these great truths about Jesus. But Seventh-day Adventists, with their God-given understanding of 1844, have, in addition, something absolutely vital to tell the world about the contemporary Christ, currently engaged in a unique ministry in the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary.

Jesus wants to help us, and our friends, understand all this.

Additional Note

This additional note is for readers who would like to know why there is no zero year between B.C and A.D. and what A.D. means precisely. If when you finish reading this note you would like still more information about calculating 1844, you will find excellent help in Clifford Goldstein's 1844 Made Simple. You might also like to read God Cares, vol.1 (about Daniel), 205-210, 237-240, 251-253.

To understand why there is no zero year we need to start with the difference between counting “zero, one, two” and counting “first, second, third.”

Numbers like “zero, one, two” are known as cardinal numbers, and numbers like “first, second, third” are known as ordinal numbers.

When we give a person's age, we usually use cardinal numbers. We say that a person is six or forty-five or ninety-two. But when we give the age of a tiny infant, we of ten use ordinal numbers and say that the child is in the “first” year of her life. When the baby is one year old, we say she is in her second year. When she is two, she's in her third year, and so on.

The ordinal age – first, second, third – is always one number larger than the cardinal age – zero, one, two. This is because when we use first, second, third, we don't speak of the zero year. When the baby is in her first year (using ordinal numbers), we could say that she is “zero” (using cardinal numbers) – but it wouldn't sound right, would it?

Notice very carefully that when we count “first, second, third“ we have no year numbered zero. There is no zero year between the birth of a baby and the beginning of her first year.

Because of this absence of a zero year, ordinal numbers (first, second, third) are always one number larger than their equivalent cardinal numbers (zero, one, two).

Elderly people sometimes exaggerate their ages, honestly enough, by using ordinals. When they're eighty-seven, for example, they say they're in their eighty-eighth year. Let's repeat it for emphasis: ordinal numbers (first, second, third) are always one number larger than the equivalent

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cardinal numbers; cardinal numbers (zero, one, two) are always one number smaller than the equivalent ordinal numbers.

Now most ancient people preferred ordinal numbers. When dating events, rather than counting “zero, one, two,” they used “first, second, third.” Further, they normally dated events to the years during which individual kings reigned. We have examples of these customs in the book of Daniel, such as, „In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of J udah“ (Daniel 1:1), and we have already looked at “the seventh year of Artaxerxes“ (Ezra 7:7). Even to this day in Britain, acts of Parliament are ceremonially dated to the third or tenth or twenty-fifth or whatever year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

This ancient practice of dating events to the ordinal-numbered year of a given king's reign meant that dating had to start all over again with the beginning of each reign. Imagine the complexity of calculating the years from the third year of King A to the fifth year of King G, when Kings B, C, D, E, and F each reigned various numbers of years in between!

But in the year we call 532, an intelligent monk named Dionysius Exiguus proposed the brilliant idea that events should be dated to the one ongoing reign of our ever-living Lord and King, Jesus Christ. Under this system, an event could be spoken of as happening “in the twenty-fifth year of our Lord,” for example, and a later event could be dated “in the three hundred and seventy-fifth year of our Lord.”

We're ready now to discuss the precise meaning of B.C. and A.D. The abbreviation B.C. is easy. It is English and stands for “before

Christ.“ Dionysius Exigutis did not use B.C. He invented only A.D. The abbreviation A.D. stands for anno Domini, which is Latin. The word anno is related to “annual,” our word for yearly, and in this expression means “in the year of“ The word Domini is related to “dominion” and here refers to the Lord Jesus, who has dominion over all of us. Thus A.D. means “in the year of our Lord.”

But remember that in ancient times, people used ordinal numbers for expressing dates. Hence A.D., when used precisely, is not to be read as “in the year [zero, one, two] of our Lord” but as “in the [first, second, third] year of our Lord.” Thus, the correct reading of “A. D. 1843“ is not the way we usually say it – “in the year 1844,” using the cardinal number 1844; rather, it is “in the 1843th year of our Lord,” using the ordinal number, which, in cardinal numeration is one number higher, or 1844.

Let's admit it. Almost everyone in the world has forgotten this distinction in dating the A.D. years – and for most situations in life, the

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distinction doesn't matter. But for measuring the years between a B.C. date and an A.D. date, the distinction can be very important. It is very important when determining the correct date for Christ's entry into heaven's most holy place in fulfillment of the 2,300-day prophecy.

Calculators and computers are typically set up to count with cardinal numbers (zero, one, two), and likewise we are taught in school to count with cardinal numbers (zero, one, two). So when we subtract 457 from 2,300, either in our heads or with a calculator, we get the cardinal number, 1843, just as Miller did.

But if calculators and computers were set up, as they should be, to count ordinal numbers (first, second, third) when figuring dates from B.C. to A.D., they would automatically take into account the absence of the zero year. When subtracting 457 B.C. from A.D. 2300, they would automatically give us “in the 1844th year of our Lord” or “A.D. 1844,” instead of 1843.

Most computers aren't smart enough to do this. But now, I trust, you are! God has helped you understand.

1. Ellen C. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, 333. 2. Daniel 9:21 calls Gabriel a “man,” but the term seems to mean the same as

person. In Luke 1:19 Gabriel is specifically designated an angel. 3. Jacques Doukhan, “The Seventy Weeks of Daniel 9: An Exegetical Study,”

Andrews University Seminary Studies 17 (1979):1-22. 4. Some commentators give 458 B.C. instead of 457 B.C., but the arguments in

favor of 457 as given in the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary and in the book by Wood and Horn demonstrate the clear superiority of 457.

5. In 444 B.C., thirteen years after 457 B.C., King Artaxetxes issued another decree, which some Christians think was the decree that Gabriel had in mind. But close inspection shows that the 444 B.C. decree authorized Nehemiah to repair some damage done to the city walls by local enemies (see Nehemiah 2). This was after the walls had been rebuilt as part of the restoration and rebuilding of Jerusalem that was done under the decree of 457.

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CHAPTER 4

WHY OCTOBER 22?

We've been talking about the year 1844, but we haven’t said anything

about the specific date, October 22. You have probably heard that the “great disappointment” – the magnificent disappointment – when Jesus didn't appear took place on October 22, 1844. Perhaps you thought that because the Millerites were wrong about the year 1844, their being wrong about the specific date, October 22, wasn't worth wondering about. But you have been reassured in this book that Miller was not wrong about the year; he was right about it. And in this present chapter I hope you will find evidence that, like 1844, the date October 22 was based on sound Bible study. I hope you will also find that October 22 has a significance of its own for today.

To put the matter as briefly as possible, the date October 22 came from the Day of Atonement in the Bible. The Caraite Jews, who were regarded as the most careful of all Jews in preserving the Bible calendar, held that in 1844 the Day of Atonement fell on October 22. That is essentially where October 22 came from. If you would like to know more about the whys and wherefores, please read on.

WILLIAM MILLER AND OCTOBER 22. William Miller did not select October

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22. His associates did, in the summer of 1844. Miller first examined Daniel 8:14 in 1818. He understood that the 2,300

days would end in 1843 (later corrected to 1844 when the matter became clear about the year zero). But Miller never was positive that he had found the correct year for beginning the 2,300 days. He had found the correct year, 457 B.C., but he wasn't absolutely certain that historians hadn't been off a year or two. If they were off a bit, he reasoned, the ending year would also be off a bit. Besides, Jesus had become his personal friend, and Miller hoped that He would return sooner than 1843. So throughout most of his preaching career, beginning in 1831, Miller preferred to date the close of the 2,300 days no more closely than “about the year 1843.”

When December 1842 rolled around, many Millerite Adventists found themselves eagerly looking for Christ's return within the first few days of 1843. About this time they discovered that in Daniel's day, Bible years began and ended in the spring. So now they began to look for Christ to come around March 21.

By now, the Millerite “second advent” movement had grown quite large. At its peak the following year it would include hundreds of ministers and other leading speakers and would count perhaps 150,000 followers in a national population of eighteen million.1 Miller's movement was not a church; most of his people remained members of their various denominations. Pastors felt honored to have Miller come and hold meetings for them and of ten urged him to come again soon.

When attendance at large second advent rallies grew too large for available church buildings, the Millerite leaders in 1842 voted to hold open-air camp meetings. When these proved enormously attractive, they voted to buy the largest tent yet made in America. This great tent could seat four thousand, with standing room for two thousand more. The Millerites had it ordered and in use within a month. There was no time to lose if Christ was coming “around the year 1843.” But with only one such tent, many camp meetings continued to meet in the open air.

THE MIONIGHT CRY. It is important for our understanding of October

22 to know that the Millerite Adventists saw themselves – at their camp meetings and in their many publications – as fulfilling the “midnight cry” of Matthew 25. When, in the parable of the virgins, the bridegroom finally shows up at the hour of midnight, a cry goes up, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh” (KJV). Jesus called Himself the Bridegroom in Mark 2:19,20. So with their emphasis on the second coming of Jesus, the

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Millerites called their principal publication The Midnight Cry. As the movement grew, they published the Western Midnight Cry in Cincinnati and the Southern Midnight Cry. Later they had a paper called The True Midnight Cry, but with this we are getting ahead of our story.

When Jesus didn't return in March 1843, Miller wrote a particularly thoughtful article for publication in the various volunteer periodicals. In it he argued – without setting a precise date – that Jesus was more likely to return in the autumn than in the spring. Miller's reasoning was further evidence of the acuteness of his Bible study – though the idea wasn't original with him. Isaac Newton, the famous scientist, had thought of this years before.

Miller's basic argument (and Isaac Newton's before him) had to do with “types” and “antitypes.” He reasoned that because Jesus fulfilled the spring types in connection with His first coming, He could be expected to fulfill the autumn types in connection with His second coming.

Let's try that again. An “antitype” is the fulfillment of a “type.” The most familiar type-

antitype relationship is the one between the sacrificial lamb (the type) and the crucified Lamb of God, Jesus Christ (the antitype). Antitypes tend to be much larger than types. The crucifixion of the Creator of the universe is vastly more profound than the death of a lamb; yet there is a similarity in the deaths of two completely innocent beings.

The Old Testament offered many different types that looked forward to the ministry of Jesus. Among the most important of these were the annual festivals that are listed and described in Leviticus 23. These annual-festival types were divided into two major categories: the spring types and the autumn types. The spring types were (1) the Passover, together with its week-long extension, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, (2) the offering of the “Wavesheaf” or first fruits on the day after the Passover Sabbath, and (3) the Day of Pentecost. The autumn types were (1) the Blowing of Trumpets, (2) the Day of Atonement, and (3) the Feast of Tabernacles.

Don't overlook what we mentioned a moment ago, that the Millerites learned that ancient Bible years began in the spring rather than in January.2 The first month in Bible times came in late March or April, and the seventh month fell in September or October, in the autumn.

Now in Leviticus 23, God specified the precise dates in spring and autumn when these ceremonial types were to be observed. (1) Passover was to be observed on the “fourteenth day of the first month.” (2) A

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SPRING TYPES

FIRST COMING ANTITYPES

AUTUMN

TYPES SECOND COMING

ANTITYPES

Passover *Cross Blowing of Trumpets

Three Angels’ Messages

First Fruits Resurrection Day of Atonement

+Investigative Judgment

Pentecost “Pentecost” Tabernacles Heaven *Year of predicted in the seventh-week prophecy (Daniel 9)

+Year of predicted in the 2,300-day prophecy (Daniel 8)

sheaf (the “Wavesheaf”) of first-ripe barley (first fruits) was to be waved before the Lord by a priest “on the morrow after the sabbath” of Passover week. (3) And as for Pentecost, “you shall count from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven full weeks … counting fifty days to the morrow after the seventh sabbath.“

Likewise, in the autumn, (1) “in the seventh month, on the first day of the month,” the Blowing of Trumpets was to take place, (2) “on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement,” and (3) “on the fifteenth day of this seventh month and for seven days is the Feast of Booths” (or Tabernacles).

It is not surprising that God was so precise, giving exact dates for these ceremonial types. God made time.

So precise is God's universe that astronomers can predict eclipses thousands of years in advance. So precise was God's prophecy of the 430 years of servitude (Genesis 15:13; compare Galatians 3:17) that Moses could record that the children of Israel left Egypt “on that very clay” (Exodus 12:40, 41). Jesus began His earthly ministry proclaiming, “The time is fulfilled!” knowing that the seventy-week prophecy had accurately predicted His baptism at the end of the sixty-ninth week.

King David could say, “My times are in thy hands” (Psalm 31:15). God knows when it is best for us to marry or die and when to enjoy success or learn from a failure. He knows precisely the best times for each of us.

When the time came for Jesus to die, He died in the year predicted, A.D. 31, in the “midst” of the seventieth week of Daniel 9:24-27. And He died not only in the very year of prophecy but also on the very day of that year when the Passover lamb was slain. Indeed, He died at the very time

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of day, in the middle of the afternoon, when the Passover lamb was slain! Furthermore, on the “day after the Sabbath,” when the first fruits of

the barley harvest were offered by the priest, Jesus rose from the dead, “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). The accuracy is amazing!

To add another marvel to this amazing list, after His ascension to heaven, Jesus sent His Holy Spirit in “Pentecostal power” on the very day of the annual Pentecost (see Acts 2).

With new force we remember Acts 17:31, where long ago God told us that He had “fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom he has appointed.”

The same God who appointed the very year and day for Jesus to die appointed a year and day for the judgment to begin.

In his May 1843 article, Miller went so far as to suggest that just as Jesus fulfilled (was the antitype of ) the spring types at His first coming, so He might be expected to fulfill (become the antitype of) the autumn types in connection with His second coming. Thus He might well fulfill the autumn types and return to the earth in the autumn.

S. S. SNOW. Miller set no precise date in the autumn, but Samuel

Sheffield Snow, one of the many leaders who were now voluntarily assisting Miller, took Miller's observation to its logical conclusion. If Jesus fulfilled the spring types not only in the correct year of the seventy-week prophecy but also on the very dates of the types, so He could be counted on to fulfill the autumn Day of Atonement type not only in the year of the 2,300-day prophecy but also on the very date of the Day of Atonement.

On the Day of Atonement in the Bible, the high priest completed the work of atonement in the most holy place and then came out to bless his waiting people. The Day of Atonement was the tenth day of the seventh Bible month. Therefore, Snow concluded, Jesus could be counted on to leave heaven and come to bless His waiting people on the tenth day of the seventh (Bible) month. It was as simple as that.

But only a few people listened to Snow's argument at first. In any case, Jesus didn't come in the autumn of 1843. When March 1844 rolled around, confidence grew that Jesus would come before the end of the spring-to-spring Bible year. But He didn't come then either, and a genuine disappointment ensued.

The Millerites restudied the parable of the virgins (see Matthew 25:1-10), and this time they paid special attention to the words “As the

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bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept” (KJV). They saw themselves in the tarrying time – or, in the idiom of the day, in the “tarry” – and longed more than ever for the true midnight cry.

THE EXETER, N.H., CAMP MEETING. An extra-large camp meeting (but

without benefit of the big tent, which was in use elsewhere) was held in Exeter, New Hampshire, beginning August 12, 1844. Interested people came from all over New England and also from several other states and even from Canada. At first, things didn't go very well. The preaching, though earnest, seemed unconvincing. Besides, some troubling fanaticism erupted. The folk from Watertown, Massachusetts, held long, noisy prayer meetings in their dormitory tent, shouting and clapping; and some other people kept telling everyone how they had been “impressed” to do this or that trivial thing. Elder James White, one of the leaders present, was particularly disturbed.3

On the other hand, Joseph Bates arrived with great expectations. While he was riding to Exeter, a conviction had forced itself on his mind: “You are going to have new light here, something that will give a new impetus to this work.”4

At one of the Exeter meetings, the old records tell us with astonishing frankness, the normally powerful Captain Bates was preaching away “in a dull, prosy style,”5 not yet having found the new light he was looking for, when a horseman galloped into the campground, quickly dismounted, hurriedly cared for his horse, and dashed over to where his sister and John Couch, her husband, were seated.

Suddenly Mrs. Couch6 stood courageously to her feet and said in a loud but pleasant voice, “Brother Bates, it is too late to spend our time upon these truths, with which we are familiar. … Time is short. The Lord has servants here who have meat in due season for his household. Let them speak, and let the people hear them.”

The crowd was electrified. Choked “Amens” were heard on every side. Many people began to weep. Bates himself, far from objecting to the interruption, sat down at once, eagerly awaiting the new light he had been promised while traveling to the meeting.

A consultation was held, and the decision was made to have Brother Snow take advantage of the morning meeting the next day. He was ready, for he had already presented his evidence to gatherings in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.7

Snow's first argument that needs to concern us here8 was not based on

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the ceremonial types and antitypes, which he had been studying for over a year. Instead, he first dwelt on evidence that the 2,300 years could not possibly have ended in the spring – because they didn't start in the spring! The decree of 457 B.C., under which Jerusalem was to be restored and rebuilt, was not promulgated and executed until Ezra arrived at Jerusalem in the fifth month of that year (see Ezra 7), and not even then, but only after he had managed to settle in as governor.

Besides, the year didn't start in March, as most modern Jews were teaching and as the Millerites had come to believe. It had to have started in April, he said, as the extremely careful Caraite Jews pointed out. The “first month” couldn't begin until the barley was nearly ripe, for ripe barley had to be available for the “Wavesheaf” (first fruits) ceremony in the middle of the first month, and barley didn't ripen in Palestine in March.

So starting in April 457 B.C. and counting from there to the fifth month, then adding a little time for Ezra to get settled, meant that the decree could not have been carried out until the autumn. So if the 2,300 years didn't begin until the autumn of 457 B.C., they could not end until the autumn of A.D. 1844!

The audience looked at their Bibles, at Snow, and at one another and wondered how they could have been so blind. Here was impressive new light!

Building on this foundation, based on an accurate understanding of the prophecy of the 2,300 days of Daniel 8:14, Snow advanced to an accurate understanding of the annual ceremonial types of Leviticus 23. He pointed out that “Christ our Passover” was sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7, KJV) on the fourteenth day of the first month at about 3:00 p.m., “on the same day, and at the same hour” when the Passover lamb died. He also observed that in this type-antitype fulfillment of the Passover lamb, “time was most strictly regarded” (his emphasis).

Jesus fulfilled the “first fruits” type by coming back from the dead, “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:23), on the very Sunday when the first fruits were waved before the Lord. And as for Pentecost, “the anniversary of the Lord's descent on mount Sinai at the giving of the law,” the Holy Spirit fell on the apostles on that very day, to enable them to carry out the great gospel commission.

“Thus we see,” Snow continued, in a “solemn and dignified” manner,9 “that those types that pointed to events connected with our Lord's first coming, were fulfilled exactly at the time of their observance.” Therefore,

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he reasoned, “those which remain unfulfilled, will be fulfilled with an equally strict regard to time.”

Snow referred especially to the Day of Atonement (see Leviticus 9:7, 22-24; 16; 23:26-32), on the tenth day of the seventh month, on which day the high priest went into the most holy place of the earthly tabernacle and sprinkled blood on the mercy seat, after which “on the same day he came out and blessed the waiting congregation of Israel.”

Snow led his large congregation to his triumphant conclusion: “Our blessed Lord will therefore come, to the astonishment of all them that dwell upon the earth, and to the salvation of those who truly look for him, on the tenth day of the seventh month of the year of jubilee: and that is the present year, 1844.”

In 1844, according to the extremely careful reckoning of the Caraite Jews, the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, was to fall on October 22. And this is how that specific date was arrived at.

James White long remembered that as Snow completed his Bible study, “the deepest solemnity pervaded the entire encampment.”10 A conviction gripped almost everyone, that “in all probability the speaker was correct, and that in a few short weeks human probation would close forever.”11

Still, these Millerite Adventists were Bible students. They had to be certain that new light came from the right place. They unanimously asked Snow to repeat his message the next day so they could evaluate it by the Bible more precisely. And he obliged them, speaking “with still greater clearness and force.”12

Meanwhile, other speakers, including Mrs. Couch's husband John, stirred the people with earnest exhortations to live in harmony with the new light. If it was indeed time for the true midnight cry, “Behold the bridegroom cometh on tenth day, seventh month,“ let no one sleep like the foolish virgins! Let all trim their lamps and carry the new light everywhere – the Bible light, the “true midnight cry.”

THE SEVENTH MONTH MOVEMENT. The message itself, that Christ was

coming on the tenth day of the seventh month (October 22), was known as the “true midnight cry.” The response to the message became known as the “seventh-month movement.”

And what a movement it was! As the historic Exeter camp meeting closed, Bates recalled some time

later,13 “the granite hills of New Hampshire rang with the mighty cry,

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Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him! As the stages and railroad cars rolled away through the different states, cities, and villages of New England, the rumbling of the cry was still distinctly heard: Behold the Bridegroom cometh! Christ is coming on the tenth day of the seventh month! Time is short, get ready! get ready!”

“Who does not still remember,” Bates asked his readers, “how this message flew as it were upon the wings of the wind – men and women moving on all the cardinal points of the compass, going with all the speed of locomotives, in steamboats and rail cars, freighted with bundles of books and papers, wherever they went distributing them almost as profusely as the flying leaves of autumn.”

But the seventh-month movement was not merely one of proclamation. It was a deeply spiritual movement marked by confession, consecration, restitution, and earnest appeals, as well as by the sweet prospect of seeing Jesus soon. As Bates said, Oh, “the agonizing prayers and entreaties for our families, friends and brethren. Surely time can never efface those deep impressions, besides the deep searchings of heart and consecrations of time, friends, property, all, all, to God.“

S.S. Snow was not a principal Millerite leader. At first, the principal leaders, including Miller himself, opposed the specific day. But the principal leaders became persuaded as they observed the genuineness of the people's response.

“It produced everywhere the most deep searching of heart and humiliation of soul before the God of high heaven,” said their leading publication, The Midnight Cry, for October 51, shortly after the great disappointment. “It caused a weaning of affections from the things of this world – a healing of controversies and animosities – a confession of wrongs – a breaking down before God, and penitent, broken-hearted supplications to him for pardon and acceptance. It caused self-abasement and prostration of soul, such as we never before witnessed.”

What a list of good things! Making things right with other people. Solving misunderstandings. Replacing materialism with unselfishness. Seeking earnestly a closeness with Jesus. The kinds of things that every spiritual Christian longs to see take place. No wonder The Midnight Cry editors went on to say, “It seemed not to be the work of men. We could but exclaim, ‘What were we, that we should resist God!’ ”

Miller himself, after meticulously restudying the evidence, wrote in a letter to the various publications, “I see a glory in the ‘seventh month’ that I never saw before. We are almost home. Glory! Glory!”

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THE DAY OF ATONEMENT AND US. Neither Miller nor his followers were in fact almost home, though they had made yet another advance in truth. They were right about the date, October 22, but once again they were not completely right. Jesus did not come out of the holy of holies on that day as the Millerites expected, for He had a work to do there that would take many days. Nonetheless, Jesus did honor the actual Day of Atonement in 1844 as the day to enter the most holy place and commence the great work He had to perform there.

On page 457 of The Great Controversy, Ellen White endorsed the reasoning that focused on the autumn of 1844: “The computation of the prophetic periods … placing the close of the 2300 days in the autumn of 1844, stands without impeachment.” And Ellen White endorsed the related concept that we are even today living in the ongoing antitypical Day of Atonement. “We are now living in the great day of atonement,” says The Great Controversy, page 489.

In reminding us of this, The Great Controversy, page 490, wants us to remember that when describing the typical Day of Atonement in Leviticus 23:26-32, God specified that it was to be observed as a day for sincere self-examination and soul searching, a day for repentance and making things right.

In the typical service, while the high priest was making the

atonement for Israel, all were required to afflict their souls by repentance of sin and humiliation before the Lord, lest they be cut off from among the people. In like manner, all who would have their names retained in the book of life, should now, in the few remaining days of their probation, afflict their souls before God by sorrow for sin, and true repentance. There must be deep, faithful searching of heart. The light, frivolous spirit indulged by so many of professed Christians must be put away. There is earnest warfare before all who would subdue the evil tendencies that strive for the mastery. The precise date October 22, 1844 was arrived at through assiduous

examination of both Bible prophecy and Bible typology. Its penetrating significance for us at the present time will appear even more clearly in the chapters that follow.

1. Miller, with characteristic understatement, placed the number of converts

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at 50,000. In a 1930 doctoral dissertation, Professor Everett Dick estimated closer to 150,000. See near the back of his book.

2. Many ancient peoples began their year in the spring, when the winter was over and crops began to grow and leaves reappeared on the trees. Even our own Julio-Gregorian calendar once began in March! If you don't believe it, look at September, October, November, and December. Today we call them our ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth months; but their names mean seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months! We're familiar with oct, as in “octopus,” an eight-legged sea creature; and dec, as in “decimal,” a numbering system based on ten. Julius Caesar, who gave his own name to July, ordered that New Year's should be moved from March to January in 46 B.C.

