Desolations of Jerusalem: History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church | Documentary

"Night, dark and portentous, is enclosing the Christian world. Apostasy from God's commandments is evidence of this night, deep, dark, and apparently impenetrable. Systems that make the truth of God of none effect are cherished. Men are teaching for doctrine the commandments of men and their assertions are taken as truth. The people have received man-made theories So the gospel is perverted, and the Scripture misapplied. As in the days of Christ, the light of truth is pushed into the background. Men's theories and suppositions are honoured before the word of the Lord God of hosts The truth is counteracted by error. The word of God is wrested, divided, and distorted by higher criticism. Jesus is acknowledged, only to be betrayed by a kiss. Apostasy exists, and will enclose the world till the last. Its hideous character and darkening influence will be seen in the maddening draughts dealt out from Babylon.” Bible Echo, February 1, 1897. How do we know that we are not enclosed about in the darkness of night? Are the commandments and assertions of men our guide, or are we ruled by a Higher Power? Have we cherished systems that make the truth of God of none effect? Do we wrest, divide, and distort the word of God through the unsuitable methodology used by the higher critics? Has God left us to wander about in darkness without a system of interpretation bearing His divine endorsement? What is the proper way to study the Bible? That we might adequately answer these questions we must go back in time several generations; to a time when the opinions and theories of men were beginning to be shrugged off by those who were seeking for the truth as revealed in the Word of God; we must go back to the time of our fathers—the Millerites. ~Desolations of Jerusalem~ ~History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church~ “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.” Life Sketches, 196. For centuries prior to the reformation led by William Miller in the 1800s, the dogmas of the papacy had blinded the minds of the inhabitants of the earth. Through pagan philosophy and vain deceit the Scriptures had been hidden, and the result was impenetrable darkness and superstition. The Catholic Church at the very beginning of its history was diametrically opposed to the Scriptures. Their object was to withhold the Scriptures, to hide the Scriptures in any way possible. In the book The Great Controversy, around page 51 or so, it states that the Catholic Church recognized that if the Word of God was exalted, then God would be put in His proper place and man would be put in his proper place below God and subservient to God. So, recognizing that, as the Catholic Church did, that was the reason why it endeavored to hide and to put down the Word of God—the Bible. Its relation to the Word of God is exactly that: to exalt man in the place of God. When it relates to how they dealt with the Scriptures, the Scriptures were not the ultimate authority; the church was the ultimate authority. And the Scriptures were only to be understood in how they were interpreted by the church. and, of course the church changes constantly in what it believes. So this means that the Scriptures, one, is they needed to be kept from the common people. which, over time, that happened. But also the church then had to have their scholars be the ones that interpret the Scriptures. When Martin Luther first discovered the Bible, it was chained to a Convent wall because men believed that the plain Word of God, just as it reads, was evil and dangerous. Through an alliance secured in the sixth century with the civil authorities of Europe, the Catholic Church wielded absolute power, both ecclesiastically and politically. But, in February of 1798 the pope was taken captive, thus ending the long and dark ages of papal supremacy and oppression. Revival, she says, is a renewal of spiritual life. But Reformation is, if I can quote part of the words at least… that I remember… she says it’s a change in ideas, in habits, and practices. That's exactly what Reformation is. And so the Protestant Reformation was indeed exactly that: a change in ideas, in habits, and practices. I could, right here, read to you various statements in the book by… I believe his name is Merle d'Aubigné… that individuals like Zwingli and Martin Luther and others, that show that those reformers… those Protestant reformers… they compared Scripture with Scripture, and allowed the Bible to explain itself. “Throughout Christendom, Protestantism was menaced by formidable foes. The first triumphs of the Reformation past, Rome summoned new forces, hoping to accomplish its destruction. At this time the order of the Jesuits was created, the most cruel, unscrupulous, and powerful of all the champions of popery.” The Great Controversy, 234. The Catholic Church was beginning to realize that they were losing a lot of ground. The Protestant Reformation, over a period of about 40 years, had swept over Europe. And people began to turn away from the priests; they began to turn away from the pope; they began to turn away from their confidence in their authority. So in order to regain their prestige, in order for the Catholic Church and the papacy to regain their power and their authority, they created the Jesuit order. And they began to start to create schools to counter the Protestant schools. And in a very short period of time, unfortunately, the Catholic church had regained much of what it had lost. What at first began as a pursuit to withhold a knowledge of the truth from the people, soon turned into a venture to amalgamate and corrupt. Once the light of the Reformation broke across Europe, the papacy, seeing its inability to prevent the truth’s advancement by force, instead sought to undermine the interpretation of the Scriptures by erecting corrupt institutions of learning. The Protestants had set up educational institutions, but the Catholic Church infiltrated those institutions through the Jesuits. So, the Jesuits were the instruments of The Counter Reformation. Their goal was to undermine the work that was being done in the Protestant Reformation. And their primary emphasis was to take control of the educational systems of the Protestants, which they've done throughout the Protestant world… and change any kind of Protestant biblical methodology that might have existed in those schools into Catholic methodology, which places tradition and custom above the authority of God's Word human wisdom above divine wisdom. They've accomplished that. Even in the schools of Adventism, it's a done deal. The work of the Jesuits during the Counter Reformation was broad. They infiltrated every aspect of society with the purpose that the people of Europe and of the world would fall back into line with Catholicism. The Protestants would have the youth educated by a plain “thus saith the Lord;” the Jesuits, “thus saith man.” You take control of a human being in its first seven years. if you're going to get into the children that aren’t Catholic children, then you want to take control of an educational system where the children are going to be funneled into that educational system at a young age and stay in it all the way through. Educational system that's a tool of the Jesuits. It suits Satan's purposes just as well as to destroy the Bible itself because you can have the Bible in your home, you can have it at your desk, on your bookshelf. But if you do not… if we do not… have faith, implicit faith, in the Bible as Word of God, you may as well burn it. So the methodology is not just how one opens the Bible and studies it. It's what authority does the Bible have in the individual's life over the churches? And then what part does the individual play in having to interpret and understand the Scriptures for himself? So, that change didn't happen in a day, but it does come from Greek thought. And so the students, the philosophers, the learned, they become the ones who understand the Scriptures, the common person is incapable of studying God's word for themselves. A methodology that Jesuits use —higher criticism— it is a direct contradiction to the ‘thus saith the Lord’ on how we are supposed to study the word of God. And, ultimately it comes down to where the student of the educational system is going to place his confidence; whether he is going to place it in the human teacher or the Word of God. Genuine education is teaching students to have their confidence in the word of God, not in human beings, not even in themselves. So it's about inculcating a dependence upon the human instead of the Divine. Higher criticism destroys faith in the Word of God because it relies upon human intellect to understand the Word of God. From Great Controversy page 599: "Yet we must not forget that the docility and submission of a child is the true spirit of the learner. Scriptural difficulties can never be mastered by the same methods that are employed in grappling with philosophical problems." And I know, I know that many people will have a terrible problem with this. The same power that gives us, and forgives us of our sins, the same power that enables us to overcome our sins is the same power that helps us to understand the Scriptures. You cannot separate those two. The ability to do God's will is no different from the ability to understand the Scriptures. Both come from the Holy Spirit. "We should not engage in the study of the Bible with that self-reliance with which so many enter the domains of science, but with a prayerful dependence upon God and a sincere desire to learn His will. We must come with a humble and teachable spirit to obtain knowledge from the great I AM. otherwise, otherwise, evil angels will so blind our minds and harden our hearts that we shall not be impressed by the truth." "One reason why many theologians have no clearer understanding of God's word is they close their eyes to truths which they do not wish to practice. An understanding of Bible truth depends not so much on the power of intellect brought to the search as on the singleness of purpose, the earnest longing after righteousness." The Great Controversy, 599. To illustrate how Catholicism uses tradition, I want to read this quote from Vatican II Council on Traditions of the Fathers: “Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit." "To the successors of the Apostles, sacred tradition hands on its full purity God's Word which was entrusted to the apostles by Christ, the Lord, and the Holy Spirit." "Thus by the Light of the Spirit of Truth, these successors can in their preaching preserve the Word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from sacred Scripture alone that the church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore, both sacred tradition and sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same devotion and reverence." So we see here that the Catholic Church, in a very eloquent manner, tries to tie or give authority to tradition that's equal with the authority of the Scriptures. It's subtle to many people who read this; it just sounds natural that the church should have some authority. Even within Adventism we can see that same idea. Where… well, if we're going to understand the Bible, we need to know what the church teaches. And that's basically a Catholic principle. If we are to understand the Bible, we need to know what the Bible teaches; what the church teaches is irrelevant in that context. The history following the commencement of the Counter Reformation is replete with illustrations of the educational warfare initiated at that time. From the Scientific Revolution to The Enlightenment, the period succeeding the founding of the Jesuit order and leading up to 1798 was a time of so called “intellectual advancement,” which served only to destroy faith in God’s Word and encourage temporal mindedness. Though the external persecutions of the Protestant reformers by the Catholic Church were strong, the much more insidious influence of the Jesuits in the realm of education was absolutely detrimental to the Protestant faith altogether and has had quite the lasting effect. So far as Bible interpretation is concerned, the rationale of that era has done very much harm to the simple faith in the Word of God. The higher critics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries effectually replaced faith with reason. Thus we enter into a time where God purposed to give back the key of knowledge to His servants, and restore faith in His word in opposition to the rationalistic philosophy of the time. Thus, we enter into the history of the Millerite people. One of the influences that came out of the Counter Reformation era was Deism, a belief in the existence of a creator who does not intervene in the universe which he created. Thus Deists do not believe in the inspiration of the Bible, consigning faith to the wastebasket and reason to the pulpit, that is, if they attend services at all. This was the sad state of our dear brother, William Miller, when the Lord providentially intervened in his life. He became a deist. He left the faith of his fathers, even to the point of ridiculing his elderly relatives, some of which were ministers of the gospel. He ridiculed them and mocked them, in their belief the Word of God, in their preaching of the Word of God. But after a series of circumstances in his life, he came to the point of total surrender to Christ. It was in the Battle of Plattsburgh, on Lake Champlain 1814 that Miller saw God's hand operating in helping the Americans overcome the British. Two years later he began his systematic study of the Scriptures. The greatest evidence that Jesus is the Messiah… is the Savior of the world… is in comparing the prophecies of the Old Testament with the history of the New (Desire of Ages, 799). When he came to that realization that only in the Bible the Savior is brought to view, the Bible then became the Book of books to him. He desired nothing else than to acquaint himself with his Creator, with his Savior in the Bible. And so he began to study the Bible from cover to cover going very methodically… very systematically… in comparing Scripture with Scripture. “He now publicly professed his faith in the religion which he had despised. But his infidel associates were not slow to bring forward all those arguments which he himself had often urged against the divine authority of the Scriptures. He was not then prepared to answer them; but he reasoned, that if the Bible is a revelation from God, it must be consistent with itself, and that as it was given for man's instruction, it must be adapted to his understanding. He determined to study the Scriptures for himself, and ascertain if every apparent contradiction could not be harmonized.” (The Great Controversy, 319) As Ellen White brings out in the very beginning of the chapter in Great Controversy, "An American Reformer," she says that an upright honest farmer, was the one that God had chosen to give the message of Christ’s soon coming