When they first met early in 1846, Ellen Harmon didn't believe in Joseph Bates's Saturday Sabbath. Nor did the captain believe in Ellen Harmon's prophetic visions.
Ellen found in Bates, who was more than thirty years her senior, a kindly second father. She was deeply puzzled, however, that so genuine a Christian should so emphasize the fourth commandment.
Didn't he know, she wondered, that there were nine others?
For his part, Bates accepted Ellen as a wonderful Christian youth, but though he found nothing contrary to Scripture in her visions, he "felt alarmed and tried exceedingly" by them and supposed that they came only from her depressed state of health.
He interrogated her and her sister closely outside of public meetings. In November that year she had a vision about stars and planets. He knew she was ignorant of this subject, which he, as a sailor, knew a good deal about. He was so impressed that he finally acknowledged her gift to be the true spirit of prophecy.
Meantime, the Millerite Adventists, who had stood gloriously united in their belief that Christ would come to cleanse the "sanctuary" of earth and church on October 22, 1844, had by now divided along several different seams. A large number had rejected the whole concept and either returned to their former denominations or abandoned the Christian faith.
By contrast, a small but energetic number of Millerites chose to believe that they were correct about the time of Christ's return. Jesus had come on October 22 all right, but invisibly and only to His true believers--that is, to themselves.
According to these people, Jesus had cleansed His sanctuary (themselves) from every stain of sin, with the result that they could never sin again.
To her great perplexity, Ellen was summoned by the Lord to help lead these people out of their delusion. As she saw that their claims to holiness were accompanied by foolishness and even immorality, she developed a strong aversion to all kinds of fanaticism. Through the years that followed she often warned against claiming to be free from sin.
A sizable body of Millerites (perhaps 40,000 or more) continued to believe that Christ would come to cleanse the church and the earth at the close of the 2300 days, but they said they had been mistaken in the initial date for their calculations (457 BC). These Adventists regrouped in April 1846 at a conference in Albany, New York. For decades they continued to set new dates for Christ's return. They still exist, about 30,000 in number, as the Advent Christian Church.
It was among these disappointed but still believing Adventists that Edson and Crosier (with their light on the sanctuary), Ellen Harmon (with her light on the sanctuary and the spirit of prophecy), and Bates (with his light on the Sabbath) exerted their efforts.
Before the end of 1846 several nuclei of believers in Sabbath, sanctuary, and spirit of prophecy had formed in scattered places around New England and the state of New York in Fairhaven and Port Gibson, of course, and also in Topsham, Maine, for example, under the leadership of a county engineer named Stockbridge Howland and in Dorchester, Massachusetts, south of Boston, under Otis Nichols, a lithographer.
Perhaps the first Adventists to accept all three discoveries of Sabbath, sanctuary, and spirit of prophecy were the Otis Nichols family. These upstanding people welcomed Ellen and her sister Sarah in 1845 when they were all Sunday keepers. They accepted the Sabbath from Joseph Bates many months before Ellen did. Perhaps we should ascribe to them the honor of being called the first "Seventh-day Adventists." [1]
Otis Nichols, incidentally, wrote William Miller a letter in April, 1846, [2] urging him to accept Sister Ellen as God's prophet and her new light on the sanctuary as God's truth. Miller, sad to say, was too old and tired to understand.
We may never decide on who were the first Seventh-day Adventists. Be that as it may, James White and Ellen Harmon were married in Portland on August 30, 1846. Having been disfellowshiped from their former churches because of their advent faith, they took their vows before a justice of the peace.
James had been very successful as an Adventist evangelist. It was he whose six-week evangelistic tour one winter, referred to in chapter two, resulted in 1000 conversions. Visiting Portland from time to time he was impressed by reports that Sister Ellen was being invited by different ministers to witness in their churches. After the disappointment he met Ellen again about the time she had the "Bridegroom" vision. After that they traveled together now and then, duly chaperoned, of course, by Sarah Harmon or Louisa Foss or sometimes up to half a dozen others, to encourage the disappointed Adventists. Now--almost penniless--they were married. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Harmon, who had moved back to Gorham, invited them to call their place home, and they gladly accepted.