3. James White, Life Incidents (Battle Creek, Mich., 1868), 153-156. 4. Joseph Bates, Second Advent Way Marks and High Heaps (New Bedford,

Mass., 1847), 30,31. 5. James White, Life Incidents, 159. 6. Sorry, the only name we know! James White, Life Incidents, 159. 7. “The History of the Late Movement,” The Midnight Cry, 31 October 1844,

and Bates, Second Advent Way Marks. 8. The summary of his sermon is based on The True Midnight Cry, August

22, 1844, which consists entirely of Snow's material. See also James white, Life Incidents, 160-163.

9. James White, Life Incidents, 160. 10. Ibid., 163. 11. Bates, Second Advent Way Marks, 30,31, said later that other believers in

addition to Snow had come to the same conclusion. 12. James White, Life Incidents, 163. 13. Bates, Second Advent Way Marks, 30,31.

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PART 2 DISCOVERING THE EVENT

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CHAPTER 5

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN HEAVEN?

When skeptics ask, “What on earth happened on October 22, 1844, to

fulfill Daniel 8:14?” your correct response Is, “Nothing at all.” That's right! Daniel 8:14 speaks of a “heavenly event” – a magnificent

heavenly event. What did happen on earth, the Millerite second advent awakening, was

indeed a fulfillment of prophecy, but not of Daniel 8:14. It was part of the fulfillment of the first angel's prophecy of Revelation 14:6, 7. But the “sanctuary” to be “cleansed” in Daniel 8:14 is the one in heaven. Thus Daniel 8:14 was to be fulfilled in heaven.

The question is, “What in heaven happened in 1844?” Does the Bible give us the details of that anywhere?

THE JUDGMENT SCENE IN DANIEL 7. Yes, the Bible does give us the

details, in the judgment scene in Daniel 7:9-14. The heavenly event that marked the close of the 2,300 days is clearly

described, not in the symbolic language of Daniel 8:14, the climax passage of Daniel 8, but in the ordinary language of the parallel climax of Daniel 7. In plain, nonsymbolic language, Daniel 7:9, 10 – the first portion of the climax passage – says, “As I looked, thrones were placed and one that was

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ancient of days took his seat; … his throne was fiery flames, its wheels were burning fire. … A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment [the judgment was set, KJV], and the books were opened.”

Daniel's attention had been riveted on the series of horrid wild animals that had been coming up out of a stormy sea. Suddenly, and mercifully, his attention was drawn upward to a new event developing in heaven. There he watched God's glorious throne being installed in a new heavenly place and other thrones being grouped around it. He watched as the Ancient of Days Himself “came” (Daniel 7:22). He saw heavenly beings by the million, singing God's praises, no doubt, as described in Revelation 4 and 5. Daniel also saw record books being opened and observed that “the judgment was set.”

But although Daniel saw that the judgment was “set,” it evidently was not able actually to begin! But why not?

Because the Son of man had not yet arrived and Jesus says in John 5:22, that “the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.” This statement by Jesus Himself is very important for the correct biblical understanding of what happened in 1844 and of what has been going on in heaven ever since. Don't forget John 5:22: “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.”

Happily, in Daniel's vision, the commencement of the judgment was not long delayed. Daniel continued his eyewitness account: “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days” (Daniel 7:13).1 Here is another vital verse, one we referred to earlier, in our discussion of Miller's mistake.

When the Son of man arrived at the judgment scene in 1844, the judgment at last could begin. And the first angel of Revelation 14:6, 7 proclaimed with a triumphant shout, “The hour of his judgment has come.” The hour of His judgment had come. Looking back, we speak of the first phase of the final judgment as beginning in 1844. But if the investigative judgment is the first phase of the final judgment, then the final judgment had begun.

This is part of the stupendous significance of 1844. In that year the final judgment began. And if in our day the final judgment has already been underway for some 150 years, we know for certain that we are living in the last days, in the end time. We'll have more to say on this in later chapters. In the meantime, please remember that it was the Son of man who started

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the judgment. 1844 is a message about Jesus. MAGNIFICENCE OF THE 1844 EVENT. Let us now dwell a moment on the

magnificence of the 1844 event. Doing so can help us savor its significance realistically.

But how are we to visualize it? The earthly sanctuary that Moses built, the tabernacle in the wilder-

ness, was a tent about forty-five feet long, fifteen feet wide, and fifteen feet high – about the height of the walls of a two-story house. It had gold-plated wooden walls that could be taken apart for moving. The roof consisted of four layers: richly embroidered tapestry inside and animal skins outside.

As most Adventists know, this earthly sanctuary was divided into two rooms. The holy place was thirty feet long, fifteen feet wide, and fifteen feet high. It contained on the south side (to the left as the priests entered) the solid-gold, seven-branched lampstand; on the north side (to the right as the priests entered) the little gold-plated table of showbread; and to the west (straight ahead) the gold-plated altar of incense, up against the magnificent curtain that walled off the most holy place. The most holy place, the second room in the sanctuary, was a cube, fifteen feet in all directions. It contained the ark of the covenant, a gold-plated chest inside of which were the Ten Commandments. The top of the ark was a lid of solid gold (the “mercy seat”) with an angellike cherub at each end sculpted out of the same piece of gold. At first, in Moses' day, a mysterious light shone between the cherubim. The light represented the presence of God, enthroned above His law and occupying the seat of mercy.

It is helpful to note that the light, which represented God's presence, was not always located in the most holy place. In Moses' day, whenever the children of Israel needed to move to a new location, the light left its location in the tabernacle and rose up as a cloudy pillar of fire that guided them to their new destination (see Numbers 9:15-23). Much later, Ezekiel in vision saw God's presence symbolized in the holy place rather than in the most holy place (see Ezekiel 10). Still later, John saw God's throne, a single throne with both God and the Lamb seated on it, located no longer in heaven but as it will be after the millennium, down here on the earth (see Revelation 21:10; 22:3).

The most holy place was off-limits to everyone, even to the high priest, except on one day each year. On the Day of Atonement, and only on that day, the high priest was required to enter the most holy place and sprinkle

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blood seven times on the mercy seat, symbolically asking God, through the blood of Jesus, to blot out the sins His people had been committing all year against God's law.

So what happened on the Day of Atonement, October 22, in the year 1844, to fulfill the cleansing of the true tabernacle in heaven?

Are we, perhaps, to picture Jesus ministering in a thirty-foot holy place until 1844, then drawing an embroidered curtain aside and taking a few steps west into a fifteen-foot most holy place?

Or should we visualize an episode far more dramatic? We remember that antitypes are vastly more impressive than mere

types. The cross is only minimally comparable to the death of a yearling lamb. As for comparing the heavenly sanctuary with Moses' tabernacle, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 357, reminds us that “the heavenly temple, the abiding place of the King of kings, where ‘thousand thousands minister unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before him,’ that temple filled with the glory of the eternal throne, where seraphim, its shining guardians, veil their faces in adoration – no earthly structure could represent its vastness and its glory” (my italics). The passage continues, “As Christ's ministration was to consist of two great divisions, each occupying a period of time and having a distinctive place in the heavenly sanctuary [my italics again], so the typical ministration consisted of two divisions, the daily and the yearly service, and to each a department of the tabernacle was devoted.”

The two-part heavenly sanctuary, “the true tent which is set up not by man but by the Lord” (Hebrews 8:2), must indeed be a wonderful place, created by God Himself as a center of worship for the universe and the home of millions of bright and glorious angels.

Our passage, Daniel 7:13, teaches us that the heavenly temple is no box-shaped symbolic tent when it says that the Son of man journeyed to the judgment “on the clouds of heaven.” One can hardly picture a journey on clouds taking place in a box-shaped symbolic tent!

CHRIST'S THREE JOURNEYS ON CLOUDS. A helpful clue to the nature of

the 1844 event is that the Bible speaks of Jesus taking three journeys on clouds. The words about the Son of man on the clouds of heaven that we find in Daniel 7 are also used to describe the second coming in Matthew 24:30, and similar words are used for His ascent into heaven (see Luke

24:50, 51; Acts 1:9) after His resurrection. When we Seventh-day Adventists read what the Bible says about

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Christ's ascension and about His second coming, we believe it describes dramatic, literal events. We recall Luke 24:50, 51, “He led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them.” We remember Acts 1:9, “As they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.” As hymn 415 in the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal says,

Christ the Lord, all power possessing, Parting, mounted heaven's height, Gracious hands outstretched in blessing. Clouds received him from their sight. Christ ascended on the clouds. We believe that Christ did ascend to heaven on clouds, literally,

personally, visibly. And we believe that at the second coming, He will return on clouds,

literally, personally, visibly. “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, … and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him” (Revelation 1:7). “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. … Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:16,17).

Revelation's word fulfilling, Trumpet, voices pierce the air. Saint and sinner, fainting, thrilling, Every eye behold Him there. Christ is coming on the clouds. So we look again at the judgment scene in Daniel 7. After describing

the arrival of the Ancient of Days and the gathering of myriads of heavenly beings, the opening of the books, and the setting up of the judgment, the passage continues by saying, “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him” (verse 13).

Daniel views earth's judgment hour, Angels gathering, open books; God enthroned in flaming power For His Son's arrival looks.

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Christ approaches on the clouds. We are fully justified in seeing Christ's journey on clouds to the

judgment scene in 1844 as being equally as real, literal, and personal as was His cloudy trip to heaven at His ascension and as His journey will he at His second coming.

VISUALI7E THE MAGNIFICENT EVENT. Try again now to visualize the

magnificence of the event. Think about the antiphonal drama at Christ's victorious ascent to the holy city after His resurrection as written in Psalm 24. The angelic choir attending Jesus sang out, “Lift up your heads, 0 gates! … that the King of glory may come in,” and the gate-keeping choir sang hack, “Who is the King of glory?” Then they did it again. The gatekeepers asked their question repeatedly, not because they didn't know the answer, but because they liked to hear Jesus praised repeatedly.

Now visualize the millions of angels in Daniel's vision. Listen to their magnificent music. Their gorgeous harmonies. The mellow tones of their multiple harps. The electrifying fanfares of their silver trumpets. The pageantry of the Father's arrival on His flame-wheeled throne. His entourage of seraphim and cherubim, installed with joyful solemnity on all their thrones. The opening of the books.

The court is ready. The judgment is set. But the process cannot begin, because the Delegate Judge has not yet put in His appearance.

Remember John 5:22: “The Father judges no one; he has committed all judgment to the Son.”

In my imagination – in yours too, I assume – the trumpets and harps and angel choirs fall silent. All eyes turn east in confident anticipation of the Son's arrival on the clouds precisely at the scheduled instant. And right on time the cry erupts from every throat, “There He is! There He is! The Son of man is coming on the clouds!”

The trumpeters at God's side discharge a welcoming fanfare. An answering fanfare reverberates from the clouds. The angels beside the throne burst into rapturous melody, and the angels in the clouds respond antiphonally. And the entire universe – all of it, with the exception of sinful humanity – comes alive, echoing and reechoing and resonating with a rhapsody of sweetest singing. The Son of man is arriving at last to reverse the judgments of human tribunals (see The Great Controversy, 650), to vindicate once and for all His victorious, downtrodden saints.

Such a magnificent event deserves retelling again and again. Every Christian worthy of the name should be telling it. In its own way, it is as

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eternally significant as the cross and the second coming. It is an event in the ministry of Jesus that has meaning for all the universe and every sinner. Yet Seventh-day Adventists are the only people who say anything about it. What a pity. May God help each of us to be faithful in talking about it and telling it eagerly to the world.

ADVENTIST LEADERS AND 1844. It is reassuring to know that leading

Seventh-day Adventists over the years have made a conscientious effort to tell the world that, indeed, both Father and Son did move from one part of heaven (the Holy Place) to another part of heaven (the Most Holy Place) in 1844 to commence a grand new work of grace.

Joseph Bates, one of the foremost Adventist “founders,” taught it faithfully. In 18502 he reminded his readers that he had “already adduced the proof that Jesus was sitting with his Father on his throne in the Holy, where the seven lamps of fire were. Then at the appointed time, 2300 days, the Ancient of Days moves in something that has wheels burning like fire, with thousands of angels in attendance. Then one like the Son of Man is brought near before him, thirteenth verse. … How evident that both Father and Son here left the throne in the Holy and moved into the Most Holy, in accordance also with, and close of, the message of the flying angels in Rev. xiv. 6, 7, to sit in judgment.”

Uriah Smith edited the Review during most of the first half-century of its existence. He also wrote several books. In 18773 he wrote, “We have seen Christ on the throne with the Father in the holy place. But we have seen the Father changing his position and opening a new scene, a scene of judgment. To do this, he must first move to the place where this scene is to transpire. Then Christ … is escorted by a multitude of heavenly beings, … into the presence of the Ancient of days in his new position, according to Dan 7:13.”

A leading soul winner, counselor, and conference president for well over fifty years, Stephen N. Haskell also spoke of the movement of Father and Son in 1844. In 19144he reviewed how “Daniel beheld the Father's throne changed from the first apartment of the heavenly sanctuary to the second.” But something was “lacking yet. Daniel's attention,” Haskell went on, was “now attracted to the ‘clouds of heaven’ – myriads of angels – bearing the Saviour in before the Father in triumph.” Haskell explained: “In heaven the throne of God was in the first apartment when Christ ascended and sat at the right hand of His Father,” but was moved from there to the second apartment in 1844.

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We could cite similar statements from W. A. Spicer,5 the best-loved-ever General Conference president (1922-1930), and from another effective General Conference president (1950-1954), W. H. Branson.6

Seventh-day Adventists rightly believe – and report – that in 1844 Father and Son moved from one part of heaven to another to mark the commencement of the final judgment.

THE 1844 EVENT AND ELLEN C. WHITE. Ellen White fully agreed with her

brethren in this matter of what happened in heaven in 1844. She watched it happen in one of her early visions. Whereas Daniel seems to have viewed the 1844 event from the “camera angle” of the most holy place, in February 1845, Ellen White saw the same magnificent event from the camera angle of the holy place.

“I saw a throne,” she wrote after her vision, “and on it sat the Father and the Son. … I saw the Father rise from the throne, and in a flaming chariot go into the holy of holies within the veil, and sit down. Then Jesus rose up from the throne. … A cloudy chariot, with wheels like flaming fire, surrounded by angels, came to where Jesus was. He stepped into the chariot and was borne to the holiest, where the Father sat. "7

So this is what happened in heaven on October 22, 1844; and we'll have more to say about Ellen White's vision of February 1845 in a later chapter.

1. Daniel's narrative about the judgment scene picks up in verse 13 where it

left off in verse 10. Daniel 7:11, 12 describe the outcome of the judgment. In some modern versions, the fact that verses 11, 12 area parenthesis is indicated by a change in the way they are printed. In such Bibles, these two verses are printed like prose, whereas the two verses preceding – verses 9, 10 – and the two verses following – verses 13, 14 – are correctly printed in the form of Hebrew poetry.

2. Joseph Bates, An Explanation of the Typical and Anti-Typical Sanctuary (New Bedford, Mass., 1850), 10.

3. Uriah Smith, The Sanctuary and the Twenty-three Hundred Days of Daniel VIII. 14 (Battle Creek, 1877), 234-236.

4. Stephen N. Naskell, The Cross and lts Shadow (South Lancaster, Mass.: The Bible Training School, 1914), 212-214.

5. W. A. Spicer, Our Day in the Light of Prophecy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1917) 216, 217.

6. W. H. Branson, Drama of the Ages (Nashville: Southern Publishing Assn., 1950), 296.

7. Ellen G. White, Early Writings, 54, 55, italics supplied.

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CHAPTER 6

INVESTIGATIVE JUDGMENT: A SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST

INVENTION? People who don't understand the meaning of 1844 sometimes say that

the investigative judgment – or the “pre-advent” judgment – was in-vented by Ellen White, or perhaps by Hiram Edson, and so isn't worth anything. Sometimes they say it was worked up to ease people's embar-rassment over the great disappointment.

What I would like you to see in this chapter is that the investigative pre-advent judgment was not invented by Hiram Edson, nor did it come out of Ellen White's visions. The main features of the investigative pre-advent judgment were circulating in print, in books and magazines, before Hiram Edson took his famous walk through his cornfield and before Ellen White had a vision on the subject; in fact, some of the features were in print and circulating before Ellen White had a vision on any subject.

As for the impression that the investigative pre-advent judgment was worked up by Millerites as a zany way of coping with the great disappointment, I would like to show that the basic foundational concepts were in print and circulating some years before the great disappointment!

MAIN FEATURES OF THE DOCTRINE. To help make sure that we are both

talking about the same thing, let us review the main features of the

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investigative judgment doctrine as Seventh-day Adventists understand it. What features come to your mind?

It began in 1844? It is happening in the heavenly sanctuary? It has a funny name that isn't in the Bible? It is somehow related to Daniel 8:14, even though Daniel 8:14 doesn't say anything about “judgment”? Very good! And we can add more. The investigative pre-advent judgment is not for everybody but is limited to believers. It has to do with blotting out sins. It is closely related to the Day of Atonement. It is a basis for the three angels' messages.

DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE THE GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT. As you reflect on

our list, you realize that in previous chapters we have already discussed when and by whom several of the features were first presented.

As early as 1818 William Miller saw that the “cleansing of the sanctuary” at the end of the 2,300 days was datable to 1844 (or, at first, to “about the year 1843”). Miller also saw in 1818 that the cleansing of the sanctuary involved judgment. He knew that it involved judgment because the climax of Daniel 8 (the cleansing) is parallel with the climax of Daniel 7 (the judgment). He also recognized that with the judgment only about twenty-five years away, the time had come to proclaim the first angel's message, “The hour of his judgment is come (Revelation 14:7). Some eighteen years after he developed these ideas he published them (in 1836) in his sermon book, Evidence from Scripture.

In chapter 4 we saw that in the summer of 1844, S.S. Snow, relating type to antitype, showed that the 2,300 days would end on the Day of Atonement, “the 10th day of the 7th month,” October 22, 1844.1 He had been teaching this for about a year, but now published a tract on the subject, The True Midnight Cry, August 22, 1844, two months before the great disappointment.

So you have already seen in previous chapters that many features of the investigative judgment were circulating before the great disappointment. But what about the “pre-advent” idea? Did any of Miller's people say anything about a judgment starting before the second coming?

Yes, indeed. The second most influential Bible student among the Millerites, second

only to Miller himself, was Josiah Litch, a Methodist writer on the prophecies. As Litch studied the prophecies in 1840 (four years before the great disappointment), the conviction came to him that the judgment must take place before people are resurrected. His book on prophecy, An

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Address to the Public, and Especially to the Clergy, which came out the following year (1841), made the point clearly:

Difficulty arises from confounding the resurrection and judg-

ment, or at least from giving the resurrection the precedence in the order of time; whereas the Scriptures place the judgment first [his italics].2 Here in 1841 is the teaching, in print, that the judgment must begin

before the resurrection at the second coming. A year later (1842), in a two-volume work, Prophetic Expositions, Litch noted that according to John 5 and Revelation 20, some people will be resurrected “to life” at the second coming, and others will be resurrected “to death” at a later time. This proves clearly, he said, that judgment comes before resurrection, because the decision as to who is righteous and who isn't is made before anyone is resurrected. And inasmuch as the resurrection of the righteous occurs at the second coming, their judgment must precede the second coming. This reasoning reinforced the argument in his previous (1841) book.

But in this second work (1842), Litch al50 went on to ask his readers to distinguish between two “senses” (or phases) of judgment, the punishment or “executive” phase and, on the other hand, the “trial” or investigative phase, which precedes the punishment phase. He wrote:

THE TRIAL MUST PRECEDE THE EXECUTION. This is so

clear a proposition that it is sufficient to state it. No human tribunal would think of executing judgment on a prisoner until after his trial; much less will God.3 To clinch his argument, Litch quoted the last verse of Ecclcsiastes,

indicating the kind of investigative “trial” God will engage in before the resurrection: “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil" (Ecclesiastes 12:14).

We must be careful here! Litch, in 1842, believed with Miller that the second coming would occur “about the year 1843.” It was natural, therefore, that in his mind, the pre-advent “trial” judgment couldn't wait to start at the end of the 2,300 days. Nonetheless, he was biblically sound when he spoke of a pre-advent “trial” (or investigative) judgment. And he had it in print and circulating years before the great disappointment.

Litch's understanding of a “trial” judgment that occurs prior to the

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resurrection and the second coming was persuasive. Apollos Hale, a leading Millerite editor, came to believe it too, and began teaching it at least as early as 1843.4 Many other Millerites, especially in Maine, came to believe in the summer of 1844 that the trial judgment had already commenced, before the second coming.5

So the concepts that (1) judgment is linked to the Day of Atonement, the 2,300 days, and 1844 and that (2) a “trial” type investigative judgment was to precede the second coming were indeed circulating in print prior to the great disappointment!

Not one of the writers who presented these ideas was a Seventh-day Adventist! And young “Sister Ellen,” as she was known in those days, had not yet received a vision of any kind.

Features Published Before the Great Disappointment

FUTURE AUTHOR PUBLICATION DATE

1. Judgment related to sanctuary cleansing (Daniel 8:14)

William Miller

Evidence from Scripture

1836

2. Date by 2,300 days to “about 1843”

William Miller

Evidence from Scripture

1836

3. Announced by first Angel’s message

William Miller

Evidence from Scripture

1836

4. Precedes second coming (pre-advent)

Josiah Litch

Adressed to the Clergy 1841

5. “Trial” judgment (investigation) distinct from “execution”

Josiah Litch

Prophetic Expositions 1842

6. Dated by Day of Atonement (Oct. 22)

S. S. Snow

True Midnight Cry August 1842

The chart summarizes what we have seen so far. DEVELOPMENTS RIGHT AFTER THE GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT. After the

great disappointment, the Millerite Adventists divided three ways. (1) Perhaps half of them quickly gave up all faith in the 2,300 days. (2) A second group, numbering perhaps thirty thousand to fifty thousand retained faith in the 2,300 days but speculated on other years in the future

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when they might end. (3) The third group, a few thousand at most, clung correctly and nobly to both the 2,300 days and October 22, 1844. It was the people in this third group – those who had begun to understand the magnificence of their great disappointment – who now concluded that October 22, 1844, marked the beginning of the pre-advent judgment. They did so on the basis of further Bible study.

Enoch Jacobs, a member of this third group, was editor of The Western Midnight Cry (soon to become the Day-Star) in Cincinnati, Ohio. In his issue of November 29, 1844,6 Jacobs urged, on the basis of several Bible passages, that “unless something as decisive as the setting of the judgment took place on the tenth day [October 22, 1844], the antitype is not yet given,” prophecy is not fulfilled, and we are yet in darkness.

Jacobs noted that the high priest wore a garment known as the “breastplate of judgment ” (Exodus 28:29, his italics), and that the twelve stones on the breastplate were engraved exclusively with the names of the Israelite tribes. He also noted that even among the Israelites, individuals who failed to afflict themselves on the Day of Atonement were cut off: “On the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; … and you shall afflict yourselves. … For whoever is not afflicted on this same day shall be cut off from his people” (Leviticus 23:27, 29).

Jacobs's point was that no one's name could be carried in mercy on the breastplate of judgment unless the person met the requirement of deep soul searching (“afflicting the soul”). All other persons, he noted, were “condemned already” (see John 5:18) and suffered judgment “to go against them” by “default.”

Thus Jacobs implied (on November 29, 1844) that the pre-advent judgment had begun on October 22 and was dealing only with the cases of God’s people.

TURNER AND HALE AND THE ADVENT MIRROR. In January 1845 two

Millerite editors collaborated to produce a brilliant publication, the Advent Mirror. One of the two men was Joseph Turner, editor of The Hope of Israel in Portland, Maine. The other was Apollos Hale, editor of The Advent Herald in Boston, whom we met a few pages back when we mentioned that in 1843 he began teaching Litch's interpretation of a “trial” judgment preceding the second coming. The special contribution of Turner and Hale in their Advent Mirror had to do with the interpretation of the midnight cry.

You will remember from our chapter “Why October 22?” that the

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Millerites took great interest in the parable of the virgins (Matthew 25) and in the midnight cry) “Behold the bridegroom cometh.” They endeavored to be “ready” to “go into the wedding” with the wise young women when Jesus would come to earth to marry His bride, the church. Samuel Snow persuaded them that the true midnight cry was that Jesus was to come to the wedding on “10th day, 7th month,” or October 22.

But in the Advent Mirror, Turner and Hale showed, first of all, that according to Revelation, the bride of Christ is not the church, as almost all Christians had believed! It is the New Jerusalem, the capital of His kingdom: “Then came one of the seven angels … and spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And in the Spirit he carried me away … and showed me the holy city Jerusalem” (Revelation 21:9-11).

Next, Turner and Hale pointed to another wedding parable, in addition to the parable of the virgins – the one in Luke 12:35-57, where Jesus warns us, “Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding” (KJV).7

The Millerites had used this passage often, exhorting one another to be ready when the Bridegroom would come to the wedding. But on rereading the passage after the great disappointment, Turner and Hale noticed – evidently to their complete astonishment – that it does not say, “Be ready when your Lord comes to the wedding,” but that it says, instead, to be ready when the Lord shall “return from” the wedding.

The meaning could only be that the Millerites had been wrong in expecting Jesus to come here, to the earth, for the wedding. The wedding would have to be in heaven, where the New Jerusalem is, and from which Christ could return after the wedding was over.

Their astonishment at discovering this new biblical light is revealed in the fact that they put “returning from the wedding” in italics: “the Lord, returning from the wedding.”

Then Turner and Hale proceeded to bring in, at last, a correct understanding of Daniel 7:13. The Millerites and virtually all other Christians had assumed that when the Son of man comes on the clouds at judgment time, He will come to the earth at the second advent. But read correctly, as we saw in our previous chapter, Daniel 7:13 does not portray the Son of man coming to the earth at judgment hour but to the Ancient of Days: “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of

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Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom” (Daniel 7:13,14).

Here was true light, right out of the Bible. “The coming of the Bridegroom to the marriage [parable of the virgins, Matthew 25],” Turner and Hale said, “must denote that change in his heavenly state, in which he comes to the Ancient of Days [Daniel 7] to receive dominion.”

In other words, the marriage of Christ to His kingdom and His reception of dominion and power in the pre-advent judgment are tile same thing; and Jesus all along planned to come to the marriage, that is, to “come” to the judgment – in heaven – before coming to the earth at the second advent. (Miller himself liked what the two editors had done and wrote a letter to say so.8)

Turner and Hale now called attention to a third wedding parable in addition to the parable of the ten virgins (see Matthew 25) and the parable of the lord returning from the wedding (see Luke 12:35-37). This third parable is the one about the king who prepared a wedding feast for his son and offered a free wedding garment to every guest. As part of the ongoing wedding process, the king came into the banquet hall and examined – judged! – the guests to see whether they had the garments on.

Mindful of the practical application of what they were talking about, Turner and Hale warned, We are “now in the guestchamber, where all depends on our keeping our garments,” for “we have only the final examination of the King to pass.”

“The judgment is here!” they cried, putting the words in italics. MILLER'S ERRORS CORRECTED THROUGH BIBLE STUDY. We started this

book emphasizing that Miller was the best man available at the time and the most nearly right man in the world. He definitely was right in seeing the 2,300 days as 2,300 years from 457 B.C. to “about the year 1843.” He was definitely right in preaching a literal, personal second coming of Jesus; in saying that the cleansing of the sanctuary (see Daniel 8:14) involves the judgment (see Daniel 7); and in saying that the time had come to preach the first angel's message.

He could have been more accurate than to say “about the year 1843,” and from the Bible, S.S. Snow sharpened the statement down to “10th day, 7th month (=October 22), 1844.”

Litch, on the basis of Bible study, enriched Miller's concept of the judgment by calling attention to a pre-advent “trial” (or investigative) judgment.

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Then Turner and Hale, on the basis of Bible study, showed that Christ was to “come” to the New Jerusalem for the wedding-judgment before returning to the earth, thereby reinforcing what Enoch Jacobs had observed on November 29 – that therefore the judgment was to begin, not end, on October 22 at the close of the 2,300 days.

And now Hale, in a further, two-part, follow-up article in February and March l845,9 corrected the idea that the “sanctuary” of Daniel 8:14 had to be the earth because the one in heaven couldn't possibly need cleansing. Hale called attention to that passage in the Bible, Hebrews 9:22, 23, that we looked at in our chapter 2 and that most Christians have misread: “It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens [that is, the earthly sanctuary] should be purified with these [the blood of calves and of goats], but the heavenly things themselves [that is, the heavenly sanctuary] with better sacrifices than these.”

Features Published Right After the Great Disappointment

FUTURE AUTHOR PUBLICATION DATE

1. Began on October 22, 1844

Enoch Jacobs Western Midnight Cry

November 29, 1844

2. Limited to professed believers

Enoch Jacobs Western Midnight Cry

November 29, 1844

3 Involves “marriage” to kingdom in heaven

Joseph Turner, Apollos Hale

Advent Mirror January 1845

4. Christ to return from wedding

Joseph Turner, Apollos Hale

Advent Mirror January 1845

5. “The Judgment is here” Joseph Turner, Apollos Hale

Advent Mirror January 1845

6. Sanctuary of Daniel 8:14 is in heaven

Joseph Turner, Apollos Hale

Advent Mirror Feb. Mar. 1845

The people we have quoted thus far – none of whom ever became a

Seventh-day Adventist – got their understanding of the investigative judgment out of their Bibles.

EDSON AND CROSIER. Perhaps you are wondering about Hiram Edson,

the Methodist farmer who is famous for his experience in the grain field

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the day after the great disappointment. I have purposely left Edson out of the discussion thus far because he didn't publish his ideas; he didn't get them circulating in print as soon as the other men did. But it's time to mention him now.

Edson was both a successful farmer and a fine soul winner. As is well known, on Wednesday morning, October25, 1844, while walking across his farm, he was struck with dynamic new thoughts. He suddenly realized that the day before (October 22), Jesus had (1) gone into the most holy place on the clouds of heaven and that He was (2) to marry His kingdom there and then return from the wedding.10

I saw distinctly, and clearly, that … our High Priest … on the

tenth day of the seventh month, at the end of the 2300 days, … for the first time entered … the second apartment of that [the heavenly] sanctuary; and that he had a work to perform in the Most Holy before coming to this earth. That he came to the marriage at that time; in other words, to the Ancient of days to receive a kingdom, dominion, and glory; and we must wait for his return from the wedding [his emphasis]. The tradition that Edson saw this in a vision may or may not be true,

but in any case the information that came to him is to be found in anybody's Bible. You know enough by now to recognize that his new ideas came from Daniel 7 (Son of man comes to the Ancient of Days) and Luke 12 (the Lord returning from the wedding) and were the same ideas that came, also from Daniel 7 and Luke 12, to Joseph Turner and Apollos Hale.

Edson did not publish his discoveries at once.11 But on February 7, 1846, Edson, along with an educator friend, O. R. L. Crosier, and a physician friend, F. B. Hahn, collaborated in producing an extra issue of the Day-Star. Almost the entire issue was taken up with a single article, “The Law of Moses,” in which Christ's contemporary, post-1844 ministry was interpreted in light of Leviticus 16. While Edson and Hahn guaranteed the expense, Crosier did the writing. On behalf of Edson and Hahn, Crosier showed that the sanctuary of Daniel 8:14 is the one in heaven, that the Day of Atonement was to be fulfilled in heaven rather than on earth, and that the cleansing began when Jesus in 1844 entered heaven's most holy place.12 The cleansing was not to be achieved by fire burning up the earth but by Christ's blood blotting out sins.

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Within two months, the Day-Star carried a fascinating observation by Crosier in respect to two cleansings going on at the same time – a cleansing of our souls on earth while the sanctuary is being cleansed in heaven. It represents a profound spiritual insight, and we'll discuss it in chapter 9. For now, let's review the basic features published by O. R. L. Crosier in the Day-Star Extra.

Investigative Judgment Features Published by O. R. L. Crosier

FUTURE AUTHOR PUBLICATION DATE

1. Heavenly Atonement taught by Leviticus 16

Crosier, Edson, Hahn

Day-Star Extra February 7, 1846

2. Cleansing “blots out” sins

Crosier, Edson, Hahn

Day-Star Extra February 7, 1846

3. Parallels a special cleansing of God’s people on earth

Crosier Day-Star April 18, 1846

Let's say it again: The doctrine of the pre-advent investigative judgment

was not invented by Seventh-day Adventists. In fact, many of its features were printed and in circulation before the great disappointment of October 22, 1844, and the others were developed from the Bible by people who for the most part were not and did not go on to become Seventh-day Adventists.

ELLEN G. WHITE. What was young sister Ellen doing while all this was

going on? If she did not invent the investigative-judgment doctrine, did she play any part in its development?

When Jesus didn't come to earth on October 22, 1844, Ellen was so disappointed that she questioned whether the “midnight cry” about 10th day, 7th month was in any sense correct. In December 1844, she had her first vision – two years after Litch first published his understanding of the pre-advent “trial” (investigative) judgment.

In this first vision,13 Ellen saw a long path on which the saints were traveling to the city, with Jesus graciously traveling the path with them. At “the beginning of the path,” a “bright light” was shining. The angel told her this light was the midnight cry. Here was encouragement! What the angel meant was that the midnight-cry message about 10th day, 7th

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month was true light after all. More than this, Ellen noticed that the midnight-cry light “shone all

along the path and gave light for their [the saints’] feet so that they might not stumble.” However, some of the saints “rashly denied the light behind them.” For them, the light went out, and they stumbled and “fell off the path down into the dark and wicked world.”

The meaning of this part of the vision was that God intended 1844 to guide His people all the way to the holy city. This is the reason I am writing these words to you right now. If any of us give up 1844 and say that it has no special meaning for us today, its light will sooner or later go out for us, and we will drift into apostasy. May God's grace keep this from happening to you and me.

Two months later, in February 1845, Ellen received the “Bridegroom” vision14 that we talked about in our previous chapter. It's the vision about both Father and Son leaving the throne in the holy place to go into the most holy place – her first vision about the magnificent event that took place in heaven in 1844. What we didn't mention in our previous chapter is that as Jesus left the holy-place throne to go into the most holy place, He said to His people, “Wait here; I am going to My Father to receive the kingdom; keep your garments spotless, and in a little while I will return from the wedding and receive you to myself.”

In the words that I have italicized, you can see Jesus Himself making use of Daniel 7 (“going to My Father to receive the kingdom”) and Luke 12:35-37 (“return from the wedding”). Thus in vision, Jesus, in February 1845, endorsed the very interpretation that Turner and Hale had published in the Advent Mirror in January.15

At the commencement of the holy Sabbath during a season of prayer four years later, on January 5, 1849, Ellen – now Mrs. James White – saw in vision that “Jesus would not leave the most holy place until every case was decided either for salvation or destruction.”16

The Seventh-day Adventist doctrine of the pre-advent investigative judgment was not worked up by Ellen White or Hiram Edson and is not based on an isolated proof text. It was developed by many Bible students from a large body of interrelated data located in both Old and New Testaments. Sister White's role was to confirm the features discovered by others.

Additional Note

This additional note is for readers who would like to survey the great

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breadth of Bible study that underlies the investigative-judgment doctrine – a doctrine that was not developed by any one person and is not based on Daniel 8:14 alone.

1. Daniel 7:9-14, 22 shows Father and Son both “coming” to a new place in heaven for the judgment. In this classic portrayal of judgment day in heaven, both the Ancient of Days and the Son of man come to a new place in heaven for judgment. Verses 25, 26 indicate that this judgment was to begin around the end of the 1260 years (1798).

2. Daniel 12:1,2; Revelation 20:6 show that at the second coming, the “blessed and holy,” whose “names are found written in the book of life,” are resurrected to receive life everlasting, indicating that their judgment precedes the second coming.

3. Daniel 8:14 gives the year for the judgment (it parallels the judgment scene in Daniel 7). By using sanctuary language (“then shall the sanctuary be cleansed”), it directs our attention to the Day of Atonement (see Leviticus 16, 23) in order to learn more about the judgment.

4. Leviticus 16, 23. On the Day of Atonement, when the high priest. entered the most holy place to cleanse the sanctuary and the congregation of their sins, the people – as on a day of judgment – were to “afflict their souls” or be judged and “cut off” (see Leviticus 23:26-32, KJV). The Day of Atonement was a day of reconciliation and salvation to the repentant but a day of judgment to people who refused to participate spiritually.

5. Comparison of the spring and autumn types directs attention to the actual date October 22, the correct Day of Atonement in 1844. Just as Jesus fulfilled the springtime Passover ceremony in the year of prophecy and on the actual day of the Passover, so He could be counted on to fulfill the autumn Day of Atonement ceremony in the year of prophecy (1844) and on the actual Day of Atonement (10th day, 7th month=October 22. See chapter 3).

6. Malachi 3 says that the Lord was to “come” suddenly to His temple to “purge” or cleanse the sons of Levi. The coming and cleansing recall Daniel 7 and Leviticus 16 and point to the special parallel cleansing of God's people while the heavenly sanctuary is being cleansed.

7. Hebrews 8 and 9 affirm the existence of a two-part heavenly sanctuary (by comparison with the earthly tabernacle; see Hebrews 9:1-5) and inform us of the need of the heavenly sanctuary to be purified at some time (see Hebrews 9:22, 23).

8. Acts 3:19, 20 promises that sins that have been repented of will be “blotted out” at the time when God will “send the Christ,” whom the

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heavens must retain until the time comes for “establishing all” that God's prophets have predicted.

9. The wedding parables show that those saints who are ready would go “into the marriage” near the end of time (parable of the virgins, Matthew 25). Evidently Jesus meant that they would go in only by faith, because in Luke 12:35-37 He spoke of His followers as waiting on earth until He would return from the wedding. In Matthew 22 He portrayed the wedding guests as being examined (judged) to see if they were wearing the wedding garment.

10. Other wedding imagery. In various places the New Testament teaches that Christ is at present betrothed to His corporate church (that is, to the church as a whole, otherwise known as His “kingdom,” not to the individual members, who are married to their own human spouses). Jesus is busy purifying His church-kingdom from every spot and wrinkle. When His church-kingdom is fit to be His bride – that is, after the cleansing and examination period is completed – He will marry it, thus receiving His kingdom. Then He will return to earth to take His individual church members as guests to the wedding supper, which follows immediately. See Ephesians 5; Luke 12:35-37; Luke 19:11,12; Revelation 19:9.

11. Revelation 14:6-12 contains the first angel's message with its announcement of the arrival of judgment hour while the gospel is still being preached. The second and third angels call the saints to separate themselves from all false Christians and to keep the commandments of God. Thus, while the judgment is sorting out God's people in heaven, a sorting-out process is called for among the professe4 people of God on earth.

12. First Peter 4:17 announces the basic principle that “judgment [must] begin with the household of God.” Peter's words echo the teaching of Ezekiel 9:6, “Begin at my sanctuary.” They have a special relationship and relevance to the end-time judgment of the first angel's message and to the sealing work of Revelation 7:1-3.

13. The doctrine of perseverance shows that even those who accept Christ as their Saviour are expected by God to persevere in their faith-obedience relationship to Him or lose out in the judgment. The person who “has the Son of God has life” right now, but he will be saved only if he “endures to the end” (1 John 5:12; Matthew 24:13). A believer is expected to call Jesus “Lord,” but unless the believer obeys Jesus, calling Him “Lord” will not avail (Ro mans 10:9; Matthew 7:21). To be forgiven

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ultimately, the Christian must be forgiving (see Matthew 6:14). A Gentile grafted into Paul's olive tree will, if unpersevering, be cut off as surely as the jewish nation once was (see Romans 11:21). We are saved by faith, but only if our faith is a living faith that produces acts of mercy and goodness (see James 2). The judgment investigates people who have at any time professed faith in Jesus to see whether they persevered in their faith-obedience relationship.

Let's say it again: The Seventh-day Adventist doctrine of the pre-advent investigative judgment is not based on an isolated proof text but was developed from a large body of interrelated data located in both the Old and New Testaments.

1. Although contemporary reports of the Exeter camp meeting refer only to

“the 10th day of the 7th month” and not specifically to October 22, the Midnight Cry for October31, 1844, says that Snow began advocating “about the 22d of October” as early as the spring of 1844.

2. See Josiah Litch, An Address to the Public, and Especially to the Clergy (Boston, 1841), 37. The preface is dated May 10, 1840.

3. Josiah Litch, Prophetic Expositions (Boston, 1842), 1:50-54. 4. See A. Hale, Herald of the Bridegroom! (Boston, 1843), 22-24. 5. The Midnight Cry, 13 October 1844. 6. Enoch Jacobs, “The Time: Evidence That the Judgment Might Have Set

on the 10th Day of the 7th Month,” The Western Midnight Cry, 29 November 1844, 18-20.

7. Some modern translations have “return from the wedding supper.” For a discussion, see God Cares, 2:407-410.

8. Miller liked what his editors had done in their Advent Mirror. He wanted other people to know that he liked it, so on February 6, 1845, he wrote a letter, published in the Day-Star of March 11, referring to Turner and Hale and saying, “I do believe in the main they are right.” We are to await Christ's return from the wedding. “Christ has risen up from his mercy-seat, and now stands as a judge at the door.” Miller followed up this letter with another dated March20, published in the Day-Star for April 8, in which he specifically defended the validity of “the 10th day, 7th month” (October 22, 1844). Referring to the first angel's message, “the hour of his judgment is come,” he asked, “is there anything in the scriptures to show that the hour has not come, or in our present position to show, that God is not now in his last judicial character deciding the cases of all the righteous, so that Christ (speaking after the manner of men) will know whom to collect at his coming?” Miller provided a list of judgment events in sequence, using Daniel 7 and Revelation 20. “Who can say,” he asked, that “God is not already justifying

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his Sanctuary [Daniel 8: 4, margin], and will yet justify us in preaching the time?” Apparently at the urging of Joshua V. Himes, Miller later abandoned this interpretation.

9. The article was published in two parts in the Advent Herald for February 26 and March 5, 1845, and reprinted with a warm recommendation by James White in the Review for September 16 and October 7, 1851.

10. What remains of Edson's handwritten account is preserved in the Adventist Heritage Center, Andrews Universiry.

11. It is not known when Edson's new discoveries first appeared in print. In the spring of 1845, a friend, F. B. Hahn, launched the Day-Dawn, of Canandaigua, New York. When it first appeared, evidently in April, Enoch Jacobs of the Day-Star (in his April 15, 1845, issue, p. 36) commented that the sentiments of the Day-Dawn differed little from the ideas of Apollos Hale, Joseph Turner, and Samuel Snow, editors whom we have been citing. No copy of the Day-Dawn from 1845 is known to exist, and some of his arguments in the Day-Star edition of February 7, 1846, definitely go beyond the positions of these other men.

12. Crosier appealed to the Greek terms hagia and ta hagia underlying various references to the heavenly sanctuary and to the holy place in the book of Hebrews. He showed that, properly translated, Hebrews does not present Jesus as having entered heaven’s most holy place upon 1-us ascension. It is regrettable that the New International Version and some other modern versions mistranslate hagia and ta hagia in such ways as to force Hebrews to teach that Jesus went into the most holy place upon His ascension to heaven.

13. Ellen G. White, Early Writings, 13-20. 14. Ibid., 54-56. 15. When some critics said that Ellen Harmon didn't get the information from

Jesus but read it in the Advent Mirror, she responded emphatically that she had been entirely too ill to read the magazine. From what is known of her condition at the time, we must be inclined to believe her.

16. Ellen G. White, Early Writings, 36.

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PART 3 EXPLORING THE MEANING

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89

CHAPTER 7

1844 AND BEING “ADVENTIST”

In the introduction we promised ourselves that after we looked at 1844

as a date and as an event, we would explore the meaning of 1844 for today. We are now ready to do this. To begin with, let's try the question, “Where did the name ‘Adventist’ come from?”

“That's an easy question,” you reply. “An Adventist is a person who believes that Christ is coming soon, and Seventh-day Adventists believe that Christ is coming soon.”

But wait. Dispensationalists, the people who speak about the “rapture,” also believe that Christ is coming soon. In fact, many of them think He's coming sooner than Seventh-day Adventists do. Many dispensationalists teach that Christ could come at any moment, rapturing automobile drivers and airline pilots out of their vehicles, and so on.1

Our point is that dispensationalists believe that Christ is coming soon, very soon, yet they are not Adventists and do not want to be called Adventists.

So there must be something special about the name Adventist and what it stands for. And, yes, the special difference has to do with 1844.

THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF ADVENT AND ADVENTIST. The word advent is

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based on a Latin word for arrival or coming. Most Seventh-day Adventists know this. But for most Protestant and Catholic Christians, Christ's advent is His first coming. Denominations that follow the church year celebrate Advent, or Advent season, during the four weeks leading up to Christmas. On Sundays during Advent they look at the Old Testament prophecies predicting the Messiah's birth. Depending on the ministers’ preferences, they may also refer to prophecies about His second advent, sooner or later in the future.

Thus it was that in the 1830s William Miller did not preach about Christ's advent at the end of the 2,300 days; he preached about His second advent. As the Millerite movement swelled in size and activity in the early 1840s, its camp meetings and other big rallies were known as Second Advent meetings. The movement itself became known as the Second Advent movement. And William Miller's followers became known as Second Adventists. That's right!

But “Second Adventists” is a mouthful. And inasmuch as there were no Christians around called First Adventists, people naturally fell into the habit of abbreviating the name to Adventists.

Today Seventh-day Adventists call their main denominational periodical the Adventist Review. When it first appeared, in October 1850, its full name was Second Advent Review and Sabbath Herald. The first half of the name, “Second Advent Review,” indicated that the editor, James White, planned to review the evidence that God had been at work in the Second Advent movement of 1840-1844.

Note this carefully. Miller and his Second Adventists believed that the second advent would occur soon because of the fulfillment of the 2,300 days. Before the great disappointment, they believed that the second advent would occur at the actual ending of the 2,300 days in 1844. After the great disappointment, those who continued to believe that the 2,300 days ended in 1844 now believed that the second advent would occur soon because in 1844, the final judgment began.

The name “Seventh-day Adventist” was officially voted in Battle Creek in 1860. You are now prepared to recognize that the “Adventist” part did not mean simply that the pioneers believed that Christ was coming soon. It meant that they believed Christ was coming soon in view of the fulfillment of the 2,300 days.

In our next chapter we want to see that even the “seventh-day” part of the name is based on the 2,300 days. For now, I would like to enlarge a little on the fact that 1844 is the clearest sign that Christ is coming soon.

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1844 AS THE SUPREME SIGN OF THE SECOND COMING. The reason 1844 is the clearest sign that Christ is coming soon is that in that year the final judgment began. Almost all Christians in all times and places have associated the final judgment with the actual second coming. Tell them that the second coming is near, and they assume you mean that the final judgment is also near. But it is our privilege and responsibility under the first angel's message to tell people that the final judgment has already begun.

And if the final judgment has already begun, we have surely reached the end time!

1844 IN PERSPECTIVE. Yet we acknowledge that 1844 seems like a long

time ago. How can it arouse people in the 990s to a sense that the second coming is near?

We need a change of perspective. Instead of looking back to 1844 and finding it around 150 years in the past, let us go back to the beginning of human history and view 1844 as almost six thousand years in the future.

Let us stand beside Adam and Eve on a hilltop outside Eden and help them look forward, through their tears, to the time when on the cross, Jesus would die for their sin. To discover the cross from Eden, we must scrutinize four thousand future years! Together we search the first two thousand years and find ourselves barely past Noah's flood and the life of Abraham. About five hundred years after Abraham, we reach only as far as the Exodus. (We remember that five hundred years is more than twice the total age of the United States and more than three times the chronological distance between 1844 and the 1990s.)

With Adam and Eve we continue to scan their future. Some five hundred years after the Exodus, we enjoy a sudden thrill as we watch David sling a stone at the giant Goliath. But we find it's still another five hundred years after David before we reach Daniel and the rise of Babylon … followed by the rise and fall of Media-Persia … and of Greece … and the rise of Rome. Suddenly we burst into tears at the sight of our dear Jesus hanging on the cross, fully four thousand years after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.

In our imagination, we leave our first parents to meditate about the cross with mixed emotions as we continue our quest for the second coming. We must search through yet another five hundred years, more or less, before we come to an event that today we consider ancient history, the fall of Rome (in A.D. 476) and then the beginning of the 1260 days

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(in 538). We have nearly one thousand more years to go before we reach Europe's discovery of America (in 1492), and approximately another three hundred years to the Declaration of Independence (in 1776).

The day has grown late, and the western 5l(y is aglow as finally, at long last, when we have nearly given up, a triumphant cheer bursts throughout lips. “There they are,” we cry, “the three angels! They're flying in the clouds of sunset!” Searching carefully beneath them, we discover a pillar of prophetic fulfillment engraved with the golden numbers “1844.”

From the perspective of Eden at the beginning of earth's six thousand years, the remaining distance between 1844 and the 1990s is hardly discernible. These 150 years between 1844 and the 1990s represent only one-fortieth, 2.5 percent, of human history. More than 97 percent of human history took place prior to 1844. Yes, we are indeed in the end time. The final judgment began only yesterday, as it were. Christ's second advent is coming soon.