to the world. (Great Controversy, 317) He was that man that God had chosen. He had his King James Bible. This is also important. You cannot use just any Bible. It has to be a Bible—a Bible that has been established on the reformatory movement and on the correct texts, which have not been defied by newer bibles or ancient text discoveries. He also had a Cruden’s Concordance. This is what he did. Basically, in two years he studied the Bible... By 1818, he had come to understand the prophecies that we attribute to him; specifically the 2300 days. Everyone knows about that prophecy. Also, the first prophecy that he came to understand that pointed to 1843 was the seven times of Leviticus 26. Then, he came to understand the 2300 days, and then in Daniel 12, the 1335 days. These three prophecies were his main arguments to show that Jesus was going to come around the year 1843. He's had this call on his heart for a long time about how he is supposed to go tell the people what he knows, but he keeps resisting it. Finally… I guess… he figures out how he can silence the Lord on that subject, so he has a prayer to the Lord saying, If you want me to teach this message, someone has to invite me". That very day when he came out of the forest from prayer, a young boy came and invited him to preach the next day at his father's church, I believe. Miller was pretty frustrated, I think. He thought he had squared away with the Lord, but he got called into that. So once again, like the Protestant Reformation, there was divine activity going on; providential activity in directing and controlling his work beyond just his study. But his methodology was line upon line. Even his enemies all the way until the end could not refute his position. Most of us aren’t really locked in to the reality that he was doing the work of a reformer, in the sense that the primary thing he was opposing off the bat was the millennium. That kind of foolishness —the teaching of the millennium by the Catholic Church— most of the Protestant world had bought into. Miller was one hundred percent against that. So, he was one of the reformers who is connected all the way back to Wycliff and Luther, finishing that work. When he came to that realization, the conviction would come to him: "Go and tell it to the world!" But he did as Moses did: "Who am I? I'm of stammering lips. I am diffident. I've never been trained as a speaker, as a public speaker. No one knows about me anyway.” So Miller just kept it to himself. Immediately, when he began to labor among the people, there was immediate fruits of that labor. People were converted and brought back to the Lord as a result of his labors. Miller, in his studies, established certain sound rules of Bible interpretation. With regard to Bible exposition, he operated in a similar fashion to that of the great reformers of the immediately preceding centuries. He realized that the student of the Word was to bring all the Scriptures together and allow the Bible to be its own expositor, since it is a rule of itself. Most importantly, Miller understood that faith was the ultimate rule of Bible study. He believed that we can have confidence that God has guarded the translation of His word, that He has thrown a barrier around it so that we can understand the truth even though we do not know Hebrew or Greek. According to Sister White, “those who are engaged in proclaiming the third angel’s message are searching the Scriptures upon the same plan that Father Miller adopted... In our study of the Bible we shall all do well to heed the principles set forth.” Miller used these rules to maintain “system and regularity” in his studies. He was keenly aware of the human element of interpretation, and thus he operated with as much of this removed as possible. There is the story of an incident where a man came to William Miller's home. William Miller was not home at the time, but the man wanted to see William Miller's study. He expected William Miller to have a bookshelf full of books. So, William Miller’s daughter who was home at the time showed this man. She took him into William Miller's study… showed him his library… and all it was, was his Bible and Cruden's Concordance. The marginal references [in the Bible] are the places where human beings have seen ‘this story’ in ‘this passage’ is the same as ‘this story’ in ‘this passage,’ is the same as ‘this story’ in ‘this passage’… that's what Miller was doing. Or ‘this word’ in ‘this passage’, ‘this word’ and ‘this word’... that's line upon line. Miller's understanding of how to study the Bible is remarkable in the sense that he was in an environment where all these different ideas about studying the Scriptures were starting to form. One is, the schools themselves had begun a system of higher criticism. A lot of the fault for the misinterpretations of Scripture and especially of prophecy have to do with that Counter-Reformation. They were already putting their dependence upon well-known pastors or well-known biblical authors, but Miller didn't get drawn into that. I mean, he used historians and other pastors as a point of reference, but he never used them to define his message. The Counter-Reformation discouraged people from believing the Word of God as it read. You had these theologians that were prominent during the time of Miller that had evidently received some of the false interpretations that were current at that time. The people even came to the point where they didn't believe that Christ was literally coming in the clouds of Heaven. The methods used by the theologians do not allow Scriptures to explain themselves So, there is Miller's method which is just allowing the Scriptures to explain themselves versus the scientific methods of the theologians. To the modern intellectual, William Miller was a bad Bible scholar and a poor mathematician. To the humble student of prophecy, he was one of the greatest religious pioneers this world has ever seen. Who is right? We have already presented the fact that Ellen White, who was gifted with the spirit of prophecy, identified that whoever will be found giving the third angel’s message will be doing so based upon the rules that Miller had adopted. He was using the only methodology which finds expression in God’s Word. The clearest illustration of interpretive methodology is found in Isaiah 28. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. Isaiah 28:10-11 To understand doctrine, one must bring together every line of truth, every precept, here a little and there a little. And if the result is in agreement with what has already been established by the Holy Spirit, then one cannot be in error. This is how the Millerites studied, and the truthfulness of their conclusions is testified to by the Spirit of Prophecy. On August 11th, 1840, just over a score of years after Miller’s initial two-year study of the Bible, his methodology was confirmed. Revelation 9 is the history of the last of the seven trumpets. In Revelation 9, you have dates: the five months in connection with the first woe, which is the fifth trumpet. Then, we see a very special number that we don't have anything similar to in the Bible: there is a time prophecy which is one year, one month, one day, and one hour. Using the key, you come to the conclusion that this represents 391 years and 15 days. Josiah Litch adopted Miller's methodology and applied it. He applied the rules and saw that there was a date— the end of the 391 years and 15 days— and understood that this date fell in their time period. This date was not too far ahead from when he discovered it. I think he discovered this in 1838. The event that he understood was going to happen in 1840 —two years ahead of his discovery. When applying the key of the year-day principle, he understood that there was another prophetic event before that of 1843. He not only nailed it down to the year, but also to the very day. So, he understood that on the 11th of August 1840, the Ottoman Empire would crumble down. This is what he predicted. This is what happened. “The event exactly fulfilled the prediction. When it became known, multitudes were convinced of the correctness of the principles of prophetic interpretation adopted by Miller and his associates, and a wonderful impetus was given to the advent movement.” The Great Controversy, 335. When it came to pass on August 11th, 1840, it was not only a fulfillment of prophecy… the Ottoman Empire did collapse… but it was confirming the rules, particularly the year-day principle— the primary rule of the Millerites. It added a solemnity to the work that they were doing because they were predicting the end of the world in 1843 at that point in time. And if they had the ability to predict the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in advance on August 11th, 1840, then what they were saying about 1843 became serious business for anyone that wished to look it over. The fact that the Millerites were able to accurately predict the future adds much weight to their methods, for it is not often that one comes to right prophetic conclusions using wrong principles of exposition. In 1842, according to Sister White, a portion of the prophecy contained in Habakkuk chapter 2 saw a fulfillment through the publishing of the 1843 prophetic chart. This prophecy, alongside the prior fulfilment of Revelation 9 in 1840, bolstered the claims of the Millerites. She states: “I have seen that the 1843 chart was directed by the hand of the Lord, and that it should not be altered; that the figures were as He wanted them; that His hand was over and hid a mistake in some of the figures, so that none could see it, until His hand was removed.” Early Writings, 74. Joshua V. Himes published what is known as the 1843 chart. It's a chart called ‘the 1843 chart’ even though it was published in May of 1842 it has the date 1843 at the bottom of it. That chart laid out the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation; it begins in 677 with the captivity of Manasseh and goes to 1843. This chart lays out what Miller came to understand and what the Millerites came to understand regarding prophecy. But as they came through their first disappointment at the end of the Jewish year 1843, they came to understand that they had just seen a fulfillment of prophecy with the 1843 chart, and this was a further evidence that God was leading them and allowed them to go through the tarrying time, and this also gave them a motivation to see what it was they were missing because this vision would not lie, and even though it appeared to tarry. All of the time prophecies on the charts… the 1843 chart and the 1850 chart… all the time prophecies on those charts are based on and are hinged on, you might say, upon the year-day principle. Fitch was studying what Miller was teaching and then he put everything that Miller was teaching on the chart. This chart, by the way, represents the foundation of Millerite teachings. It has everything on it that they were teaching; these were their topics. So when you study this chart you know what they were teaching, what they were believing. You know, without that experience… that progressive experience which, I think, is extremely important to understand and to study as Seventh-day Adventists… we need to look at that history of the Millerites and see how God led them step by step… how He unfolded truths to them that He didn't just give them everything all at once that they had to go through an experience. So one is, God had to prepare both a message and a people. And, it's their experience that gives that. We can see this in how He dealt with the ancient Israelites and how He dealt with the Jews during the time of of the Babylonian captivity; this progressive movement; the Reformation that happened under Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes; or the time of Christ; or the Christian Church or the Protestant Reformation. God's dealings with man are ever the same. Well, when you understand the principle of the beginning and the end… that Jesus illustrates the end with the beginning… which is repeated consistently from the beginning of the Scriptures to the end then you can, by faith, understand that the beginning of Adventism in the Millerite history illustrates the end of Adventism in the Millerite history. Isaiah 28… line upon line… this is the latter rain message. Those who won't see this latter rain message and methodology —line upon line, precept upon precept— are going to go and fall backwards, be broken, snared, and taken. So the latter rain message —the methodology on how to understand and teach the latter rain message— is a life-or-death testing question. That life-or-death testing question was typified by the charts in the Millerite history. When the 1843 chart was produced in May of 1842… you can go into William Miller's writings… in that time period, he says that the brethren he was working with came to him and said, “Father Miller”… or I don't know if they said ‘Father Miller’ “remove the ‘if’”. The reason that they were saying that is because they had just come out with a chart in which they were saying, “1843” exclusively… …but Miller had never made that claim. He says, "if my calculations are correct, somewhere in 1843, maybe a little bit before, maybe a little bit after”… but when that chart comes out, they go to Miller and say, "Hey, quit saying ‘if’. It's 1843”. Then, from that point onward, Miller is explaining that interaction between himself and these leaders… he talks about the persecution that burst upon them from that point onward. The charts become the point of reference not only in 1842, not only for the message that it's on the chart… but without the methodology, that message wouldn't have been developed. So the chart becomes a symbol of both the methodology and the message thereafter. By April 19th 1844, the Protestants have closed their doors. Within a few months… well, not few months… April to October… but by the time you get to October, Sister White says, “the Protestants continue to pray to the Holy Place and Satan is answering their prayers. Their rejection of the message, and therefore the methodology of those charts, was life or death. It is the same way in which the rejection of line upon line and precept upon precept in Isaiah 28 is life or death to those who go and fall backward and are broken and snared and taken. The charts become the symbol of the methodology that produces the two classes of worshipers. It's life or death. Since the 1843 chart was directed by the hand of God, then the rules used to establish the things contained thereon must have some significance and importance. The Millerites understood that at some time in the year 1843 Christ would return. The utmost end of the year, according to a spring to spring reckoning of the year, was eventually identified as April 18th, 1844. When this time passed, the Millerites met with disappointment for the first time and the tarrying time of Matthew 25 had commenced. It was at this point fanaticism entered the movement. The fanaticism, or the erroneous teachings that were being taught