Like it or not,
Biblical history is behind the Seventh Day Adventist movement.
In the early 1800's
suddenly knowledge of the Bible was opening up to people all over the world-
not just the United States. In the United States it was opened to William
Miller and other and the unfolding of the books of prophecy- Daniel and
Revelation began to make sense. There
was an understanding going only so far and then this--
Rev_10:9 And I went unto the angel, and said unto him,
Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it
shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.
Rev_10:10 And I took the little book out of the angel's
hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I
had eaten it, my belly was bitter.
The little book of
Daniel was eaten up in understanding and oh the sweetness of that
understanding! It was amazing, unlike anything ever understood before. But
then, because the interpretation was off… then the sweetness of the truth
turned to an ache in the belly, an awful ache of disappointment. It was
foretold!
The full truth had
yet to be comprehended and getting to that place a lot of those who were in it
simply for the thrill were shaken away, peeled off, their belief shattered
because they did not have faith.
This was the
beginning of the Seventh Day Adventist movement, this is where the roots are
buried, right here in this prophecy. Out
of that bitter disappointment came truth.
Rev 10:11 And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again
before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.
The truth.
And yet those given
the great truths, those mentioned in this prophecy also left the full truth-
the movement they became leaving off shoots of that group to hold fast to the
full truth. With all this in mind, let's
continue with 'An Hour and An End' by William Grotheer.
*******
p 25 -- Chapter IX
-- Some History
The 20th Century
dawned with the Seventh-day Adventist Church in crisis. The message of 1888
which was to prepare a people for the finishing of the work and the coming of
the Lord had received only lip service at best. The professed people of God
still clung to their "works" hoping for acceptance with God.
In 1901 December to
be exact - the messenger of the Lord wrote to Dr. P. T. Magan - "We may
have to remain here in this world many more years because of
insubordination."
Earlier that year,
the General Conference had convened in Battle Creek. As soon as this conference
was officially opened, Ellen G. White came forward and asked some very
penetrating questions: - Are you
under the control of God? Do you see your responsibility to Him? If you do
realize this responsibility, you will realize that you are to mold and fashion
minds after the divine similitude; and then those in the different institutions
here, who are being trained and educated to become workers, will work for God,
to hold up the standard of righteousness.
0 my soul is drawn
out in these things! Men who have not learned to submit themselves to the
control and discipline of God, are not competent to train the youth, to deal
with human minds. It is just as much an impossibility for them to do this as it
would be for them to make a world. That these men should stand in a sacred
place, to be the voice of God to the people, as we once believed the General
Conference to be, -- that is past. What we want now is a reorganization. We
want to begin at the foundation, and build upon a different principle. (1901 ,
GC Bulletin, No. 1, p. 25)
At the closing
meeting of this 1901 session, Ellen G. White again spoke. She said: - Who do you suppose has been amongst us
since this Conference opened? Who has kept away the objectionable features that
generally appear in such a meeting? Who has walked up and down the aisles of
this Tabernacle? -- the God of heaven and His angels. And they did not come
here to tear you to pieces, but to give you right and peaceable minds. They
have been among us to work the works of God, to keep back the powers of
darkness, that the work God designed should be done and should not be hindered.
The angels of God have been working among us. (Ibid., p. 463)
The Constitution
adopted under Divine Guidance was unique. No provision was made for a General
Conference President. In its place was a committee of twenty-five with power to
organize itself. While the report given to the delegates in 1901 setting forth the
organization of the Committee indicated A. G. Daniells as "Permanent
Chairman" (Ibid., #17, p. 377), the concept was understood that the
committee would reorganize itself each year. W. C. White during a floor
discussion of this new Constitution indicated a sentiment prevailed that
"no one should be chairman of this committee for a period of more than
twelve months at a time." (Ibid., #9, p. 206) Daniells, at a minority
meeting of the Committee on February 14, 1902, said "that in harmony with
the plan adopted at the late General Conference, the General Conference
Committee should organize itself from year to year." With only six of the
twenty-five members present, and a few observers, it did reorganize itself,
with Daniells remaining as chairman.
On the surface, it
would appear that the type of organization as envisioned in the 1901
Constitution would give the Church an inadequate and ineffectual leadership;
however, if the organization under the Constitution had been permitted to
continue, it would have produced a group of men leading the Church governed by
its Unseen Head. During two short years the human element prevailed, and what
might have been was not attained. (8T:104-106) In 1903, at Oakland, California,
the General
p 26 -- Conference
was again reorganized under a Constitution which provided for a visible head in
the office of President of the General Conference. Responding to the
"Majority Report" of the Committee on Plans and Constitution, Dr. P.
T. Magan - the one to whom Ellen G. White had written in December, 1901, and
who as an observer had attended the minority meeting of the General Conference
Committee in 1902 held in Daniells office - declared: - It may be stated there is nothing in this
new constitution which is not abundantly safeguarded by the provisions of it;
but I want to say to you that any man who has ever read Neander's History of
the Christian Church, Mosheim's or any other of the great church historians, -
any man who has ever read these histories can come to no other conclusion but
that the principles which are to be brought in, are the same principles, and
introduced in precisely the same way, as they were hundreds of years ago when
the Papacy was made.(1903, GC Bulletin, #10, p. 150)
Ellen G. White was
quick to respond to this new situation. Within twelve days of this discussion,
she wrote from St. Helena, California, the following: -
In the balances of
the sanctuary the Seventh-day Adventist church is to be weighed. She will be
judged by the privileges and advantages that she has had. If her spiritual
experience does not correspond to the advantages that Christ, at infinite cost.
has bestowed on her, if the blessings conferred have not qualified her to do
the work entrusted to her, on her will be pronounced the sentence, "Found
wanting." By the light bestowed, the opportunities given, will she be
judged. (8T:247)
Before closing this
testimony, Ellen G. White gave a solution. She counseled:
"Unless the
church, which is now [1903] being leavened with her own backsliding, shall
repent and be converted, she will eat the fruit of her own doing, until she
shall abhor herself." (p. 250)
This was not an ordinary call to repentance.
It was a call to denominational repentance. The "church" was to
repent. As a corporate body she faced the judgment of the sanctuary, and unless
the church repented, the sentence would be pronounced - "Found
wanting."
Here is a prophecy
that dare not be overlooked. In unmistakable language, it is declared that
"the Seventh-day Adventist church is to be weighed" in the balances
of the Heavenly Sanctuary. This was stated as future in 1903 - "is to be"
and "on her will be pronounced." The greatest question facing the
individual member of the Church today is simply - "Has this prophecy been
fulfilled?"
And, if it has, what
decision was rendered?
God is on record
that He will not do anything, but He will reveal it by prophet and prophecy.
(Amos 3:7) This is no minor decision which would be rendered, for should the
decision be negative, that pronouncement would declare that the organizational
vehicle He chose to use for the completion of His final movement on earth had
betrayed its sacred trust. If so judged, as a corporate entity it would be
"Found wanting."
Continued
involvement in such a corporate structure would have eternal consequences. Such
is the gravity of this prophetic testimony written in 1903.
After 1903, time
continued.
In the newspapers,
one could read of wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes in divers places,
famines and pestilences. But no major event could be assigned to a specific
prophecy. It seemed that the prophetic clock of God had been stopped.
Then came 1929.
In an agreement
reached between Italy and the Vatican, the "deadly wound" began its
healing process, a modern rejuvenated Papacy was born, not only politically,
but also financially.
As a Church,
Seventh-day Adventists believed in the guidance afforded by prophecy. In her
Statements of Belief, the Church was on record as affirming: -
That prophecy is a
part of God's revelation to man; that it is included in that Scripture which is
profitable for instruction (2 Tim. 3:16); that it is designed for us and our
children (Deut. 29:29); that so far from being enshrouded in impenetrable mystery,
it is that which especially constitutes the word of God as a lamp to our feet
and a light to our path. (Ps. 119:105; 2 Peter 1:19); that a blessing is
pronounced upon those who study it (Rev. 1 :1-3); and that, consequently, it is
to be
p 27 -- understood
by the people of God sufficiently to show them their position in the world's
history and the special duties required at their hands. (1914 Yearbook, p. 293)
The last sentence of
this confession of faith by our spiritual forefathers is worthy of thoughtful
consideration. Prophecy "is to be understood by the people of God
sufficiently to show them their position in the world's history and the special
duties required at their hands."
But in 1931, a new
Statement of Beliefs appeared in the Yearbook. This statement on prophecy was
omitted!
At the very moment
when God's prophetic time clock began ticking off the final hours of human
history, we chose to delete this statement from our beliefs.
In 1948, the State
of Israel was formed.
True, no prophetic
significance can be attached to this event, per se, but coming events were
casting their shadows before.
This fact was
recognized at the 1952 Bible Conference. (See p. 1) But something else was
happening in the Church. As human history was setting the stage for coming
events, God was not leaving Himself without a witness to the Church. To the
newly formed 1950 General Conference Committee, two young men, missionaries to
Africa, addressed the issue of the penetration of Baal worship into the Church,
and echoed God's call for denominational repentance. In their original
monumental manuscript - 1888 Re-Examined - they wrote: - It is now abundantly evident that
"we" have traveled the road of disillusionment since the Minneapolis
meeting in 1888. Infatuation with false teachings has taken the place of clear,
cogent, heaven-inspired truth, as regards "righteousness by faith."
By the hard, humiliating way of actual experience with counterfeit, Israel has
brought herself to the time when she is ripe for disillusionment. The simple
faith to believe, which was spurned at Minneapolis, is now replaceable with the
bitter tears of humble repentance, occasioned by our history. The following
prophecy has been fulfilled, and awaits only its realization by the church:
Unless the church,
which is now being leavened with her own backsliding, shall repent and be
converted, she will eat the fruit of her own doing, until she shall abhor
herself. (ST:250)
Such an experience
will be a repentance very similar to that of Mary Magdalene, whose faith and
love were spoken of by the Saviour as that of the model Christian. The genuine
repentance of heart-broken love is righteousness by faith. (p. 242, old edition)
It must be observed
that while Elders Wieland and Short applied the call to repentance given in
1903 to the rejection of the 1888 message instead of to the action of the 1903
General Conference replacing the God-directed 1901 Constitution, nevertheless the
call for a "denominational repentance" was made to the Church's
leadership in 1950.
However, by calling attention to the
"message" of 1888, these men presented to the leadership of the
Church its only remedy.
Thus God used these
two young missionaries to tell the Church's leadership that the hour was
approaching when the Church was to be weighed in the balances of the sanctuary.
The warning and the call were all a part of the same testimony which God sent
through Ellen G. White in 1903. (See 8T:247-251)
The need for
corporate repentance cannot be divorced from the reason for that need. The
Church was to be weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, and if she did not
meet certain criteria, she would be found wanting. It was just that simple.
The answer to the
challenge of Wieland and Short was not long in coming.
In 1952, Elder W. H.
Branson, who in 1950 had been elected to the high office of the presidency of
the General Conference, called for a Bible Conference. Its motivation was
two-fold: 1) To proclaim the message of
1888, and thus in an indirect way circumvent the call sent through Wieland and
Short two years previously; and 2)
Reaffirm the fundamental truth believed by the Church. Branson, himself,
presented the studies on Righteousness by Faith. Concluding these studies, he
said: - To a large degree the church
failed to build on the foundation laid at the 1888 General Conference.
p 28 -- Much has
been lost as a result. We are years behind where we should be in spiritual
growth. Long ere this we should have been in the Promised Land.
But the message of
righteousness by faith given in the 1888 Conference has been repeated here.
Practically every speaker from the first day onward has laid stress upon this
all-important doctrine, and there was no prearranged plan that he should do so.
It was spontaneous on the part of the speakers. No doubt they were impelled by
the Spirit of God to do so. Truly this one subject has, in this conference
"swallowed up every other."
And this great truth
has been given here in this 1952 Bible Conference with far greater power than
it was given in the 1888 Conference because those who have spoken here have had
the advantage of much added light shining forth from hundreds of pronouncements
on this subject in the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy which those who spoke
back there did not have. The light of justification and righteousness by faith
shines upon us more clearly than it ever shone before upon any people.
No longer will the
question be, "What was the attitude of our workers and people toward the
message of righteousness by faith that was given in 1888? What did they do
about it?" From now on the great question must be, "What did we do
with the light on righteousness by faith as proclaimed in the 1952 Bible
Conference?" (Our Firm Foundation, Vol. II, pp. 616-617)
Branson in outlining
his objectives for the Bible Conference indicated it was being called "for
the particular purpose of reaffirming those great and fundamental truths that
have most certainly been believed amongst us throughout all our history."
(Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 45) As one reads the messages given at the 1952 Bible
Conference on the subjects of the atonement, and the mediatorial work of Christ
in the Most Holy Place of the Heavenly Sanctuary, it must be happily admitted,
the presentations did reflect historic Adventist beliefs. Those beliefs were
reaffirmed.
Nevertheless,
Wieland and Short's prophetic insight into the real condition of the Church -
that she was "infatuated with false teachings" and "ripe for
disillusionment" was not long in surfacing.
Within three years,
under another administration, the conferences between Seventh-day Adventists
and the Evangelicals - Barnhouse and Martin - took place. (See Appendix C) The
very doctrines confirmed at the 1952 Bible Conference were now denied by the Adventist
conferees.
The resulting book -
Questions on Doctrine - sought to assure the Evangelicals that there was a
change in the position of the Adventist leadership on the doctrine of the
Atonement, but at the same time to verbalize this apostasy in such a way so as
to camouflage this change as not to be perceived by the rank and file of the
laity of the Church.
To questions raised
the answer was simply - "It is just a matter of semantics."
The Adventist
conferees were themselves deluded by this answer. T. E. Unruh, who chaired the
conferences, reported: - We came to
see that many misunderstandings rested on semantic grounds, because of our use
of an inbred denominational vocabulary. Our friends [the Evangelicals] helped
us to express our beliefs in terms more easily understood by theologians of
other communions. (Adventist Heritage, Vol. 4, #2, 1977, p. 40)
Again the Lord did
not leave Himself without a witness. M. L. Andreasen, the Adventist Church's
greatest 20th Century theologian, protested. In a letter, responding to a
report he had recanted in his opposition to the apostasy, he wrote: - Let me assure you that I am in good
health - not a mental case, not senile, not even dead, as has been reported.
But I am so busy that I cannot keep up with my correspondence. I am all alone
in my work.
No, I have not
recanted. The denomination is departing from the fundamentals, and I must
protest. (Letter. posted June 8, 1959, Glendale, California)
And protest he did
through Letters to the Church!
Others joined in the
challenge to the book - Questions on Doctrine. The local elder
p 29 -- of the
Baker, Oregon, Seventh-day Adventist Church, A. L. Hudson, brought into the
open the long suppressed manuscript of Elders Wieland and Short, the original,
1888 Re-Examined.
Hudson's pressure on
the leadership of the Church caused a "Further Appraisal of the Manuscript
'1888 Re-Examined"' to be released by the General Conference in 1958. This
Appraisal addressed the issue squarely but tragically.
The General
Conference leadership rejected the only solution given by the messenger of the
Lord to the Church in 1903. They wrote confirming the 1951 evaluation: - The solution proposed, of the
denomination making confession of the mistakes of men made in the 1880's and
1890's and of a denominational repentance, is not possible nor would an attempt
to do so be of value. The experience of the church is the collective experience
of its members and leaders, and thus rightness with God is a matter of present
day personal relationships." (A Warning and Its Reception, 2nd Printing.
Green Tint Section, p. 2)
In this answer, the
leadership of the Church ignored not only the specific counsel of the Lord as
given in 1903, but also the plain teaching of Scripture on corporate
accountability.
One illustration of
corporate accountability in the Old Testament is the sin of Achan and how it
involved all of Israel. In the New Testament, Peter filled with the Spirit on
the Day of Pentecost charged the whole of the "house of Israel" with the
murder of Jesus. (Acts 2:36)
While the book -
Questions on Doctrine - was not republished after the first edition, its
apostate teachings were confirmed in the book - Movement of Destiny - which in
its first edition carried the imprimatur and nihil obstat of the Presidents of
the General Conference and the North American Division, respectively. The then
president of the North American Division is now president of the General
Conference.
Then came 1967. The
recapture of Jerusalem by the Israeli forces marked the beginning of "the
last week" - figuratively speaking - of the times of the Gentiles as
foretold by Christ that night long ago on the Mount of Olives.'
*******
The very movement
prophesized gave up their truths, much like Israel of old, they left the ways
of God. Over and over we read of the failure of the children of Israel to
adhere to the covenant of God. Time and time again they were called to repent. And time and time again they did repent, but
it never lasted for very long.
Is it any wonder
that God's chosen movement in the end, the people He called to bring the truth
to the world, would also apostatize?
They've been called to repent off and on since the early 1900's, and time and time again they
refuse to repent.
We have passed the
time of corporate repentance, the times of the gentiles has been fulfilled, the
Seventh day Adventist corporate church has been weighed in the balance and
found wanting.
The landmark truths
of the church remain, never to be altered and it is to these we must adhere to,
not the corporate church. Individually we are to be judged and individual
probation for all of us is almost up.
The hour is very late. Please,
may we be YOURS, LORD.
More tomorrow by the
grace of our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST!
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