1844 NOT ALONE. But although 1844 is the clearest sign of the nearness

of the second coming, it does not stand alone. Several other major prophetic signs were fulfilled during the decades leading up to 1844, and taken together they contribute to the status of 1844 as the supreme sign of the second coming.

The 1260-day prophecy began in 538, during a major change in church and world history. It closed in 1798, during another major change in church and world history that included epochal developments like the American and French revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, and the global surge of European colonialism, vast consequences of which remain to this day. The 1260 days deserved to be mentioned seven times in Daniel and Revelation (see Daniel 7:25; 12:4-7; Revelation 11:2,3; 12:6, 14; 13:5). Whole books could be written about them, and years ago I wrote one.2 Daniel 12:4-7 expressly indicates that the close of the 1260 days would mark the onset of the “time of the end.” The 1260 days ended in 1798. Thus 1798 stands along with 1844 as a colossal monument, a towering gatepost, past which humanity entered into the end time.

1844 AND THE NATURE SIGNS. Other prophetic fulfillments that add

stature to 1844 are the classic “nature” signs – the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, the dark day and bloody moon of May 19, 1780, and the falling of the stars on November 13, 1833 – predicted in Matthew 24:29,30 and Revelation 6:13.

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Sometimes overlooked today, these natural signs merit a revival of interest. Each was outstanding in its own right, and together they came at the right time and in the right places to fulfill Bible prophecy.

Consider the magnitude of the Lisbon earthquake. It shook millions of square miles, from North Africa (where it leveled twin cities five hundred miles south of Lisbon) to Scandinavia (where it altered the water level of lakes) to the cities of Eastern Europe (where it rang church bells). If Lisbon had been San Francisco, this earthquake would have destroyed Los Angeles as well as San Francisco and would have disturbed Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada!

As recently as 1980, the widely respected seismologist G. A. Eiby, in chapter 11 of his Earthquakes,3 ranked the Lisbon earthquake as “the largest shock ever” and reckoned that it may well have reached an almost incredible 9.0 on the Richter scale, seven times stronger than the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. In 1955, on the two hundredth anniversary of the Lisbon tremor, Sir Thomas Kendrick, director of the great British Museum, released a book4 demonstrating that the terrifying Lisbon earthquake ended a long era of optimism and opened a period of gloom that led directly to the French Revolution, which, in its turn, opened a new era in human destiny.

The dark day of May 19, 1780, has not been equaled in North America in the two hundred years that have since come and gone. The Leonid shower of November 13, 1833, gave birth to a new branch of astronomy. From the mid-Atlantic to California a maximum of sixty thousand meteors were seen falling every hour, many exploding noiselessly into subshowers of stars, as the vast shimmering spectacle sailed silently westward. Like the Lisbon earthquake and the famous dark day, it too has not been matched, in spite of scientific expectations that it would be. The 1966 shower, though perhaps as brilliant while it lasted, was much shorter in duration and was visible over a much smaller area, merely a portion of the American southwest.

The location of the classic signs was highly significant. They happened in Europe and America primarily, where people were studying the Bible and pondering the prophecies. A dark day on the Sahara Desert or a star shower over New Guinea would have said little in those days about the second coming of Christ to cannibal headhunters or Muslim nomads. Events need not be universal to deliver a global message. A few square miles at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were sufficient to announce the atomic age. A stable in Bethlehem ushered in the Christian era. Only a few

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hundred people saw Jesus after His resurrection – but they told others. The nature signs happened at the right time. Jesus said that the sun and

moon would be darkened and the stars would fall “immediately after the tribulation of those days [the 1260 days]” (Matthew 24:29). And so they were. The last overt European persecution of Protestants is said to have occurred in 1762. The dark day came in 1780 and the star shower fifty-three years later, in 1833. Almost immediately, in 1844, Jesus traveled as Son of Man on the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days to inaugurate the final judgment.

1844 AND CONTEMPORY SIGNS. We have said nothing about more

contemporary signs of Christ's coming, such as the amazing prominence of Pope John Paul II, the emergence of the United States as the world's only superpower after the Gulf War, evangelistic successes in Russia, and soaring crime rates in America. Whether the current exciting headlines mean that Christ is coming right away we cannot say with certainty. Unlike the other signs we have been speaking about, these specific developments do nor precisely fulfill specific prophecies. We have been warned that “we are not to live upon time excitement. … You will not be able to say that He will come in one, two, or five years, neither are you to put off His coming by stating that it may not be for ten or twenty years.”5

But when such current events are evaluated in the light of 1844, they can surely be viewed as striking reminders that we are indeed in the end time and that final events will be rapid ones.

1844 AND STILL OTHER PROPHECIES. It is most important that we see

clearly the relationship between 1844 and the Seventh-day Adventist belief in the nearness of the second coming. The year 1844 is the kingpin in a system of prophetic interpretation that, taken together, should affect our most vital personal decisions. We are going to take up some of these prophetic relationships and their implications in the next few chapters. For now, let us remind ourselves that 1844 signaled the time for the proclamation of the first angel's message (“the hour of his judgment has come”), activating the commission to proclaim the gospel in its judgment-hour setting to the entire world, “to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.” This global commission we have not yet completed.

Then I saw another angel flying in midheaven, with an eternal

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gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he said with a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water.” If 1844 signaled the onset of the first angel's message, it also signaled

the time for the second angel's message about the fall of Babylon and the time for the third angel's message about the mark of the beast and faith-filled commandment keeping.

By letting us know that we are in the end time, 1844 (along with 1798) tells us that we are nearing the time for the final showdown on the Sabbath question foretold in Revelation 13. Seventh-day Adventists have become so accustomed to seeing the United States in the prophecy of Revelation 13 that it is easy for us to forget that the biblical reason we have for knowing that the fulfillment of Revelation 13 lies in the near future is the fulfillment of the 2,300 days in 1844, along with the fulfillment of the 1260 days in 1798.

It is because of 1844 and the way it triggered the three angels' messages that we know that Sabbath and Sunday will, in fact, be the final issue, that the final crisis will take the form of the mark of the beast versus the seal of God, and that the seal of God is Sabbath keeping in a life that emulates the character of Christ.

By introducing many related prophecies, 1844 cautions us against saying that Jesus might appear at any moment the way the dispensationalists do, just as it also cautions us not to put the second coming far off into the future the way the postmillennialists do. We know that Jesus is coming soon, for the final judgment has already begun. But we also know that Jesus isn't about to come at any moment, for several essential prophecies have yet to be fulfilled. The gospel of the kingdom is not yet preached to every nation and tribe and tongue and people. The Sabbath question has not yet become a global issue. The United States has not yet led world Protestantism into a concerted attack on Sabbath keepers. All these development may – and we sincerely hope will – take place in a relatively short period; but they do have to happen before Jesus can appear. Thus 1844 both encourages us with the knowledge that Jesus is coming soon and cautions us with the knowledge that He isn't coming today or tomorrow.

“We are not to live upon time excitement. … You will not be able to

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say that He will come in one, two, or five years, neither are you to put off His coming by stating that it may not be for ten or twenty years.”6

1844 AND PERSONAL DECISIONS. Consider the value of viewing the second

coming as not closer than five years but possibly not more distant than ten years. Such a view dampens fanaticism and helps prevent repeated disappointments. True, viewing the second coming as several years off rather than a few months away can lead to carelessness and complaisance, but it also can lead to a sense of purpose and responsibility.

If Christ is coming soon but not at once, young people should finish their education, both because they have time to finish it and because their education will be needed for world evangelism and for the final crisis. Couples should marry with the awareness that their marriages will need to endure beyond the honeymoon. Congregations should lay long-range plans for reaching their entire cities with the three angels' messages rather than launching one “final” project after another. Believers who are growing older should realize that it is not wise to expect the second coming as soon as they would like and that it is not wrong to plan financially for at least five to ten future years.

On the other hand, if Jesus may well come within five to ten years, how should we arrange our priorities? If within five or ten years we may be surrounded with the incomprehensible luxuries of heaven, can we not make cheerful sacrifices today? Should we not revive the old Seventh-day Adventist custom, when laying plans for the future, of adding the words, “If time lasts that long”? If the final judgment has already begun, can we not leave to Jesus the injustices we stiffer, knowing that Me will take care of them soon, leaving us free to get on with the business of doing good even to our enemies? (See Romans 12:14-21.)

Driving a long distance alone some years ago, I found my mind distracted by many thoughts. I asked God to help me concentrate on what the second coming could mean to specific people I knew. At once I began to see a paralyzed friend running and jumping. I pictured a lonely widow I knew, gleefully surrounded by her family. I imagined my own older sister, suffering then from an incurable disease, young and pretty again. My thoughts went on and on, from one relative and friend to another. It was a joyous time that I have since renewed in my mind, thinking of what the second coming will mean to various people.

If the joys of the second coming are being delayed till the three angels' messages get preached to everyone in the world, should not Seventh-day

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Adventists become deeply involved, one way or another, in getting these messages preached? If Jesus is waiting with longing desire for the beauty of His character to be sealed in His people, should not every Seventh-day Adventist become deeply rooted in Jesus, so His divine nature can indeed flow into them?

The Seventh-day Adventist brand of the second-coming hope is special, and rightly so, in light of the great disappointment of 1844. For the same reason the Seventh-day Adventist brand of Sabbath keeping is also special, and rightly so, as we shall see in our next chapter.

1. Rapture is not a bad word in itself. It has an old-fashioned meaning, as when

an army rescues and carries away its soldiers that an enemy has captured or as when Jesus will rescue and carry away His people from earth at the second coming.

2. C. Mervyn Mixwell, “An Exegetical and Historical Examination of the Beginning and Ending of the 1260 Years” (M.A. thesis, Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, 1951).

3. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1980. 4. T. D. Kendrick, The Lisbon Earthquake (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott

Company [1955]). Dr. Daniel Augsburger of Andrews University confirms Kendrick's thesis on the basis of his own wide study of European literature of the period between the earthquake and the French Revolution.

5. Ellen C. White, Selected Messages, 1:189. 6. Ibid.

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CHAPTER 8

1844 AND THE SABBATH

In our previous chapter we saw that the name “Adventist” originally

referred to a person who believed Christ was coming soon because of the fulfillment of the 2,300 days. In this present chapter, I want to show you that the “seventh-day” part of our name is also rooted in the fulfillment of the 2,300 days. The distinctive significance that 1844 contributes to the Sabbath is a part of the magnificence of the great disappointment.

RERORMATION HERITAGE. To get a helpful perspective, I would like you

to let me digress a bit and take you to the Reformation of the 1500s. Stay by, and you'll soon see the reason.

When Martin Luther started the Reformation in l517, one of the problems European Christians faced was a huge number of holy days. There may have been as many as 150 holy days in addition to the fifty- two weekly Sundays. Many of them were named in honor of this or that saint and were presented as being even more holy than Sundays. No wonder the economy of Europe stagnated for centuries. No wonder, either, that ordinary people came to treat all “holy days” as merely “holidays.”

Luther and his helpers reacted to this intolerable situation by declaring

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no day holy! Yet people need to hear the Word and celebrate the Lord's Supper, so Lutherans said that Christians should continue to attend church on Sunday, though without regarding it as the Sabbath.

Thus, although Luther opposed the multiplicity of Catholic holy days, he regrettably preserved the “holiday” concept of Sunday. He was not only wrong about the day, he was also wrong about the way Sabbath should be observed.

Much of what Luther taught was adopted by the official church in England, the Anglican Church. But soon Bible students in England began pointing out that the Church of England needed additional purification. Because of their noble desire to purify the official church, their enemies scorned them as “Puritans.”

The Puritans discarded the annual holy days that the Lutherans had discarded, but they retained the weekly Sunday, calling it “Sabbath” for the first time in Christian history. Believing that Sunday was the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, they taught that it should be kept holy from sundown to sundown. In lucid, scholarly volumes, they taught one another how to use the whole day for spiritual matters, attending thoughtfully to preaching on Sunday morning and Sunday evening, guarding their words and thoughts, instructing their children, and doing neighborly kindnesses to people in need. They distinguished the weekly Sabbath of the Ten Commandments from the annual ceremonial “sabbaths” listed in Leviticus 23. And they showed that the Sabbath is a “perpetual sign of the covenant” that God made with His people to sanctify them (see Ezekiel 20:12, 20).

So much did the Sabbath (really Sunday) mean to the Puritans that some of them left their homes in England, where they were persecuted, and fled first to Holland and later to America. Did you realize that the Pilgrim fathers who landed neat Plymouth Rock in 1620 came to America at great personal risk and loss of life in order to find freedom to keep the Sabbath.?1

Although the Puritans still had the wrong day, they had gone a long distance toward reestablishing the tight “way.”

The English Puritans divided into two denominations, the Congrega-tionalists and the Presbyterians, which grew very large in America. The American Congregationalists, in turn, gave birth to the Baptists. Each of these major denominations originally taught the same theology of the Sabbath and attempted to keep it in the same way. And what was the upshot of this?

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By the time the Seventh-day Adventist denomination arose in the 1860s, a large number of Americans already knew that the Ten Commandments require people to keep the seventh day holy, and a great many Americans were attempting to do so, though on the wrong day.

Thus when Joseph Bates published his first tract on the Sabbath question in August 1846, he referred to the Sabbath right on the title page as “A Perpetual Sign” of the covenant. He knew that his readers already applied this term to Sunday. Bates's burden was to show them they were keeping the wrong day.

SEVENTH DAY BAPTIST HERITAGE. But how did Bates learn that his

readers – and he himself, until recently – had been wrong about the day? As most Seventh-day Adventists are aware, the new light came to him

from Seventh Day Baptists. Back in Britain, when the Puritans had been agitating for the holiness

of the Sunday Sabbath, a very few people had discovered in their Bibles that they ought to be agitating instead for the Sabbath Sabbath. These seventh-day Sabbath keepers were soon known as Seventh Day Baptists. Among their leaders in the 1600s were Thomas Bampfield, who actually started up a Sabbath-keeping congregation among fellow prisoners while being persecuted in jail, and John James, who was falsely accused of treason and brutally hanged, drawn, and quartered. By contrast, another Sabbath keeper in England, Dr. Peter Chamberlen, was honored by kings for his unique skill at difficult royal childbirths.2

Seventh Day Baptists used virtually the same Bible arguments as the Puritans. The Sabbath, they said, was inaugurated at Creation, required by the Ten Commandments, observed by Jesus, given as a perpetual sign of the covenant, and was intended to be kept holy from sundown to sundown. The Seventh Day Baptists differed from the Puritans mainly in keeping the real Sabbath instead of Sunday.

Seventh Day Baptists had both the right way of keeping the Sabbath and the right day.

In the person of Stephen Mumford, they shipped the right way and the right day to America, where, disappointingly, the true Sabbath made only slow progress.

William Miller was a Baptist; hence, he was a good Sabbath keeper – on Sunday. T. M. Preble, a Millerite Adventist, was a minister of the Free Will Baptists. Perhaps Preble got the true Sabbath from Frederick Wheeler, who got it from the Seventh Day Baptist lady, Rachel Oaks. Or

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perhaps he got it from some other Seventh Day Baptist. But he got it! And soon he was sitting down to write a book about the right day. This book by T. M. Preble, A Tract, Showing that the Seventh Day Should Be Observed as the Sabbath, Instead of the First Day, fell into the hands of former sea captain Joseph Bates. Through this book and his own Bible study, Bates, himself a devout observer of the wrong day in the right way, became a seventh-day Sabbath keeper. Soon after, he published a small book of his own to which we have already made reference, The Seventh Day Sabbath, A Perpetual Sign.

The principal difference on the Sabbath question between the Puritans and the Seventh Day Baptists was, as we have said, confined to the choice of day, the true seventh day in place of Sunday.

But now please notice that the Seventh Day Baptists, who counted around 6,000 members when they attracted the attention of Adventists in the 1840s,3 have 60,000 members today. But Seventh-day Adventists, who had 3,500 members when their denomination was organized in 1863, have today grown to more than seven million members and are still growing.

The difference – and it is a very substantial difference – lies in 1844, as Joseph Bates quickly recognized.

JOSEPH BATES AND THE SABBATH. Joseph Bates learned about the

seventh-day Sabbath sometime in 1845 from reading the little book by T. M. Preble. Early the following year he read the Day-Star Extra of February 7, 1846, that we spoke about in chapter 6 and became convinced that the sanctuary of Daniel 8:14 is the one in heaven.

In the summer of 1846, Captain Bates wrote his first small book about the Sabbath, the one we've talked about already called The Seventh Day Sabbath, A Perpetual Sign, showing which day of the week is the real Sabbath. It came out in August, on the thirtieth of which month James White and Ellen Harmon were married. Heretofore James and Ellen had admired Captain Bates but had been puzzled by his emphasis on the Sabbath commandment.4 After they read his book and restudied the Bible, they became Sabbath keepers too, probably in September.

Now in this little book, Joseph Bates said mostly the same things that the Seventh Day Baptists were saying. But in one notable respect, his little book became the first of its kind ever, a true milestone in a brand new development of Sabbath understanding.

On page 24 of his Seventh-day Sabbath, A Perpetual Sign, Joseph Bates

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referred to the three angels' messages. After pointing out what every Millerite Adventist had known, that the Millerites had preached the first angel's message about the judgment and the second angel's message about the fall of Babylon, Bates did what no one before him had ever done. He pointed out that a special time had now come for Sabbath keeping because the time had come for the third angel's message. He didn't understand this idea clearly quite yet, but it was there.

What idea? That the Sabbath has a unique timeliness in view of 1844. The idea was to become much clearer over the next couple of years as

Bates and the Whites and other Adventist pioneers studied the Bible together.

Bates became increasingly eager to visit the people who had published the Day-Star Extra – O. R. L. Crosier, Hiram Edson, and F. B. Hahn. So sometime in the fall of 1846, he traveled out to western New York, taking with him his new light on the Sabbath. From Edson, Crosier, and Hahn, Captain Bates brought home a clearer understanding of the heavenly sanctuary. Full of new excitement, he got his printer to put out a second edition of The Seventh Day Sabbath, A Perpetual Sign, but not before he had added two further epochal pieces of new light.

For one thing, on page 59, Bates proposed that keeping Sunday instead of the true Sabbath was a mark of the beast. This was the first time anyone had published this interpretation of the mark of the beast in the third angel's message. For another thing, in his new preface, he called attention to Revelation 11:19: “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his covenant ” (KJV).

As Bates and the others had looked at this text together in western New York, great new light had flashed into their minds. The ark of the covenant contains the Ten Commandments, including the fourth commandment. In the Old Testament, it was located in the most holy place, and in 1844 Jesus entered heaven's most holy place. Was it possible, they won- dered – was it really possible – that the new interest Bates and others were taking in the Sabbath question was a result of Christ's recent entrance into heaven's most holy place? If so, it would coincide remarkably with the sequence of the three angels: (1) judgment hour; (2) fall of Babylon; (3) faith-in-Christ commandment keeping.

Bates, as I said, hurried home and got out that second edition, in the preface of which he ventured, cautiously, to reveal his excitement about Revelation 11:19: “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his covenant.”

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Bates's caution about the relationship of the true Sabbath to Christ's new work in the heavenly sanctuary was removed within a couple of months. On March 6 in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and again on April 3 in Topsham, Maine,5 newly married, newly Sabbath-keeping Ellen White had her first vision about the Sabbath. Appropriately, it was centered on Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary.

She wrote out what she had seen, and Joseph Bates published it for her.6 She reported that an angel had carried her swiftly to heaven, where she saw Jesus waiting for her at a little model temple, evidently the same one that had been shown to Moses.7 Jesus took her through the holy place and into the most holy place and there, yes, He showed her two tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments written on them. The first four commandments occupied one of the tablets and glowed brighter than the other six; but the fourth commandment glowed brighter than any of the others. It had a “halo of glory” around it. This surprised Ellen White, for though she and James had come to see that Captain Bates was right about the Sabbath, she hadn't thought it was this important. It was seeing the Sabbath in the presence of Jesus, in the most holy place with a halo of glory around it, that now made it seem so important.

Mrs. White was deeply impressed that the Sabbath was the “great question” that would “unite God's dear waiting saints” and also separate them from unbelievers. Further, she was shown that believers were to “go out and proclaim the Sabbath more fully.”8

PROCLAIMING THE SABBATH MORE FULLY. To “proclaim the Sabbath

more fully” meant at least this – to proclaim it more fully than, anyone had proclaimed it before. Thus far, the Seventh Day Baptists had proclaimed it as the true Sabbath, but they had not taught that its observance was vital, and they had shown only spasmodic zeal in winning people to it. They felt that the Sabbath was good to know about and, if you knew about it, was good to keep. Yet it wasn't exactly a life-and-death matter.

But the vision had spoken of the Sabbath as the “great question” that would “unite God's dear waiting saints” and also separate them from unbelievers.

Joseph Bates and the other believers quickly understood; or at least, they partly understood. The first angel's message had brought humanity to the judgment hour, 1844. The second angel had called attention to the fallen state of the popular Sunday-keeping churches. The third angel called attention to the commandments. Jesus was calling attention to the

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Sabbath in a wholly new way since entering the most holy place and standing beside the ark of the covenant.

The vision was perfectly in harmony with what Bates had already found in the Bible. Immediately he stepped up his efforts to take the new light about the Sabbath to former Millerites.

But he ran into a stone wall! When he told friends from the Millerite days that the Sabbath was important because in 1844 Jesus entered the most holy place, they were unconvinced. They were glad to see Captain Bates, but as for 1844, they told him it had all been a mistake.

So Bates sat down to write another little book, this one with the fascinating title Second Advent Way Marks and High Heaps. By “high heaps” he had in mind the piles of stones that formed monuments to God's grace in Old Testament times. By “way marks” he meant sign posts. The force of the booklet was this: By reviewing the evidence – the way marks and high heaps – which once had convinced Millerite Adventists that God was truly fulfilling the 2,300 days in 1844 – Bates hoped to lay the groundwork for convincing them that because of 1844, the true Sabbath had now become crucial.

Near the end of the year Bates wrote what turned out to be his largest book – A Vindication of the Sabbath. It had 116 pages and was the one that he was writing (in the well-known story) when his financial reserves were reduced to a single coin, a York shilling. It was published in January 1848.

No copy of this book was known to exist in recent times until Godfrey Anderson, sometime president of Loma Linda University, discovered a copy in the Boston Public Library. We now know just what message Joseph Bates and James and Ellen White were prepared to take to those famous 1848 Sabbath Conferences.

Better designated as “Sabbath and Sanctuary Conferences,” we now know that they were like seminars.9 Bates came well prepared to teach about the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. James White showed that the Sabbath is crucially important because of 1844. And Ellen White exhorted the people to live in harmony with the new light.10

SEAL OF GOD AND MARK OF THE BEAST. Part of the new light focused on

the seal of God and the mark of the beast. The third angel, who calls attention to faith-in-Christ commandment keeping, warns very urgently against receiving the mark of the beast.11

But not everyone who has kept Sunday has received the mark of the beast. Bates and the Whites and most of the people who attended their

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meetings had all found spiritual blessing in keeping Sunday. In 1849 Ellen White had a vision that specifically reassured her that the test on the Sabbath question did not begin until Jesus passed from the holy place to the most holy place in 1844.12 Sunday keepers receive the mark of the beast only when they have a chance to know the truth and choose to disregard it.13

And the seal of God? Revelation does not explicitly equate the seal of God with the Sabbath. However, it does present the seal as the opposite of the mark and as something that is received by commandment keepers. The seal includes true Sabbath observance as a part of commandment keeping, yet it must be even more than Sabbath observance, for the people who receive the seal in their foreheads are spoken of as having God's name (or character) in their foreheads (see Revelation 7:1-3; 14:1-5). Sabbath keeping is the seal of God when it truly changes a person through and through. The seal of God is “a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so they cannot be moved.”14

ELLEN WHITE AND THE SABBATH. We have seen that Ellen White began

to keep the Sabbath (in September 1846) several months before receiving a vision about it (in March 1847). We have also seen that in her first Sabbath vision she was taken to the most holy place, where Jesus personally revealed its importance to her. God could have taken her to creation or Mt. Sinai. He could have called her attention merely to selected Bible texts and even left Jesus out. But God centered this first Sabbath vision on the heavenly sanctuary and on Jesus. The message is plain. God wanted His people to associate the Sabbath in a new way with Jesus and His new sanctuary ministry.

In His new sanctuary ministry in the most holy place, Jesus is calling special attention to the Sabbath as a doctrine, yes, but even more so as an outliving of Himself in daily life. He is very interested in His holy day, but He is even more interested in reproducing His own beautiful kind of holiness in a holy people. We recall page 283 in The Desire of Ages: “In order to keep the Sabbath holy, men must themselves be holy.”

Ellen White is here thinking about Exodus 20:8 and Exodus 22:31. She explains: “When the command was given to Israel, ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,’ the Lord said also to them, ‘Ye shall be holy men unto Me.’ ”

But how can we sinners become holy enough to keep the Sabbath holy? Ezekiel 20:12 comes to our rescue. “I gave them my sabbaths, … that

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they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” Our passage in The Desire of Ages explains that in order for people to be holy enough to keep the Sabbath holy, "through faith they must become partakers of the righteousness of Christ" (my italics).

Page 469 in The Great Controversy takes up the theme: “The followers of Christ are to become like Him, – by the grace of God to form characters in harmony with the principles of His holy law. This is Bible sanctification” (my italics).

This kind of sanctification is important. True Sabbath keepers want to experience it. They don't make the day a holiday. They want to take advantage of every minute of it for worship, witnessing, and character development, because they know that time is running out.

But not all Seventh-day Adventists have realized the special difference that 1844 makes to the Sabbath. In her early days, Ellen White learned of a minister who was preaching the Sabbath without placing it in its end-time setting. He was preaching the Sabbath of Creation and Mt. Sinai but not the Sabbath of the judgment hour and the third angel's message, not the seal of God in contrast to the mark of the beast. Thus he was preaching it without its true end-of-time urgency, its unique timeliness at this special point in time.

Deeply disappointed with his tame presentation, she wrote,

Elder K knows not of what spirit he is. … As far as the Sabbath is concerned, he occupies the same position as the Seventh Day Baptists. Separate the Sabbath from the [three angels’] messages, and it loses its power; but when connected with the message of the third angel, a power attends it which convicts unbelievers and infidels, and brings them out with strength to stand, to live, grow, and flourish in the Lord.15 1844 AND THE SABBATH. A well-informed Seventh-day Adventist is a

person who believes that Christ is coming soon because of the fulfillment of the 2,300 days and who keeps the seventh-day Sabbath because of the fulfillment of the 2,300 days. Such a person knows that because the 2,300 days ended in 1844, the time has come for the urgent warning of the third angel against the mark of the beast. The time has come for men and women of “every nation and tribe and tongue and people” to choose the Lord and to enter by choice into a relationship with Jesus so that they will become holy and can keep the Sabbath holy. To become “holy enough”

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means to become, in the finest and most attractive sense, a person who resembles the loving, gracious, dependable ways of our heavenly Father Himself.

The time to emphasize true, wholehearted Christ-like Sabbath keeping is now. Now! Now, because Jesus has already entered the most holy place to begin the final judgment. Now, because from the most holy place, Jesus is shedding onto the world the radiant glory of true Sabbath keeping in His final effort to develop a people with characters like His own and thus prepare them for the time of trouble just ahead and for the glorious eternity that follows.

1. For a fascinating eyewitness account of the loyalty of the Pilgrim fathers to

the Sunday Sabbath, see Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Applewood Books of Cambridge and Boston, Mass., puts out an edition.

2. The Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America, 3 vols. (Plainfield, N.J.: The Seventh Day Baptist General Conference, 1910, 1972), 1:64-66,72-73,78-79.

3. Seventh Day Baptists in Europe and America, 1:233n. 4. Ellen G. White, Life Sketches, 95. 5. Evidence that Ellen White saw the “halo of glory” vision twice is found by

comparing her Lift Sketches, 95 and 96 with 100-103, and is confirmed by an explicit statement by Joseph Bates at the end of the second giving of the vision as published under the name A Vision. See next footnote.

6. A vision, 7April 1847. This publication was printed in “broadsheet” form, on one side only of a single sheet. Its date was the date when Ellen White wrote the letter.

7. Hebrews 8:5 says that God required Moses to make his earthly tabernacle according to the “pattern” God showed him on Mt. Sinai. The Greek word here translated “pattern” is the same word usually translated “type.” In other words, God showed Moses a type of the heavenly sanctuary rather than the actual sanctuary itself. In one of her earliest books, Spiritual Gifts (Battle Creek, 1864), 4:5, Ellen White says that Moses was told to make the tabernacle according to the “miniature model” that God showed him.

8. Ellen G. White, Early Writings, 33. 9. Arthur L. White uses the new term “Sabbath and Sanctuary Conferences” as

the title for chapter 9 of the first volume of his six-volume biography of Ellen G. White (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1985). The all-night prayer-and-study sessions often associated with these 1848 conferences (see Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, 1:206) now appear to have been conducted on other occasions, possibly in 1847.

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10. An early study calling attention to the “seminar” nature of the 1848 Sabbath and Sanctuary Conferences was Gordon O. Martinborough, “The Beginnings of a Theology of the Sabbath among American Sabbatarian Adventists, 1842-1850” (M.A. thesis, Loma Linda University, 1976), especially chapter 6.

11. The mark of the beast is opposed to commandment keeping. The beast of Revelation 13:1-10, which shares its mark with end-time people, is the same as the little horn of Daniel 7, which, according to prophecy, was to rise out of the Roman Empire, persecute God's people, and try to change God's laws. The Roman Church is noted for its severe persecution of heretics and for being the outstanding champion of Sunday and opponent of Sabbath in Christian history. Thus the characteristic mark of the beast appears to be Sunday keeping, or rather, coercive Sunday keeping after someone knows better. For an extended study, see C. Mervyn Maxwell, "The Mark of the Beast," in Daniel and Revelation Committee Series, Frank B. Holbrook, ed. (Silver Spring, Md.: Biblical Research Institute, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1992), 7:41-132.

12. Ellen G. White, Early Writings, 42, 43. 13. See Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, 605. 14. The passage from which this famous clause is taken was written in 1902 and

is found in the Ellen G. White Comments section of the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, 4:1161: “Just as soon as the people of God are sealed in their forehead – it is not any seal or mark that can be seen, but a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so they cannot be moved – just as soon as God's people are sealed and prepared for the shaking, it will come. Indeed, it has begun already; the judgments of God are now upon the land, to give us warning, that we may know what is coming”(MS 173, 1902).

15. Ellen C. White, Testimonies, 1:337.

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CHAPTER 9

1844 AND BEING READY

The material we are going to study in this chapter is among the most

solemn but encouraging aspects of the meaning of 1844 and the magnificent disappointment.

Thus far we have made good use of Daniel 8:14 (the 2,300 days), Daniel 7:9-14 (the Son of man coming on clouds to the judgment scene), Leviticus 16 (the Day of Atonement), Luke 12:35-37 (waiting till the Lord returns from the wedding), and Revelation 14:6-12 (the three angels' messages). These texts were used heavily by Seventh-day Adventist pioneers. They also made significant use of Malaehi 3:1-5.

You will remember that near the end of chapter 6, “Investigative Judgment: A Seventh-day Adventists Invention?” I referred to a thoughtful paragraph from a letter by O. K. L. Crosier, Hiram Edson's friend, in the April 18, 1846, issue of the Day-Star. Its spiritual emphasis was particularly attractive to Ellen White. It was based on 1 Corinthians 6, where Christians ate called temples of God, and on Malachi 3, which says that Christ was to come to His temple and cleanse the sons of Levi. Notice especially the final sentence in the quotation:

Many seem not to have discovered that there is a literal and a

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spiritual temple – the literal being the Sanctuary in New Jerusalem (literal city), and the spiritual the church – the literal occupied by Jesus Christ, our King and Priest, John 14:2. Heb. 8:2; 9:11; the spiritual by the Holy Ghost. 1 Cor. 3:~7; 6:19. Eph. 2:20-22. Between these two there is a perfect concert of action, as Christ “prepares the place” the Spirit does the people. When he came to his temple, the sanctuary, to cleanse it; the Spirit commenced the special cleansing of the people. Mal. 3:1-3. The concept that the cleansing of the sanctuary involves a special

cleansing of the people who worship at the sanctuary was taught in Leviticus 16, the Day of Atonement chapter. “On this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins you shall be clean before the Lord” (verse 30). Malachi 3:1-5 offers a similar promise. I have italicized some of the phrases that we'll be talking about.

Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and

the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers' soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, till they present right offerings to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. Then I will draw near to you for judgment. NOT THE JERUSALEM TEMPLE. Many Bible commentators have assumed

that this passage refers to Christ's first coming and the way He cleansed the Jerusalem temple of cattle, pigeons, and money-changers. But it cannot be a prophecy of Christ's coming to the Jerusalem temple, for it promises that He will purify the priests, the “sons of Levi,” to the point that they will offer acceptable sacrifices. Deplorably, when Jesus finished His work on earth, the opposition of the priests compelled Him to withdraw His Spirit from the Jerusalem temple and declare it “desolate” (Matthew 23:38).

Seventh-day Adventist pioneers were right to observe that Malachi 3:1-5 describes Christ's coming to the most holy place of the heavenly temple

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in 1844 and to His special work of purifying His end-time people who worship at that temple.

Many years after the great event, The Great Controversy, looking back, observed that “the coming of Christ as our high priest to the most holy place, for the cleansing of the sanctuary, brought to view in Daniel 8:14; the coming of the Son of man to the Ancient of Days, as presented in Daniel 7:13; and the coming of the Lord to His temple, foretold by Malachi [my italics], are descriptions of the same event; and this is also represented by the coming of the Bridegroom to the marriage, described by Christ in the parable of the ten virgins, of Matthew 25.”

The Great Controversy, page 424, is explicit. “This coming [of Christ to the 1844 judgment] is foretold … by the prophet Malachi: ‘The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.’ Malachi 3:1. The coming of the Lord to His temple was sudden, unexpected, to His people. They were not looking for Him there. They expected Him to come to earth.”

BEAUTIFUL CHRISTIANS. Now before we proceed any farther with the

Great Controversy commentary on Malachi 3:1-5, I invite you to prepare for a deeply spiritual surprise. Please try to remember everything you have heard about the spirituality of the best of the Millerite Adventists. We talked about their ardor and earnestness in chapter 4. Here is a further account from someone who passed through the experience as one of them.

At that time there was faith that brought answers to prayer – faith

that had respect to the recompense of reward. Like showers of rain upon the thirsty earth, the Spirit of grace descended upon the earnest seekers. Those who expected soon to stand face to face with their Redeemer felt a solemn joy that was unutterable. The softening, subduing power of the Holy Spirit melted the heart as His blessing was bestowed in rich measure upon the faithful, believing ones.

Carefully and solemnly those who received the message came up to the time when they hoped to meet their Lord. Every morning they felt that it was their first duty to secure the evidence of their acceptance with God. Their hearts were closely united, and they prayed much with and for one another. They often met together in secluded places to commune with God, and the voice of intercession

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ascended to heaven from the fields and groves. The assurance of the Saviour's approval was more necessary to them than their daily food; and if a cloud darkened their minds, they did not rest until it was swept away. As they felt the witness of pardoning grace, they longed to behold Him whom their souls loved.1

NOT YET BEADY. Now are you prepared for our solemn surprise? Speaking expressly of these Adventist people who had accepted Miller's message and were so sincere and earnest in looking for Jesus to return, The Great Controversy, page 424, says, “But the people were not yet ready to meet their Lord.”

The Adventist people in 1844 were not yet ready to meet their Lord! Yet they were beautiful people! They loved one another. They loved

even their enemies. They had true assurance in Christ, and they deserved to have assurance, for they repented, confessed, witnessed, sacrificed, studied, prayed, and praised; and they surely loved the Lord with all their hearts. We read a moment ago, “They longed to behold Him whom their souls loved.”

Yet even they “were not yet ready to meet their Lord”! Perhaps what The Great Controversy says next will help us understand.

Here it is:

There was still a work of preparation to be accomplished for them. Light was to be given, directing their minds to the temple of God in heaven; and as they should by faith follow their High Priest in His ministration there, new duties would be revealed. Another message of warning and instruction was to be given to the church.

Look at those lines again. They are encouraging. Although they say that the Millerite Adventists needed an additional work of preparation, they say that the preparation was to be accomplished “for” them. Light was to be “given.” God knew that they needed the additional preparation and was prepared to make it available to them.

But what specifically are we talking about? Read the passage again. As they studied Christ's new ministry in the most holy place, they were to be given “another message of warning and instruction” that would involve “new duties.” As Millerite Adventists they had proclaimed the first angel's message, about the arrival of judgment hour, and the second angel's message, about the fall of Babylon, but so far they had been entirely unaware of their duty to proclaim the third angel's message. Their added

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work of preparation involved the discovery that they were to instruct people about the Sabbath and to warn them about the mark of the beast, the content of the third angel's message.

READY BUT NOT READY. The best of the Millerite Adventists were

certainly ready for death. We know specifically of two of their most spiritual ministers, Levi Stockman, who died in the spring of 1844, and Charles Fitch, who died on Monday, October 14, eight days before he expected to see Jesus coming on the clouds. In December, in her first vision, young Sister Ellen was shown the future of these men after the resurrection. She saw them sitting under the tree of life. She learned that God had “laid [them] in the grave to save them.”2 Yes, the best of the Millerite Adventists who died in Christ before October 22 died ready to be raised in the first resurrection. But they were “not yet ready to meet their Lord,” that is, to meet Him at the second coming, while they were still alive on earth.

Why not? Stop and think. Won't those of us who live to see the second coming

be required to go through the crisis over the mark of the beast? Won't we be required to live through the time of trouble?

Were the Millerite Adventists ready for the time of trouble? Pathetically, challenged by the great disappointment, the faith of most of them withered like pumpkin leaves at the first frost. We are warned that “the season of distress before us will require a faith that can endure weariness, delay, and hunger.”3

Were they ready for the crisis over the mark of the beast? Most of them were devout Sunday keepers, and when they later heard about the Sabbath, they refused to accept it. Even Sister Ellen was a Sunday keeper (and a pig eater too.), and even she resisted the Sabbath for a while after she first heard about it.

The Millerite Adventists loved Jesus and were spiritually alert. But we are reminded again that the seal of God, so unavoidably essential for victory in the final crisis, involves both intellectual and spiritual maturity. “It is not any seal or mark that can be seen,” wrote Ellen White, “but a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so they cannot be moved.”4

Those who will live successfully through earth's final events and see Jesus at His coming will know what they believe, feel what they believe, and do what they believe. We're not talking about mere Sabbath

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observance but genuine spiritual Sabbath keeping that sanctifies and purifies a person through and through. We're talking about people who actually “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12).

REFINER'S FIRE AND FULLERS' SOAP. Returning now to The Great Controversy, pages 424, 425, we read, “Says the prophet [Malachi]: ‘Who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth?’ ”

We may well ask, as I always do when I restudy this material, If those beautiful Millerite Adventists were not ready for the second coming, who will ever be ready? But wait! Still quoting Malachi 3, The Great Controversy continues, “ ‘For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap.’ ” Fullers' soap is used to clean dirty wool, not destroy it; and a “refiner's” fire is one that makes a metal better, not worse. Is there, perhaps, a promise here, intended to encourage us?

Indeed there is! The Great Controversy continues the quotation from Malachi 3: “ ‘And He

shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.’ ”

Remember that the “sons of Levi” were the priests, and in Christ Jesus we are all priests, all children of Levi. First Peter 2:9 says, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,” and Revelation 1:5, 6 reads, “To him who loves us … and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father.” In Malachi 3, the purification of the priests, the “sons of Levi,” is for us.

In giving us the third angel's message, about the mark of the beast and faith-in-Jesus commandment keeping, and by calling our attention to the “testimony of Jesus,” which is the “spirit of prophecy,” God intends to cleanse and purify us, if only we will cooperate. It is a part of His special work of purification.

WITHOUT A MEDIATOR. The Great Controversy, page 425, continues:

“Those who are living upon the earth when the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above are to stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator.”

Here is truly a challenge: “To stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator.” But let us not suppose it was made in order to frighten or threaten us. It is a simple statement off act. One of these days, inevitably, Jesus will come to the end of His work as High Priest. This news implies a

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marvelous promise. God would not think of leaving His true followers without a mediator for sin as long as they needed one. The implication is as obvious as the cross itself that the time is coming when God's true followers will not need a mediator for sin anymore.

“God's ideal for His children is higher than the highest human thought can reach. ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.’ This command is a promise. The plan of redemption contemplates our complete recovery from the power of Satan. Christ always separates the contrite soul fl-nm sin. He came to destroy the works of the devil, and He has made provision that the Holy Spirit shall be imparted to every repentant soul, to keep him from sinning."5

To “live in the sight of a holy God without a mediator” is a promise; but it is not a playful promise. It is one of those deeply spiritual concerns that we referred to at the beginning of this chapter.

Do we have any real idea what it means to live in the sight of a holy God without a mediator for sin?

On May 14, 1851, Ellen White, married and in her early twenties, had an experience that helped her understand what it means. “I saw the beauty and loveliness of Jesus,” she wrote later. “As I beheld His glory, the thought did not occur to me that I should ever be separated from His presence. I saw a light coming from the glory that encircled the Father, and as it approached near to me, my body trembled and shook like a leaf. I thought that if it should come near me I would be struck out of existence, but the light passed me. Then could I have some sense of the great and terrible God with whom we have to do. I saw then what faint views some have of the holiness of God. … I also saw that many do not realize what they must be in order to live in the sight of the Lord without a high priest in the sanctuary through the time of trouble.”

She added, “Those who receive the seal of the living God and are protected in the time of trouble must reflect the image of Jesus fully.”6

Here is beauty! To be as gracious as Jesus, as kind as Jesus, as sensitive, as dependable, as generous, as prompt to do the right thing! This is every sincere Christian's prayer. “Be like Jesus, this my song, in the home and in the throng; Be like Jesus all day long! I would be like Jesus.”7

But remember, it's a promise. “He shall purify the sons of Levi,” and, if we will, we are all “sons of Levi.”

THEY STILL HAVE JESUS! Does “without a mediator” mean that Christ's

true followers will be left during the time of trouble to wrestle with

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temptation on their own? No, no! Jesus will still be their Guard and Guide and Stay, still their Lord and King, still their Helper in the time of storm.

Does it mean that God's true followers will have to stand during the time of trouble without the aid of the Holy Spirit? On the contrary, they will be filled with the Holy Spirit. Before the time of trouble begins, the Holy Spirit will be poured out in its richness for the very purpose of enabling the saints to maintain their stand.8

Jesus has promised His true followers, “ ‘I will never fail you nor forsake you.’ ” Hence we can confidently say, “ ‘The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid’ ”(Hebrews 13:5, 6).

“At all times and in all places, in all sorrows and in all afflictions, when the outlook seems dark and the future perplexing, and we feel helpless and alone, the Comforter will be sent in answer to the prayer of faith. Circumstances may separate us from every earthly friend; but no circumstance, no distance, can separate us from the heavenly Comforter. Wherever we are, wherever we may go, He is always at our right hand to support, sustain, uphold, and cheer.”9

GRACE AND DILIGENT EFFORT. We haven't completed The Great

Controversy comments on Malachi 3:1-5. Our passage (424, 425) tells us still more about the preparation needed for the time when Christ's intercession ceases. “Their robes must be spotless, their characters must be purified from sin by the blood of sprinkling. Through the grace of God and their own diligent effort they must be conquerors in the battle with evil.”

Don't overlook that last sentence. “Through the grace of God and their own diligent effort they must be conquerors in the battle with evil.”

Some people feel a sharp conflict between the words “and their own diligent effort” and the concept of “grace alone.” They worry that if we talk about “diligent effort,” we run the risk of attempting salvation by works. But what do you make of the counsel?

The passage doesn't mention “works,” either good or bad. It mentions “effort.” Now, don't we all face two basic obligations, (1) to meet the debt of our sins and (2) to develop Christ-like characters? The first obligation, to meet the debt of our sins, is infinite. Our sin debt is so absolutely beyond our ability to pay that our only course is to turn it entirely over to Jesus, in humble, grateful faith.

But character development is something else, and we are talking here about growing into a character like the character of Jesus. If character

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development is to take place at all, it is bound, by the very nature of it, to involve our doing something. At the very least we must make choices, sometimes hard choices, choices that involve obedience. To be valid and effective, our choices must unavoidably be made with our hands in Christ's hand; but they simply have to be our choices, or they cannot result in character development.

Speaking to the students of Avondale College in Australia, in the long, narrow dining room that for a while was their only “church,” Sister White,10 sensing the presence of the Holy Spirit in unusual fullness, said, “The Lord does not propose to perform for us either the willing or the doing. This is our proper work. As soon as we earnestly enter upon the work, God's grace is given to work in us to will and to do, but never as a substitute for our effort. Our souls are to be aroused to cooperate.”11

Jesus taught us this. “ ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven’ ” (Matthew 7:21).

Hebrews 11 is rightly known as the faith chapter. Notice that by faith, Noah built an ark. By faith, Abraham left home for a strange country. By faith, Abraham laid Isaac on the altar. By faith, Moses gave up his prestigious position in Egypt. In every case the heroes and heroines of faith listed in Hebrews 11 obeyed by faith. Hebrews 11:7 specifically says (are you ready for this?) that it was by faithfully building the ark that Noah “became an heir of the righteousness which comes by faith.”

By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, took heed and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which comes by faith.

Let's be day-to-day practical. You pay tithe? You teach a Sabbath School class? You lead your family in sundown worship?

In doing these things, you express gratitude for the cross, and you pray earnestly for God's grace. But, tell me, who writes your tithe checks? Does an angel do it, or do you? Does the Holy Spirit take your place in front of your Sabbath School class, or do you have to stand there and teach? Does Jesus sit visibly in your living room for family worship?

Who takes your car back to the repairman, asking him to do the job a third time because he hasn't done it right the first two times? Who represents the beautiful character of Jesus to your harried, embarrassed mechanic?

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“By the grace of God, and their own diligent effort.” Yes, we do have apart to play, choices to make, choosing to cling to Jesus for support and stepping out to do the right thing.

READY AT LAST. We're approaching the end of the Great Controversy

comments on Malachi 3:1-5. “While the investigative judgment is going forward in heaven, while the sins of penitent believers are being removed from the sanctuary, there is to be a special work of purification, of putting away of sin, among God's people upon earth. This work is more clearly presented in the [three angels'] messages of Revelation 14.”

At the beginning of this chapter, we reminded ourselves of something that Leviticus 16:30 says about the high priest on the Day of Atonement: “For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.”

We come now to the end of our selected passage, The Great Controversy, pages 424, 425. It has a happy ending. “When this work shall have been accomplished, the followers of Christ will be ready for His appearing. ‘Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.’ Malachi 3:4. Then the church which our Lord at His coming is to receive to Himself will be a ‘glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.’ Ephesians 5:27.”

AN EARNEST APPEAL. We have been looking at one of the most spiritual

implications of 1844 for today, the need and opportunity to develop a well-informed, well-matured spirituality that far transcends even the beautiful spirituality of the best of the Millerite Adventists. It seems appropriate to close our chapter with an earnest appeal written by Ellen White in 1851 that is as fresh and urgent as if written today:

I saw that many were neglecting the preparation so needful and

were looking to the time of “refreshing” [Acts 3:19, 20] and the “latter rain” [Joel 2:28,29] to fit them to stand in the day of the Lord and to live in His sight. Oh, how many I saw in the time of trouble without a shelter! They had neglected the needful preparation; therefore they could not receive the refreshing that all must have to fit them to live in the sight of a holy God. … I saw that none could share the “refreshing” unless they obtain the victory over every besetment, over pride, selfishness, love of the world, and over every wrong word and action. We should, therefore, be drawing nearer and

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nearer to the Lord and be earnestly seeking that preparation necessary to enable us to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. Let all remember that God is holy and that none but holy beings can ever dwell in His presence.12 This end-time call to deep, sweet, victorious Christ-likeness is a major

part of the meaning of 1844, a major part of the magnificence that is implicit in the great disappointment.

1. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, 402,403. 2. Ellen G. White, Early Writings, 17. 3. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, 621. 4. Ellen G. White Comments in Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentay, 4:1161. 5. Ellen C. White, The Desire of Ages, 311, my italics. 6. Ellen C. White, Early Writings, 70, 71. 7. Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal, no.311. 8. See, e.g., Joel 2:28; Ellen G. White, Early Writings, 85; and Testimonies, 1:353. 9. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, 669, 670. 10. In her teens Ellen White was known as Sister Ellen and Sister Harmon.

After marriage, she was Mrs. White and Sister White. In her advanced years she was known affectionately as “Mother White.” Probably she was never known outside her family as Ellen White.

11. Ellen G. White, Testimonies to Ministers, 240. 12. Ellen G. White, Early Writings, 71, my italics.

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CHAPTER 10

INVESTIGATIVE JUDGMENT: GOOD NEWS OR BAD NEWS?

We have referred to the investigative judgment several times without

studying it in detail. But do we want to talk about the investigative judgment? If it's bad news,

we'd rather forget it. If it's good news, then OK. A moment of reflection will reveal that it must be both good news and

bad news. A friend of mine the other day thoughtfully misquoted Hebrews 9:27,

which is supposed to say, “It is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment.” My friend quoted it assaying, “It is appointed for men to die once, and after that – it's your decision.”