that were fanatical, definitely were based upon incorrect methodology; whereas the true methodology is preparing people to give the Midnight Cry. But it's not just the methodology; it's about the heart. It is a willingness to crucify yourself in your studies that some people aren't willing to do because the right methodology isn't just going to give you the prophetic sequence of events, it is going to bring things to your attention in your own life that need to be corrected in order to for you to have a life consistent with the message that you're seeing. Most of us when we have that kind of input from the Holy Spirit and from our studies, we don't want to hear it. So we end up having a that's based upon our feelings rather than principle. So I don't know if it's one or the other… perhaps it is a little bit of both —bad methodology and an emotional experience. This produces fanaticism, and vice versa. There were two classes of people in the movement at this time: the wise and the foolish virgins of Matthew 25. The wise, though disappointed by delay, fell asleep in that they lost their zeal to some extent; yet they held on to the ground already gained. The foolish, lost interest and gave it all up, and slept the sleep of careless infidelity. It was in the summer of 1844 that both classes would be aroused from their slumber when the cry was given, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him!” The Midnight Cry when you bring that subject up... The Midnight Cry was what you might call ‘a course correction’. They realized that the Lord was coming October 22nd 1844, and not at the end of the Jewish year 1843. So, there again, the year-day principle was confirmed; the charts were confirmed; and Miller's rules of Bible interpretation were confirmed. I would also add that when the Millerites were disappointed when Christ did not come on October 22, 1844, some in that disappointment then cast away the shield of truth. In order to untie this knot of difficulty they just threw away everything! Everything! So then now, in their minds... Miller's rules of Bible interpretation were looked upon as incorrect. In contrast, those who held fast to their faith continued on to know the Lord and realized: "no, the prophecy had indeed been fulfilled". The clarity of that truth… and because those people that heard that truth at the Exeter camp meeting recognized the clarity because it was based upon the methodology that they had all been using for a long time… they could see the validity of that message. But they were using that identification as the final warning to tell those people that are in the Protestant churches that ‘because of your methodology the conclusions that you're holding to are taking you back to Rome. You become a daughter of Babylon by holding to that false methodology and you need to get out of there because you're about ready to die.’ So the methodology is what Snow used to produce the Midnight Cry. The clarity of that methodology allows those people to be used in a powerful way. But I think the message they understood from it was more about "you need to get out of those corrupted churches.” Those churches were corrupted because of false methodology. In her first vision, Sister White clearly identifies that the Midnight Cry is the bright light set up at the beginning of the path of the Advent band, which shines all along the path and gives light for their feet so that they might not stumble. Furthermore, those who deny this light were seen falling off the path path into the wicked world below. Not surprisingly, the message given that summer was based upon the very same principles of interpretation that Miller established a quarter of a century earlier. The Midnight Cry was the Cadillac; it's the the premier development of the message of the Millerites. The Millerites believed the world was coming to an end initially in 1843. 1843 passes. Now, they know the end is 1844. But... using the correct methodology… If you read Samuel Snow's study, that's exactly what he was doing. He was using line upon line. Using the line upon line methodology, Samuel Snow comes to understand that the appointed time for the vision to speak is October 22nd, 1844. We have come to a point of transition. The Midnight Cry had directed the Advent people to October 22nd, 1844. This, they thought, marked the glorious return of our dear Savior. When this time passed they met with sore disappointment, such that can hardly be imagined. Were the prophecies wrong? Had they been studying the Bible incorrectly all this time? Were the higher critics right after all? Thus far we have shown that Miller used a sound and systematic set of rules in order to understand the Bible. We have listed historical examples that confirm the use of his rules and more importantly we have defended these examples with clear statements from the Spirit of Prophecy. However, there is a problem that we have yet to address, and the only way to understand the issue is to continue on through Adventist history. If the same methods used by Miller were employed by Snow to establish the truth of the Midnight Cry, and that message is to light up the path of the Advent band until they reach the utmost end of the path, then is it not reasonable to suggest that all Adventists who walk in the light of that path must be using the same principles that first unveiled the light? As they looked to Christ by faith… as they realized that He had indeed gone from the Holy Place to the Most Holy Place in the sanctuary in Heaven… when they went into the sanctuary as is described in Revelation 11:19… they discovered the Ark of the Covenant. They then realized as they studied the Scriptures they realized that in that Ark of the Covenant was the law of God and that "Hey! the law of God has never been changed! Never been changed. It's the same law that was given to Moses on Mount Sinai”… From that point, they came to a correct understanding of the mark of the beast and the Sabbath-Sunday issue. This is a thing that is most essential for Seventh-day Adventists to understand: that if you reject the Midnight Cry... see it's all tied together... if you reject the Midnight Cry then you're not led into the sanctuary; and you're not led into the Most Holy Place of the Sanctuary in Heaven; and you do not have a correct understanding of the Sabbath-Sunday issue or the change of the Sabbath by the papacy. It's all tied together and connected to the Midnight Cry: if you reject the Midnight Cry, you reject Miller’s methodology. Those people in Adventism who do not realize what they are doing when they reject Miller's rules of Bible interpretation they do not recognize what they are doing because they are rejecting everything else that comes afterwards. It says, “but God had led His people in the great advent movement; His power and glory had attended the work, and He would not permit it to end in darkness and disappointment, to be reproached as a false and fanatical excitement. He would not leave His word involved in doubt and uncertainty. Though many abandoned their former reckoning of the prophetic periods and denied the correctness of the movement based thereon, others were unwilling to renounce points of faith and experience that were sustained by the Scriptures and by the witness of the Spirit of God. They believed that they—”… notice these words… “they believed that they had adopted sound principles of interpretation in their study of the prophecies.” What are those sound interpretations? They cannot be anything other than… as we call them… Miller's Rules of Bible Interpretation. “And that it was their duty to hold fast the truths already gained—” … of course, from those sound principles of interpretation… “and to continue in the same course of Biblical research.” The same course of Biblical research. The same rules that Miller and his associates gave and used. “With earnest prayer they reviewed their position and studied the Scriptures to discover the mistake. As they could see no error in their reckoning of the prophetic periods, they were led to examine more closely the subject of the sanctuary.” I would like to add to this— mark this: If they had adopted other principles of Bible interpretation, I guarantee you —I guarantee you— they would never have come to an understanding a correct understanding of the Sanctuary, of the Sabbath, and of the state of the dead… or any, or any of the truths that we as Seventh-day Adventist believers hold sacred. It was during this time that the early Adventists wrestled day and night to affirm the truth for the time. They reviewed the past in light of the present and often spent whole nights praying for light. The result was a systematic and comprehensive view of what would become the Seventh-day Adventist message and mission. This found expression on the 1850 prophetic chart. Sister White states that she saw “that there was a prophecy of this chart in the Bible,” and also that God showed her the necessity of getting out a chart. That it was needed and that the truth made plain upon tables would affect much and would cause souls to come to the knowledge of the truth. After the disappointment, the Adventists came together and they began to study God's word using the same methods as Miller… but trying to understand where they went wrong. Those truths that they came to understand— the first, second, and third angel’s messages, the sanctuary they now put all the truth that were on the 1843 chart and they put them on a new chart which is called the 1850 chart or the Nichols' chart. and they included these new truths In Habakkuk 2, which Sister White says in The Great Controversy is the point of reference for the production of the 1843 chart… Habakkuk 2 says “write it plain upon tables”—‘tables’ in the plural. There had to be two tables. It couldn't just be the 1843 chart; there had to be at least two because these two tables have been typified by the two tables of the ten commandments. When the Lord entered into covenant with Ancient Israel, He gave them two tables. When He entered into covenant with Modern Israel, He gave them two tables The two tables of the ten commandments represent, typify, the two tables of the 1843 and the 1850 chart. So, the 1850 chart... Yes, Sister White says God was in the publishment of it. But it doesn't stop there. This is profound stuff. The 1850 chart becomes the symbol of of the covenant relationship that the Lord entered into with Adventism at the beginning. You had to have both of the charts in place. It is not an accident that it was 1850. The number ‘50’ points us to Pentecost, Jubilee, the law of God, and so many other things. In 1850, He entered into covenant with them at the beginning of Adventism. It's not an accident that in the middle of the history from 1844 to 1850… in 1846… you have so many references to the covenant relationship. The covenant is actually being accomplished after October 22nd, 1844 because He’s making a covenant with the people that are living in the time period of the “Most Holy Place dispensation”. So, He has to get them into the Most Holy Place before He can enter into this Most Holy Place covenant with them. Thus, they entered in by faith on October 22nd, 1844 In 1846, James and Ellen White began to keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a symbol of the covenant. They were married in 1846... a symbol of the covenant. Her name was changed from Harmon to White... a symbol of a covenant. She was re-baptized in 1846. So, we have witness after witness that this is the history… 1844 to 1850… in which the Lord was finalizing or had reached the climax of His covenant relationship. The production of the 1850 chart is that very statement. The human motivation and divine… I don't know… but, the divine-human motivation for the 1850 chart is that they were ready to take the message out to the world there. But, from 1844 to 1850, they were not doing any public evangelism. They were hammering out what these pillar truths were and coming to understand who and what they were. They viewed the 1850 chart as their first public evangelism tool, not recognizing that what it was is that the Lord had finished His covenant bonding... or whatever… with those people in 1850, and that now He was willing to take them on as His covenant people through history. Thirteen years later, they started turning in the wrong direction in 1863. When we look at Adventism, I knew when I first became an Adventist, that Adventism began in the Millerite movement. But 35 years later, Adventists often just speak of 1863 as the beginning of Adventism when the church officially formed and they ignore that earlier history. One reason is: many Adventists are embarrassed by it. They see that Miller just made a mistake. He was wrong. He got the wrong date. They don’t understand how he was correct in his methodology and correct in how he understood the time prophecies. But, the only error was that he interpreted them as being the second coming of Christ. But, that was in God’s providence because Miller still marks the beginning of the judgment… something that Miller thought was a day… and we are in that day of judgment… it’s just not a literal earthly day. It’s a period of time. For someone to believe that we can forget about this history and that this was just the old Millerites and that they didn’t understand things, and therefore we need to develop a totally new system of understanding in interpreting the Bible… to do so would be to walk contrary to the Lord’s work in that history. The foundations have been established. We have many, many quotes from Ellen White that say this is the foundation: that which was established in the time period of 1840 to 1844. This you can show repeatedly. So, there is nothing that we should touch. In 1863, the same year that the Adventists officially organized, a significant piece of Adventist history was published: the 1863 chart. Unlike the two tables embracing the positions of the Millerites and the early Adventists, this chart was not guided by the hand of the Lord. The 1863 chart has no text on it, thus disqualifying it from being a fulfillment of the tables prophesied of in Habakkuk chapter 2. The other noticeable difference is the fact that the seven times of Leviticus has been removed from the 1863 rendition. These differences, though seemingly insignificant, show a change in the direction of the church. The question is: was it for better or was it for worse? The method of Bible interpretation began to be less appreciated by then… by 1863. Once you change the method of study, you’re going to come to different conclusions. So, the arguments that are used from that time on to reject Leviticus 26 as a basis for a 2520-year period are the methods of Protestantism, and not the methods of Miller. The rejection of the 2520 comes from this methodology of grammatical expertise. If you go into Leviticus 25 and Leviticus 26 where the angel Gabriel led William Miller to his conclusion about the seven times, you will find that there is no way that William Miller was using the grammar of the Hebrew to make