For nearly one hundred years now, we have been living under the shadow of a very important date, known to most Seventh-day Adventists as 1888. This date has generated a debate among scholars and students, leaders and laity. What was this precious message God gave to Elders Waggoner and Jones that brought down the fourth angel of Revelation 18 to give the loud cry? Was this message accepted or rejected by leaders, pastors, and laity?
Many books have been written on this very important date leading us to believe that this message accomplished its purpose, and that all is well. If, however, this were true, we should have been gone from this world in the early 1890s. For this powerful and dynamic message was given by God for one purpose, and ,:that was to give the necessary power to the third angel's message, causing it to swell into the loud cry.
The church would have been shaken and purified. The world would have been warned. God's call to come out of Babylon would have shaken the other churches. The Seventh-day Adventist Church--God's last-day church--would have been victorious in its great commission and Jesus would have come. Then there would not have been World Wars I and II, Korea, or Vietnam; neither would we be faced with the possibility of a nuclear third world war, which looms ominously on our horizon today.
You say, Where is your proof for such a statement? First of all, we must see that the leadership at the Minneapolis Conference of 1888 were given a test. Let us read from inspiration: "The time of test is just upon us, for the loud cry of the third angel has already begun in the revelation of the righteousness of Christ, the sin-pardoning Redeemer. This is the beginning of the light of the angel whose glory shall fill the whole earth."[1]
We must now determine whether we passed or failed that test.
Ellen White, writing in Selected Messages, book 1, 118, and Testimonies, vol. 9, p. 11, stated that this angel's message would cut God's work short in righteousness, going like fire in the stubble, and that the final movements would be rapid ones. What has gone wrong?
Three hundred and twenty-five thousand babies are born into our world every day, and even though the church has become a well-known international organization, with thousands of missionaries and institutions encircling the globe, producing grandiose statistics, we must confess that we are farther from completing the work God commissioned us to do than when we began. We are now faced with nearly five billion souls who need the message that was given the church in 1888.
What is this message Ellen White speaks of as "a most precious message" from God? Listen to her as she speaks: "The Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people through Elders Waggoner and Jones. This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God. Many had lost sight of Jesus. They needed to have their eyes directed to His divine person, His merits, and His changeless love for the human family. All power is given into His hands, that He may dispense rich gifts unto men, imparting the priceless gift of His own righteousness to the helpless human agent. This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel's message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure."[2]
Message after message came from her pen, urging our leading brethren and pastors to accept the experience of righteousness by faith, victory over every sin, through Jesus Christ. Listen to this comment: "An unwillingness to yield up preconceived opinions, and to accept this truth [that the "law" in Galatians refers to the moral law], lay at the foundation of a large share of the opposition manifested at Minneapolis against the Lord's message through Brethren Waggoner and Jones. By exciting that opposition Satan succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them. The enemy prevented them from obtaining the efficiency which might have been theirs in carrying the truth to the world, as the apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost. The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away from the world."[3]
Again, we read from a manuscript written during the Minneapolis meeting[4] : "When I have been made to pass over the history of the Jewish nation and have seen where they stumbled because they did not walk in the light, I have been led to realize where we as a people would be led if we refuse the light God would give us. Eyes have ye but ye see not; ears, but ye hear not. Now, brethren, light has come to us and we want to be where we can grasp it. ... I see your danger and I want to warn you.
"If the ministers will not receive the light [spoken at the 1888 Conference itself], I want to give the people a chance; perhaps they will receive it."
And again: The following quotations from inspiration will help us to see the attitudes of the leaders and their rejection of this precious message. "When the Jews took the first step in the rejection of Christ, they took a dangerous step. When afterward evidence accumulated that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, they were too proud to acknowledge that they had erred. ... Just like the Jews, they [the brethren] take it for granted they have all the truth, and feel a sort of contempt for anyone who should suppose they had more correct ideas than themselves of what is truth. All the evidence produced they decide shall not weigh a straw with them, and they tell others that the doctrine is not true, and afterward, when they see as light evidence they were so forward to condemn, they have too much pride to say `I was wrong'; they still cherish doubt and unbelief, and are too proud to acknowledge their convictions. ...
"It is not wise for one of these young men to commit himself to a decision at this meeting, where opposition, rather than investigation, is the order of the day."[5]
"Those to whom Christ has entrusted great light, whom He has surrounded with precious opportunities, are in danger, if they do not walk in this light, of being filled with pride of opinion and with self-exaltation as were the Jews."[6]
"We should not be found quibbling, and putting up hooks on which to hang our doubts in regard to the light which God sends us. When a point of doctrine that you do not understand comes to your attention, go to God on your knees, that you may understand what is truth, and not be found as were the Jews, fighting against God. ...