What he meant, of course, was that in the judgment, God's decision will be essentially our decision. After a manner of speaking, God in the judgment will “initial” the decisions we have already made. But do we need to worry about the heavenly documents that record our wrong decisions, provided we have made the one good decision, to accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour?

BAD NEWS FOR THE FORGIVEN DEBTOR. In the famous parable of the two

debtors, the man who owed his employer ten thousand talents was freely

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forgiven as soon as he showed that he was sorry. Unfortunately, no sooner had he left the office than he had a fellow employee, who owed him one hundred pence, thrown in jail. Seeing what happened, the other workers were greatly distressed and told their boss – who promptly summoned the forgiven debtor and said to him, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” Jesus closed the story by saying, “In anger his lord delivered him to the jailers [actually, the torturers], till he should pay all his debt.” Then Jesus drew the lesson for us: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (see Matthew 18:23-35).

Jesus told this story to illustrate His answer to Peter's question about forgiveness. Peter asked if he should forgive a brother seven times but Jesus said “seventy times seven.” Then He told the story of the two debtors.

Evidently God expects us to take His counsel seriously. When we ask forgiveness for the ten thousand-talent sins we commit against Him, He forgives us freely. But if afterward we refuse to forgive anybody's one hundred-penny sins against ourselves, He “unforgives” us.

In order to stay forgiven, we must remain forgivable; we must be forgiving. Our heavenly Father says so – for just as He is our Father, He is also the Father of the person we won't forgive. “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

One purpose of the investigative judgment has to do with people who say they love Jesus but who don't love people. Such “Christians” wouldn't make very nice neighbors to live with through eternity. We need to take this seriously, for “not everyone that says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

BAD NEWS FOR THE LITTLE HORN. This statement by Jesus about saying

“Lord, Lord” can serve to remind us that several times in this book we have quoted from Daniel 7 about the judgment and the arrival of the Son of man on the clouds, but that in doing so we have omitted verses 11 and 12, which are appropriate to our present study.

What do those two verses, Daniel 7:11 and 12, say to us? They say that in vision Daniel saw, as one result of the judgment, that the beast on which the little horn grew was to be “slain” and “burned with fire.” “As I looked,” says Daniel, “the beast was slain, and its body destroyed and given over

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to be burned with fire.” Obviously the investigative judgment was not good news for the beast

that grew the little horn. Now the beast that grew the little horn was “Rome” in its Christian

phase. We often speak of it as representing Roman Catholicism, that is, as representing Roman Catholicism at its worst without reference to the fine Catholic hospitals and social services. Daniel 7 is selective, showing the little horn persecuting God's people and attempting to change God's law. Very well, but don't forget that Roman Catholicism is Christian. It regards its highest earthly leader, the pope, as the highest earthly repre-sentative of Jesus Christ. Its most characteristic worship service, the mass, celebrates Christ's death. And a major purpose of its priesthood is to give people assurance in Christ's name that their confessed sins are forgiven.

This system that is called the “little horn” in Daniel is the same as the leopard-bodied “beast” of Revelation 13 that shares with people the “mark of the beast”; and people who get the mark of the beast, the third angel says, will experience “God's wrath” and be “tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb” (Revelation 14:9-11, KJV).

Let us not slip past this point lightly. Celebration of Christ's death for our sins, assurance that our sins are forgiven, claiming to be Christian, and living in fellowship with a topmost Christian are not alone sufficient to make the investigative judgment good news.

JUDGMENT AND KING DAVID. But didn't David think of judgment as

good news? Didn't be plead with God, in Psalm 7:8 and several other places, “Judge me, O Lord”? David would never have asked for judgment if he hadn't believed it was good news.

When David asked God to judge him, King Saul was threatening his life, and David was responding with extraordinary loyalty and forgiveness. David's actions harmonized with his faith; his conscience was clear and deserved to be. He knew God would vindicate him. And when the best time came, God did vindicate him.

But David didn't always think judgment was nice. We don't find him pleading with God to judge him immediately after he murdered Uriali and committed adultery with Bathsheba. And neither did Nathan the prophet come to give him gospel assurance.

Nathan the prophet came to David hoping that through repentance,

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David would seek gospel assurance. But, as we all know, Nathan first talked about a grossly sinful landlord and then, pointing his finger at David, declared, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7).

Does preaching judgment produce anxiety instead of assurance? Sometimes it goes. Anxiety was precisely what David needed at that moment. Producing anxiety is right if it leads to the kind of repentance we find David offering in Psalm 51. “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my Sin!” “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:2,10).

Preaching only judgment to people who have never heard the gospel can produce anxiety, discouragement, and legalism. But the first angel's message of Revelation 14:6, 7 is gospel and judgment joined together. “With an eternal gospel to proclaim … he said, … ‘The hour of his judgment has come.’ ”

The third angel's message warns us that if, even as Christians, we continue to follow the ways of the beast, we will get the mark of the beast and suffer God's wrath. The “saints” are those only who through faith in Jesus choose loyally to observe all of God's commandments (see Revelation 14:9-12).

The three angels' messages constitute a unified judgment-hour mes- sage that deals definitely with behavior – commandment keeping – as well as with fearing God and having faith in Jesus. Evidently, both belief and behavior must harmonize with God's will if Christians want the judgment to be good news. The gospel is not a method for filling heaven with unkind, insensitive, disloyal, selfish people. Well, is it? No! It is a way of giving people a second chance, their past sins forgiven, so they can accept the Spirit's power to be born again and follow Christ's example and by His grace become kind, sensitive, loyal, generous, and nice “two-table” neighbors for everyone else to enjoy throughout eternity. (I'll explain “two-table” in chapter 12.)

TYPE AND ANTITYPE. In the Old Testament, the annual day of judgment

was the same as the annual Day of Atonement, a fact that has much to teach us about good news and bad news.

In chapters 4 and 6 we looked at how Miller and Snow and Crosier and Edson and others recognized that the Day of Atonement type in the Old Testament was to be fulfilled in antitype in connection with last-day events. The ministry that Jesus started in 1844 is the antitype of the Old Testament Day of Atonement outlined in Leviticus 16 and 23.

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So what can we learn about good news and bad news from Leviticus 16 and 23?

Leviticus 16 outlines the day's activities for the high priest, most of which need not concern us at this moment, having more to do with the priest than with the people. But one verse we must not overlook. Leviticus 16:30 says, “On this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins you shall be clean before the Lord.” We looked at this promise in chapter 9.

On the Day of Atonement, the high priest performed rituals that symbolically cleansed the earthly sanctuary from the defiling sins that had been accumulating in it all year since the previous Day of Atonement. But the high priest did not cleanse only the sanctuary. He also cleansed the people from the sins that had been defiling them. He cleansed them from “all” their sins, our verse says, meaning evidently from all their different kinds of sins, sins of omission as well as commission, serious and casual, intentional and unintentional. Now that's good news without a doubt.

But there were conditions. For one thing, the cleansing was only for the people of God. People belonging to other tribes, close or far away, were not cleansed from their sins on the Day of Atonement. This means that everyone must accept Jesus as personal Saviour.

Another condition, even among God's people, was that the cleansing was restricted to individuals who responded to the command to “afflict yourselves”(Leviticus 23:27). To afflict yourself means to search your soul in solemn repentance and confession and to get busy making things right.1

The Lord said to Moses, “On the tenth day of this seventh month

is the day of atonement; it shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves. … For whoever is not afflicted on this same day shall be cut off from his people. And whoever does any work on this same day, that person I will destroy from among his people” (Leviticus 23:26-29). On this day the high priest, at the risk of his life, entered the most holy

place of the earthly sanctuary, where the presence of God was symbolized by an intensely bright light. There he sprinkled the blood of an animal on the mercy seat, located above the Ten Commandments, which the people had broken. The animal represented the life and death of Jesus. As the priest did this, the people outside were called on to feel the enormity of their sinfulness and to present their hearts before the Lord with intense

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earnestness, sincerely detesting their wrongful ways, apologizing to their neighbors for unkindnesses, and seeking the cleansing that God was eager to provide. The people who responded, who “afflicted” themselves, were cleansed from all their sins. Good news indeed!

But what about the people who chose not to afflict themselves? The same God who provided the Day of Atonement specifically said what would happen to such people. He said, “I will destroy them.”

We are surprised that anyone would be destroyed on a day of atonement. Atonement is at-one-ment and means “reconciliation.” The Day of Atonement was a day for the removal of all the sins that separate us from God (see Isaiah 59:2) and from our fellow humans. How could it be a day of judgment?

The Day of Atonement became a day of judgment for people who didn't care about being reconciled with God and neighbor, who preferred to go on sinning. For them, the day of reconciliation became, by their own choice, a day of destruction, of bad news.

Whether the day was one of reconciliation (atonement) or condemnation (judgment) was up to each individual. In a real sense, God placed His initials by each person's own decision.

GOOD NEWS IN THE GREAT CONTROVERSY. The chapter on “Investigative

Judgment” in The Great Controversy is based on the many parallels between the Day of Atonement type in the Old Testament and its antitype going on in heaven since 1844. For instance, as in the Bible type, so in the “great day of final atonement and investigative judgment the only cases considered are those of the professed people of God.”2

Some of the good-news passages in this Great Controversy chapter are deservedly famous. For instance, “The deepest interest manifested among men in the decisions of earthly tribunals but faintly represents the interest evinced in the heavenly courts when the names entered in the book of life come up in review before the Judge of all the earth.”3

And again, “Jesus does not excuse their sins, but shows their penitence and faith, and, claiming for them forgiveness, He lifts His wounded hands before the Father and the holy angels, saying: I know them by name. I have graven them on the palms of my hands.”4

The good news reaches a climax just before the close of probation: “Thus will be realized the complete fulfillment of the new-covenant

promise: ‘I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.’ ‘In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of lsrael

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shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found’ (1ercmiah 31:34; 50:20).”5

As in the type, so also in the antitype, the people who afflict their souls experience the removal of all their sins.

To this marvelous good news of forgiveness we can add additional good news about remembrance. That's right. Sins will be blotted out, but good deeds will be remembered. Malachi 3:16 talks about God's Book of Remembrance. “A book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and thought on his name.” The Great Controversy comments appropriately, “There every temptation resisted, every evil overcome, every word of tender pity expressed, is faithfully chronicled. And every act of sacrifice, every suffering and sorrow endured for Christ's sake, is recorded.”6

This Book of Remembrance is evidently one of the “books” (Daniel 7:10) that are open and read during the investigative judgment. In the Review for November 22, 1898, Ellen White wrote, “In his teachings, Christ sought to impress men with the certainty of the coming judgment, and with its publicity. … It is to be held in the presence of other worlds, that the love, the integrity, the service, of man for God, may be honored to the highest degree. There will be no lack of glory and honor.” Here is part of the magnificence of the great disappointment.

Picture a family, newly taken to heaven at the second coming, now wandering wide-eyed around New Jerusalem, after the welcoming ceremonies have been completed. While the family members are looking at a particularly impressive home or garden or park or whatever, they suddenly notice a small group of angels looking at them. The angels come over and introduce themselves. Then one of the angels says, “Aren't you our Brother So-and-so, who gave up buying a new home so you could have money enough to sponsor a child through church school? Aren't you our Sister So-and-so, who used to help older ladies find what they wanted at bargain sales before you took what you wanted? And aren't you Jimmy So-and-so, who often volunteered to do the dishes when you saw that your mother was tired?”

The family is pleased but embarrassed. They say, “Oh, but that was nothing. Look at what Jesus has done for us. And anyway, who told you we did those little things?”

The angels reply, “Jesus told us, when He came to your names in the investigative judgment. He told us a lot more besides. He seemed so proud of you. He said He wanted us angels to know what you'd done so we would

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feel really good about welcoming you here. And we are glad you've come.” The judgment “is to be held in the presence of other worlds, that the

love, the integrity, the service, of man for God, may be honored to the highest degree. There will be no lack of glory and honor.”

IMPORTANCE OF BEHAVIOR. If there is a wealth of good news in the

investigative judgment about forgiveness and the Book of Remembrance, we must still be honest with ourselves and admit there is some potentially bad news as well: “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil,” says Ecclesiastes 12:14.

Not simply every deed and every secret thing! Every word as well. Jesus Himself, our Judge, cautioned us in Matthew 12:36 that “in the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” And we cannot forget His warning about saying, “Lord, Lord,” without actually doing the will of His Father (see Matthew 7:21).

The Great Controversy is in harmony with Scripture when it says that every man’s work passes in review before God and is registered for faithfulness or unfaithfulness. Opposite each name in the books of heaven is entered with terrible exactness every wrong word, every selfish act, every unfulfilled duty, and every secret sin, with every artful dissembling.”7

“Artful dissembling” is an old-fashioned way of saying “skillful dishonesty,” like painting over the rust on your old car and telling people when you try to sell it that there isn't any rust.

The passage continues: “Heaven-sent warnings or reproofs neglected, wasted moments, unimproved opportunities, the influence exerted for good or for evil, with its far-reaching results, all are chronicled by the recording angel” (my emphasis).

Warnings and reproofs neglected. Doing our own thing heedless of our influence on others. Can things like these be forgiven? Yes; but only if we are serious, if we hate them, if we're in earnest, if we “afflict” ourselves and by Christ's sanctifying grace make real changes.

All who have truly repented of sin, and by faith claimed the blood

of Christ as their atoning sacrifice, have had pardon entered against their names in the books of heaven; [This part of the sentence is wonderful; but it goes on:] as they have become partakers of the righteousness of Christ, and their characters are found to be in harmony with the law of God, their sins will be blotted out, and they

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themselves will be accounted worthy of eternal life.8 There is that character concern again. Character is what we choose to be,

contrasted with what we merely want to be. By God's grace we can have our sins blotted out, provided we “afflict” ourselves; provided we are deeply committed to character development.

Let none deceive themselves with the belief that they can become

holy while willfully violating one of God's requirements. The commission of a known sin silences the witnessing voice of the Spirit, and separates the soul from God.9 “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,

and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he does not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). The Day of Atonement (day of reconciliation) is a day for removing the sins that separate. But how can God forgive sins that we don't confess? How can He blot out sins that we choose to go on committing? Sins separate; they do not “at-one” us with others.

What sins? You say you are not like the little horn. You don't persecute people, and you haven't tried to change God's law.

No; but then, maybe you never had a chance to be pope. And maybe, in your own sphere you like to gossip, grossly undermin-

ing people's reputations. Maybe you get easily angry with your spouse or children and in this way “persecute” them. Maybe – dare I suggest it? – you sometimes criticize people sharply who won't read books about 1844, like this one.

Or perhaps you keep the law about the Sabbath but change the law against adultery, making it seem all right for you to enjoy lustful videos. Or maybe you change the laws about honesty and cheat on your income tax.

You haven't committed adultery and murder like David; but have you deeply enjoyed, been entertained by, adultery and murder hour after hour on your silver screen?

Sin need not keep any one of us out of heaven. The entire plan of salvation is designed to take care of sins that could keep us out of heaven. But even one sin can keep us out. If we choose to cling to a single known sin, it will destroy us.

IMPORTANCE OF ATTITUDE. Sin has to do with attitude as well as with

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behavior. Jesus summed up the law as supreme love to God and humanity (see Matthew 22:37-39), and love is ultimately an attitude. On this Day of Atonement, if our attitude (love) is right, we'll do all we can to be at one with both God and neighbor. If we choose instead to hold onto any kind of known sin, we show that our attitude is wrong. Cherishing even a single sin reveals a perilously warped attitude.

The ten thousand-talent debtor was sorry for his sin against his employer, but he had a very bad attitude toward his one hundred-penny fellow worker. He thereby disqualified himself from the happy society of heaven. The fact that the pre-advent judgment will keep out of heaven selfish people who would spoil the happiness of everyone else is bad news for selfish people but very good news for God's people. It is part of the magnificence of the great disappointment.

Mothers find it easy to forgive boys who steal a cookie from the cookie jar; but what about the boy who grabs a cookie away from his little brother and does it again, day after day? Can the mother forgive big brother Bobby without first requiring him to apologize to little brother Billy and make things right? If Mother doesn't require Bobby to apologize and make things right, what will Billy learn about his mother? And will their mother be preparing either boy for the happy society of heaven? Even one sinful habit, one forgivable little sinful habit, cherished against God or man, destroys us, makes us unfit for eternity.

It is a perilous thing to allow an unchristian trait to live in the

heart. One cherished sin will, little by little, debase the character, bringing all its nobler powers into subjection to the evil desire. The removal of one safeguard from the conscience, the indulgence of one evil habit, one neglect of the high claims of duty, breaks down the defenses of the soul and opens the way for Satan to come in and lead us astray.10 The three angels' messages combine gospel, judgment, and command-

ment keeping. What God has joined together, let no one put asunder. DAY OF ATONEMENT APPEALS. The potential for joy and for sorrow in

connection with heaven's Day of Atonement, day of judgment, is so immense that we owe it to ourselves as well as to our Saviour to pay earnest attention to His loving appeals.

“We are now living in the great day of atonement,” says a solemn

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passage in The Great Controversy.11 “In the typical service, while the high priest was making the atonement for Israel, all were required to afflict their souls by repentance of sin and humiliation before the Lord, lest they be cut off from among the people. In like manner, all who would have their names retained in the book of life should now, in the few remaining days of their probation, afflict their souls before God by sorrow for sin and true repentance. There must be deep, faithful searching of heart. The light, frivolous spirit indulged by so many professed Christians must be put away. There is earnest warfare before all who would subdue the evil tendencies that strive for the mastery. The work of preparation is an individual work. We are not saved in groups. The purity and devotion of one will not offset the want of these qualities in another.”

How sad that in Bible times some people, through sheer neglect chose to deprive themselves of the joys of at-one-ment. How sad to think that in the last days anyone will be lost because he or she doesn't care.

The chapter in The Great Controversy that we've been following closes with these words:12

“Watch ye therefore: … lest coming suddenly He find you

sleeping.” Mark 13:35,36. Perilous is the condition of those who, growing weary of their watch, turn to the attractions of the world. While the man of business is absorbed in the pursuit of gain, while the pleasure lover is seeking indulgence, while the daughter of fashion is arranging her adornments – it may be in that hour the Judge of all the earth will pronounce the sentence: “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” Daniel 5:27. Let us, both you and me, reread the Great Controversy chapter on the

investigative judgment from time to time. Maybe this coming Sabbath or even right now. Let us not overlook the bad news. We may especially need it. And let us not overlook any of the good news either.

For 1844 is both bad news for those who don't choose to become Christ-like and very good news for those who do.

1. See Ezekiel 33:15, 16, “If the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he

has taken by robbery, and walks in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of the sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him.”

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2. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, 480. 3. Ibid., 483, 484. 4. Ibid., 484. 5. Ibid., 485. 6. Ibid., 481. 7. Ibid., 482. 8. See ibid., 485, my italics. 9. Ibid., 472. 10. Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, 452. 11. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, 489, 490. 12. Ibid., 491.

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CHAPTER 11

1844 AND WORSHIP

It is time to look at the difference 1844 can make in the way we

worship. Does 1844 really say something about worship? Yes, indeed! The first angel's message, the one that deals with the arrival of the

judgment hour in 1844, tells the whole world to “worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water” (Revelation 14:7).

The third angel's message, the one that contrasts the mark of the beast with commandment keeping, also deals with worship. It warns the whole world that “if any one worships the beast and its image, … he also shall drink the wine of God's wrath” (Revelation 14:9, 10).

Very well; but what really is worship? WHAT IS WORSHIP? Literally, the word comes from “worth-ship” – our

response to another person's worth. So, how should we respond to God's “worth,” His unlimited authority, His unspeakable purity, and His incomprehensible love?

Humility suggests itself! Who are we, in the presence of such a Being? Disgust also suggests itself, disgust with our ugly impurities. But in view of God's unfathomable love, worship also suggests reaching out for

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forgiveness and a passionate longing to belong to such a wonderful Person and to do anything He might ask.

The Bible describes a worship experience like this in the life of Isaiah the prophet, when he was young (see Isaiah 6). In vision Isaiah saw God on His throne surrounded by heavenly beings singing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:3). At once Isaiah felt humbled and embarrassed. In his distress he cried, “Woe is me … for I am a man of unclean lips” (verse 5). To his great relief, an angel in the vision came with a burning coal from the altar and touched his lips, cleansing him.

Ready now for anything God might ask, Isaiah heard a voice calling for a volunteer: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah immediately responded, “Here am I; send me.” Thereupon an angel gave him instructions so he might truly do what God wanted, warning him not to be discouraged if people didn't respond.

Praise (by the angels). Humility (by Isaiah). Confession. Forgiveness. Dedication. Attention to God's instructions.

Worship! Worship is our response to what God is worth. It is humbling ourselves

before God's authority, repenting in the presence of His purity, praising Him for His goodness, dedicating ourselves obediently to His service, and listening carefully to learn how we can serve Him best.

But we're not quite through. Because Isaiah didn't happen to ask God for anything on this famous occasion, we have overlooked the matter of “praying for” things, or supplication. But in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus taught us to ask for things, even for so mundane but necessary a thing as our daily bread.

But judgment is going on in the place where Jesus is our Mediator. To come to God asking for something while clinging to known sin would be mockery. To say, “Lord, Lord” – or to sing, “Lord, Lord” – will not get us into the kingdom unless we do the Father's will (see Matthew 7:21). To come to God even while repenting requires a mediator. “No one comes to the Father, but by me,” Jesus said in John 14:6. “The religious services, the prayers, the praise, the penitent confession of sin ascend from true believers as incense to the heavenly sanctuary, but passing through the corrupt channels of humanity, they are so defiled that unless purified by blood, they can never be of value with God. … All incense from earthly tabernacles must be moist with the cleansing drops of the blood of Christ.”1

So worship is humility, confession, praise, supplication, dedication,

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learning how to obey, and above all, obedience to Jesus. Worship is our response to God's “worth.”

GOD WORSHIP, BEAST WORSHIP. As we noted a moment ago, the three

angels' messages contrast the worship of God with the worship of the beast, the entity represented by the little horn in Daniel 7, which is sentenced to destruction by the investigative judgment.

Seventh-day Adventists learned long ago from the Bible that the beast symbolizes a fallen religion that combines many good things with many bad ones. The beast replaces one or more of God's commandments with decrees of its own. When conditions are favorable, the beast even tries to enforce its wrongful decrees. The mark of the beast, the beast's essential character, is the coercive enforcement of a form of the Ten Command-ments that consciously differs from God's original form. People who receive the mark of the beast knowingly, in the name of religion, disobey one or more of God's commandments. They show that the beast is worth more to them than God. In disobeying God, they worship the beast.

On the other hand, God's true saints, according to the third angel's message, obey His commandments, clinging to the Lord, being “those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12). These are the people who respond to the first angel's call to “worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of waters.” This means that they remember to keep the Sabbath holy, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day” (Exodus 20:11). God is worth so much to them that they obey Him at any cost to themselves. They worship God and give glory to Him.

WORSHIP AS OBEDIENCE. Worship is far more than celebration and

praise, in spite of the popular emphasis on these features today. Worship involves praise, but at its root, worship is obedience. The distinction between worshiping God and worshiping the beast lies in our choice of which entity we choose to obey.

Seventh-day Adventists have long realized that obedience is the core of true worship. Educator W. W. Prescott, in his gloriously Christ-centered booklet Christ and the Sabbath, said a century ago (1893), “The highest form of worship is in obedience.” Similarly, Ellen White in 1911 observed that “there is no other way of manifesting reverence so pleasing to Him as by obedience to that which He has spoken."2 On another occasion she

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said, “It is working together with Christ that is true worship. Prayers, exhortation, and talk are cheap fruits, which are frequently tied on; but fruits that are manifested in good works, in caring for the needy, the fatherless, and widows, are genuine fruits, and grow naturally upon a good tree."3

Through its intimate relationship with the three angels' messages, 1844 teaches us that worship is far more than singing hymns, far more than anything we do in church. As a true response to God's worth, true worship can be nothing less than a lifestyle of praise, repentance, learning, and obedience. Without a born-again change in our basic attitudes, singing praise is actually repugnant to God! “Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” (Amos 5:23, 24). “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

We've been talking about worship as transformed lifestyle. Now we need to talk about worship as a meeting or a church service. So we ask if 1844 says anything about how to conduct a worship service.

CHURCH AND/OR MOVEMENT. To answer the question of whether 1844

can teach us something about Seventh-day Adventist worship services, we really need to reflect on what sort of an organization Seventh-day Adventists are supposed to constitute.

I think we know what kind of organization we are not supposed to be. We are not supposed to be a mere social club. Nor are we supposed to be a sort of entertainment syndicate offering religious concerts.

Our pioneers early recognized that we constitute a church, but even so, they didn't see themselves as constituting a church in the ordinary sense of the term. They much preferred to think in terms of a movement. They saw themselves as a movement symbolized by those three angels of Revelation 14:6-12, going somewhere, “flying in midheaven,” proclaiming a message.