his conclusion. So, to take him to task at the grammatical level, when it’s clear that he was going by context, you will see that William Miller was using the context of chapter 25 to come to understand what he understood about chapter 26 of Leviticus. But in 1863, when the turn in the road took place for Adventism with all the things that were going on, you can see the beginnings of this corrupted methodology coming in. It begins right at the very first prophetic truth that Miller understood. It begins at the 2520. You know, that's... divine poetry, or whatever... There are a lot of truths Miller introduced, but the first one he found is the first one they go after. In 1863, the church was established in a legal way. Organization in general is necessary and is good. If you study the history of the apostolic church or of the Old Testament church, God always has an organized church. So the organization of God’s church was needed, was important. Nevertheless, there are different ways to go about organizing something. And the Millerites understood organization… and we understand that the way they tried to organize the church and they organized the church, was a repetition of what the Jews did when they claimed that they want to have a king. God had already established a system in that time period. He had judges, He had prophets ruling His people… but they needed a king. Twenty years after the church was organized, Adventism began to be undermined. In 1883, a shocking step had been taken by Brother Uriah Smith They developed pretty quickly into what the Bible describes as Laodicea. They have their rich heritage. They believe, they know, that God has set them on a firm foundation. They hold strong to it, but then they would also make some totally wrong moves. They would immediately disconnect from the Spirit of Prophecy by denying or criticizing or doubting the gift that God had given to Ellen White. This was the process that you can see demonstrated through Uriah Smith and in other church leaders afterwards. Uriah Smith, a decade or two later, said that some portions of Ellen White’s writings… some portions of the Spirit of Prophecy… were inspired and some were not. He was saying that whenever Sister White wrote books like Great Controversy and Patriarchs and Prophets and books of that sort… those are inspired. But those testimonies? No. That Uriah Smith has been rebuked by Ellen White is what people conjecture. Therefore, he forms a theory that certain passages of Sister White’s writings are not inspired. It’s only inspired when she was shown, or when ‘the angel said’. But if she writes a letter of rebuke to Uriah Smith, that’s not inspired. He comes out and publishes that in The Review. And, Sister White opposes him for these false teachings on inspiration. To make things worse, General Conference President George I. Butler in the following year wrote a series of articles on the degrees of inspiration, presumedly to harmonize the quarrels over the reliability of Sister White’s writings. Butler then goes even further by saying, “well, some portions of the Bible are inspired and some are not.” Elder Butler, who was the President, starts to write ten articles. These articles would show that the Bible has different degrees of inspiration. He would come to some very strange conclusions like believing that some books weren’t even inspired at all, or that some only had parts [that were inspired], some were only a little bit, or that some were totally inspired. And, this is an attack... this is an attack on the foundations that have been laid and have been set This is the result of a lessening of an appreciation for those rules of Bible interpretation that were laid down by William Miller. So from 1863, by the time you get to 1884… 1883... 1884… that history which is about twenty years… their understanding of methodology has reached a point where they are full enough of themselves that they can begin to pick and choose which portions of the Spirit of Prophecy and which portions of the Bible are inspired. Then, four years later at the 1888 General Conference session, by vote they reject the authority of both the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. It’s a progressive development that only gets worse the further we go down through time. And we start to see that something going off and starting to go wrong. Ellen White would write against this and would correct it. They had implemented already in their teachings of schools… of theology schools. There was some process starting; it was not only going in the wrong direction, but it was disconnecting from the foundation that had been set. This is a continuing fulfillment of William Miller’s dream. Now the jewels of truth are being mixed with the rubbish of the doctrines of the world. When Uriah Smith and George Butler made these statements about the inspiration of Scripture, they were going backwards to the doctrines held by apostate Protestants. Ever since I’ve been an Adventist, there’s this idea what we would call “thought inspiration”; that... just the thoughts are inspired. And so, a writer can write things out, but because they are just his thoughts, it has an imperfect sort of nature in which the inspiration is written out. One of the reasons why this is done, I believe, in Adventism, is that it weakens Ellen White. So, "Ellen White just copies... she borrows from different people... you can't trust her chronology because she's just... taking these words from other people, or that she has this general thing where she's only kind of inspired or that she is a good devotional writer... but we can’t depend upon her as we would depend upon the Scriptures." Such opinions and positions are very predominant in Adventism. Any Adventist watching this… the vast majority of them are going to believe that about Ellen White. So, when we read what Ellen White says about inspiration, she counters these views. She is also quite clear that inspiration is a combination of divinity and humanity. Just as divinity and humanity do not commit sin and cannot commit sin, so also the Scriptures… that Divine Element and the human element put together thus become the word of God. They are a perfect unity of human and divine. This is very different than ‘thought inspiration’. The way I try to put it is: it’s ‘person inspiration’. God is inspiring that person. When we look at verses like “no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation… for holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”… Peter is trying to tell us that the Holy Spirit doesn’t just inspire the Scripture, but it inspires... it is used to interpret it. Thus, the person reading the Scriptures, needs the same Holy Spirit that gave the Scriptures. When you weaken the Scriptures in that way it leads to man putting himself above the Scriptures. Thus, in the first generation of Adventism following the history of the Millerites we see a subtle turning away from the truths and principles given by God through William Miller and his associates. We see the commencement of a scattering that would only get worse, as foreshadowed in Miller’s second dream. We see a turning away from the foundations that were firmly established in the rise of the Great Second Advent Movement and a returning to the vomit of apostate Protestant methodologies, which ultimately find their origin in the rationalistic philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Almost imperceptibly, the influences of rationalistic philosophy of the higher critics was making its way into the minds of the Adventist people, soon to find expression in a most bold and blasphemous manner within our ranks. Just four years after the publication of Butler’s articles on degrees of inspiration, the infamous 1888 General Conference was held in Minneapolis. There were two sides to the controversy: on one stood Uriah Smith and General Conference President George Butler, on the other stood Ellet J. Waggoner and Alonzo T. Jones. So that was hanging over everyone’s head as 1888 was approaching: There was the rejection of the Spirit of Prophecy by the leadership of the educational work, the publishing work… There was the rejection of the authority of God’s word by the General Conference… There was a bad General Conference session in 1886… There were personalities that were on edge… There were prophetic disagreements… There were disagreements and hurt feelings over the General Conference session two years before. The main players were Jones, Waggoner, and Sister White in terms of presenting the true message. They reached the point in that history when Sister White decided she was going to leave because she could see at the meetings that the Holy Spirit was not being listened to by the leadership... or by anyone else there at the meetings. But, her angel told her, “No, you must stay and record this. They’re repeating the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.” So, Sister White stayed there. But you can go through and show that in that meeting, the Holy Spirit was rejected; the Bible was rejected; the authority of the Spirit of Prophecy was rejected; the authority of the two selected messengers, Jones and Waggoner, was rejected. This leads into the aftermath following 1888 that just continues to develop into the Omega Apostasy. "An unwillingness to yield up preconceived opinions, and to accept this truth, lay at the foundation of a large share of the opposition manifested at Minneapolis against the Lord’s message through Brethren E.J. Waggoner and A.T. Jones. By exciting that opposition Satan succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them. The enemy prevented them from obtaining that efficiency which might have been theirs in carrying the truth to the world, as the apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost. The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away from the world." Selected Messages, book 1, 234. The 1888 meeting marked the beginning of a new era in Adventism. The old standard bearers now resting in their graves gave place to new ones, and with the transition of responsibility came new ideas concerning old established truths. As already instated, the nature of inspiration was under consideration. In addition to this, the most notable among the discussions had in the dawn of this new era was the discussion of the “daily,” as found in the book of Daniel. By 1901 an Adventist leader in Germany, Louis Conradi, had reintroduced the Protestant definition of the “daily,” which was that the “daily” in the book of Daniel represents Christ’s sanctuary ministry. Whereas, the pioneers of Adventism understood that the “daily” represented paganism. He rediscovered this old idea and introduced a totally new understanding, which was totally contrary to what Miller had been teaching what the “daily” meant. Basically, Miller had understood through the use of the correct methodology, in contrast to what any other theologian had understood before him, that the “daily” has to be a symbol or a word that represents paganism. During the time of A. G. Daniels, W. W. Prescott, even E. J. Waggoner and others… it is very evident that they got their false view of the daily from apostate Protestantism. This is the old view of the daily. They went back into apostate Protestantism, against the will of God, and resurrected this in the minds of the people. The only way that you can believe that Antiochus Epiphanies was the little horn is by going to the world's method… apostate Protestantism and Catholicism… their methods of Bible interpretation. That is the only way you can get that false interpretation. This is directly connected with the subject of the "daily". If you do not study the meaning of the "daily", you cannot understand how this little word can make such a difference. But in the whole discussion... one point that I think is very important to see... is that in the whole discussion that they had about the meaning of the "daily," one side would always say: "Yes..." But Ellen White said in Early Writings page 74 that those who were proclaiming the first angel's message were those who had the correct view on the ‘daily’. Who were the people that proclaimed the first angel's message? The Millerites. They proclaimed it in this very specific time period… they proclaimed it from 1840, more or less… you can go a little bit further, to 1844. This is the time period when this proclamation ended. These people [the Millerites] had the correct view of the "daily", which we see was represented on the chart. so this is the correct view of the “daily”. What would you have to do to go against such a clear statement? You either have to doubt the Spirit of Prophecy which was happening… or you have to change the text and theologically make a point about it. This is also what they did. Both things happened to get rid of this very clear statement defending the old paths. So we see at the result of the end of the second generation W.W. Prescott and others were pushing for a re-writing of Adventist literature in the 1919 Bible Conference. One reason is they were looking at Ellen White’s writings. They wanted to update them and make them more modern; they want to take her old books and make new editions and correct all the ‘errors’ that existed. But the errors are really in their own minds and in their own self-exaltation and beliefs about their own abilities. The golden thread which binds together the various subjects scrutinized in the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th is interpretation. This new generation of Adventists seemed to have forgotten the way the Lord had led, and His teaching in the past. Methods which had been firmly established by God, through Miller and his associates several decades earlier, were turned away from. The most terrifying reality is that this generation turned back to the very methods rejected by the early Advent pioneers. Daniels and Prescott are basically the leaders towards the end of this time period, but both of them had to leave their position, according to Ellen White. She stepped in and said that Prescott has to be removed from his position… even if he was blessed, even if the Lord wanted him is this position initially… He wanted him to step down from writing or from leading out in The Review and Herald magazine. Ellen White was saying that Daniels had ideas that came from evil angels. So the work that they were doing was really contrary and was really a counter work happening within the church. They had brought in They had brought in fallen Protestant ideas and theology. This phase of Adventism set the stage for the outright apostasy which was to come in the following decades. As it began with a controversial conference, so too it ends. W.W. Prescott was struggling over the initial presentation of The Great Controversy, the whole Conflict of the Ages series, and Spiritual Gifts, and then getting redone in Spirit of Prophecy. There were some grammatical changes that took place, and it was a problem for him because he believed in verbal inspiration. So as he’s approaching 