"For nearly two years we have been urging the people to come up and accept the light and the truth concerning the righteousness of Christ, and they do not know whether to come and take hold of this precious truth or not."[7]
"I think that Elder A. T. Jones should attend our large camp meetings and give to our people and to outsiders as well, the precious subject of faith and the righteousness of Christ. There is a flood of light in this subject."[8]
"I have never labored in life more directly under the controlling influences of the Spirit of God. God gave me meat in due season for the people, but they refused it, for it did not come in just the way and manner they wanted it to come. Elders Jones and Waggoner presented precious light to the people, but prejudice and unbelief, jealousy and evil-surmising barred the door of their hearts that nothing from this source should find entrance to their hearts."[9]
"Oh, that all that stepped in false paths at that notable meeting at Minneapolis, and have felt the same spirit enfolding them about, would let Heaven's light enter their souls. ... Hating Jesus Christ in the form of His saints! Oh, how will God reveal this whole business in a place where they have never looked upon it!"[10]
"The Lord has been calling His people. In a most marvelous manner He has revealed His divine presence. But the message and the messengers have not been received but despised. ... In rejecting the message given at Minneapolis, men committed sin. They have committed far greater sin by retaining for years the same hatred against God's messengers, by rejecting the truth that the Holy Spirit has been urging home. ... Light from the throne of God has been long resisted as an objectionable thing. It has been regarded as darkness, and spoken of as fanaticism, as something dangerous to be shunned."[11]
"No more tender calls, no better opportunities could be given them in order that they might do that which they ought to have done in Minneapolis. ... The time will come when they will be willing to do anything and everything possible in order to have a chance of hearing the call which they rejected in Minneapolis."[12] "We know that Brother (A.T.) Jones has been giving the message for this time, meat in due season to the starving flock of God, ... the heaven-sent message. ... They [the opposers] will be asked in the judgment `When the evidence was piled upon evidence, why did you not humble your hearts before God, and repent of your rejection of the message of mercy I sent to you?' "[13]
We see, from the foregoing statements, that the light that was to lighten the whole earth with His glory was resisted, and by the action of the brethren kept from the world. Because of the rejection by the leadership, she wanted to give the people an opportunity to hear it. This led her to travel the camp-meeting and workers-meeting circuit with Elders Waggoner and Jones, standing with them, preaching this precious message of victory over sin, through the total surrender of the will to the truth of God, leading to obedience through faith, by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Yes, the angel came down to give power to the third angel's message, but the church was impotent; the leadership was standing in the way, and the laity were to a great extent, deprived of its beauty, blinded by the leadership.
"How long will those at the head of the work keep themselves aloof from the message of God?"[14]
"The Lord has shown me that men in responsible positions are standing directly in the way of His work because they think the work must be done and the blessing must come in a certain way, and they will not recognize that which comes in any other way. My brethren, may the Lord place this matter before you as it is. God does not work as men plan, or as they wish; He `moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.' Why reject the Lord's methods of working, because they do not coincide with our ideas? God has His appointed channels of light, but these are not necessarily the minds of any particular set of men."[15]
And then this statement from the Review and Herald Extra, December 23, 1890, "In the manifestation of that power which lightens the earth with the glory of God, they see only something which in their blindness they think dangerous, something which will arouse their fears, and they will brace themselves to resist it. Because the Lord does not work according to their ideas and expectations, they will oppose the work. 'Why,' they say, `should not we know the Spirit of God, when we have been in the work so many years?'--Because they did not respond to the warnings, the entreaties of the messages of God, but persistently said, `I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing.' "
The problem of resisting the messages from God to the church are not new to our day; they are as old as the church itself. The church has resisted God's leading and orders most of the time. "This is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord: which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits." (Isaiah 30:9, 10)
"The watchmen are responsible for the condition of the people. While you open the door to pride, envy, doubt, and other sins, there will be strife, hatred, and every evil work. Jesus, the meek and lowly One, asks an entrance as your guest; but you are afraid to bid Him enter."[16]
"I appeal to my brethren to wake up. Unless a change takes place speedily, I must give the facts to the people; for this state of things must change; unconverted men must no longer be managers and directors in so important and sacred work. With David we are forced to say, `It is time for Thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void Thy law.' "[17]
Elder A.G. Daniels was at the 1888 meeting, and later, in 1926, wrote an apology for what had happened, in Christ our Righteousness, 23. "In 1888 there came to the Seventh-day Adventist Church a very definite awakening message. It was designated at the time as `the message of Righteousness by Faith.' Both the message itself and the manner of its coming made a deep and lasting impression upon the minds of ministers and people, and the lapse of time has not erased that impression from memory. To this day, many of those who heard the message when it came are deeply interested in it and concerned regarding it. All these long years they have held a firm conviction, and cherished a fond hope, that someday this message would be given great prominence among us, and that it would do the cleansing, regenerating work in the church which they believed it was sent by the Lord to accomplish."
In the light of all this inspired evidence, those who wish to continue to write or preach that the message was received and experienced in 1888, must now examine the credibility of such pronouncements. Remember, this message was the beginning of the loud cry.
In the 1893 General Conference Bulletin, 377, there is an excerpt from a letter by G. B. Starr, in which he quotes Sister White: "Sister White says that we have been in the time of the latter rain since the Minneapolis meeting." Yet today there is no loud cry; no latter rain.
What was this precious message that God gave to Elders Waggoner and Jones? Let us examine the statements of our prophet.
"The Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people through Elders Waggoner and Jones. This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God. Many had lost sight of Jesus. They needed to have their eyes directed to His divine person, His merits, and His changeless love for the human family. All power is given into His hands, that He may dispense rich gifts unto men, imparting the priceless gift of His own righteousness to the helpless human agent. This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel's message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure."[18]