J. N. Loughborough, lifetime pioneer, titled his 1905 history The Great Second Advent Movement. WA. Spicer, for eight years a beloved General Conference president, in 1929 put out his Certainties of the Advent Movement. As late as 1968, the Review and Herald Publishing Association issued a revision of Emma Howell Cooper's The Great Advent Movement. In the preface to his major work, Origin and Progress of

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Seventh-day Adventists (1925), M. Ellsworth Olsen expressly stated that he was writing about a “religious movement rather than. … a denomina-tion.”

What is a movement? According to my Webster's, whereas a church is “a body of religious believers,” a movement is “an organized effort to promote or attain an end [or goal],” such as the civil rights movement. The end, or goal, of the Seventh-day Adventist movement is the fulfillment of the three angels of Revelation 14:6-12, carrying their messages into all the world and producing, under God, men and women who actually keep God's commandments, including the commandments about the Sabbath and about loving God supremely and our neighbors as ourselves.

Membership in many denominations is achieved by infant baptism, before a person knows what is happening. Membership in a movement is always voluntary. Membership in many churches is nominal, requiring little if any commitment. Membership in a movement always implies commitment. Membership in some churches implies little more than participation in ceremonies and attention to routine sermons. Membership in a religious movement implies active participation in the spreading of the movement's message, and this implies thoroughgoing instruction in the content and meaning of its message.

WORSHIP SERVICE IN A MOVEMENT. If Seventh-day Adventists are indeed

a movement, we need to ask what kind of worship service is most appropriate for us.

Isaiah's experience can help provide a basic pattern. A true worship service appropriately begins with a hymn of praise (like

the angels' song “Holy, holy, holy,” in Isaiah's vision), lifting people's attention to God's power, holiness, and love. The hymn should be sung “with the spirit and. … with the mind,” as 1 Corinthians 14:15 teaches us. (I enjoy leading hymns, getting the organist and people to put life into them.) Their awareness of God reawakened, the people kneel reverently and confess, with Isaiah, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips.” Forgiven at once, like Isaiah, they accept forgiveness and do something that Isaiah isn't said to have done but that Jesus in the Lord's Prayer and Hebrews 4:16 invite us to do, “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace” to supplicate, to make petitions to the all-powerful, all-loving One.

So far, the worship service in a movement is little different from a service appropriate for an ordinary thoughtful church. A significant

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difference, however, comes with the sermon. In his sermon, a minister in the Seventh-day Adventist movement teaches his people clearly and impellingly some particular facet of truth related to God's special message for the list days – the everlasting gospel plus the judgment plus the fall of popular religions plus the danger of the mark of the beast plus faith-filled, Christ-centered commandment keeping. The minister preaches earnestly, as if the Seventh-day Adventist message mattered, for eternal life or eternal death.

The minister should begin as if he knew he was bearing a message

from God. He should make the essential truth as distinct as mileposts, so that people cannot fail to see them.4 His burden is to teach the message so well that his people will actually

do what the Bible says and be able to tell others about it. In response, the people dedicate themselves to remember what their pastor taught, to do it, and to share it. They also report on how God helped them make use of last week's sermon.

The greatest help that can be given our people is to teach them

to work for God, and to depend on Him, not on the minis- ters. … Let church members, during the week, act their part faithfully, and on the Sabbath relate their experience. The meeting will then be as meat in due season, bringing to all present new life and fresh vigor.5 We have looked at the basics of a Seventh-day Adventist worship

service; but there is more. ENCOURAGING ONE ANOTHER. Hebrews 10:24,25 says, “Let us consider

how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

The “Day” referred to here is the great day, the day of Christ's second coming. In view of 1844, we know that this day is far nearer now than it was in Paul's day. So what are we to do as we “see the Day drawing near”?

The Bible says we are not to forsake meeting together, even though other church members may be negligent (“as is the habit of some”). We are to meet together faithfully. For what purpose? To “stir up one another

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to love and good works,” “encouraging one another,” or, as Elder Spicer used to say, “cheering the brethren on.”6

This instruction in Hebrews 10:24, 25 shows that even in New Testament times people were staying home from church and that even many of those who went to church needed encouragement. You have a role to fill here.

Does your church seem cold? Warm it up! Does it seem dead? Put life into it! Do church members seem not to want you? Never mind! You didn't

join a club. You committed yourself to a movement with a message. You are as much a member of the movement as anyone else. The Bible says to you, “Stir up one another to love and good works,” “encouraging one another.”

But you are timid. May the God who made us all different bless you and turn your timidity

into a spiritual gift. Scan your congregation for some other timid soul, sitting alone. Gently, softly, smile and ask his name, or hers, and try to share cheer and courage in little ways at first. Sooner or later, your need for a friend will be met by meeting that person's need for a friend.

So part of our time on Sabbath should be devoted to sharing encouragement. Informally, this can be done as you arrive and leave; more formally, it can be done during Sabbath School, the announcement time, and after a short sermon. “The sermon should frequently be short, so that the people may express their thanksgiving to God.”7

“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Sharing encouragement is not optional. God calls us to it. Doing it is part of keeping God's commandments. Even more, sharing our testimony, when done through faith in Jesus and with a sense of total commitment, is one of God's ways to meet our need for self-control and victory! Revelation 12:11 says of the saints of all ages, “They have conquered him [the devil] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”

True Seventh-day Adventist worship focuses attention on God in His holiness, love, and power, to which we respond with humility, confession, gratitude, supplication, attention to His end-time instruction, and especially obedience, a part of which obedience involves encouraging the people around us.

WORSHIP AND BABYLON. In contrast to the true kind of worship service

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that we have been talking about, the services in some denominations occupy much time with relatively superficial songs accompanied by rhythmic clapping and noisy music. Some of these churches offer an almost exclusive emphasis on meeting people's felt needs and on talking assurance and joy. They appeal to people's emotions more than to their reasoning powers. They announce, perform, and applaud musical numbers as if the service were a concert.

Is it true that people today won't sing the grand hymns that have endured the test of time? One of the most popular religious songs today, in season, is “Silent Night.” It was composed on a Christmas Eve in 1818, more than 170 years ago. Perhaps the most popular hymn today is “Amazing Grace.” It was written in 1779, well over two hundred years ago.

People young and old like to sing songs they know or are taught in a friendly, enthusiastic manner, no matter how old the songs are. The grade schoolers in the small congregation I belong to once sang “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee” to the tune of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony8 by memory and with evident relish.9

People who like to clap a lot in church often quote Psalm 47:1. However, there are more than 140 other references to singers and singing in the Bible. More than one hundred and forty! Only this one, Psalm 47:1, suggests that people might clap in connection with their music. Clapping was evidently very rare among ancient Jewish people. It is nowhere commended in the New Testament. We have no information that it will be practiced in heaven. We don't even know the way the ancient Jews clapped or what the clapping meant to them.

The normal response to Scripture reading and words of praise in Bible times was “Amen.” Instruction to say Amen occurs several times in the Psalms (as in 41:13; 72:19; 89:52; 106:48). Deuteronomy 27 contains twelve injunctions to “let all the people say Amen.” And 1 Corinthians 14:16 reveals that saying Amen was practiced in the New Testament church.

Second-century Christians used Amen. In chapter 65 of his Apology, Justin Martyr told government authorities that “when he [the worship leader] has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people express their assent by saying Amen.”

Most impressive to me is the fact that Amen is the response of choice among those beings privileged to worship God face to face. At the conclusion of the magnificent universal anthem that John witnessed in

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Revelation 5, the four living creature – the beings closest of all to God Himself – responded reverently by saying Amen (see Revelation 5:14; compare 19:4).

Saying a reverent Amen means, “Yes, that is true,” or “May God make that promise come true.” Amen is a confirmation of a message. It is not a form of applause. In my study of the Bible, I find no place for applause in a worship service. Applause is a secular response, and worship is spiritual. Applause encourages preachers and musicians to be ever more superficial and entertaining, whereas the hushed and reverent Amen encourages them to be ever more penetrating and spiritual.

WHAT IS MISSING? In some places, the emotional worship forms we have

just been discussing have been brought into Seventh-day Adventist worship services. Is this good or bad?

Whatever may be said about clapping, noisy music, and the choice of songs, the most worrisome aspect of these program innovations to me is what is missing from them. All too often, what is missing, even when practiced in Seventh-day Adventist churches, is the three angels' mes-sages.

Missing also, in many instances, is a conviction that Seventh-day Adventism is a unique end-time movement with a unique end-time message. Missing is any ambient sense that the final judgment is in session and that everyone everywhere, including everyone in the congregation, is obliged by God to keep the Sabbath, to keep it holy, all of it, from sundown to sundown, or be lost. Almost missing are calls for deep-seated repentance of popular sins and for ongoing sanctification. Almost missing is the promise of total victory. Almost missing are attempts to stir people up by referring to their unfelt needs.

The sure result of attempting to bolster attendance by appealing primarily to emotions would be destruction of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, for without emphasis on its end-time message, this movement has no right to exist.

Popular revivals are too often carried by appeals to the

imagination, by exciting the emotions, by gratifying the love for what is new and startling. Converts thus gained have little desire to listen to Bible truth, little interest in the testimony of prophets and apostles. Unless a religious service has something of a sensational character, it has no attractions for them. A message which appeals to

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unimpassioned reason awakens no response. The plain warnings of God's word, relating directly to their eternal interests, are unheeded.10 OUR HERITAGE. Adventist pioneers, who, under God, launched our

movement by proclaiming its message, knew that artificially stimulated emotions have no rightful place in worship service.

For example, in the days when William Miller preached the first angel's message, his preaching contrasted strikingly with that of most other revivalists. Most evangelistic preaching was flamboyant, teeming with graphic word pictures and emotional illustrations. But Miller and his leading associates presented cerebral messages combined with spiritual appeals that required careful analysis of complex Bible prophecies, thereby setting the format that Seventh-day Adventist evangelists have emulated ever since. Miller became deeply concerned when he heard a rumor that in some Millerite meetings people were shouting “Bless the Lord” and similar slogans. When Joshua V. Himes, Miller's administrative associate, rebuked people who were indulging in “bodily manifestations,” someone accused him of throwing cold water on the Holy Spirit. Himes replied that he would throw the Atlantic Ocean on such behavior before he would let it continue.11

In chapter 4, we read about the “seventh month movement,” the eager response of the Millerite Adventists to the “true midnight cry” that Jesus was coming on the tenth day of the seventh month. Far from producing fanaticism, the message of Christ's soon return and the nearness of the judgment hour produced a rich quality of repentance which in its turn led to unspeakably sweet assurance.

“Language cannot describe the solemnity of that hour,” wrote James White at the conclusion of the Exeter, New Hampshire, camp meeting when the new light was first presented. “The time for shouting, and display of talent in speaking, singing and praying seemed to be past. The brethren and sisters calmly consecrated themselves and their all to the Lord and his cause, and with humble prayers and tears sought his pardon and his favor.”12

Of another series of meetings shortly afterward in Orrington, Maine, Elder White wrote, “There was no more heard the irreverent shout of the fanatic, nor the heartless prayer of the formalist.” Instead, “sins were confessed with tears, and there was a general breaking down before God, and strong pleadings for pardon, and a fitness to meet the Lord at his

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coming.” Before the meetings closed, hundreds testified with tears ofjoy that they had sought the Lord and found Him and had tasted the sweets of sins forgiven.13

Here is the way to joy and assurance! Believe the first angel's message! Not by preaching the gospel alone but by preaching it in the setting of the judgment hour, the way God commissioned us.

Ten years after the great disappointment, that is, in 1854, some non-Sabbath-keeping Adventists got excited over the mistaken idea that Christ was coming back within that year, 1854. He didn't come; and some time later, some of these Adventists accepted the Sabbath – and began creating trouble. They wanted constantly to relive the emotional highs they had experienced back in the 1854 expectancy.

In 1863, Ellen White's attention was directed to these excitement-hungry Seventh-day Adventists, and what she said about them is instructive for us today: “Some are nor satisfied with a meeting unless they have a powerful and happy time. They work for this, and get up an excitement of feeling.”14 Disagreeing, she said, “The most profitable meetings for spiritual advancement are those which are characterized with solemnity and deep searching of heart.”15

It is part of our heritage. WORSHIP AND 1844. True worship has always involved humility, confes-

sion, praise, supplication, dedication, and instruction. But since 1844, heightened emphasis on repentance, obedience, Sabbath keeping, and victorious, loving preparation to see God face to face has become essential.

1844 tells us that Jesus has moved into the most holy place to commence the final judgment, to vindicate His downtrodden saints of all ages, to teach the living about the Sabbath and holiness and Himself, and to call everyone to repent so their sins can be overcome and blotted out.

Jesus is working for us; He is our Friend. But He isn't playing church, so it isn't good enough for us to play church. On this great day of atonement, the joy of assurance is reserved for those who afflict their souls. Our lifestyle response should be faith-filled, Christ-centered, loving obedience. Our Sabbath-morning response should be regular church attendance, sharing encouragement, learning our duty, and showing reverence and repentance as well as joy and peace.

1844, with its magnificent disappointment, has many implications for the way we worship.

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1 Selected Mcssages, 2:344. 2. Ellen G. White, Counsels to Teachers, 111. 3. Ellen G. White, Testimonies, 2:24. 4. Ellen G. White, Gospel Workers, 168. 5. Ellen G. White, Testimonies, 7:19. 6. See Godfrey Anderson, Spicer: Leader With the Common Touch (Washington,

D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1983), 56, 82, 83. 7. Ellen G. White, Gospel Workers, 171. 8. The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal, no.12. 9. The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal contains a three-column index of hymns that

young people are known to enjoy singing! 10. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, 463. 11. See Francis D. Nichol, The Midnight Cry, 308,309,481-484 (Miller's italics). 12. James White, Life Incidents (Battle Creek, 1868), 166 (my italics). 13. Ibid., 167 (my italics). 14. Ellen G. White, Testimonies, 1:412. 15. Ibid.

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CHAPTER 12

1844 AND BEING LIKE JESUS

The Adventist movement grew out of William Miller's discovery that

Jesus was his friend. “The Scriptures became my delight,” he wrote, “and in Jesus I found a friend.”

The Millerite Adventist movement was a preparation to meet Jesus. The people “longed to behold Him whom their souls loved.”1 Because they loved Jesus and longed to see Him, they sought earnestly to pattern their lives after His.

As we start this chapter on “1844 and Being Like Jesus,” I cannot keep from telling you that for at least forty years I have cherished the following famous passage in Christ's Object Lessons:

Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of

Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own.2 This passage used to be a favorite of virtually all the Seventh-day

Adventists I knew. If you were an Adventist back, say, in the 1950s, I expect you also enjoyed it then. If you were indeed an Adventist in the

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1950s, you probably still enjoy it. No one need be alarmed by the term perfectly reproduced It is not

describing a fanatical perfection. It is certainly not defending that grossly false concept of perfectionism that perversely excuses immorality. No, no. It is talking about the perfection of our dear friend Jesus! It says, “Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church,” and goes on to say, “When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own.”

Be like Jesus, this my song, In the home and in the throng; Be like Jesus, all day long! I would be like Jesus. Can you think of anything in the entire universe that you would rather

be, all day long, than like Jesus? If you love Him – and I believe you do love Him – I know you want to be like Him. And Jesus wants us to be like Him! “Jesus is waiting with longing desire, for the manifestation of Himself in His church.”

I make no secret of it. I am enthusiastic in my desire, by Cod's mercy, to be part of that final generation that some Adventists talk about. If everyone in it is going to be like Jesus, doesn't this mean that they are all going to be nice? Who wouldn't want to be part of a big bunch of nice people?

WAYS IN WHICH JESIIS WAS NICE. Jesus was nice, wasn't He? He wasn't

wimpy nice, to be sure. His was niceness with guts. He had the gift of constructive confrontation. One night He dated tell an important man like Nicodemus that even he needed to be born again! He said it in such a way that Nicodemus came to love Him for it. Another time, Jesus had the honest courage to tell a group of leading ministers, to their faces in public, that they were hypocrites. But He told them with the voice of a man who was offering to be executed in their place before the week was out.

Jesus did niceness. He spent time with people, traveled distances to help them, and went without things so He could be generous. Instead of getting cross with awkward people, He was patient and encouraged them.

Jesus was polite, courteous, and thoughtful. He was kind. Completely

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honest. Prompt to do the right thing. Unafraid to stand up for others. Absolutely fair. At the same time, He was a true Sabbath keeper, for He was “two-table nice.”

In chapter 10 I promised a definition of “two-table.” Here it is. It means adhering to both tables of the law, the first four commandments about obeying God written on one table (or tablet of stone) and on the other table the other six commandments about how to treat people. Jesus summarized the two tables as two core commandments when He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

Some people who aren't religious pride themselves on being polite and honest. Other people who are rude and discourteous pride themselves on being very religious. Neither is better than the other. The enemy of our souls doesn't mind which table of the law we emphasize, provided we neglect the other one.

Jesus was both courteous and religious. He was “two-table” nice. He honored both tables of the law, the one about loving God with our heart, soul, and strength, and also the one about loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Because God teaches us to love one another, Christ's total loyalty to His heavenly Father made Him completely unselfish. He was two-table nice. Good and nice. Even the onlooking angels, accustomed to having one another be good and nice for thousands of years, were astonished at Christ's supernatural goodness and niceness.

Jesus is waiting with longing desire for the reproduction of Himself in His church!

Please don't cheat yourself by saying it can't be done. Christ's character qualifications are listed as the “fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22, 23. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” These characteristics develop in people who are “born of … the Spirit” (1ohn 3:5). People who are born of the Spirit experience not merely an improvement on their old ways, marvelous as that would be, but also a transformation of nature (see Romans 12:2). “The Christian’s life is not a modification or improvement of the old, but a transformation of nature. There is a death to self and sin, and a new life altogether. This change can be brought about only by the

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effectual working of the Holy Spirit.”3 You were born with a sinful nature. You know this. Now please don't

hang on to your sinful nature as if you were proud of it. Get a new nature! Get born from above, born of the Holy Spirit, who is as divine as God Himself. Become a partaker of the divine nature.

In daily terms: When you and I are treating people wrong, it does little good to pray that we won't get irritated with them anymore or say mean things. What we need is to choose, by God's grace, to have an entirely new attitude toward the people. We need a new birth on this point, a transformation of nature.

When we find that we are selfishly indulging ourselves, it does only a little good to pray for self-control. What we need is, by God's grace, to receive an entirely new attitude toward our idol. We need anew birth on this point, a transformation of nature. If the Sabbath seems inconvenient or too long or dull, let us go to God and ask for a new attitude, a new birth in respect to Sabbath keeping, a transformation of nature.

In the final analysis, choosing a new attitude by faith is the only way any of us can be among those triumphant saints who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12). Happily, helping people make this choice is the special procedure that the Holy Spirit is dedicated to. The Spirit comes to us as the principal divine Agent in the process of sanctification, the process of becoming Christ-like, of becoming nice, with guts.

“Christ is waiting with longing desire for the reproduction of Himself in His church.” Don't say He will have to wait forever! I know better. First John 3: says, “When he shall appear, we shall be like him”! It's a Bible promise. “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him.”

Our passage in Christ's Object Lessons is also a promise. “When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own.”

1844 AND THE FINAL GENEFATION. A few pages I used the term final

generation. It's a term that seemed to be used by all the Seventh-day Adventists I knew in my boyhood and in academy and college The final generation would be made up of the people in whom Christ's character was to be perfectly reproduced. In the 1960s the concept of a final generation began to fall out of fashion in some quarters, though it's coming back in again, I understand. The reason it was given up, as I

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remember, was that some Bible teachers said that God would never require more of one generation in human history than of any other generation.

We can all agree that in a very basic sense, God will not require more of the final generation than of any other. Christ's most basic standard in every generation has been that we love God with all our heart, mind, and strength and our neighbors as ourselves. We quoted the passage a couple pages ago. Such a standard is in one sense a limited one. It is limited to what our emotions, our mind, and our health are capable of. God does not ask us to give Him the quantity of devotion expressed, say, by the four living creatures of Revelation, who are able to praise Him without ceasing day and night (see Revelation 4:8); He knows that we need to sleep and eat and earn a living.

So, yes, the basic standard of loyalty is a limited one. God takes into consideration our frailties. “He knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). What He really wants in every generation is integrity, single-minded loyalty, honesty free of all hypocrisy.

Precisely because this basic character requirement of honesty and integrity is related to our capability, it varies according to our time and place. Inevitably. God does not ask of us today what He asked of Noah- to spend 120 years building an ark. We aren't facing a worldwide flood, and we don't live for 120 years. In our time and place, God is asking us to prepare for the crisis facing our generation, the unleashing of Satan in the most deceptive role he has ever filled.

Remember Christ's warning that “everyone to whom much is given, of him will much be required” (Luke 12:48). Here is the integrity principle again, living honestly in harmony with our possibilities. In this case, it means living honestly in harmony with the amount of light we have.

And how much light we do have! Several Bibles in many Seventh-day Adventist homes – and, since 1844, an understanding of fulfilled prophecy such as no generation has had before; and since 1844, light on the Sabbath question such as no generation has had before this side of the cross; and since 1844, the inspired writings of Ellen White, occupying several times as many pages as the Bible itself.

Does God require more of the final generation than of any other? No, not if you mean integrity, living honestly in harmony with all available light. But, yes, indeed, He does require more of us in the sense that we have received more light than any previous generation.

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If you and I are to qualify for membership among the end-time saints who keep the commandments holding onto Jesus, then, yes, more is expected of us than those who have lived before.

1844 AND ELLEN C. WHITE. Earlier I mentioned as part of our end-time

light the inspired writings of Ellen White. Please do join me in looking at the ministry of Ellen White as one of the means Jesus has chosen to help us develop a character like Christ's and to know better what it means to be holy, loyal, and nice in the Christ-like sense. The saints in the third angel's message who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” show up in Revelation 12:17 as the “remnant” who “keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus. “4 Revelation 19:10, as every well-informed Adventist knows, defines the “testimony of Jesus” as the “spirit of prophecy.”

The Spirit of Prophecy as manifested in these last days through Ellen White is the “testimony of Jesus.” It is a series of communications from Christ Himself, our High Priest in the most holy place, the One who is blotting out sins and revealing to the world the radiant glory of true Sabbath observance.

It is no mere coincidence that Ellen White's first vision came in December 1844. It came right after the great disappointment and bore a communication about the disappointment. It taught, you remember, that the “midnight cry” about the tenth day of the seventh month was true light set up at the beginning of the final pathway that the saints would be traveling to the holy city.5

Soon afterward, in February 1845, came the substantial “Bridegroom” vision that we have also looked at, showing Father and Son leaving the Holy Place to enter the most holy place in 1844.6 Two years later came the “Halo of Glory” vision, showing Jesus in the most holy place holding up God's commandments and calling special attention to the Sabbath.7

The visions came because of 1844. The writings of Ellen White are a special end-time gift from Jesus, designed to show us what faith-in-Jesus commandment keeping is all about, what it means to be sanctified and to live and love like our Lord. They are a gift from our Friend, who traveled on the clouds of heaven to the judgment scene and is now engaged in making us like Himself in character so we will be able to pass earth's final test – and also so we can complete the gospel commission.

1844 AND GLOBAL MISSION. Being like Jesus is vital to the performance of

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our part in completing the gospel commission. Just before Jesus ascended to heaven, He commissioned His followers to take His message to the whole world. Matthew 28:18-20 contains the words “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, … teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”

Jesus intends His gospel commission to be carried out. In Matthew 24:14, He said to His disciples, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.”

“And then the end will come.” As soon as the job is finished, but not until, will the end come. This explains why the first angel of Revelation 14 is so insistent that in the judgment hour the “eternal gospel” be preached with a “loud voice” to “every nation and tribe and tongue and people.”

We note that Jesus said it is the “gospel of the kingdom” that will be preached in all the world before the end comes. It is the true gospel, the gospel about the goodness of the King, about His willingness to forgive and His promise to animate us with loyalty to His royal rules. Iris the gospel of God's mercy in forgiving our sins and of God's grace in writing His law on our hearts and minds. It is the gospel of faith in Jesus and of commandment keeping – the gospel of commandment keeping by faith in Jesus. It is the gospel of the three angels’ messages, preached in the setting of earth’s judgment hour.

The difference between the gospel of the kingdom in Matthew 24:14 and the eternal gospel in the first angel's message is only the urgency of prophetic fulfillment, of the arrival of judgment hour, and of the time of trouble that is close at hand.

In 1990 the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists announced a “global mission” to reach all the still-unreached peoples in the world. The General Conference was right to do this. We must cooperate in every suitable way.

Within the dimensions of global mission we find numerous unreached persons living quite close to us – in our neighborhoods and in the places where we work. On the personal level, 1844 challenges us to represent Jesus by becoming like Him in order to win those nearest to us. Our quotation from Christ’s Object Lessons continues with this in mind:

It is the privilege of every Christian, not only to look for but to

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hasten the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:12, margin). Were all who profess His name bearing fruit to His glory, how quickly the whole world would be sown with the seed of the gospel. Quickly the last great harvest would be ripened, and Christ would come to gather the precious grain.8 Individually, we can deprive ourselves of this “privilege of every

Christian.” We may choose not to become fully like Jesus, or we may simply not make any focused choice. But if we choose to become like Jesus, our passage promises that we can indeed enjoy the privilege of hastening Christ's coming. “Were all who profess His name bearing fruit to His glory, how quickly the whole world [global mission] would be sown with the seed of the gospel. Quickly the last great harvest would be ripened, and Christ would come to gather the precious grain.”

So 1844 means that we should seek to be like Jesus, not only because being like Jesus is the most beautiful thing we can experience, and not only so we can overcome all the end-time deceptions, but even more so, in order to attract the people around us to love Jesus and thereby help save their souls and hasten the second coming. Becoming like Jesus in the short time left to us before the second coming is one of the most magnificent implications of the great disappointment.

1. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, 403. 2. Ellen G. White, Christ's Object Lessons, 69. 3. Ellen C. White, The Desire of Ages, 172. 4. The KJV translation of Revelation 12:17, used here, is more faithful to the

underlying Greek than some modern translations. For a discussion of the translation of Revelation 12:17 that shows the superiority of the King James Version in this instance, see God Cares, 2:403-405.

5. Ellen C. White, Early Writings, 13-17; discussed in chapter 6 above. 6. Ibid., 54-56; discussed in chapter 6 above. 7. Ellen C. White, Life Sketches, 95,96,100-103; discussed in chapter 8 above. 8. Ellen G. White, Christ's Object Lessons, 69.

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CHAPTER 13

1844 AND LIFESTYLE

We have seen that 1844 should have a pervasive impact on the way we

think and act, in view of its status as the supreme sign of the second coming and because of its relationship to the judgment, the Day of Atonement, and the three angels' messages. We still need to touch on a number of other ways in which 1844 should speak to us.

1844 AND CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. In chapters 7 and 8 we looked at the

relationship between 1844 and the name Seventh-day Adventist. But inasmuch as 1844 triggered the three angels' messages, we need to look at what the second angel's message says about church membership.

The first angel, who announced the 1844 arrival of judgment hour, was quickly followed by the second, with a message about the fall of Babylon. This second angel's message, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great” (Revelation 14:8), is related to an urgent invitation by Jesus in Revelation 18:4. After hearing yet another angel, in Revelation 18:2, repeat the announcement, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great,” Jesus says in Revelation 18:4, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues.”

Babylon, we know, is a symbol for all churches that reject the three

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angels' messages.1 In Revelation, there are many false churches, but only one true church; and the one true church at the end of time is composed of those who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12). They cherish the “testimony of Jesus,” which is the “spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 12:17; 19:10).

Now if the time has come – and it has come – to proclaim the fall of Babylon, the time has also come for Christ's true people to “come out of her.” The time has come for everyone who loves Jesus to join the one true church and come out of every other religious affiliation. Anyone who is in earnest about being like Jesus will want to belong to the one church that keeps His commandments and has the benefit of His “testimony.”

“There shall be one flock, one shepherd,” Jesus said in John 10:16, adding, in reference to His true sheep, “They will heed my voice.” The last opportunity for Christ's sheep to heed His voice and come out of the other flocks into the one flock is here now and is not likely to last much longer. For every person not now a Seventh-day Adventist, 1844 implies a change in church membership, no matter how difficult the change maybe or how radical the lifestyle change that may be involved.

To every person now a Seventh-day Adventist, 1844 calls for continuing loyalty – even when we find “tares” (weeds) growing among the “wheat” (see Matthew 13). Didn't Jesus warn that the weeds would be there? Just as Christ has people still in Babylon, so there are still weeds among the remnant. Don't let the hypocrites discourage you! Let no one “seize your crown” (Revelation 3:11). Instead, let the “tares” redouble your determination not to be like them; for “all who will gather warmth from the coldness of others, courage from their defections, and loyalty from their treason, will triumph with the third angel's message.”2

If in the end rime everyone is supposed to link up with Seventh-day Adventists, how important that people be able to see Jesus in us. How important that we live and love like Jesus, so we can make the Sabbath and Jesus seem attractive.

1844 AND HEALTHIUL LIVING. Nowadays, few people see a relationship

between a healthful lifestyle and the year 1844. But Seventh-day Adventists who lived back in the 1860s, when Sister White received her main health-reform visions, saw the connection. In the Review and Herald for August 7, 1866,3 Elder J. H. Waggoner said that the visions placed healthful living “on a level with the great truths of the third angel's message.”

In the early 1860s, Seventh-day Adventist pioneers considered the

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preaching of the three angels' messages so important that they gave little consideration to anything else. They worked so hard that by the mid- 1860s most of them were more or less ill. To their amazement, the visions showed that guarding one's health is as important in its way as keeping the Sabbath. The visions placed healthful living on a level with the great truths of the third angel's message.

After describing the new health information as being on a level with the great truths of the third angel's message, Elder Waggoner explained what he meant. He saw health reform on a level with the third angel's message “as a means whereby a weak people may be made strong to overcome, and … fitted for translation.”

The purpose our pioneers saw in healthful living was not to set a longevity statistic for the Guinness Book of World Records. Fresh air, sunshine, vegetarianism, and all the other good things were given to help people be healthy, not so they could increase their life expectancy, but so they could be overcomers and be fitted for translation and, in the meantime, be fitted for soul winning.

“Whatever injures the health,” wrote Ellen White, “not only lessens physical vigor, but tends to weaken the mental and moral powers. Indulgence in any unhealthful practice makes it more difficult for one to discriminate between right and wrong, and hence more difficult to resist evil.” “The body is the only medium through which the mind and the soul are developed for the upbuilding of character.”4

Said she of health reformers, “They seek to preserve every power in the best possible condition for highest service to God and man.”5

The strange modern argument that wine drinking is good because some statistics hint that wine drinkers live a little longer than other people is completely irrelevant. Merely living a couple of extra years was never the purpose of health reform. Keeping minds clear, developing characters, and winning souls are the purposes of health reform. Alcohol produces the opposite. “Through intemperance [which includes even small amounts of wine drinking], Satan works to destroy the mental and moral powers that God gave to man as a priceless endowment. Thus it becomes impossible for men to appreciate things of eternal worth.”6

Anyone wanting to develop a character like Christ's will want to keep the body as healthy as possible and the mind as clear as possible. Integrity, spiritual honesty, a longing to love God with all one's soul, mind, and strength, will impel a Christian to avoid all alcoholic beverages. Of course!

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1844 AND LIFESTYLE STANDARDS. Second Corinthians 3:18 says that by beholding we become changed. The verse is speaking about being changed into Christ's likeness as we meditate on His goodness. On the one hand, numerous studies have shown that beholding violent and immoral movies, videos, and television changes people in the other direction.7 On the other hand, 1844 tells us that at this very moment Jesus is engaged in blotting out the sins of people who want them blotted out, is communicating to the world the radiance of true Sabbath holiness, and is bringing into judgment the intensely sinful activities portrayed as movie entertainment. How can Seventh-day Adventists who know that Jesus longs to see His beautiful character reproduced in them settle down and enjoy such disgusting things? Here is a Christ-centered, end-time basis for the Seventh-day Adventist standard about not going to the movies, whether going to the movies means a trip to a theater or to a video store or just into the living room. It's a basis that makes special sense in the light of 1844.

Similarly, 1844 is a Christ-centered, end-time basis for the Seventh- day Adventist standard of modesty in dress, including the avoidance of body jewelry. This standard, once almost universally honored, seems irrelevant today to some believers in some places. But 1844 keeps it relevant. Since 1844, we have been living in the antitypical Day of Atonement, a time for serious spiritual reflection, for “afflicting our souls,” for solid revival and reformation.

It is true that in Bible times many women wore jewelry. In times of revival and special spiritual growth, however, they took their jewelry off. When Jacob, at God's personal command, returned to Bethel in his old age to give thanks and renew his commitment, he asked his womenfolk to remove their jewelry. “So they gave to Jacob … the rings that were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was near Shechem” (see Genesis 35:1-4).

When the Israelites camped at Mt. Sinai began to realize their sinfulness in a new way, Moses instructed them to give evidence of their repentance by taking off their ornaments. “Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward” (Exodus 33:5, 6). Most notably, on the Day of Atonement, even the high priest left off his elaborate robes and wore instead garments of plain white linen (see Leviticus 16:4).

We are now living in the great day of atonement. In the typical

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service, while the high priest was making the atonement for Israel, all were required to afflict their souls by repentance of sin and humiliation before the Lord, lest they be cut off from among the people. In like manner, all who would have their names retained in the book of life should now, in the few remaining days of their probation, afflict their souls before God by sorrow for sin and true repentance.8 “If you lower the standard in order to secure popularity and an increase

of numbers, and then make this increase a cause of rejoicing, you show great blindness,” Ellen White said once about the lowering of lifestyle standards at a Seventh-day Adventist school.

If numbers were an evidence of success, Satan might claim the

pre-eminence; for, in this world, his followers are largely in the majority. It is the degree of moral power pervading the college, that is a test of its prosperity. It is the virtue, intelligence, and piety of the people composing our churches, not their numbers, that should be a source ofjoy.9 1844 AND THE TIME OF TROUBLE. We have spoken of 1844 as the clearest

sign of the second coming. As the clearest sign of the second coming, 1844 is, along with the 1260 days and 1798, the clearest sign that the prophecies of Revelation 13:11-18 are about to be fulfilled. These are the prophecies about the lamb-horned beast of Revelation 13 – the United States in prophecy – and the decrees about buying and selling and about worshiping the beast and its image.

Now is the time to get ready for that time. Now is the time to cooperate with God in getting His seal implanted in our foreheads (see Revelation 7:1-3). The seal, as we know, is true Sabbath keeping as an expression of full sanctification and Christ-likeness. It is both a spiritual and a knowledgeable seal. It represents a “settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so they cannot be moved.”10

We desire the seal, for it symbolizes maturity in Christ-likeness. And we need the seal, because the upcoming “season of distress and anguish will require an effort of earnestness and determined faith that can endure delay and hunger, and will not fail under weakness, though severely tried. … Jacob's earnest, persevering wrestling with the angel, should be an example for Christians. Jacob prevailed because he was persevering and

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determined.” Take heart! “All who desire the blessing of God, as did Jacob, and will lay hold of the promises as he did, and be as earnest and persevering as he was, will succeed as he succeeded.”11

1844 AND STUDY HABITS. In order to become settled into the truth

intellectually and spiritually, end-time Sabbath keepers need to be avid students of the Bible. “So closely will the counterfeit resemble the true that it will be impossible to distinguish between them except by the Holy Scriptures.”12 Impossible … except. Think of it!

Do you believe this? Do you believe that your Bible is the Word of God? Do you believe that your Bible, the copy you hold in your own hands from time to time, is, in fact, an absolutely essential weapon for the last days?

If the study of such a book seems difficult, all you need may be regular practice at studying it. Or you may need guidance, in which case your pastor or a Bible-using Sabbath School teacher may help. But if you need a basic change of attitude toward the Bible, remember that the Holy Spirit is in the business of changing basic attitudes. Choose to ask for a “new birth” on this point, as you have on other points.

We know that Jesus, the Person we most want to be like, knew His Bible and used it successfully against Satan. He believed it was the Word of God. “It is written,” He said. Long before He entered the wilderness of temptation, He formed the habit of believing the Bible and obeying it.

The worst storm of deception is still future, but the winds of deception are already blowing. Thousands of Seventh-day Adventists have already been deceived into thinking they can choose regularly to stay away from church and still keep Sabbath. Thousands more, who go to church, are deceived into thinking they don't need to keep holy Friday night and Sabbath afternoon. Many thousands of Christians are deceived into thinking they can watch nasty stuff on their TV screens and still end up nice like Jesus. Thousands these days are being deceived into thinking that worship is singing fun songs rather than obedience to the Word of the Lord.

As a principal epoch marker of the end time, 1844 warns us that the “last great delusion is soon to open before us,”13 and we should prepare for it.

1844 AND CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. If the last great delusion is soon to

open before us, and if mastery of the Bible is essential preparation, what is

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the responsibility of adult Seventh-day Adventists for the character education of young people?

Demographics indicate that when probation closes, half the world's population will be under twenty-five, mostly under age twenty. The thought of preparing Seventh-day Adventist teenagers and juniors for the final conflict when some three billion of their peers are lining up with the enemy is sobering. So is the thought of preparing vast numbers of young people who haven't yet become Sabbath keepers.

Movies and videos saturated with immorality and violence, mind-confusing drugs available at almost every street corner, and the so-called secular humanism that pervades public schools and enervates even many private schools are un-preparing young people for the realities that lie ahead.

Young people are daily deluged with arguments that there are no moral absolutes and no ultimate authority.

Young people whom Christ calls to self-sacrifice are being told there is no higher goal than self-fulfillment.

Young people whom Christ needs to win souls for Him are encouraged by their culture to accumulate things for themselves.

Young people who need to develop unequaled endurance are constantly titillated with instant gratification.14

In an age of cynicism, materialism, and submission to peer pressure, 1844 calls young people to seek from Jesus power to make right choices, to do the right thing at any cost, to “love not their lives even unto death” (Revelation 12:11), to resist peer pressure when the whole world appears to wonder after the beast (see Revelation 13:3).

And 1844 calls young people to seek from Christ a sense ofvalues that places service to others ahead of “buying and selling” for themselves (see Revelation l3:17).

By alerting us to the nearness of the end, 1844 calls young people to know thoroughly what they believe and also to express that belief in words. The reasons they must learn how to express their faith in words are that the people of God, including the young ones, are to be channels of truth to others (see Revelation 22:17), and they are to overcome Satan through the “word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11).

But if 1844 means all these serious things to young people, it means that well-rooted adult believers are to nurture the youth with utmost commitment, making sure they are qualified for the future and showing them how to labor for one another and others.

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Thus 1844 implies a unique system of Seventh-day Adventist educa-tion.

Because youth often fumble and are even more often scolded, they need big doses of reassurance, of what theologians call “justification by faith.” We must remind them repeatedly that they are growing in Christ, not to Him. Many young people who seem frivolous or rebellious in public are earnest and sincere when you speak with them alone. Young people should be encouraged to claim as their own the famous promise, “If you give yourself to Him, and accept Him as your Saviour, then, sinful as your life may have been, for His sake you are accounted righteous. Christ's character stands in place of your character, and you are accepted before God just as if you had not sinned.”15

SABBATH KEEPING. In the three angels' messages, God combines gospel,

judgment, and commandment keeping. What God has joined together, let no one put asunder.

In this Day of Atonement judgment hour, the fourth commandment is invested with a splendid distinction, a halo of glory in the most holy place. Just knowing that it is holy isn't good enough; we are to keep it holy. God's Sabbath commandment requires us to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). It is a lifestyle implication of 1844.

We are to remember the Sabbath so we can be ready for it. “On Friday let the preparation for the Sabbath be completed. … Before the Sabbath begins, the mind as well as the body should be withdrawn from worldly business.”16 We are to remember the Sabbath so we can be ready for it on time. “We should jealously guard the edges of the Sabbath. Remember that every moment is consecrated, holy time.” We are to remember the Sabbath so we can start and close it with simple, pleasant periods of worship, of family worship if we have a family. “Before the setting of the sun, let the members of the family assemble to read God's word, to sing and pray.”

We are to remember the Sabbath because, in some respects, Sabbath keeping is an end in itself. It is obedience to our God. It is family time (the commandment mentions “you and your son and your daughter”), and it is resting time (“in it, you shall do no work”). But first and foremost and best of all, the Sabbath is holy time, saturated with the presence of the Holy One, our Saviour. We are to keep it holy, because ultimately Sabbath keeping is not an end itself. It is a means to an end, and the end is sanctification, the development of an attractive, Christ-like character

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through intelligent, spiritual relationship with the One whose presence fills the day.

“I gave them my sabbaths … that they might know that I the Lord sanctify them” (Ezekiel 20:12). “In order to keep the Sabbath holy, men must themselves be holy. Through faith they must become partakers of the righteousness ofChrist.”17 “The followers of Christ are to become like Him, – by the grace of God to form characters in harmony with the principles of His holy law. This is Bible sanctification.”18

1844 AND LIKENESS TO CHRIST. Finally, 1844 and the Sabbath remind us

that the most essential lifestyle preparation for the times Thead is likeness to Jesus.

Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of

Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own.19 The commandment keeping of the end-time saints includes the

commandments written on both tables of the law, love to God at any cost, including Sabbath keeping even when times get tough, and love to neighbor at any cost; commandment keeping such as Jesus manifested, a marvelously attractive combination of goodness and niceness. He was “two-table nice,” loving God as well as people.

Seventh-day Adventists who are aware of 1844 meet their obligations, because they want Christ and His end-time movement to look attractive to Christ's other sheep. They can be depended on. They treat people graciously. They don't complain unless they have to, and when they do, they complain as pleasantly as Jesus did when He said of His disciples in Gethsemane, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). When they are wronged, they give people a second chance to redeem themselves; they “turn the other cheek.”

Think what Christ-likeness means in the family. Genuinely Christian spouses honor and cherish each other in adversity as well as in prosperity, the way they promised to. Genuinely Christian husbands don't gripe, however much their wives may nag. Genuinely Christian wives don't nag, however much their husbands may gripe. Genuinely Christian fathers and mothers don't snarl at their kids. Genuine Christians consistently use a pleasant tone of voice. Oh, who wouldn't want to be like Jesus if it were

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possible? Remember, 1844 reminds us, through Revelation 14:12 and through the Spirit of Prophecy writings, that it is indeed possible.

Ultimately 1844 implies a complete transformation of our life-styles … and of our lives, through a complete transformation of our hearts.

1. Babylon in Revelation is both the name of a woman and of a city. In the

Bible, a morally pure woman symbolizes God's true church, and a morally impure woman symbolizes a false church. Likewise, the city New Jerusalem symbolizes all the people collectively who make up Christ's kingdom, and the city Babylon symbolizes the “kingdom” of all those who oppose Jesus. In Revelation 17, Babylon appears as a “mother of harlots,” that is, as a mother of other morally impure symbols representing all the false churches to which the false mother church has given birth.

2. Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, 8 June 1897. 3. Review and Herald, 7 August 1866,76,77. The immediate context is: “We

do not profess,” Elder Waggoner wrote, “to be pioneers in the general principles of the health reform. … But we do claim that by the method of God's choice” – that is, through Ellen White's visions – “it [health reform] has been more clearly and powerfully unfolded, and is thereby producing an effect” – the general adoption of the principles by Seventh-day Adventists – “which we could not have looked for from any other means.” The visions, Elder Waggoner went on, have placed healthful living “on a level with the great truths of the third angel's message” as “the means whereby a weak people may be made strong to overcome, and … fitted for translation.”

4. Ellen C. White, The Ministry of Healing, 128,130. 5. Ibid., 319. 6. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, 122. 7. For one informative study on the effects of commercial entertainment

television, see John Glass, “What You See Is What You Get” (D. Min. project, Andrews University, 1992).

8. Ellen C. White, The Great Controversy, 489, 490. 9. Ellen C. White, Counsel' to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 94. 10. Ellen G. White Comments, Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, 4:1161, my

italics. 11. Ellen G. White, The Spirit of Prophecy, 1:124. 12. Ellen C. White, The Great Controversy, 593. 13. Ibid. 14. For several ideas in this section, see Beatrice S. Neall, The Concept of

Character in the Apocalypse with Implications for Character Education (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1983), 166,167,198-207.

15. Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ, 62.

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16. Ellen G. White, Testimonies, 6:355, 356. 17. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, 283. 18. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, 469. 19. Ellen G. White, Christ's Object Lessons, 69.

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CHAPTER 14

THE MEANING OF 1844

What meaning does 1844, with its magnificent disappointment, hold for

people in the 1990s? I hope this question has been at least partially answered in this book. First, 1844 is tremendously significant because it marks the close of the

2,300 days of Daniel 8:14 – the moment when the Father moved His throne to a new place in heaven and Jesus, the Son of man, traveled magnificently on “the clouds of heaven” to join Him there, as foreseen in Daniel 7:9-14.

By marking the close of the 2,300 days, 1844 also marks the onset of the end time and the grand commencement of both the final judgment and heaven's Day of Atonement. By doing these things, 1844 constitutes the cue for the preaching of the three angels' messages – messages that combine a renewed proclamation of the everlasting gospel with the startling announcement that the final judgment has already begun, Babylon has fallen, God's wrath is about to fall on the disobedient, and God's end-time saints will be found actually keeping all the commandments of God through their vital faith in Jesus.

Second, 1844 enlightens us by showing what Jesus is doing while we wait for Him – still interceding for us as much as ever (see Hebrews 7:25),

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but now also judging everyone who has ever believed in Him and cleansing living believers from all their sins.

Third, 1844 shows us why we are Adventists, believing that He is coming soon, because the final judgment has already begun, but knowing that He is not coming right away, because a few prophecies are still unfulfilled.

Fourth, 1844 gives us timely new reasons to keep the Sabbath, for in our day, Jesus has moved into the most holy place, where the “ark of His covenant” is kept, and that ark is shedding on the world the glowing radiance of the fourth commandment.

Even more important than the information that 1844 teaches us to believe is the lifestyle it calls us to live. For example, by calling attention to the three angels' messages, 1844 has much to say about how we are to witness to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people around the world, including the people on our street and in our homes; so –

Fifth, 1844 persuades us to live and love like Jesus at home, where we work, where we go shopping, and even when we relax. As we seek to grow more like Jesus, we will attract more and more people to come to Jesus. If we're tempted to think we don t want to be this good, 1844 prompts us to get a new attitude through the new birth so that by faith in Jesus, we can join the people who really keep God's loving commandments.

Sixth, 1844 shows us that time for winning others is growing short. It therefore adds urgency to our need to reflect Christ's character to those around us. That way, when the words “Come out of her, My people” strike home to them, many of them will enthusiastically choose to join the movement that we belong to.

Seventh, because 1844 alerts us to the ongoing heavenly Day of Atonement, it reminds us to “afflict our souls” in repentance. It teaches us to avoid all entertainment and all bitterness that corrupt the soul and to make things right with those we have wronged. When we do these things, we will enter fully into that “special work of purification on earth” that is parallel to Christ's cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary.

Eighth, 1844 calls us to “come out” of every form of “Babylon” and become dedicated, active members of the Seventh-day Adventist remnant church.

Ninth, 1844 reminds us to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy from sundown to sundown. It encourages us to have family worship as the Sabbath begins and ends, to attend Sabbath School and church regularly, there to encourage fellow believers and to worship God intelligently. True

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worship is manifested in obedience, whereas disobedience to God in the end time constitutes worship of the beast.

Tenth, 1844 persuades us to study our Bibles far better than most other Christians do. We know that the time of trouble is looming, with the most alluring deceptions that Satan can devise. We know that even we ourselves will be deceived if we don't prepare.

Eleventh, 1844 motivates us to pay close attention to the spiritual education of our children. We are to put them in church school whatever the cost in money, or home-school them whatever the sacrifice in time. By our example – through our Bible study and prayer, our holy but happy Sabbath keeping, our close relationship with Jesus, our honesty and patience, even the tone of our voices – we are to do all in our power to prepare our children for the time of trouble dead ahead, as we hope to be prepared for it ourselves.

In short, 1844 gives us a vitalizing hope and an encouraging sense of direction and of urgency. If we are repentant, 1844 energizes us with the awareness that we are living in the time when our sins will be completely blotted out, never to be mentioned again. With Jesus right now in the most holy place, shedding on earth the glory encircling the Sabbath, we are impelled to be loyal to the Sabbath whatever the price in lost employment or inconvenience. And if Jesus has set His hand anew to give us the holiness that Sabbath keeping involves, we know for a surety that by His grace, we can overcome our sins and become like Him.

Vital as were the implications of 1844 a century and a half ago, they are surely crucial today, for Christ's glorious second coming and the trials and temptations that are to precede it are a century and a half closer.

The great disappointment of 1844 was a dark cloud for those who

experienced it, but its brilliant silver lining has turned it into a magnificent disappointment for everyone who has perceived its true meaning. The silver lining is, of course, Jesus and His grand new work of judgment and atonement in heaven and of gathering and totally renewing His people down on the earth.

Yes, 1844 remains magnificently what it was in the days when William Miller discovered it – a unique and timely message about Jesus. “The Scriptures became my delight,” Miller said, “and in Jesus I found a friend.”

May 1844 help you see Jesus in a new and richer manner as your Friend, your eternal and transforming Friend.