1919, he’s making all kinds of accusations. So, they decide to come together and have a Bible study and listen to W.W. Prescott’s presentation on what he believed the Advent message should be. He essentially gutted all prophetic understanding out of the Advent message. He even wanted to discard the 2300 years; they wouldn’t let him do that. However, what they did did at the end of that Bible Conference in 1919 is this: even though they disagreed with him on almost all of his reason for removing the prophetic message out of the historical narrative of the Scriptures, they went ahead and took all of his presentations that had been transcribed and turned them into a book that was called The Doctrine of Christ. The Doctrine of Christ, to put it simply, is centered around the idea that we have a message that is centered on Christ. This does not sound wrong on its own. But this type of Christocentric approach for Prescott means getting rid of everything else. So we only have Christ... just the message of Christ on the Cross and nothing else. It might be a little bit extreme how I explained it but this is the result, the consequence, of this book and this work. This book immediately became an important book for the education of all future pastors and church teachers, etc. Prescott developed the idea that "There is prophecy and there is gospel… we need to focus on the gospel… this is our message: Christ died for us". This is the good side or the easy side or the lovely side of this But it removes the message of judgment; there's no Sword that separates the true from the false, etc… Prescott does not have this aspect. I do not say that he officially denied it, but he basically gets rid of this part. This is now the next step… this is happening and this is the foundation of what we have in our church today. Often times, there is no prophecy any longer because “it's okay… it's officially okay… we have a Christocentric approach”. "The enemy of souls has sought to bring in the supposition that a great reformation was to take place among Seventh-day Adventists, and that this reformation would consist in giving up the doctrines which stand as the pillars of our faith, and engaging in a process of reorganization. Were this reformation to take place, what would result? The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church, would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of intellectual philosophy would be introduced. the founders of this system would go into the cities, and do a wonderful work. The Sabbath of course, would be lightly regarded, as also the God who created it. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement. The leaders would teach that virtue is better than vice, but God being removed, they would place their dependence on human power, which, without God, is worthless. Their foundation would be built on the sand, and storm and tempest would sweep away the structure.” Selected Messages, book 1, 204. The idea that the name of the book is The Doctrine of Christ and that we're calling it ‘Christocentric’… the emphasis of Christ there is because this is the counterfeit Christ, and that book is a symbol of when the counterfeit Christ Christ came into Adventism. Sister White has a statement where she says, "they will change leaders and not know it". They changed leaders, at least right there… in 1888 they rejected God, they rejected the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. But with that book The Doctrine of Christ, prophetically, the third generation —the Adventist Church—just changed leaders and didn’t even know it. You cannot have the gospel without prophecy. The plainest, clearest evidence of that… and you can give a mountain of evidence to prove this… is Genesis 3:15. Genesis 3:15 is the seed of the gospel. Genesis 3:15 is both the gospel and prophecy. You cannot read Genesis 3:15 without seeing prophecy and the gospel blended. But, this is what many men in Adventism have endeavored to do, to separate those two. You cannot do that. Once Adventism adopted the Christocentric view of the Bible as put forth by Prescott, it lost the “sure word of prophecy”. Spiritual declension quickly followed. Our church makes a very bold step back to the world. It makes a very strong effort in this time period to implement worldly methodology —the historical critical method. Today, it is sometimes called ‘the historical-grammatical method’, which is a variation of it, or the historical method. This method has been officially is implemented in our church’s way of studying the Bible. It is taught in schools; it’s the foundation for the Biblical Research Institute; it's now in there. This is a long process; it wouldn't have been possible in the beginning. But now it's there and has totally replaced the original methodology. We have to understand that this methodology replaces... replaces the word of the prophet. They say "We do not need Ellen White to tell us what something means" We cannot even use her statements because they contradict… not necessarily in their content, but by way of methodology it contradicts the way of understanding the Bible if you use the modern methods. The modern methodology is basically set upon a totally different foundation; it is set upon human understanding, skill, and intellect. In the late 1930’s, the Adventist church began the process of accreditation for its educational institutions. With this government recognition came the benefits of prestige and funding. However, at the root of accreditation lies a great evil —a marriage to the state. Once received, accreditation would require Adventist institutions to submit to the educational standards of the state for weal or for woe. What, then, would be the result when Adventist schools are required to teach something contrary to our Faith? Would they fight against such evils? Or, would they surrender to the hand that feeds them? In 1931 our church decided that our educational institutions need to be under the umbrella of the state. The programs of the state are acknowledged, and our church now puts our institutions —the theological institute at the beginning, then the medical institute— under the state following the state’s rules and principles, receiving money, etc. This totally breaks up the whole 'safety' of a well-established education, which is totally independent from the world. One of the elements that we see in the Counter Reformation that the Jesuits brought in was the educational system and how they addressed that. So we see in Adventism that we started out studying the Bible. Miller was a farmer, right? We believe that we can just study the Bible for ourselves. We don't need to be scholars, we don't have to be trained in schools of divinity, we don’t need to know Hebrew and Greek. But in Adventism, we have educational institutions. Ellen White is very clear on what she believes should be taught in our schools, but this counsel continues to be ignored. One is, that we end up putting people in our schools who are trained in worldly schools. In our schools of theology, we have our ministers go to Protestant schools and get degrees so that they can be qualified. This leads to accreditation. Accreditation is just simply having a school that is recognized by someone else; in this case it would be the Protestant churches recognizing our schools so that we could give degrees. …we could say, “Well, if we’re having a school that’s teaching people to be a psychologist, then maybe…or whatever, if you want to have that. But when it comes to theology, this makes no sense. This is Babylon. That's the second angel's message—"Babylon has fallen". the Protestant churches constitute Babylon. To go to their schools to get approval is an extremely dangerous step. The fruit of that, of course, we see happening in the third generation after the 1919 Bible Conference. So there we definitely have full-blown accreditation. If somebody looks at the early writings of the pioneers and then looks at what's coming out of Andrews University today, there is a sharp contrast. There is just a completely different system of study, of methodology. In an attempt to be seen more favorable by the Protestant denominations, the Adventist church held secret meetings with two highly respected Protestant authors. The result of these meetings was the book Questions on Doctrine. A book of a new order that would erode the foundation that the Lord had built His church upon. I have here the book Questions on Doctrine, which was published in 1957. The publication of this book is based upon the promptings of this guy here, Walter Martin, who published The Kingdom of the Cults. Walter Martin is a Protestant expert… or was... I’m sure he is not alive any longer. In that time period of history…the 40s, the 50s he was the expert in the Christian World of identifying cults. This book is called The Kingdom of the Cults. The Adventist Church at this point in history doesn't want to be labeled a cult any longer. They have been receiving this accusation since the Millerite time period, so Leroy Froom and others initiate a dialogue between Walter Martin with the purpose of correcting the doctrines of Adventism according to the Protestant understanding of ‘correct,’ in order to make Adventism acceptable to Protestantism. That was the purpose of this interaction and the dialogue of this book. Walter Martin was writing a series on churches that were founded in the Bible, at least to some degree. His approach was: "Can we understand the Adventist Church to be a cult? Can we see it as a Christian Church? or as Christians? Are they Protestants? Or are they just a sect?” He approached the Adventist Church in order to find out what we really believe and where we stand. The outcome was that, yes, we were accepted as Christians. The Adventist leadership understood that they needed to make sure that this was the outcome. They wanted to be Christians; they didn’t want to be seen as a sect. They agreed to these meetings in order to tell those men what our beliefs are. This doesn't sound too bad, but the problem was that we had to make a lot of compromises in order to gain this acceptance. The Adventist Church established a committee. This committee had an acronym. It was a secret team of men. The acronym was "FREDA" standing for Froom, Read, and Anderson. This team of men had other men in the background. One of these men who was working behind the scenes was a man named Cottrell, who would eventually correct them and also resume the writings into this book, Questions on Doctrine. Questions on Doctrine is the outcome of these discussions. It is something that this two men demanded; that our church puts officially in place what we believe. Of course the issues were: How do we see the Antichrist? Is it the pope or do we have a different understanding today? Another point was the sacrifice of Christ. Was it complete at the Cross or is there something like an investigative judgment that continues the process of investigation? We made major compromises at that point. Our church publishing house didn't want to print this book. But the compromise was made on a higher level, and we had to print it anyways; it became a best-seller. In The Ministry Magazine, December, 1946… The Ministry Magazine is a publication that the Adventist Church puts together for the pastors… they make this claim: it says, "When the finished product carries the stamp of the Standard Publishing House, it bears denominational approval. It is then a denominational, and not a private publication. It is a measure of authority." So, in the publication that is sent to Adventist pastors in 1946, they take a decided stand by saying "When the Seventh-day Adventist Church publishes something, that is a reflection of what they believe". So, when you start dealing with a book such as Questions on Doctrine in the context of Sister White having a prophecy about the Omega Apostasy in which she says, "books of a new order will be written" in that context, you first want to note that the Adventist church has said plainly and directly, “when we put something in a publication that has our corporate stamp upon it, that's what we believe". This is from the fall 1956 Eternity Magazine. Eternity Magazine is an Evangelical Christianity publication. Walter Martin, the guy that is the authority of The Kingdom of the Cults in that history and the one that Froom interacted with to produce Questions on Doctrine… in Eternity Magazine, Walter Martin is is giving a summary of what he instructed Adventism to do as they publish this book Questions on Doctrine. I'm going quote Walter Martin from Eternity Magazine, 1956: "It was perceived that Adventists were strenuously denying certain doctrinal positions which had been previously attributed to them". So, he realized when he started interacting with them that "oh there were things that we thought the Adventists believed, but but Froom and these guys… they're strenuously denying them”. That is what Martin is saying here. I'll read it again: "It was perceived that Adventists were strenuously denying certain doctrinal positions which had been previously attributed to them. The position of the Adventists seems to be a new position. Adventism in 1956 is a far cry from Adventism of the past. The position of Adventism has either been revised or reversed. SDA leaders repudiated that seventh-day Sabbath keeping is a basis of salvation or in any way a means of salvation. That’s one of the things that was repudiated. The doctrine that we must overcome sin by uniting with divinity and perfectly keeping God's law in order to be saved was changed to salvation, which they, Seventh-day Adventists and Evangelicals confessed to be Christ alone.” If you are not familiar... and it doesn't seem like many people are familiar with what it means to believe that your salvation is by Christ alone… you can hear that and say "amen" because our salvation is by Christ alone. But in this context, it means that Christ was simply our Substitute, but he was not our Example. He is our Substitute: the law demands that sin be paid. The price for sin has to be paid, and Christ paid the price for your sins and my sins. Though, He knew no sin, He paid that price. So, in that sense He was our Substitute. In order for you and I to be saved we need to have that substitutionary work. But another role of Christ in salvation is His role as an example. He came to Earth and purposely took sinful flesh upon Himself, combining humanity with divinity in order to show you and I… who are born into this world with sinful flesh… that we can overcome sin fully and completely, and that we can do so by following the example that Christ gave to us the argument evolves to the point in this discussion, if you’re not familiar with the argument, is that if Christ was perfect as a human being as was Adam before he fell, if he took a fleshly human experience as Adam before sin came into the history of this world, then He does not know what it is like to struggle with fallen human nature and therefore He cannot be our Example. On the contrary, Christ came to