Notes on Important Eras of Fulfilling Prophecy by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 21, 1912

Notes on Important Eras of Fulfilling Prophecy

By W. A. S.

The Hand of God in History — No. 25

Notes on Important Eras of Fulfilling Prophecy

The Advent Movement of Rev. 14: 6-14

On the Isle of Patmos the Lord opened before John in vision the scenes of the last days. In the vision of the latter part of the fourteenth chapter of the Revelation, the prophet was given a view of the second coming of Christ to reap the harvest of the earth:—

“And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.” Verse 14.

But just preceding this view of the Lord’s coming, the prophet was shown the closing gospel work on earth. He saw a special gospel movement rising as the hour of God’s judgment came, and spreading to all the world, bearing a threefold message of preparation for the coming of the Lord. In the symbolic manner of these prophecies the movement is described as follows:—

“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:6-12.

The picture is plain. As the hour of God’s judgment came, in 1844, it marked the beginning of a special gospel movement that is to go forward until human probation closes, just before Christ appears in the clouds of heaven. In the symbolic prophecy, angels represent the proclamation of the gospel messages by men; for it is to men that God has committed the preaching of the gospel. But the association of angels with the work is more than symbol also; for all the angels are “ministering spirits,” sent forth as invisible helpers to lead the human agents in the work of God on earth.

The prophet saw in vision the coming of the judgment-hour in 1844. He beheld the rise of the advent movement. He saw the kind of people developed by the movement,—a people keeping “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” He heard them preaching the hour of God’s judgment; proclaiming the fall of great Babylon; warning men against following the “beast,” the symbol of the great apostasy; and calling all to the divine platform of “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”

This is what the prophet saw in vision of the last days. And what he saw he wrote on the sacred page nearly nineteen centuries ago.

The centuries passed; the work of God moved forward in the earth, through days of peril and days of reformation. Prophecy was fulfilling, events of the latter days were taking place, and servants of God began to proclaim the coming of Christ near at hand. But nowhere in the world did men see a people doing the work of this prophecy of Revelation 14, and giving the threefold message recorded there, until the year 1844 brought the hour of God’s judgment.

When the year 1844 brought the full time of the prophecy, it brought the beginning of the definite advent movement which is proclaiming the message of the prophecy to the world to-day. It was in that very year (1844), in New Hampshire, that a little company of believers in the near coming of the Lord were led to see that the New Testament platform of “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus,” meant the keeping of the fourth commandment as well as the other nine; and they began to keep God’s holy Sabbath day, the seventh day of the week.

In his history of the advent awakening of those times, J. N. Loughborough says of the beginning of Sabbath observance among Adventists:—

This doctrine, among Adventists, arose on this wise: Rachel Preston, a Seventh-day Baptist, moved to Washington, N. H., where there was a church of Adventists. She accepted the advent doctrine, and that church, composed of about forty members, through her missionary labors accepted the Sabbath of

the fourth commandment. This led to inquiry upon that subject. In the Midnight Cry [one of the papers devoted to the 1844 movement, published in New York City] of Sept. 5, 1844, we read, “Many persons have their minds deeply exercised respecting a supposed obligation to observe the seventh day.” This statement was contained in an editorial, in which a faint effort was made to establish the claims of Sunday-keeping. The subject was continued in the number of September 12, where we find the following significant statement, which led to serious and close study by many:—

“Last week we found ourselves brought to this conclusion: There is no particular portion of time which Christians are required by law to set aside as holy time. If this conclusion is incorrect, then we think the seventh day is the only day for the observance of which there is any law.”—“Great Second Advent Movement,” page 249.

Thus the matter of the Sabbath of the commandment was being agitated, and some were already keeping it. Frederick Wheeler, formerly a Methodist Episcopal minister, was one of this number. In a statement based on facts of his own dictation, we read:—

As a Methodist minister he was convinced of the advent truth by reading William Miller’s works in 1842, and joined in preaching the first message [that of the judgment-hour]. In March, 1844, he begun to keep the true Sabbath, in Washington, N. H.—Review, Oct. 4, 1906.

He is “supposed to have preached the first sermon in favor of the seventh-day Sabbath ever given by an Adventist minister, before the passing of the time in 1844.”—Obituary in Review, Nov. 24, 1910.

The next year Captain Joseph Bates, an Adventist leader, of Massachusetts, began to keep the Sabbath and to publish the message of reform in printed form. Others followed. Light as to the real meaning of the judgment-hour, and the work to be done in carrying the threefold message to the world, came flooding in, and the definite advent movement of the prophecy was started upon its way. This is the movement that Seventh-day Adventists stand for to-day, with a work spreading forth into all the world, preaching the message of the “everlasting gospel” in the exact terms of the prophecy of Rev. 14:6-12.

When the hour of the prophecy came, in 1844, it found the people of the prophecy, a little nucleus of believers, keeping “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus,” and crying the message, “The hour of his judgment is come.” When the hour struck, the work began. There is the precision of the infinite power of the living God in this fulfilling of the “sure word of prophecy” that had been written nearly two thousand years before.

This advent movement was born of God. Those who turned to the keeping

of God’s commandments as a matter of Sabbath reform in the year 1844 little understood that it was the beginning of a new and definite movement in fulfilment of the prophecy. They had no thought of devising a work to fit the prophecy. But in the days immediately following, as believers in the approaching second advent began to understand the doctrine of the cleansing of the sanctuary, all was plain. They saw that the judgment-hour had truly come in 1844, and that while this closing ministry of Christ was going forward in heaven, the last message of the everlasting gospel was to be carried to all the world, calling men away from papal traditions to the standard of God’s eternal truth.

That the warning of the threefold message is against following the Roman Papacy is evident; for the beast whose worship is denounced is the power symbolized by the leopard beast of the previous chapter. See Rev. 13: 1-8. This is easily identified with the little horn of Daniel 7. Like that power, the beast was to speak “great things,” to “make war with the saints,” and its period of special supremacy is the same as that of the little horn of Dan. 7:25, where we first meet the prophecy of the 1260 years of papal supremacy. The Papacy is the great apostasy of the prophetic scriptures. The advent movement lifts up the standard against this power in the closing gospel work. W. A. S.