CHRIST'S SECOND ADVENT by Stephen N. Haskell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 8, 1901

CHRIST'S SECOND ADVENT

By Stephen N. Haskell

Revelation 10

S. N. H.

THIS heavenly message is presented by a mighty angel, who comes down from heaven, clothed with a cloud. The darkness of the earth, which is groaning beneath the burden of six thousand years of sin, is lighted with the glory of God and the purifying effect of the message. The clouds, which become dark with tempest, are arched with the rainbow of promise. So above the world's degradation shines the promised glory of the Messiah's reign. The clouds of wrath are spanned by the rainbow of His covenant mercy. “When man by his great wickedness invites the divine judgments, the Saviour, interceding with the Father in his behalf, points to the bow in the clouds, to the rainbow around the throne and above His own head, as a token of the mercy of God toward the repentant sinner.” — “Patriarchs and Prophets,” page 107.

More than six centuries before John had this vision, the angel said to the prophet Daniel, by the great river Hiddekel: “Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.” Again, “Go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.” Dan. 12: 4-13. The time for Daniel to stand in his lot had now fully arrived. The prophecies of the book of Daniel had become unsealed. The twenty-three hundred days of Dan. 8: 14, concerning which Gabriel had said, “Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision,” was understood. Dan. 8: 16, 17. The time of the end had come. Men had searched the prophetic word to and fro, knowledge had been increased, and the message had gone by land and by sea until the civilized world had heard the glorious proclamation of the Messiah's reign. An angel, with an uplifted hand, “sware by Him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be TIME NO LONGER.” The prophetic time, the twenty-three hundred days, covering the last prophetic periods, terminated in the autumn of 1844 A. D., according to the oath of the angel. That was fifty-six years ago the twenty-second of last October.

The conclusion that the Lord would come at that time was reached by the following suppositions: The sanctuary of Dan. 8: 14 was the earth. The burning of the earth was the cleansing of the sanctuary. The earth would be burned when the Lord comes, so the text was made to read, Unto two thousand and three hundred days, the Lord will come.

The explanation of the twenty-three hundred days, or years, was as follows: The starting point for the twenty-three hundred days was “from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem.” Dan. 9: 27. This decree was by Artaxerxes, 457 B. C. See margin of Ezra 7. It would take four hundred and fifty-seven full years B. C. and eighteen hundred and forty-three years A. D. to make twenty-three hundred years: 1843 A. D., Jewish time, continued to the spring of 1844 A. D. So in February, 1844, the Adventists looked for Christ to come. As He did not come, upon re-examination they found that the decree did not go into effect until nearly six months of 457 B. C. had passed. Ezra 7: 9. This would carry the ending of the days to the autumn of 1844 A. D.

These dates are established by more than twenty eclipses, besides harmonizing with the dates of Christ's entering upon His ministry, His baptism, His crucifixion, and the gospel's going to the Gentiles. This gave the tarrying time of the parable of the ten virgins of Matt. 25: 1-10. After the time passed in the spring, the churches closed their doors to the doctrine of the immediate appearing of Christ. This gave rise to the second angel's message of Rev. 14: 8. It was during the summer of 1844 A. D. that the loud cry of the loud cry of the first angel's message was given. The proclamation of the first angel's message was by no means local. Edward Irving preached in England; Joseph Wolff, of Germany, preached in Asia, India, and the islands of the sea; also in this country, at Washington, D. C. William Miller led out in the United States of America. So extensively was it preached in this country, that school children, when returning to and from school, could be heard quoting the oft-repeated texts, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.” In Sweden, where the law forbade any preaching contrary to the State religion, children were moved by the Spirit of God to proclaim the coming of Christ, and warn men of the judgment. It was called, in their public records, a “religious sickness.”

Again they were doomed to a sadder disappointment than before. Upon further investigation of the subject they found that the sanctuary, instead of being the earth, is the heavenly sanctuary, the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man, eternal in the heavens. Heb. 8: 1, 2. Here is Christ, our intercessor, at the right hand of the Father. This opened many truths to their understanding. The sixth angel had sounded, Aug. 11, 1840 A. D.; and from that date to the tenth day of the seventh month, 1844, A. D., was the “quickly” when the seventh trumpet was to sound. Rev. 11: 14. The seventh trumpet then sounded, and there were seen in His temple the ark of His testament. Rev. 11: 15, 19. The sounding of the seventh angel, beginning in 1844 A. D., covers the entire period of the judgment until “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign forever and ever.” “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished.” This mystery is the gospel. Eph. 3: 2-4, 8, 9. The open door, which no man can shut, is in the most holy place in the heavenly sanctuary, out of which comes the third angel with the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus that offer the last notes of warning to a dying world. This message is to go to “many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.” Merchant princes will accept the gospel as its notes are dying away in the world. Isa. 60: 1-7.

The experience of God's people when the time passed in 1844 A. D. is vividly described by the sweetness in the mouth and the bitterness in the belly. Rev. 10: 9, 10. How sweet the thought that in a few short months, a few weeks, yes, finally a few days, they would count their sorrows over, and meet their blessed Lord! Language can not describe the joy that filled the heart of those who had confessed their sins, given their all to forward that work, and were waiting for their Lord. But the time passed, and they had again to take up their duties in this life, and meet the taunting sneer, “I thought you were going up,” etc. This was the bitter part of the vision. But soon joy filled their hearts when they heard the Lord speaking in Rev. 10: 11.

For further description of this experience see Eze. 2: 9, 10; 3: 1-3; Jer. 15: 19-21; Isa. 30: 8, 9, 18-21.