earth, and took our sinful flesh, and gave us an example that if we would surrender our will unto Him as He surrendered His will unto His Father, then we can have every power that He was given while He walked and worked among men. That power will not only allow us to work, but it is the power that will allow us to put away and overcome sin for eternity. That power, is provided through His His work as our Example. And, as our Example, logic and truth require that He took sinful flesh to establish that example. "Salvation is by grace alone through the blood of Jesus Christ apart from any works of the law. The doctrine that Christ’s work was not accomplished on Calvary, but since 1844 has been carrying on a second ministry, was totally repudiated. The doctrine that Christ has been doing a work in the Most Holy Place since 1844 was totally repudiated" in this book Questions on Doctrine. This is one of the points of battle in that history. Adventism to the Protestants was repudiating the concept that salvation was more than the Cross. because in The Great Controversy Sister White has a statement where she says: "The work that Christ is doing in the Most Holy Place in the heavenly sanctuary above is as essential"… she uses the word ‘essential’... "as the work that He had done on the Cross.” "The teaching that Christ took man's fallen sinful nature upon Him and overcome sin with that nature was disavowed again and again by responsible leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and was repudiated with horror." Eternity Magazine, 1956. So, technically, since 1957 Adventism no longer believes that the work that Christ is doing in the Most Holy Place is essential; they do not believe that Christ took man's sinful nature; they do not believe that Christ that Christ is our Substitute and our Example. They only believe that He is our Substitute, and that is what is enshrined in this book in 1957. that is the primary argument that shows that at the end of the third generation… the third generation beginning with the publication of the book The Doctrine of Christ in which the prophetic Christ is removed from the Bible by W. W. Prescott… and that generation ending third generation being the same generation that Sister White prophesied about when books of a new order would be written... it ends with the book Questions on Doctrine when Adventism officially published that their salvation theology is identical to the salvation theology of apostate Protestantism. This why we mark the darkness that precedes every reform movement as arriving in Adventism in 1957. “In 1968, I raise the question here, can two walk together unless they be agreed?— after Elder Pierre Lanares, Elder Roland Hegstad, Elder Leif Tobiassen of Andrews University meet with Pope Pius VI, the Seventh-day Adventist Church and a Vatican secretariat joined an arm of the World Council of Churches called The World Confession Families, now called The Christian World Communion. The Seventh-day Adventists joined the Faith and Order Commission of The World Council of Churches as personal observers.” This is in 1968. For years the Adventist church said: “We've joined this World Council of Churches and some of its organizations, but we're only personal observers.” What they don't tell their Adventist lay people is that if you're a personal observer, it means you're a full voting member. So from 1968 onward, the Adventist church has been in bed with the papacy, making decisions with the papacy with full voting rights. That to me is what I would define darkness as. Brothers and Sisters, think about this one: Since 1968, they’ve been working with the World Council of Churches as full voting members. In 1982 they signed the “Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry” document of the World Council of Churches. What that means is that they accept the position on the Lord's Supper as held by the Catholic Church. Let me read this to you from The Great Controversy, page 59: “The Scriptural ordinance of the Lord’s Supper had been supplanted by the idolatrous sacrifice of the mass.” So, when they agreed to this council, they're saying the Catholic mass is just as valid as the Lord's Supper. This is from Sister White: “The Scriptural ordinance of the Lord’s Supper had been supplanted by the idolatrous sacrifice of the mass. Papal priests pretended, by their senseless mummery, to convert the simple bread and wine into the actual ‘body and blood of Christ’. With blasphemous presumption, they openly claimed the power of creating God, the Creator of all things. Christians were required, on pain of death, to avow their faith in this horrible, Heaven-insulting heresy. Multitudes who refused were given to the flames.” In the Dark Ages, the Catholic Church says they only murdered 50 million people, the Protestants say 100 million people. Between 50 and 100 million people were murdered during the Dark Ages; many of them were murdered because they refused to accept the Catholic mass. In 1982 the Seventh-day Adventist Church signed an agreement with the World Council of Churches saying the Catholic mass is ‘OK’. I wonder if all those martyrs during the Dark Ages who shed their lives over the issue of the mass… if they could be resurrected and give a testimony about whether they thought the Adventist church was in darkness or not for signing that kind of document… I wonder which way they would vote. We have traced 1400 years of the annals of sacred history, from the time of the rise of the papacy in the Dark Ages, down to the great Millerite Movement of 1798 to 1844. We have seen the small band of early Adventists as they accepted the Sabbath truth in 1846 develop into the establishment of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1863, from the rejection of the Latter Rain in 1888 to the publishing of the heretical books: The Doctrine of Christ and Questions on Doctrine. Now, we arrive at the final generation of this earth’s history. Adventism, blinded by the erroneous doctrines that have crept into the church, was about to miss a remarkable fulfillment of prophecy —one that would point to the imminent Second Coming of Christ. A battle in the conflict between the biblical figures of the King of the South and the King of the North, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, was about to take place. Manuscript Releases, volume 13, page 394… from my human perspective, it is the most important Spirit of Prophecy reference to Daniel 11. “We have no time to lose. Troublous times are before us. The world is stirred with the spirit of war. Soon the scenes of trouble spoken of in the prophecies will take place. The prophecy in the eleventh of Daniel has nearly reached its complete fulfillment.” So here she's referencing Daniel 11. She says it's nearly reached its complete fulfillment, which is saying that it isn't completely finished. Sister White says in The Great Controversy page 356 that the Time of the End is 1798. Sister White is living well past 1798. So when she writes this, in the time period that she wrote it, 1904. She's well beyond 1798. Even so, she is still talking about the future fulfillment of Daniel 11. “The prophecy in the eleventh of Daniel has nearly reached its complete fulfillment. Much of the history that has taken place in fulfillment of this prophecy will be repeated.” So, Sister White is living after 1798, yet she is pointing you and me to the future fulfillment of Daniel 11, It is in the process of being fulfilled, but it has not been fulfilled yet. She says a key to understanding Daniel 11 is that much of the previous history that was fulfilled before the time period when she penned this is going to be repeated at the conclusion of Daniel 11. In verse 40 it says, “And at the time of the end”. This is 1798. Therefore, the future fulfillment must be the verses that come after 1798. So verse 40 part B all the way through verse 45 is the portion of Daniel that has nearly reached its complete fulfillment. Therefore, she is telling us that as we come to the end of the world as God’s people some time after 1798, we need to look to the prophecy of Daniel 11. In Selected Messages, book 1, page 121 Sister White says: “A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs. To seek this should be our first work.” So, our first work is to seek for a revival. Then, in Testimonies to Ministers, page 113 she says: “When the books of Daniel and Revelation are better understood, there will be seen among us a great revival.” Sister White tells us that our greatest need is for a revival. But she also tells us that it is from the books of Daniel and Revelation that this revival will be produced. What we're understanding is that Jesus illustrates the end from the beginning. The beginning of Adventism was Millerite history. In 1798, which was the time of the end… which is also Daniel 11:40… in 1798 the book of Daniel was unsealed. William Miller was used to take the light that was unsealed in that history. That light was used to put into a message that tested the Millerite movement and brought a group of people into covenant relationship with the Lord as He passed by the Protestants of that time period. And, because Jesus illustrates the end from the beginning, we know that in our history after a period of darkness… 1957 to 1989… there is a promise that at the time of the end the book of Daniel would be unsealed What was unsealed in that time period, was Daniel 11:40-45. This truth was designed by God to produce the final revival among God's people and to develop and bring about the class of people that we call the 144,000. Let us now look at the prophecy that Sister White, through inspiration, tells us will lead to our revival; which is our greatest and most urgent need. Verse 40 says: “And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.” So the time of the end, in The Great Controversy page 356, Sister White tells us it's 1798. so it says: “at the time of the end in 1798, shall the king of the south push at him”. If you go to Uriah Smith's book Thoughts on Daniel and Revelation, which Sister White tells us is “God's helping hand”… Smith will tell you that in Daniel 11, which is the only place that you're going to directly see the war illustrated… a struggle between the king of the south and king of the north… that in Daniel 11 the king of the south is a power that controls Egypt and king of the north… is the power that controls Babylon. Although Uriah Smith will call Babylon ‘Syria,’ as he addresses it. In order to determine who the king of the south and the king of the north here are in verse 40, you need to add another rule to Daniel 11. The rule that Uriah Smith sets forth is that the king of the south is the power that controls Egypt and the king of the north is the power that controls Babylon. But there's another rule in Bible prophecy: that prophecy before the time period of the Cross is applied literally, and after the time period of the Cross it is to be applied symbolically. So Egypt or Babylon before the time period of the Cross would be literal Egypt and literal Babylon. But the first few words of Daniel 11:40 says “at the time of the end,” which Sister White tells us is 1798. So in 1798 the king of the south is going to push against the king of the north. so you're not looking for the literal king of the south or the literal king of the north; you're looking for the spiritual king of the south and north because it's after the Cross. It's 1798. Sister White tells us repeatedly in a variety of ways that the books of Daniel and Revelation are the same book. In Revelation 11, Egypt is identified as one of the elements of of France—atheistic France. Egypt and Sodom are the symbols of France in Revelation 11. You don't have to deduce that from the Bible alone. Sister White plainly tells us in The Great Controversy that the beast that comes out of the bottomless pit in Revelation 11 is atheistic France. So, Egypt is atheistic France in the time period of 1798 in verse 40. This verse says at the time of the end in 1798 shall the king of the south, Egypt, push at him. Egypt in that time period was atheistic France. And, as the books of Daniel and Revelation tell the same story, Babylon is also identified in Revelation 17: “mystery Babylon the great, the mother of harlots”. What verse 40 is telling us is that at the time of the end in 1798, atheistic France is going to push against the papacy because the papacy is modern Babylon in Revelation 17. This word 'push' means 'to war against'. In 1798, France is going to begin a war against Catholicism; this is an easy subject to see. As Seventh-day Adventists we understand that in 1798, atheistic France delivered the deadly wound to the papacy. So, verse 40 many Adventists don't realize that verse 40 is the verse in the Bible that addresses the deadly wound of 1798—when and where it happened. Revelation 13 speaks about the papacy receiving the deadly wound, but the verse in the Bible that tells us where and when it happened is Daniel 11 verse 40. And we put a 'part A’ there because there’s a semi colon there between that first thought. It says “and the king of the north shall come against him”. This is future tense, but it is still after the Cross. So, the king of the north must still be spiritual Babylon, which is the Papacy. “And the king of the north,” the Papacy, “shall come against him.” which in the context of the verse must still be atheism at this level. From 1798 until the end of the world when part B is going to be fulfilled, the king of atheism migrated geographically from the atheism of the French Revolution that spread across Europe to ultimately the power that rules over atheism in the history of the end of the world, which was the Soviet Union… Russia… that came into prophetic existence in 1917. In 1917 the Bolshevik Revolution took place in October, which was the same month and the same year that the miracle of Fatima took place. So, 1917 is the most significant date for modern Rome, the papacy, the miracle of Fatima. It is also the most important date for the king of the south at the end of the world, which is Russia, with the Bolshevik Revolution. In verse 40, it says “and the king of the north, the papacy, shall come against the Soviet Union like a whirlwind.” And when it does... when the papacy comes against the Soviet Union, it will bring chariots, horsemen, and many ships. Chariots and horsemen in the Scriptures represent military might; ships represent economic might. History tells us that in 1989 the Soviet Union was brought down through an alliance between the United States and the Vatican —a secret alliance that was carried out by Ronald Reagan and the pope. The United States supplied military and economic might to that relationship, as represented by the chariots, horsemen, and many ships. It says: “and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over”. And the papacy, as the Soviet Union began to collapse during that period of time, very quickly re-established itself as the dominating force over those former Soviet Union countries. With every ray of light, Satan, the