Special Evidences that the Gift of the Spirit of Prophecy was Necessary for the Success of This Message
By G. I. BUTLER
The most important part of any building is its foundation. However beautiful and imposing its structure, if the foundation is unstable and worthless, its value is naught. The same principle is true of religious doctrines. Christ’s illustration of building on the rock and on the shifting sand is to the point. Christ is the Rock of eternal truth; Satan and multitudinous errors are the shifting sands. What was the foundation of the third angel’s message? The great fact of Christ’s soon coming as brought to view in the first angel’s message, which was to go to “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” The third message of the series was to be proclaimed to the true believers in the first message. These were scattered and discouraged by the great disappointment, yet they ever believed that the first message was of God. Great numbers had given up their faith in the movement, and had gone back to the churches and to the world; but the honest ones were to be sought out and given a knowledge of the truths of the third message. What was the strongest agency in convincing these believers of the truth of the later message and of unifying the work? We answer, unequivocally, the Spirit of prophecy as manifested in the visions given to Ellen G. Harmon (afterward Mrs. E. G. White). For nearly ten years the work was confined to the gathering in of those who had accepted the first angel’s message, and the most earnest of them received the advanced light. They knew by their own religious experience that God was in the first message. They would have had to throw away their whole personal religious experience to disown that mighty and glorious message. They knew that God had wrought mightily by his Spirit’s power in their own souls, and in the conversion of thousands. They were experienced Christians. They recognized at once in Mrs. White’s visions the power of that Spirit which filled their souls with joy and gratitude, and were drawn to this message by them. They saw very quickly that these visions were the same in spirit and character as the visions of Holy Writ. They soon learned, too, that the remnant church, the last church on earth, was to have the Spirit of prophecy, and they plainly saw that these visions were the manifestation of it. There was the statement of the Revelator, and here was the manifestation itself. What could be more convincing? These believers in the first message became the earliest believers in the third angel’s message, thus forming the nucleus of what was to be the remnant church. In the experiences incident to the great disappointment they had proved themselves true and steadfast, and were thereby better fitted to lead out in the later movement than new converts would have been. The third angel’s message had to have a basis of doctrinal belief. That basis must be composed of solid Bible truths. It was to be a platform upon which God’s true people could stand firm and united during the perils of the last days. Every tradition of the Papacy not sustained by the Scriptures must be discarded, and every truth taught by the apostolic church must be retained. A most thorough and careful investigation of the Holy Scriptures was entered upon. Day and night this study was continued with deepest earnestness and prayer to God for light. Gradually light broke in, to the great joy and gratitude of the earnest believers. A great help in these investigations was the Spirit of prophecy. Visions of heavenly light shone upon the minds and hearts of the humble pioneers. Among the first of these truths to be made plain was the question of the sanctuary. This explained the great disappointment of 1844. During the first part of the first angel’s message the believers supposed this earth was the sanctuary to be cleansed by fire at the coming of Christ. But upon further study the pioneers saw clearly that this earth could not be the sanctuary. The word itself means “a holy place, a sacred place, the dwelling place of the Most High.” Surely this earth is anything but that. They soon found that the Scriptures teach that there is a sanctuary in heaven, a true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man, and that Christ, our great High Priest, ministers therein. The tabernacle, or sanctuary, on earth was merely a type of this glorious temple in heaven. Heb. 8:1-4. While these investigations were in progress and the true light began to shine on this great subject, in 1847 Mrs. White had a vision in which the whole sanctuary subject was opened up to her mind. She was shown the heavenly temple. Christ’s ministry in the first apartment was portrayed; his passing to the second apartment, the holy of holies, was shown; the ark of his testament was plainly seen; and his last ministration, and the examination of the books of record connected with the final judgment work, were made plain. From that time until the present the subject of the sanctuary has been one of the most important doctrines advocated by our people. The early believers, and all true believers, recognized the Testimonies as being very helpful in settling this important doctrine. Another doctrine which is prominent in our system of faith is the seventh-day Sabbath. All believers in the first angel’s message observed Sunday at first as the true Sabbath. Mrs. White herself believed in keeping the first day of the week, even after Elder Joseph Bates began to observe the seventh day. She at first felt that he made that subject too prominent. She did not see its importance. But in the vision in which she saw the sanctuary, she beheld also the ark, which contains the ten commandments. “The four on the first table,” she said, “shone brighter than the other six. But the fourth, the Sabbath commandment, shone above them all, for the Sabbath was set apart to be kept in honor of God’s holy name. The holy Sabbath looked glorious—a halo of glory was all around it. I saw that the Sabbath commandment was not nailed to the cross. . . . I saw that the holy Sabbath is and will be the separating wall between the true Israel of God and unbelievers.”—“Early Writings,” pp. 32-35. From this time Mrs. White was an earnest observer of the seventh-day Sabbath. Later, when the believers in this movement became organized and took the name of Seventh-day Adventists, they placed this institution among their leading doctrines. These extracts will clearly show this agency to be very helpful in confirming the believers in the conclusions they had reached from the study of the Scriptures.