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SEE HERE, OR SEE THERE

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 23, 1869

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 33, No. 9.

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“SEE HERE, OR SEE THERE.”

By John Nevins Andrews

“And they shall say to you, See here; or, See there; go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of Man be in his day.” Luke xvii, 23, 24.
“Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth; behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” Matt. xxiv, 26, 27.
It is a very common remark when men are invited to listen to the Advent faith, that we are commanded not to follow the Lo heres, and the Lo theres. So men set the whole matter aside with this single answer, and seem to think they have well disposed of a very unpleasant subject.
But is there any propriety in such an answer? That depends on one simple test. If the Advent message turns men from the revelation of Jesus in the clouds of heaven as the lightning shining from the east to the west, and sends them into the desert, or the secret chamber, then it is exactly such a Lo here as our Lord has warned us of. But this is not the case. The personal revelation of the Son of God in flaming fire in the clouds of heaven, is the Advent hope. Take that away, and Adventism is gone. When our Lord therefore bade his disciples shun the Lo heres, and Lo theres, that they might cleave to this great object of hope and expectation, he really made the Advent hope the one thing to which we should cleave, and warned us against all these systems that present a substitute for that hope.
The Shakers inform us that the Saviour came about 100 years since in the person of Ann Lee; and they bid us to come to them to see the kingdom of God.
The Swedenborgians have introduced the New-Jerusalem state, but it has nothing that satisfies our longing hearts. The coming of Christ and the resurrection are disposed of much to their satisfaction; but it does not answer our wants at all. “We wait yet another to come from above.”
The Oneida Community teaches that Christ came at the destruction of Jerusalem, which is to them good news. So they have set up a kingdom in which there is indeed no Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but one in which death reigns, and for the excellent reason that sin and the Devil reign there also.
The Spiritualists have found an excellent substitute for the coming of the Son of God. You can witness in their secret chambers the manifestation of familiar spirits, and if you are disposed to follow them, you can accept this in the place of the revelation of the Son of God as lightning from the heaven above.
The Mormons invite us forth into the desert to witness their kingdom of God. But for two excellent reasons we shall not go. 1. We believe in the moral law. 2. We love the blessed hope and glorious appearing of the Son of God.
We cannot follow these Lo heres, or Lo theres. They are like Theudas and Judas that arose in the days of the first advent. Acts v, 34-37. Our hearts are filled with longing desire to see that same Jesus, and we shall wait till the opening heavens reveal him.
J. N. ANDREWS.