We are glad that for the first time in our denominational history Movement of Destiny boldly, officially, and clearly confesses that the 1888 message was the beginning of the Latter Rain and the Loud Cry. At last the Church can understand the problem of the long delay.
If those who rejected, or to use the milder but synonymous term “failed to accept,” the beginning of the Latter Rain in 1888 later repented, why didn’t the Loud Cry go forth with power during Elder Olsen’s post-1888 administration? Why are we still here 80 years later? If his administration truly repented of rejecting the beginning of the Latter Rain, was the Lord implacable in withholding the full outpouring from the world? There can be no doubt about what really happened:
… 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 that 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.—Letter to Elder Uriah Smith, Letter 96, 1896, 1 SM 234, 235.
Notice the date: 1896—long after all the “confessions” had come in.
Could Israel’s experience at Kadesh-Barnea throw light on human nature to help us understand what happened? The Lord gave them the chance to conquer Canaan just as He gave us the opportunity to have part in the “Loud Cry” and see the work finished. Israel refused just as we refused. A long wandering began for them as it began for us in our history. Nevertheless, we read that the rejectors at Kadesh-Barnea confessed. Beautiful! Their confession was open and manly: “The people mourned greatly. And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them to the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised: for we have sinned.” Numbers 14:39, 40. “Now they seemed sincerely to repent of their sinful conduct.” (PP 391.) But was it true and deep? We read further: “But they sorrowed because of the result of their evil course rather than from a sense of their ingratitude and disobedience. … Their hearts were unchanged.”
Now, we earnestly inquire: What does the Spirit of Prophecy say about the confessions of those who rejected the 1888 message? The lesson that emerges is so serious that it is time we learned it. The Lord offers a given generation of Church leadership only one chance to accept wholeheartedly the outpouring of the Latter Rain. By 1896 the brethren of that era had missed their glorious opportunity.
We turn again to consider the principles involved in the Kadesh-Barnea incident:
The Lord still works in a similar manner to glorify His name by bringing men to acknowledge His justice. . . . Confessions are made that vindicate the honor of God and justify His faithful reprovers, who have been opposed and misrepresented.—PP 393.
The “confessions” of the 1890s truly vindicate the 1888 message as being of God. Those who made them will, we hope, come up in the first resurrection. They died as honored workers. But not one had a part in giving the Loud Cry to the world; and not one was translated. And unless we learn our lesson in this generation, we shall follow them to the grave.
Ellen G. White rejoiced in their confessions. But let us see what she had to say about their spiritual discernment after they made them. Elder Smith confessed in early 1891; the following letter is dated two full years later. Mrs. White is speaking of him as the most prominent of the opposers, who exerted the strongest influence:
The course pursued in this case [Elder Uriah Smith’s recent renewed public opposition to Elder A.T. Jones) was the same as that taken at Minneapolis. Those who opposed Brethren Jones and Waggoner manifested no disposition to meet them like brethren, and with the Bible in hand consider prayerfully and in a Christlike spirit the points of difference. This is the only course that would meet the approval of God, and His rebuke was upon those who would not do this at Minneapolis. Yet this blind warfare is continued. … It is an astonishment to the heavenly universe. … Will my brethren tell me what spirit is moving them to action? …
The conference at Minneapolis was the golden opportunity for all present to humble the heart before God, and to welcome Jesus as the great Instructor; but the stand taken by some at that meeting proved their ruin. They have never seen clearly since, and they never will; for they persistently cherish the spirit that prevailed there, a wicked, criticizing, denunciatory spirit.
… Those who have been so stubborn and rebellious that they would not humble themselves to receive the light God sent in mercy to their souls, became so destitute of the Holy Spirit that the Lord could not use them. Unless they are converted, these men will never enter the mansions of the blest.—Letter, George’s Terrace, St. Kilda Road, Melbourne, January 9, 1893, emphasis added.
We sincerely hope that Elder Smith will enter “the mansions of the blest.” But the point is not and never has been his individual and personal salvation after 1888. The point is: did he use his position to undo the influential damage he had done to the cause in rejecting the beginning of the Latter Rain? The above gives a true answer.
In an earlier letter to Elder Smith, Mrs. White was very frank. Speaking directly of the continuing opposition to the 1888 message, she said:
God would have His people love one another and help one another, thus strengthening every good work. We should counsel with one another, the old experienced laborers with those whom God shall raise up to advance His work as we approach the great consummation [Jones and Waggoner as examples of the younger ones]. But if such men as Elder Smith, Elder Van Horn, and Elder Butler shall stand aloof, not blending with the elements God sees essential to carry forward the work in these perilous times, they will be left behind. … The work will go forward; but these brethren, who have received the richest blessings, will meet with eternal loss; for though they should repent and be saved at last, they can never regain that which they have lost through their wrong course of action. They might have been God’s instruments to carry the work forward with power; but their influence was exerted to counteract the Lord’s message, to make the work appear questionable.—Letter, North Fitzroy, August 30, 1892, emphasis added.
Perhaps it will be appropriate to note in passing what the authors really did say 22 years ago about our brethren of a past generation:
We may leave our dear brethren of a generation ago with their God. They sleep in the dust of the earth, and we trust they will awake in the first resurrection. There is no more need of their being lost, in the light of the findings of this chapter, than that the Israelites who died in the wilderness after being turned back from Kadesh-Barnea will not come forth in the first resurrection, their individual relationships to God determine that. But—Israel of that day could not enter alive into the Promised Land because of their unbelief. Neither could our brethren of a generation ago.
Now we are on the stage. … —1888 Re-examined, page 87, original document.
We are sure the Church cannot consider this an “impeachment of the dead.”