Vision of Future Advent Experiences

But she was soon delivered from this state of uncertainty and sorrow. In the latter part of December, she, with a few other women, was visiting at the home of a Mrs. Haines in Portland. While they were all bowed in prayer together, she became unconscious of her earthly surroundings, and was given in vision a view of the future experiences through which the believers in the second advent were yet to pass, and of the final coming of Christ. We relate a part of the vision in her own words:AGP 259.3

“While I was praying at the family altar, the Holy Ghost fell upon me, and I seemed to be rising higher and higher, far above the dark world. I turned to look for the advent people in the world, but could not find them, when a voice said to me, ‘Look again, and look a little higher.’ At this I raised my eyes, and saw a straight and narrow path, cast up high above the world. On this path the advent people were traveling to the city, which was at the farther end of the path. They had a bright light set up behind them at the beginning of the path, which an angel told me was the midnight cry. During the summer of 1844, some of the leaders of the advent movement in New England, by a study of the types, came to the conclusion that the 2300-day period would end on the Jewish Day of Atonement, which in that year fell on October 22. This expectation aroused those who, like the sleeping virgins, had become spiritually indifferent, and became a powerful movement called “the midnight cry,” because of its analogy to that part of the parable of the ten virgins. 3 This light shone all along the path, and gave light for their feet so that they might not stumble.

“If they kept their eyes fixed on Jesus, who was just before them, leading them to the city, they were safe. But soon some grew weary, and said the city was a great way off, and they expected to have entered it before. Then Jesus would encourage them by raising His glorious right arm, and from His arm came a light which waved over the advent band, and they shouted, ‘Alleluia!’ Others rashly denied the light behind them, and said that it was not God that had led them out so far. The light behind them went out, leaving their feet in perfect darkness, and they stumbled and lost sight of the mark and of Jesus, and fell off the path down into the dark and wicked world below.

“Soon we heard the voice of God like many waters, which gave us the day and hour of Jesus’ coming. The living saints, 144,000 in number, knew and understood the voice, while the wicked thought it was thunder and an earthquake. When God spoke the time, He poured upon us the Holy Ghost, and our faces began to light up and shine with the glory of God, as Moses’ did when he came down from Mount Sinai.

“The 144,000 were all sealed and perfectly united. On their foreheads was written, God, New Jerusalem, and a glorious star containing Jesus’ new name.” “Early Writings of Mrs. E. G. White,” pp. 14, 15.