Promptly, James and Ellen studied Joseph Bates's new book on the Sabbath, compared it with the Bible, and found that the seventh day is indeed God's true Sabbath. A couple of months later it was just after Bates had accepted her visions--she fell so ill that some people thought she would die. Her parents, sisters, and husband prayed earnestly, but there was no improvement until Otis Nichols sent his son Henry from Dorchester to convey their concern. With Henry there, they held another season of prayer, and young Nichols was so impressed that he got up from his knees, walked across the room, and placed his hand on Ellen's head. "Sister Ellen" he said, "Jesus Christ maketh thee whole." By the next day Ellen was well enough to ride thirty-eight miles with James to a meeting. And for quite a while afterward she felt better than she had for years. When their first child was born, on August 26, 1847, they named him Henry Nichols White in memory of this young man and this happy occasion.
During that same autumn and winter of 1846-47, after visiting Edson and Crosier in Port Gibson and watching Ellen have her vision on astronomy in Topsham, Bates went home to Fairhaven to revise and enlarge his first book on the Sabbath, the supply of which was nearly exhausted.
In the second edition of The Seventh Day Sabbath, A Perpetual Sign, Bates developed a clear exposition of the third angel's message. He also developed Hiram Edson's thought that perhaps Revelation 11:18, 19 was then being fulfilled. He noted that Preble, Cook, and others, including himself, had been impressed to publish light on the Sabbath question. And he suggested that the reason may have been that when the "seventh angel began to sound" in 1844, the "temple of God was opened in heaven," and the "ark of his testament" (containing the Ten Commandments) was then seen.
Bates was modest about this second point. "I do not say that this view is positive," he cautioned, "but I think the inference is strong." [3] By early spring, however, his doubts were removed. Ellen had received two remarkable visions. [4] One came on March 6, 1847, the other on April 3, 1847. These were similar enough so that we can treat them both by telling the story of the second.
Let us imagine the scene, reconstructed from early accounts. [5]
Welcome spring was on its way at last to Topsham, Maine. Undoubtedly the snow was melting, crocuses were blooming, and robins were hunting worms in the grass. Indoors at Stockbridge Howland's place, the believers were kneeling in prayer on Sabbath, April 3, seeking God's light and truth. All at once Ellen, in her warm, pleasant voice, cried out, "Glory! Glory!" Everyone knew she was having another vision.
A sense of thrilling reverence settled over the group. Already their prayers were being answered. They knew that when her vision was over, Ellen would have something helpful to tell them.
While still in vision Ellen rose to her feet and walked over to the table where they had placed their Bibles and other books before kneeling. The rest of the group rose also from their knees and sat in their chairs to watch and to pray silently for God's blessing.
Without hesitation, Ellen picked up a Bible and held it above her head. Keeping it there, where she could not possibly read it, she turned to a Bible promise. Then she walked over to someone who needed the encouragement of that particular text, quoted the verse while looking toward heaven, and pressed the Bible gently against his chest. As the person took the Bible to read the passage for himself, Ellen returned confidently to the table, picked up another Bible, and repeated the process for a different person. This she did a number of times. Then she sat down and the vision continued.
After a time she inhaled deeply, her first breath since the vision began.
Everyone was eager to know what she would have to say. She gazed around the room while her eyes grew accustomed to earth's dimness after heaven's brightness.
"Can you tell us now what the Lord has shown you?" James asked quietly.
"Yes, yes, I can," Ellen replied.
"I saw an angel flying swiftly toward me. He carried me quickly from the earth to the Holy City. In the city I saw a temple, which I entered. Then I passed into the holy place.
"Jesus raised the veil and I passed into the holy of holies. There I saw an ark, covered with purest gold. Jesus stood beside it. Inside were tables of stone folded together like a book. Jesus opened them, and as He did so; I saw the Ten Commandments. On one table were written four commandments and on the other, six. The four on the first table shone brighter than the other six, but the fourth, the Sabbath commandment, shone above them all. The holy Sabbath looked glorious. A halo of glory was all around it."
At this, the people looked at each other in surprise, and Ellen noticed their reaction. "I was amazed too," she agreed. "I had no idea that the Sabbath was so very special in God's sight."
After a pause she went on. "I saw that the holy Sabbath is, and will be, the separating wall between the true Israel of God and unbelievers; and that the Sabbath is the great question to unite the hearts of God's dear, waiting saints."
Again looks of surprise passed around the room.
Ellen thought for a moment struggling to find the best words to express what she had seen and wanted to tell. "I saw that God had children who do not see and keep the Sabbath. They have not rejected the light upon it. And at the commencement of the time of trouble, we were filled with the Holy Ghost as we went forth and proclaimed the Sabbath more fully. This enraged the churches and nominal Adventists, as they could not refute the Sabbath truth. At this time God's chosen all saw clearly that we had the truth, and they came out and endured the persecution with us."
"Was there anything else, Ellen?"
"Yes, there was," she replied. "It was about the third angel. I saw that it represents the people who receive the Sabbath and go out to warn the world to keep God's law as the apple of his eye. I saw that if we gave up the Sabbath, we would receive the mark of the beast. I also saw," and she smiled, "that in response to the warning, many people would embrace the true Sabbath." [6]
Ellen White wrote out this vision immediately, and within days Joseph Bates had a thousand copies printed as a "broadside" (a single sheet printed on one side). James White raised $7.50 to pay off Bates's expenses. Soon afterward White republished the vision, along with several other items, in a tract called A Word to the Little Flock. Later (in 1851) he published the visions in a booklet entitled A Sketch of the Christian Experience and Views of Ellen G. White. (The word "views" here means "visions.") It is available today in Early Writings.
When the believers read the vision of April 3, 1847, some were perplexed. They understood that after the time of trouble begins, everyone's probation will be dosed and their cases decided. "What good will it do," they asked, "to preach the Sabbath to them then?" Ellen White explained in her next book [7] (now also included in Early Writings):
" 'The commencement of the time of trouble,' here mentioned, does not refer to the time when the plagues shall begin to be poured out, but to a short period just before they are poured out, while Christ is in the sanctuary. At that time, while the work of salvation is closing, trouble will be coming on the earth, and the nations will be angry, yet held in check so as not to prevent the work of the third angel. At that time the 'latter rain,' or refreshing from the presence of the Lord, will come, to give power to the loud voice of the third angel, and prepare the saints to stand in the period when the seven last plagues shall be poured out. [8]
The early Sabbath-keeping Adventists were fascinated with the prediction that they were to "proclaim the Sabbath more fully."
More fully than whom? More fully than what? More fully in what way? The importance of these questions cannot be exaggerated.
Back in 1847 the answer was at least this: They were to attach to the Sabbath far greater meaning and deeper personal experience than the Sabbatarian Anabaptists had in their day or the Seventh Day Baptists had from whom the Adventists received the Sabbath.
The Seventh Day Baptists and Sabbatarian Anabaptists, you remember, had said that the Sabbath is binding for the following reasons: (1) It is a part of the moral law, (2) Jesus and the apostles endorsed it, and (3) The apostate church changed it in fulfillment of prophecy. Was anything wrong with their position? No. It was biblical, and it showed a high regard for the fulfillment of prophecy in past history.
But there was much more to the Sabbath truth than this. And today it is no vague something-or-other that distinguishes Seventh-day Adventists from other Sabbath keepers. There is a vitally different way of living and thinking involved here, a vastly broader understanding of why we exist and what we're expected to do and to be.
This difference involves insights into such Bible terms as "the seal of God," "the three angels' messages," "the mark of the beast," "the sanctuary," and "the judgment." Seventh-day Adventists accept essentially all that the Seventh Day Baptists taught, but from Bible study they have added highly practical concepts relating to last-day prophecy.
As the handful of Adventist pioneers studied the three angels' messages of Revelation 14, they came upon the solemn evidence that they themselves were occupying a specific role at a specific time foretold in Scripture.
As Millerites in the early 1840s they had helped to herald the first angel's message concerning the judgment hour and the everlasting gospel. (Revelation 14:6,7) In 1843 and 1844 they had helped proclaim the second angel's message, that Babylon had fallen and that God's people must in consequence come out of the churches that "Babylon" represented. (Revelation 14:8; 18:1-4) In 1846 they noticed that the third angel proclaimed a Christ-centered message about Sabbath keeping--the very truth that was just then attracting their attention. (Revelation 14:9-12)
To their astonishment they came to realize that they were being summoned to fulfill the third angel's message, just as they had helped to fulfill the first and second angels' messages.