arch-deceiver, seeks to pervert the truth —the prophecy of Daniel 11 being no exception. An early Adventist pioneer, Uriah Smith, purported that the key player in this prophetic battle, the King of the North, was Turkey. Such a claim, continues to prevent Adventists from effectively ascertaining the true role of the papacy in Bible prophecy as the King of the North. If you go to his book it says: “and ‘the’ king shall do according to his will.” In order to understand who ‘the’ king is, you need to go to the previous verses. In the previous verses, Uriah Smith comments that verses 31 through 35 is the papacy. But, when you get to verse 36 it says "and ‘the’ king”. Uriah Smith comments: “if we could say ‘a’ king, then we would see a new power introduced into the verse.” In so doing, Uriah Smith changes one word… the word ‘the’ to ‘a’… because he knows that if it says ‘the king’, then it must be the same king as in the previous verse. But the Hebrew doesn’t leave any room to change this word to ‘a’ king. So, Uriah Smith began teaching this falsehood during the time period when James White was still alive. If you research their argument, which was about 10 years and was carried out between the publications of the Signs of the Times and The Review and Herald, you’ll see that James White’s number one most often used argument against Uriah Smith was this: If the last power in Daniel 2 is Rome, and the last power in Daniel 7 is Rome, and the last power in Daniel 8 is Rome, then the last power to come to his end with none to help in Daniel 11 must be Rome. In verse 36 when Uriah Smith changes ‘the’ king from the papacy, he creates a totally different prophetic model. He is going to teach differently about who the king of the south is and who the king of the north is in the history that he is going to identify as the Time of the End. A problem he gets into is he is going to say that the king of the south is atheistic France, and the king of the North is Turkey, instead of Rome. That is what Uriah Smith taught. So, according to his position, verse 40 shows atheistic France, the king of the south, will push at Turkey. But his history is that Turkey pushed first. He has the history reversed there. But that’s only because back here in verse 36 he changes ‘the’ king to ‘a’ king. Over and over again you’re going to see an attempt by Satan to obscure the role of Rome in end-time Bible prophecy, as seen here in Daniel 11 with the work of Uriah Smith in introducing Turkey into the narrative when it doesn’t belong there. “<i>The scenes connected with the working </i> <i>of the man of sin are the last features </i> <i>plainly revealed in this earth's history.” </i>Selected Messages, book 2, 102.1 The papacy’s, or the man of sin’s, last work is clearly foretold in the Scriptures; to miss or obscure this information puts the soul in the utmost peril. The Sunday Law crisis, the crowning act in the controversy between Christ and Satan is almost upon us. The message of Daniel 11:40-45 is the message by which our eternal destiny will be decided. Daniel 11:40 begins at the Time of the End in 1798. Part B in verse 40 is the Time of the End in 1989, and it goes all the way to Daniel 12:1, which is the close of human probation. So, verses 41 through 45 are telling us the history from the Time of the End until the close of human probation; this is the knowledge that is unsealed in 1989. This knowledge is the knowledge that will be rejected by those who are pronounced as wicked. This knowledge is the knowledge that will be understood and taught by those who are pronounced wise. Verse 41: “he shall also enter into the glorious land”. At the conclusion of the history of verse 40, the papacy which is the ‘he’ in the issue is going to conquer the United States —the glorious land at the Sunday Law. At that point in time, you as a Seventh-day Adventist in the United States either receive the seal of God or the mark of the beast. Therefore, what you do with your character development before verse 41 while living during the time period of verse 40… which is where we’re living right now… is going to determine your salvation —whether you’re lost or saved. This increase of knowledge is to prepare us to stand during a time when there will be no more human intercession, which follows Daniel 12:1. There has never been a more serious life or death message than the message that is unsealed in 1989 concerning the last six verses of Daniel 11. The message of Daniel 11:40-45 constitutes a part of what is understood as the Latter Rain —the message that is to ripen the harvest for the coming of the Son of God. "’Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain; so the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain.’ ‘He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain.’ In the East the former rain falls at the sowing-time. It is necessary in order that the seed may germinate. Under the influence of the fertilizing showers, the tender shoot springs up. The latter rain, falling near the close of the season, ripens the grain and prepares it for the sickle. The Lord employs these operations of nature to represent the work of the Holy Spirit. As the dew and the rain are given first to cause the seed to germinate, and then to ripen the harvest, so the Holy Spirit is given to carry forward, from one stage to another, the process of spiritual growth. The ripening of the grain represents the completion of the work of God's grace in the soul. By the power of the Holy Spirit the moral image of God is to be perfected in the character. We are to be wholly transformed into the likeness of Christ.” The Review and Herald, March 2, 1897. The Latter rain can only be given to those who have cleansed the soul temple of every defilement. Sin must be put away in order to receive the heavenly dew. It comes at the time when the mighty angel of Revelation 18 is to descend and lighten the whole earth with its glory. In The Review and Herald, April 21st, 1891, it says: “the latter rain is to fall upon the people of God.” We're saying the latter rain is a message. “The latter rain is to fall upon the people of God. A mighty angel is to come down from heaven, and the whole earth is to be lighted with His glory.” So, when the angel of Revelation 18 descends, the latter rain begins to fall on the people of God. She says: “Are we ready to take part in the glorious work of the third angel?” That's when the work of the third angel begins. It's at 9/11. “Are our vessels ready to receive the heavenly dew? Have we defilement and sin in our heart? If so, let us cleanse the soul temple, and prepare for the showers of the latter rain.” The latter rain is a message. At 9/11 the rain begins to sprinkle; we know that from other lines of prophecy. At that point, two classes are going to begin to be developed based upon how they receive those messages. So it's a distraction and an attempt designed to misguide people that Satan has put into the mentality of Adventism to think that the latter rain is some kind of an emotional experience. It's a message. Study to show yourself approved. There is a quote where Sister White says we are required to be students of prophecy. Our unwillingness to understand the prophetic message is our unwillingness to receive the latter rain. The question remains: When, then, does the latter rain and the angel of Revelation 18 arrive? When are we to partake of the heavenly gift that is to prepare us to meet our Lord? “Now comes the word that I have declared that New York is to be swept away by a tidal wave. This I have never said. I have said, as I looked at the great buildings going up there, story after story: ‘What terrible scenes will take place when the Lord shall arise to shake terribly the earth! Then the words of Revelation 18:1-3 will be fulfilled.' The whole of the eighteenth chapter of Revelation is a warning of what is coming on the earth. But I have no light in particular in regard to what is coming on New York, only I know that one day the great buildings there will be thrown down by the turning and overturning of God's power. From the light given me, I know that destruction is in the world. One word from the Lord, one touch of His mighty power, and these massive structures will fall. Scenes will take place the fearfulness of which we cannot imagine." <i>Life Sketches</i>, 411.5. The latter rain and the angel of Revelation 18 arrive when the great buildings of New York are thrown down on 9/11. It is here also that the third woe of Bible prophecy begins. Based upon the Adventist Pioneer understanding of the trumpets, the three woes deal with the work of Islam. It is not a coincidence that on September 11th, 2001, the twin towers of New York City were brought down, and a global war on Islamic terrorism began. According to Islamic belief the third great jihad began on 9/11. Thus, by the hand of Providence, agreeing with the third woe of Bible prophecy. So, you see that when the angel of Revelation 18 comes down, the earth is lightened with its glory. This must be the light for the end of the world. This is a turning point and it's a crisis in the history of the nation and the church. It's pretty easy to go into the secular authors of the time period of 9/11. There are several references by secular authors commenting on the significance of 9/11, saying: “This is a turning point in the history of the world; this is a turning point in the history of the United States”. Incredibly, such verbiage is the same as that of Sister White. It was also a marked turning point in the history of the Adventist church. “There are periods which are turning points in the history of nations and of the church. In the providence of God, when these different crises arrive, the light for that time is given. If it is received, there is spiritual progress; if it is rejected, spiritual declension and shipwreck follow. The Lord in His word has opened up the aggressive work of the gospel as it has been carried on in the past, and will be in the future, even to the closing conflict, when Satanic agencies will make their last wonderful movement. From that word we understand that the forces are now at work that will usher in the last great conflict between good and evil —between Satan, the prince of darkness, and Christ, the Prince of life. But the coming triumph for the men who love and fear God is as sure as that His throne is established in the heavens.” Bible Echo, August 26, 1895. September 11th, 2001 marks the crisis and turning point not only for the United States of America, but for the Adventist church as well. It was in September of 2001, that the Adventist church required its employees to learn Spiritual Formation techniques in order to be employed within its ranks. In September of 2001 the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as it continues to go deeper and deeper in darkness, implemented a ruling that if you are going to be an employee of the Seventh-day Adventist Church you must be trained in the spiritual formations of Loyola— the head of and founder of the Jesuit Order of the Catholic Church. As I was going back through these notes, one thing that I found interesting is that those techniques were first introduced into Adventism… not on 9/11... 9/11 is when the Adventist church had finally said "you need to be trained in these if you want a paycheck, whether you're a pastor or just working at a school or some other place.” Rather, when do you suppose the Adventist church first began to introduce the spiritual exercises of Loyola Ignatius? —It was in 1989. So, you can see a connection between the time of the end and the rejection that went on in 1989. Then, it reaches its full-blown development on 9/11, 2001. Today, to be employed by the Adventist Church, you have to do hypnotism that comes through the avenue of the Jesuit Order of the Catholic Church. The great event of September 11th, 2001, marking the Latter Rain, the angel of Revelation 18 descending, and the third woe is of infinite importance. God requires His people to see these fulfillments of prophecy and live, and to cleanse the soul temple of every defilement and perfectly reflect His character. The sign of His coming must not be missed. When we were dealing with the latter rain early on, we came to understand a key word was 'recognize'. In the passage that I referred to, I said page 501 or 503 of Testimonies to Ministers… it might be 511… it's 5 something… where it says “the Holy Spirit will be falling on hearts all around them, but they will not recognize or receive it”. That's pretty much word for word. But the word in there that we came to understand was significant was the word ‘recognize’. We have now gathered together four, maybe five passages in the Spirit of Prophecy in which Sister White is crystal clear that if you do not recognize the latter rain, you cannot receive it. That is the classic quote that most Adventists know of. It says “the latter rain will be falling on hearts all around them, but they will not recognize or receive it”. Both of the words ‘recognize’ and ‘receive’ are in there. You have to see that the latter rain is falling. When we first understood 9/11 to be a sign that the latter rain had begun to sprinkle, in addition to understanding that we needed to recognize it, we came across Luke 21. Luke 21 is a really powerful presentation in this regard because Jesus is asked a question about “what shall be the sign of thy coming” by the disciples as He leaves the temple. Then, He gives them the history in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But we refer to Luke 21 because it has some expressions in it that are easy to identify. After Jesus gives them the running historical narrative, in Luke 21 He gives them a parable about the trees budding out. Sister White comments on that verse in Luke 21. In Great Controversy, she speaks about what Christ was saying to the disciples in Luke 21. Christ pointed His followers to the budding trees of spring. So, I'm shrinking down a whole sermon into just a thought here. In the opening of Luke 21, the disciples asked “what's the sign of thy coming?” —I'm saying it's 9/11. I'm also saying it is the latter rain. As Jesus walks them down through the history and then gives a second witness with the parable, He points His disciples to the budding trees of spring. This allows us to go into the Scriptures and understand what causes the trees to bud out. And, what causes the trees to bud out is the latter rain. So, when Jesus pointed the disciples to the budding trees of spring and the latter rain in response to the question “what shall be the sign of thy coming?”… the logic that we're employing is that at 9/11 the latter rain began to sprinkle. The mighty angel came down, the latter rain began to sprinkle, and the trees began to bud out. Let me read the closing part of Luke 21 because it ties into what we've been saying regarding the four generations of Adventism and how we're the last generation. In verse 29 of Luke 21, it says: “And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees;”… you can go into the Spirit of Prophecy to show that the fig trees is a symbol of God's people whereas all the other trees are the Gentile world. So, in verse 29 Jesus is pointing to both God's people and the other people in the world. “When they now shoot forth”… what causes these trees to shoot forth is the latter rain in the Scriptures. “Ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.” Summer in the Scriptures is defined as the harvest; the harvest is defined as the end of the world. Therefore, when you see the latter rain, when you see the trees bud out… and the trees are only good at bud-out if they're receiving the latter rain… you know that summer is nigh at hand. Summer is the end of the world, thus you know that probation is about to close. That is what Luke 21 is teaching. The disciples who had asked back in verse 6, I think it is… verse 7…“And they asked him, saying, Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass?” Jesus tells them the sign is the latter rain. Then, in verse 31 it says, “So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass”… “these things” being the budding trees of spring… “know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.” The generation that sees the latter rain begin to sprinkle is the final generation, which is prophetically the fourth generation. The latter rain began to fall when the mighty angel of Revelation 18 came down at 9/11 with a message. That message was received by some, but not by others. Thus, that message is producing a budding out or a development of a harvest from that point onward. But you need to recognize it to receive it. You need to recognize that 9/11 is marking the beginning of the latter rain, the beginning of the sealing of the 144,000, and the beginning of the judgment of the living. You also need to recognize that this is the final generation of earth's history. This is all marked in Luke 21. What is amazing about this is that I understand that Adventists, for the last 160 to 170 years or however long Adventism has been in history, their evangelists and their pastors will always argue “oh we're the last generation”. Even from the time of Ellen White, she put in the context “we're the final generation”. However, for the first time, Luke 21 gives us a 'Thus saith the Lord’ that tells us 9/11 marks the final generation of earth's history. Before the coming of Christ in the clouds, the whole world will be plunged into a great crisis of indescribable violence and evil. One that has been foretold from the foundations of the Adventist church. The Sunday Law crisis. A great deception is that God’s people think that preparation can be delayed until the Sunday Law crisis arrives. Earlier we talked about how the last six verses of Daniel 11 are the message of the hour… that is the knowledge that was opened up when the book of Daniel was unsealed in 1989. The reason it's the message of the hour is because we're living in the history of verse 40 from 1989; we're living in the history of verse 40 from 1798 until the Sunday Law in the United States, which is verse 41. We're living in verse 40. But probation closes for Seventh-day Adventists at the Sunday Law in the United States. It's absolutely amazing to me that Seventh-day Adventists don't understand this. But the counter to the warning message throughout the Scriptures is a peace and safety message. A peace and safety message always puts off character preparation until after the time period that probation closes. So to not recognize that probation closes at the Sunday Law as a Seventh-day Adventist is to buy into a peace and safety message. Sister White repeatedly calls the Sunday Law ‘the great crisis’. But when she deals with the parable of the ten virgins, she says in Great Controversy page 393 that the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25 illustrates the experience of the Adventist people. So, Adventism at the end of the world is fulfilling the parable of the ten virgins. In the parable of the ten virgins, there is a crisis at midnight when there's a cry made, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.” So, at midnight the crisis hits. Sister White, when speaking about this characteristic of the parable of the ten virgins, she says “character is never developed in a crisis, it's only demonstrated in a crisis.” So, when we understand that the Sunday Law is defined as the crisis in inspiration; and that we're fulfilling the parable of the ten virgins; and that the cry at midnight is our crisis; and at that point we either demonstrate whether we have oil or no oil… then, we begin to see that we need to have the oil, which is the oil that comes down to those golden pipes, that is the messages of God's Spirit. He is dishonored if we reject them. We need to receive the latter rain message and bring our lives into agreement with those messages before the Sunday Law. If we wait until the Sunday Law, then all we're waiting for is the mark of the beast. So, we need to settle into the truth before the crisis hits. We get confused about our understanding of the latter rain, not simply because we're Laodiceans and that we're easily confused, even though we are. But, the other reason we misunderstand the latter rain is because the end of ancient Israel illustrates the end of modern Israel. At the end of ancient Israel, one of the primary deceptions of the Jews that prevented them from receiving Christ was the misconception about the kingdom that He was going to set up. They believed Christ was going to set up a literal kingdom, when on the contrary He was going to set up a spiritual kingdom. The work that He was going to do was what they misunderstood. They had a wrong understanding of the work that Christ would do. They expected a literal earthly kingdom; He set up a spiritual kingdom. But that history typifies our history. As a matter of fact, Sister White tells us that there is a prophetic misunderstanding that we have; sometimes she puts it in the context of being typified by that very history of the Jews —not understanding what Christ’s kingdom was to be. The warning for us is that we don't understand what the latter rain is. She tells us that our misunderstanding about the work of the latter rain is that we think we can wait for the latter rain… wait for the Sunday Law and the latter rain for character development. When in reality, the work that the Holy Spirit is supposed to do during the time of the latter rain is to finish character development before the Sunday Law. So, the misconception of the Jews in the time of Christ about the work that Christ was going to do with the spiritual kingdom rather than a literal kingdom is typifying the work of the Holy Spirit in our history. The work of the Holy Spirit is to finish the work of character development in each of our lives before the Sunday Law arrives. As we're wading through this reality in our own experience, we get challenged by the fact that the Adventist church seems to have all the characteristics of God's remnant church in the Scriptures —it keeps the commandments (sort of), has the Spirit of Prophecy (semi)… but all those things that we understood about the Adventist church that allowed us to become Seventh-day Adventists, those things seem to be present in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. But the Seventh-day Adventist Church does not appear to believe that Christ is coming in the near future, nor that the Sunday Law is imminent in the near future So, as Laodicean members of the Seventh-day Adventist church, I've actually had people tell me, “if there's a Sunday Law coming I'm going to wait until I get my Review and Herald magazine telling me that it's coming. I'm not going to study about it until the General Conference puts it in writing and then I'll know it's coming.” this kind of misconception about the Sunday Law that we do not need character development, finished, finalized, before the Sunday Law... character development before the Sunday law is the mistake that we are make following in the footsteps of the Jews. Part of the mistake is in thinking that you can wait until the Sunday Law, and that the Holy Spirit is going to magically change you. That is part of the mistake. But the other part of the mistake is that you're living in a church family that doesn't even believe that. So, you're tempted to think that “well, because no one else believes it is going to happen, I don't have to believe it's going to happen either”. But the reality of it is that it's never been corporate. Salvation has never been a corporate circumstance. It is an individual circumstance. You and I… we have to make these decisions. The Bible and Spirit of Prophecy are clear. We have to make these decisions for ourselves in spite of what the church is doing around us. It's even more specific than that in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. We're going to reach a point in time where our wives or our husbands or our children are going to turn against us over this issue. So, if the Bible has spent time teaching us that when we get to this final time period when we're choosing fully against or fully for God… which is prior to the door closing… if the Bible is teaching us that it is going to divide our families or have the potential to divide our families… that should tell us that it's also going to divide any corporate structure. It should teach us that this is individual. The Lord is in control. He's going to raise up a body of believers. But those believers will all have their own individual experience. They will need to have fully settled into the truth before the crisis hits because it is a strong, firm teaching in Inspiration that character is never developed in a crisis; it's only demonstrated. Adventism has gone through four generations; we're living in the fourth generation now. The first generation from ; 1798 to 1888 the second generation 1888 to 1919; the third 1919 to 1957; now we're in the fourth generation of Adventism. What brought Adventism into a covenant relationship with God in the Millerite history was the willingness on the part of those men and women to accept the message that was given to them. But the message that was given to them was done so by the Lord first in... choosing William Miller to be used to assemble a methodology that allowed them to come to understand the message of their time. As you track the history of Adventism in the context of these four generations you realize that one of the primary attacks of Satan against Adventism is the methodology… to the point where, if we were to go to any Adventist seminary around the world today, we're going to find that they're teaching the hermeneutics of apostate Protestantism and Catholicism. But they're specifically not teaching the methodology of William Miller any longer. If nothing else, this prevents them from understanding how the Millerites came to understand their message for their time period —a message that Sister White says was led by the Lord. But, as we come here to the end of the world and the fourth generation of Adventism, you can document how the methodology was purposely buried. If you use William Miller's dream as a point of reference… how counterfeit coins and rubbish and shavings were brought in to cover up the truth and to cover up the methodology… you realize that in this generation when you get to 9/11, you have to return to the old paths. Part of returning to the old paths is to return to the methodology that has been undermined, covered up, and destroyed through the history of Adventism. If you do that, you get into an understanding of God's Word that is further up that pathway than where the Adventist church is. You're going to seem kind of narrow, strait-laced, and peculiar for the positions that you hold. But that's what the vision says. All the way up that path things get narrower and more serious; that's where we're at in this time period. It's through the introduction of apostate Protestantism and Catholicism's false methodology, false hermeneutics, that the ability of a typical Adventist to see the message of the latter rain arrived at 9/11 is prevented. But the Lord is in the business of changing hearts if we're willing to recognize what's going on in planet earth right now. You don't need God's word as a starting point… all you would need to do is look around and see that the world is stirred with the spirit of war. You can see political corruption in high places; you can see the courts are corrupt; you can see everything that you need to see to show you that the return of Jesus is imminent. At that point, you need to ask, “well, is it true that God doesn't do anything except He first forewarns through His prophets?” Because that's what the Bible teaches. It's easy to see you're at the end of the world if you're willing to see. So, if you're at the end of the world… and God doesn't ever bring any kind of crisis about like this unless He first forewarns His people through His prophetic word… then you do have the right, by faith, to ask the Lord “where is that message that you said would precede the great crisis of the Second Coming?” It must be there because God never changes. That message is in returning to the old paths, into the old methodology; to not do so is to remain in darkness. Before God’s people are able to give the final warning, must not their hearts be cleansed? Must not they have a correct understanding of the work, character, and will of their Heavenly Leader? God’s people have lost the key that, in times past, opened the treasure house of the Lord. The key of correct understanding and right methodology has been buried beneath human tradition. For over 150 years, God’s people have slowly eroded the foundation that the Lord, through His pioneers of the faith, so carefully built. Our only hope, our most urgent duty, is to return to the foundations of our faith; to restore a correct understanding of the Word of God. “We are standing on the threshold of great and solemn events. Prophecies are fulfilling. The last great conflict will be short, but terrible. Old controversies will be revived. New controversies will arise. We have a great work to do. Our ministerial work must not cease. The last warnings must be given to the world. There is a special power in the presentation of the truth at the present time. How long will it last? —Only a little while. If ever there was a crisis, it is now. The inquiry of every one should be, What am I? To whom do I owe allegiance? Is my heart renewed? Is my soul reformed? Are my sins forgiven? Will they be all blotted out when the time of refreshing shall come? God help us, is my most earnest prayer.” Letter, 132, 1898. Are you ready?

Channel: FutureForAmerica

Views: 93,056

Rating: 4.7908368 out of 5

Keywords: Ellen White, Bible, Jeff Pippenger, Prophecy, SDA, end times, Desolations of Jerusalem, Seventh-day, Adventist Church, History of Adventism, Documentary, 1989, russia, soviet union, religion, three angel's messages, 9/11, sunday law

Id: sUomusObWqQ

Length: 155min 12sec (9312 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 22 2018