On Sabbath morning, October 21, 1944, the day preceding the centenary of the great disappointment, a group of Seventh-day Adventist leaders held a memorial service in honor of the advent pioneers. Next morning, Sunday, October 22, they made a brief pilgrimage to William Miller's grave in the cemetery near his home.
Two years before this, "The Voice of Prophecy" had gone coast-to-coast. As the brethren arrived at Miller's resting place, it was nearly time for the weekly program to commence. They left the car radio turned on and the windows rolled down lest they miss even a measure of the King's Heralds' opening theme.
In the weathered marble headstone they deciphered William Miller's name and the date of his death, 1849. Could it be, they must have wondered for a moment, that a century's delay had proved Miller's hope altogether false? Then they noticed one of his favorite verses, also carved into the worn surface: "At the time appointed the end shall be." Daniel 8:19. And as they mused on this assurance of prophecy, the sound of the King's Heralds came floating through the air: "Lift up the trumpet and loud let it ring, Jesus is coming again."
Praise His name! He is coming again.
But when?
Seventh-day Adventists have long cited a passage from page 69 of Ellen White's Christ's Object Lessons published in 1900: "Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own."
The words are a comment on one of Jesus Christ's own promises: "First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come." (Mark 4:28,29)
When the fruit is brought forth. Immediately. Because the harvest is come.
Farmers don't reap fields when green shoots first appear, or when seed heads begin to form. They watch the growth process keenly, gauging moisture content, color, and every other indicator of crop condition until optimum maturity is achieved. Then they roll out the combines and reap the harvest, at once.
Jesus waits for the perfect reproduction of His own gracious, forgiving, outgoing, patient, generous character. Indeed! As High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary He has for over a century shed onto the harvest field the radiance of Sabbath sanctification; intensely He has engaged in "blotting out sin," not only from records but also from lives in the real world. How wonderful to think that someday His dream will be fulfilled. How sad that He has had to wait so long.
Another passage in Christ's Object Lessons (page 419) correlates with the one on page 69. It says, "All heaven is waiting for channels through which can be poured the holy oil to be a joy and blessing to human hearts."
The same page adds, "It is the privilege of every soul to be a living channel through which God can communicate to the world the treasures of His grace, the unsearchable riches of Christ. There is nothing that Christ desires so much as agents who will represent to the world His spirit and character. There is nothing that the world needs so much as the manifestation through humanity of the Saviour's love."
Waiting for perfect characters and waiting for channels to communicate God's grace are not two different things. They are two aspects of the same thing. God is waiting evidently for a people who are perfect for a purpose. He wants them victorious over sin not only for their own happiness but also for usefulness in perfectly representing His lovely character to sinners far and near.
How better could Seventh-day Adventists "tell it to the world"--to every city, village, and person in the world--than by living His love every day in their own homes, neighborhoods, places of employment, and everywhere else, worldwide?
How much longer will God have to wait?
As early as 1884 Ellen White wrote: "If all who had labored unitedly in the work in 1844 had received the third angel's message and proclaimed it in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts. A flood of light would have been shed upon the world. Years ago the inhabitants of the earth would have been warned, the closing work completed, and Christ would have come for the redemption of His people." [1]
"Years ago," before 1884. What a dream! Suppose that a hundred thousand Millerite Adventists in the United States and thousands of Adventists in Europe and elsewhere had accepted and proclaimed the message of Sabbath and sanctuary. According to this passage Christ might have come before the American Civil War! Pickett's brigade might never have marched to death at Gettysburg. A million men need not have suffered in the mud at Verdun in the first world war. Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have escaped atomic bombs in the second world war. Sharing as He does the sorrow of every widow and orphan, how God must have longed to send Jesus before those wars were fought! And evidently He could have, if--
Expectant Father, hesitant children.
To the few Adventists who did accept the third angel's message, the letter for Laodicea came with power in the 1850s. Jesus appeared at their hearts' doors seeking ultimate entrance. The latter rain stood at attention, ready to flow through them to a needy world. Victory and finality were at their fingertips. God gave "the message time to do its work." They advanced a little way, then rested satisfied.
Expectant Father, hesitant children.
At Minneapolis 1888 the Spirit hovered preciously near. Once more it was "time for the latter rain." Gains multiplied on every hand. But instead of "entering the most holy place with Jesus," too many believers chose Sixteen Years of Crisis instead.
Expectant Father, hesitant children.
Then "Mother White," apparently on Christ's behalf, drew a circle of love large enough to take in all these hesitant children. The circle of love has endured, reinforced with Bible truth and Testimonies for the Church and widening like a wave year by year to enclose the ever-extending reaches of the Adventist Church. Differences intrude, but harmony prevails. Seventeen hundred delegates, black and yellow, red and white, mingled at the 1975 General Conference session, subjects of almost every political ideology on the earth. I sat with the 173-member nominating committee. I saw, heard, and felt how deep beneath little ripples of controversy flowed the currents of confidence and accord.
In this present account of the story of Seventh-day Adventists we have confined ourselves chiefly to how their "cause" began. Its beginnings belong in a special sense to their whole worldwide church of today. The early discovery of truths about Jesus and the conviction, courage, and generosity of their pioneers explain best what makes the movement still move. Had we the space to do justice to the twentieth century, stories of faith and sacrifice and statistics of liberality and growth could be multiplied almost interminably. Even discoveries of further light could occupy chapters.
Here and there we have already referred to some twentieth-century advances in missions, medical work, organization, and education. Much more would like to be said!
Adventism in the twentieth century has still been large-hearted laborers, giving their lives, sometimes giving up their lives, to carry the message in difficult places. It has been W. R. Smith of Korea, walking, cycling, riding ponies, day and night, sometimes days and nights, in mud, rain, and snow, freezing a hand and a foot, slipping down a precipice in the dark, meeting appointments, ruining his health, raising up schools and churches. And J. P. Anderson, lifetime China worker, electing to remain when enemy troops overpowered Canton, hoping through prayer, tact, and fortitude to preserve the mission hospital from looters--and handing the institution back to the church years later without the loss of a towel or a bed sheet.
Twentieth-century Adventism has been C. C. Crisler singing softly, "All the Way My Saviour Leads Me," as he lay dying of pneumonia at Chona in China's interior--and dying. And W. H. Anderson on safari rousing from unconsciousness during a vicious attack of dysentery to hear his converted Matebele carriers sing, "No, Never Alone"--and recovering. And G. McLaren, his craft surrounded by hostile Solomon Islanders, singing, "Anywhere With Jesus I Can Safely Go"--and landing safely.
It/has been Beni Tavondi, a native Fijian, after ten arduous years on Papua making his first Adventist convert as he lay dying from snakebite. And Mrs. Fika Mitieli, another Fijian missionary to Papua, teaching women and children in villages, snatching spears from warriors on jungle trails, successfully sharing the truth about Jesus in the sanctuary.
And Billiat Sapa, native African, pioneering in a swampy valley in Nyasaland, living with his wife and two children on a platform in a tree because the villagers refused to take them in; watching both little children die, he and his wife refusing to turn back; watching his wife die, and refusing to turn back; finally convincing the villagers that he loved them and that God loved them, and founding several schools.
Today, of course, children watch TV in Africa and Fiji as well as in Europe and North America, so Adventist missions in the twentieth century have had to measure with modern technology in ancient lands. But even in modern times ancient disasters still strike, and twentieth-century Adventism has been men like L. H. Christian in the great Russian famine of 1920, knowing that spotted typhus infected half the population, going anyway into the U.S.S.R. for three long weeks to encourage believers while the home folk prayed and fasted. And an indomitable college president, wracked with stabbing pain and responsible for 1000 students, finding rice enough in a famine of the 1970s.
It has been thousands of youth in the worst wars known to history, brave enough to follow conscience and face bullets at the same time, like the fourteen men confined separately in a military prison, each informed that all his buddies had renounced the Sabbath, timidly whistling a vesper hymn as the sun went down and hearing all the others, alone in their thirteen cells, join in. And Desmond Doss, noncombatant on Okinawa, earning a Congressional Medal of Honor for rescuing seventy-five wounded men while an enemy battalion regaled him with shot, shell, and hand grenade for several hours.
Seventh-day Adventism in the twentieth century has been General Conference presidents like W. A. Spicer (1922-1930), widely beloved, traveling everywhere, knowing every worker (it seemed) by name, toting little presents for missionary children, and always purchasing the cheapest ticket. Once when his hosts protested that a man so important had arrived third class, he meekly apologized, "I'm sorry; I didn't know there was a fourth." And J. Lamar McElhany (1936-1950), also beloved, weeping after his second reelection, overwhelmed with the magnitude of his task.
Numerically much more than ordained leadership, Adventism in the twentieth century has been dedicated laity--like the gallant soldiers just mentioned, like the thousands in Inter-America and the Philippines who have prodded their growth rate to world records, and like the countless members who teach and superintend Sabbath schools, mend clothes for the poor, teach school, or run Seventh-day Adventist institutions generally. Many lay people have made outstanding contributions, such as Jasper Wayne, Iowa nurseryman, who once discussed with his wife what more they could do for the Lord, she suggesting that they order 100 copies of a special issue of Signs of the Times, he thinking twenty-five copies more reasonable, the two compromising at fifty. The sequel is celebrated every year at Ingathering time.
Some Adventist laymen in the twentieth century have enjoyed remarkable guidance from the Lord. Charles Ashcroft of Carmel, Australia, wondered in 1906 whether he should donate his large apple orchard for a secondary school. He asked Heaven for a sign: a thunderstorm out of a clear blue sky, within a week. Within a week a black cloud appeared out of a clear blue sky, rode over the hill into his valley, emitted vivid flash and thunderous roar right above his home, and then glided away down the valley. His brother ran up from a nearby farm shouting, "Did you see that!"
"Yes I did," replied Charles; "it's the sign for me to donate my land to the Lord." Carmel College stands on that site today.
Statistics attest encouraging progress. Contributions have increased from half a million dollars in 1895 to some 300 million in 1975. Enrollment in Seventh-day Adventist schools has increased from about 1300 in 1890 to something like 400,000. In 1853 the little Washington handpress in Rochester produced one copy per minute, sixty sheets an hour, at such strenuous effort that the young men who ran it after a few months spat blood. In the twentieth century These Times has reached 200,000 monthly, Signs of the Times 350,000, Liberty 500,000. Radio broadcasts and telecasts have multiplied around the world. "The Quiet Hour" alone uses over 300 stations, "The Voice of Prophecy," more than 800. Sixty million books by "Uncle Arthur" S. Maxwell have carried Christian ideals and the whole Bible message to families speaking thirty-two different languages. Steps to Christ has been printed a million at a time and translated into over 100 languages.
Membership figures are also impressive, in a way. In 1863 there were 3500 Adventists in a world population of a billion. That was a ratio of one believer to three million. By 1975, when the world had reached four billion, the ratio had improved to one believer in 1600. If the rate of growth remains only at the present 5.5 percent a year until AD 2000, when the world will have 6.5 billion people, there should be 9 million Sabbath keepers, or one for each 700 souls.
It's good progress, praise the Lord, but it's not good enough. It is really much too slow. If the church had continued to grow each year since 1880 at the 11.1 percent annual rate of the 1870s, it could today count not 2,500,000 members but 275,458,110 members! "All heaven" has been "waiting" far too long. The work simply must gather momentum and "spread like fire in the stubble" and it will do so, according to Ellen White, "when divine power is combined with human effort." [2] "God will do the work if we will furnish Him the instruments." [3]
In 1845 young Ellen saw jets of light springing up in place after place till they filled the whole wide world. They represented the promise in Revelation 18:1, "I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory." And of course the glory of an angel reflects the glory of God.
This angel of Revelation 18, like the three angels of Revelation 14:6-12, is symbolic of a people bearing a message. (Aggelos in Greek means "messenger.") The "glory of God" is primarily His glorious character, full of grace and truth. See Exodus 34. So the earth is to be enlightened with the glory of God when the church of God is filled with the power of God and perfectly reproduces the character of God. The glory which Ellen saw radiating from the Sabbath in the most holy place, symbolic of the loving holiness of God Himself, will one day radiate from the faces and lives and lips of the Sabbath-keeping people of God. Keeping the Sabbath holy, men and women, boys and girls, will themselves be holy. [4]
"The earth is to be 'lightened with his glory,' " explains Ellen White. "The Spirit of the Lord will so graciously bless consecrated human instrumentalities that men, women, and children will open their lips in praise and thanksgiving, filling the earth with the knowledge of God, and with His unsurpassed glory." [5]
Participation in this glorious climax of the advent movement will not be confined to its current members. Not at all! It is available to everyone who breathes. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. God is the Father of everyone, and just as soon as anyone hears the word he or she, too, may share the joy of experiencing its transforming power and the even greater joy of passing it on.
"The Spirit of the Almighty is moving upon men's hearts, and those who respond to its influence become witnesses for God and His truth. In many places consecrated men and women may be seen communicating to others the light that has made plain to them the way of salvation through Christ. And as they continue to let their light shine, as did those who were baptized with the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, they receive more and still more of the Spirit's power. Thus the earth is to be lightened with the glory of God." [6]
"Servants of God, with their faces lighted up and shining with holy consecration, will hasten from place to place to proclaim the message from heaven. By thousands of voices, all over the earth, the warning will be given. Miracles will be wrought, the sick will be healed, and signs and wonders will follow the believers. ...
"... The rays of light penetrate everywhere, the truth is seen in its clearness, and the honest children of God sever the bands which have held them. ... Truth is more precious than all besides. Notwithstanding the agencies combined against the truth, a large number take their stand upon the Lord's side." [7]
Truth is more precious than all besides. The message borne to the world in the years ahead must by all means be the truth. The real truth. The vital truth about Jesus, about what He has done in the past and what He is doing now. It must be the first angel's message: the everlasting gospel of the cross and the present truth that the hour of His judgment is come. And the second angel's message, calling people to separate from every idol that holds them back. And the third angel's message, warning against false systems of worship and pointing to the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, to righteousness by faith.
Since October 22, 1844, Jesus in the most holy place has been calling attention to the Sabbath, not simply because it is the seventh day but because it represents a unique, Christlike way of life, the ultimate criterion separating good from evil in the last days. Jesus is at work blotting out sins, not only in heavenly books but also in the lives of His children, so that they can be victorious, holy, Christlike. Through His representative, the Holy Spirit, He knocks on the hearts of His followers, seeking to help them untangle their lives at ever deeper levels and longing to fill them with Himself.
He knows they are yet "earthen vessels" still badly in need of washing; and He is washing them with "fuller's soap" until (if they will) they are sweet-smelling and clean, because He wants to fill them. But he doesn't want to fill them like pots and pans but as water under pressure fills a garden hose and flows through it to bring "joy and blessing to human hearts." As incandescence fills an electric bulb and radiates light in all directions outside it, so He wants clean people through whose eyes and lips and hands and feet He can, without let or hindrance, radiate to the world His glory.
Breathe on me, Breath of God,At the second coming everyone who is still in love with sin must inevitably be destroyed. Not desirous, however, that any should perish, God earnestly invites everyone who understands the contemporary truth about Jesus Christ to live it and tell it to others. He asks them to build schools where it can be taught and young people can be trained to tell it; to establish printing presses and other communication centers from which it can be published; to maintain medical institutions where Christ's compassion can be especially demonstrated and people can learn how to "feel good so they can be good."
Till I am wholly Thine,
Until this earthly part of me
Glows with Thy fire divine.