Their discovery was confirmed by Ellen White's visions of March 6 and April 3, 1847.
Here was a highly significant advance beyond the Seventh Day Baptists. It provided a new sense of destiny, an awareness that they were being called to fulfill yet another prophecy whose time had come.
Their sense of timing was further reinforced in the March and April visions by the indication that since October 22, 1844, Jesus had been standing beside the ark, displaying the law and revealing a halo of glory about the Sabbath. Another vision two years later, in March 1849, provided the specific information that "the time for the commandments to shine out with all their importance ... was when the door was opened in the most holy place [that is, on October 22, 1844], ... where He [Jesus] now stands by the ark." [9] In another vision Ellen saw an angel quoting the third angel's message, and as he did so, pointing upward to the heavenly sanctuary. [l0]
Now, Jesus will not stay in the most holy place forever. As we observed in chapter nine, in October 1845 Ellen saw the moment arrive when Christ will leave that place and step onto the cloud that will carry Him to the earth as God's judgments fall upon sinners. Revelation 15 and 16 also foretell this time and indicate that God's judgments will fall in the form of plagues.
The third angel's message not only talks about Sabbath keeping but also tells specifically who the people are who will have to suffer these last plagues. They are those who do not exercise enough faith to keep the commandments of God, and who instead accept into their minds the "mark of the beast."
It became crystal clear to the early Seventh-day Adventists that the book of Revelation speaks of two opposite insignia that people will receive into their minds before the close of probation, the "mark of the beast" and the "seal of God." Because the mark of the beast is placed on those who do not keep the commandments, the early Adventists began to see that the seal of God is for those who do keep them--who keep all of them, including the Sabbath.
They discovered, in fact, that the seal of God is the Sabbath, properly observed through faith in Jesus. And this interpretation of theirs was confirmed through extensive Bible study and by one or more visions given to Ellen White. [11]
As they examined Revelation 7, they saw that another special angel is commissioned in the last days to attend to this "sealing" of God's people into the Sabbath experience. They saw also that the seven last plagues will not fall until every sincere follower of Jesus has been sealed.
As the pioneers pondered all of this and more, a sense of urgency and purpose emerged based on the awareness that the Sabbath is important because time is short and Christ is coming soon.
While doing His dosing work in heaven Christ calls attention to the Sabbath. In these last days He is blotting out sin, and Sabbath breaking is of course, sin.
As the dark clouds of the final time of trouble gather in the skies and the impending storm is about to break in fury, the great controversy between Christ and Satan reaches its climax on the earth. Good angels and wicked demons are abroad seeking to attract men's allegiance to God or to the beast. In the process, characters are being formed irrevocably either in the image of God or in the likeness of the evil one. No one can escape involvement. All must and will take sides. Only those who choose God's truth will escape the plagues and share the joy of the second coming of Christ.
Into this fray every Sabbath keeper who understands the times is called to enter with all his energy, treasure, and talent: "Let the message fly, for the time is short!" [12]
How different this emphasis was from the one Mrs. Oakes brought with her to Washington, New Hampshire! When that good Seventh Day Baptist lady presented what she had to say, the Adventists, in effect, replied that because Jesus was coming soon, there was no time or need to consider the Sabbath.
But as Bates, Gurney, Edson, James and Ellen White, David Arnold, Stockbridge Howland, and the other Sabbath-keeping Adventists got well into their research, they found that it is precisely because Christ is coming soon and time is short that they must accept the Sabbath--this great test of genuine allegiance to Jesus--and proclaim it everywhere.
This, then, is at least part of what was meant by "proclaiming the Sabbath more fully." It is also the heart of the third angel's message.
And the third angel of Revelation 14 proclaims his message "with a loud voice." In order for this part of the prophecy to be fulfilled so that the message could fly to those who knew it not, the believers began to sense a responsibility to launch a regular publication.
Notes: