Loading...
Larger font
Smaller font
Copy
Print
Contents
  • Results
  • Related
  • Featured
No results found for: "".
  • Weighted Relevancy
  • Content Sequence
  • Relevancy
  • Earliest First
  • Latest First
    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents

    Introduction

    The old’44 Adventists are rapidly passing away. Only a little handful remains among us. The mass of our people are not personally acquainted with the facts connected with the passing of the time, the short period of confusion which followed before the rise of the third angel’s message, and the events connected with its early history. They know little concerning what was known as the “shut door doctrine” or the causes which led to it. There are now very few public laborers among us who are personally acquainted with these facts. Father Bates, Elders White and Andrews, and quite a number of others who acted as public speakers, are gone.AdEx 1.1

    Yet there are facts of the very deepest interest connected with that interesting period, which have a vital connection with our present work. This message is connected with all that experience by indissoluble ties. If that Advent experience was not of God, this cannot be. If that was a fanatical movement, this must be also. But if that first message was a true prophetic movement, this surely is. The messages constitute but one series. They stand together or fall together.AdEx 1.2

    Our opponents make desperate efforts to show that some great errors and mistakes were connected with the work after the passing of the time, hoping to thus disgrace the whole movement. There has been more ink wasted on this subject in their vain endeavors than almost any other.AdEx 1.3

    That period in our history will ever be one of absorbing interest to all believers in this message. The experience of God’s people was one of the most trying at that time that perhaps any religious body has passed through for centuries. From a child the writer was brought up in the midst of the Advent experience. Being ten years of age when the time passed in 1844, we remember the events of the next few years as well as almost any in our life. At that period of life impressions remain most deeply fixed in the memory. Being acquainted with the third angel’s message when perhaps there were not more than fifty Adventist Sabbath keepers in the world, we have had an extensive knowledge of the facts connected with its early history.AdEx 1.4

    After speaking recently on these subjects in the Tabernacle, we were requested to write out for the Review some of the facts relating to this interesting period of Advent history. We hope this will not only be of interest to the readers of the Review, but that it will add to their confidence in the correctness of our position, and serve as a defense when our enemies try to break down their faith in this sacred work. We are sure from personal knowledge that we have nothing to fear from the most scrutinizing investigation of early Advent history. The more closely it is investigated, the better it will be for the cause; it is only a partial knowledge of the facts that we need to fear. When we understand all about the facts connected with the “shut door doctrine,” as it is called, we shall find nothing of which we need to be ashamed.AdEx 1.5

    The believers in Christ’s soon coming were grievously, bitterly disappointed in not seeing the Lord in 1844. They were for a time in confusion. Doubt and questioning sorely perplexed the true believers. Some, of whom better things were expected, gave up their faith, many going back to the world. It was a time of great trial with them. But when the light on the third message broke in, they saw their bearings, and the past was made clear. It is morally impossible for those who learn of these facts of Advent experience by hearsay to realize them in the same sense and intensity that those did who personally experienced them. We may believe the words of those who tell us about these things, yet they are not as real as if we had seen them and felt the emotions of the living actor. Our great danger as a people is that we will not now share by faith the Advent spirit manifested then, and that we shall receive in its place a worldly, indifferent, careless spirit, which pervades all Christendom.AdEx 2.1

    How much we would rejoice to see manifest among us more of the old Advent fire and intensity of interest seen in 1844. We want that experience revived in our midst. We want that spirit of sacrifice to give life and push to the work. With the glorious theory of truth we possess, if this spirit was permeating the whole body we should soon hear the loud cry of the message in all directions. Right here is the element too much lacking.AdEx 2.2

    We hope in some faint degree to give the readers of the Review some ideas of that interesting period. In the next issue we will speak of the closing part of the ’44 experience.—G.I.B.AdEx 2.3

    The Review and Herald, February 17, 1885, Advent Experience—No. 2

    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents