Silence at Midnight!
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1 of 5 Pages |
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Sleeping in the Camp
of the Three Angels!
"at
even" (6
PM) |
Deepening
darkness for Adventists after 1888 |
"Midnight"
(12 PM) |
First
3 angels' messages -
"Essene
Gospel" 1844 |
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Protestant
reformation affirmed 1847 - 1888
7th day Sabbath - 1847 |
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4th angel,
clearest representation of Saturn, reaping actually happens atomic
bomb - 1945 |
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7th angel,
(not represented in Rev 14)
World
Trade Center 9-11-2001 |
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Cockcrowing
(3 AM) |
5th and
6th angels - 1987-1994 (Rapture Trib) |
"Morning"
(6 AM) |
Less
than a month before Pastor Bryan Aalborg called my attention to Mark
13:32-37, I had stumbled across the problem of determining the identity
of the final three angels of Revelation 14, a subject that Seventh-day
Adventists have avoided just as they have the Essenes and the Dead Sea
Scrolls, afraid, I suppose, of finding out something new that might show
they will not, as they suppose they will, judge the whole world as
"kings and priests" for 1000 years. To be sure a world
of "dead people" , but the whole world, anyway. I
discovered in these last three of a series of six angels what I needed
to identify now what Mark 13:35 meant by "evening, midnight,
cock-crowing, and morning".
The "evening" Coming of Jesus belongs to Seventh-day
Adventists and the first three angels of Revelation 14.
Although Jesus did not show himself to all those Millerites with their
packed suitcases on the backyards and mountain-tops of New England and
upstate New York, He did indeed show himself to Ellen Harmon, the
teenager with her visions and dreams.
Ellen
described her first important vision in terms that brought hope to her
listeners who had been disappointed when William Miller's prediction of
Jesus' Second Coming on October 22, 1844 failed to occur in the manner
he and his listeners hoped it would occur. Ellen saw some of
these same disappointed people on a path that would eventually take them
to what they wanted, for Jesus to come, destroy all their sinful
neighbors, and take them to heaven where they could live forever without
pain, sorrow, disease, or death. As her vision continued, however, she
saw some of those who started on this path fall off into the dark and
sinful world below.
In a
second major vision in 1847 at Topsham, Maine, Ellen White saw Christ himself as a Jewish High Priest
dressed in typical Jewish high priestly garments of blue, purple, and
scarlet, with a fringe of bells and pomegranates. Standing between
the holy place and most holy place of a heavenly sanctuary, holding a
smoking golden censer which was interpreted as the prayers of her
Adventist brothers and sisters while an investigative judgment was going
on. He was not motionless and confined to one particular spot, as
he is sometimes imagined, but was able to take Sister White on a sort of
"tour" of the most holy place, and showed her the tables on
which the Ten Commandments were written by the finger of God. Once this investigative judgment was finished, which could
occur at any time, then Jesus would throw down his golden censer, take
off his Jewish priestly garments, and come to earth to accompany those
Adventists that had learned to live perfect lives to the heavenly city,
New Jerusalem, where for 1000 years they will judge the world as kings
and priests. They must, however, keep the Seventh-day Sabbath, and
were strongly encouraged to become vegetarians.
With Ellen White's participation in the process, the Seventh-day
Adventists "adopted" the first three angels of Revelation
chapter 14 as a symbolic representation of their message to the world,
with the message of the third angel, which they interpreted as being a
return to keeping the Seventh-day Sabbath, being the most
important. Indeed, keeping Sunday became in their
opinion the "Mark of the Beast", the "Beast" being
the Roman Catholic Church, which under Constantine's directions in the
fourth century AD had changed the regular weekly rest day from Saturday
to Sunday. The World would end, taught Adventists,
when an international Sunday law was passed and Sabbath-keepers were
sentenced to death.
William Miller
and the
"Everlasting Gospel"
Revelation 14: 6 "And I saw another angel flying in the midst of
the heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell
on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and
people, 7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give glory to
him; for the hour
of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth,
and the sea, and the fountains of waters."
This is a complex verse with grand and far-reaching themes that neither
William Miller nor the Seventh-day Adventists who later replaced him
ever really understood, but for now let's accept William Miller's simple
interpretation that this present earth was to be judged at a second
coming of Jesus in plain sight of everyone living, and also the dead
from all former ages resurrected to see Jesus return. Jesus would
act as a judge at this coming, and more or less instantaneously choose
the righteous dead and the living Millerites, with angels descending to
carry those worthy to join Jesus on the cloud or clouds full of angels
that appeared in the sky on October 22, 1844. What they
expected to see is represented by this picture.
It is assumed by Seventh-day Adventists that William Miller and his
fellow preachers had an absolutely correct picture of how the expected
"second coming" will occur, and this same picture is still
used, although no one has pictured how the angels will carry the
individual Adventists and their children up into the sky, and how much
baggage they might be able to take with them. There are
seemingly reliable accounts of some women on October 22, 1844 that had
large trunks ready to go with many changes of fashionable clothes, while
other less reliable accounts speak of special "ascension
robes". Harold Camping's followers in the spring of
this year (2011) were disappointed in their expectation of a similarly
very public second coming and here's a picture of the believers sedately
walking up a stairway made of clouds that solves some of these visual
difficulties. There are no trunks or suitcases. Indeed
it would have to be a very long stairway, so perhaps an escalator is a
more appropriate description.
Revelation
14:8 "And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is
fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink
of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." The
original Millerites saw "Babylon" as everyone who refused to
join their revival, confess their sins, and attempt to live righteous
lives for the relatively short period of time, first several years, then
a number of months, then weeks and days before the expected "end of
the world." After the resurrected and living
"saints" (specifically those people expecting Jesus and
emotionally and spiritually "ready to go") were safely up in
the clouds, Christ would some way or another (perhaps by a fiery glance)
ignite a world-wide conflagration that would "cleanse the world
sanctuary" so that once the flames died down and the earth cooled,
"saved" men and women, or angels, or perhaps both in a
cooperative effort, could begin rebuilding a world to God's and their
specifications and preferences. It is generally conceded
that the Millerites had no idea what the message of the "Third
Angel" of Revelation 14 was all about, and it's doubtful that they
even noticed there was a 4th, 5th, and 6th angel in this
chapter. But no 7th angel.
After nothing much happened (on earth, anyway) on October 22, 1844, most
of those waiting went back to their farms and jobs, while William
Miller's family and neighbors built him a little chapel in which he
preached sermons almost every Sunday until he died of old age. A rather
small group still studied the Bible diligently and discovered that
the whole earth was never really considered a "sanctuary" by
the Bible writers, and proposed a "heavenly sanctuary" existed
somewhere out in space, with Jesus as its "High
Priest". When Ellen White in 1847 actually visited this
"heavenly sanctuary" in her vision, this added credibility to
Hiram Edson's ideas on this subject. But the big issue
about this time was Joseph Bates' tract on the Seventh-day Sabbath,
studied and adopted by both Ellen White and her husband James White, who
by now had considerable influence among this small but growing group of
"Adventists". Eventually the message of the
"Third Angel" was connected with 7th day Sabbath-keeping by
Adventists, but by very few other modern students of Bible
prophecy. And the Adventists adopted their now quite famous
"Three Angels" logo.
NEXT:
Page 2 of "Sleeping
in
the Camp of the Three Angels"
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