CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT • • • � • � • • • • • � • • �• • • �• • • • • • • SPICER • • • • � • • • • • • • • • � • • • els er • • • • • S. • • • AO. •• •• I • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 4 •• .. • � • � •• � • • • � • • it • • • � • • • • • • •• • • • • • • e • I 1,2 • • • • • • • • • • 40 c • •• • • • • • . �•- � • • � • � . �• 041. � . �• • • I � a • • • • • • • • • • • • • � 4 � • � 4ir . �.4.1. � • • � • � • . a. a • • T • • • • Certainties of the Advent Movement ?ItFFITAG E CENTER _ Aimee White Library ,IrrapiEWP ion � . OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR The Hand of God in History Our Day in the Light of Prophecy Youthful Witnesses The Hand That Intervenes Our Story of Missions Providences of the Great War Two Great Prophecies Miracles of Modern Missions The Gospel to All the World Certainties of The Advent Movement By W. A. SPICER " That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth." Prov. 22:21. REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION TAKOMA PARK, WASHINGTON, D. C. SOUTH BEND, IND. � PEEKSKILL, N. Y. Printed in the U. S. A. Contents FOREWORD - TWO GREAT MOVEMENTS 9 DIVINE CERTAINTY � . II THE WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD 2I WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD IN ANCIENT TIMES � . 32 THE EXODUS MOVEMENT AND THE ADVENT MOVEMENT 43 CALLED OUT TO KEEP GOD'S LAW � . 56 THE SABBATH THE TEST OF LOYALTY . 61 WHERE THE PATHWAY TURNED INTO EGYPT . 69 OPPOSITION TO THE SABBATH IN THE Two MOVEMENTS 82 THE PROPHETIC PICTURE OF ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE LAW OF GOD � . 95 EACH MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD I14 THE CERTAINTY OF THE DATE 457 B. C. . � . 134 THE HEAVENS CONFIRM THE PROPHECY AND HISTORY 146 THE RISE OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT AT THE APPOINTED HOUR � . 155 PREPARATION FOR THE ADVENT MOVEMENT . 161 PROVIDENTIAL PROVISION FOR A QUICK WORK � . 172 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY IN THE Two MOVEMENTS 181 THE PLACE OF THE GIFT IN THE MOVEMENT 201 COUNSELS THAT BUILT UP � . 216 NOT BY HUMAN FORESIGHT AND DEVISING 229 PERILS OF THE WAY � . 232 AN ORGANIZED MOVEMENT 251 THE MOVEMENT MARKED THROUGH TO THE CITY OF GOD 264 4p 55. t Copyright, 1929, by the S REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII HE Foreword Two Great Movements IN ancient times God called a people out of bondage in Egypt and gave them His holy law and commandments. He led them in a great movement through the wilderness to the land of Canaan, which had been promised to them as an in- heritance from the days of their fathers. Such a movement had never before been witnessed among men. Under divine guidance, with manifest tokens of the presence of God, the people of Israel marched to the Land of Promise. The living God led the Exodus Movement out of Egypt and into Canaan. As verily as God led the Exodus Movement in the days of ancient Israel, even so by His word and by His providences He is leading the world-wide Advent Movement in these latter days. Again He is delivering a people from bondage — the bondage of sin. He gives to them His holy law and command- ments. And at the end of the journey is the heavenly Canaan, the eternal Land of Promise. As the living God led the Ex- odus Movement, in fulfillment of prophecy and promise uttered to the patriarchal fathers long before, even so the living God is leading the Advent Movement, true to the sure word of prophecy uttered in Holy Writ long ages ago. At the end of the pilgrim journey Christ Himself, the in- visible Leader, comes in visible power and glory, to lead His people into the everlasting Land of Promise. By the resur- rection at Christ's appearing, the saved of all the ages are brought forth to enter the kingdom with the believers of the last generation. All march in together. What joy to know the certainty that the heavenly Canaan is now just a little way before ! To Canaan's Fair and Happy Land ON Jordan's stormy banks I stand, And cast as wishful eye To Canaan's fair and happy land, Where my possessions lie. 0, the transporting, rapturous scene That rises to my sight! Sweet fields arrayed in living green, And rivers of delight. There, generous fruits that never fail, On trees immortal, grow; There rocks and hills and brooks and vale With milk and honey flow. O'er all those wide, extended plains, Shines one eternal day; There Christ, the sun, forever reigns, And scatters night away. When shall I reach that happy place, And be forever blest? When shall I see my Father's face, And in His kingdom rest? Filled with delight, my raptured soul Would here no longer stay; Though Jordan's waves around me roll, Fearless, I'd launch away. — Samuel Stenvett. CHAPTER I Divine Certainty WHEN the apostle Luke, under the guidance of Inspiration, set his hand to declare the things of the gospel, it was, as he said to Theophilus, " That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed." Luke 1 :4. The Lord is just. He does not leave us to risk eternal life upon a hazard, a guess, or a mere hope so. He gives evidence by which to fortify faith, evidence by which men may know the certainty of the things which are essential to godliness and eternal life. THE NOTE OF CERTAINTY As the early teachers of New Testament times went forth, they preached divine certainties. The ring of certainty sounded in the message they bore. The apostle Paul said to the Corinthians : " I therefore so run, not as uncertainly so fight I, not as one that beateth the air." 1 Cor. 9: 26. There was no wavering note in his testimony. In certain tones the apostle bore witness to the power of God to save every believing sinner from his sins. Again he declared against any uncertainty in the proclamation of the things of God : " If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall pre- pare himself to the battle? " 1 Cor. 14 : 8. We are dealing with divine certainties in the study of the essential things of life and salvation. The living God gives 11 12 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT evidence by which any questioning mind that will give atten- tion to the facts may know the certainty of the divine counsels. The Lord declares : " Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee? " Prov. 22 : 20, 21. Certainty is what we need. We can rest in nothing less. First of all, in the prophetic portions of Holy Scriptures we have multiplied unto us these excellent things in counsels and knowledge by which the Lord makes known the certainty of divine things to every soul who will give attention to the facts. He desires to make us know the certainty of the words of truth, not for our own sakes only, but that we may tell others the sure way of life eternal : " That thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee." GOING OVER THE EVIDENCE In the record of prophecy foretelling the course of history through the ages, we have evidence piled upon evidence that the living God speaks in Holy Scripture. We can add these evi- dences as we would add a column of figures. What would one do if required to add up a long column of figures and set down the sum, guaranteeing the accuracy of the reckoning at the forfeit of life if he makes an error? One would add those columns up and set down the result. He would add those columns of figures down, making certain that the total came out the same. With life at stake, he would go over the figures again and again, upward and downward, rejoicing in the cer- tainty of his calculation as every turn at the figures brought the same result. And regardless of the number of times we had gone over the figures, what would any one of us do as the time came to appear before the tribunal to give the answer ? I think any one of us would certainly go over those figures again. I would say DIVINE CERTAINTY � 13 to myself, " I know that answer is right, I am certain it is correct; but for the joy of seeing again with my own eyes the assurance that I am right and that my life can never be for- feited upon the answer, I will go over the figures again." Just so we may take the certainties of divine prophecy. We may begin with ancient times, and follow the great lines of his- torical prophecy down through the ages to our own time. There are many such lines of prophecy. The prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation especially deal with the consecutive events of history through the ages. History has fulfilled the prophetic picture to almost the last outlines, and we know that Christ's kingdom is soon to appear. " First, the Assyrian kingdom ruled the world, Then Medo-Persia's banners were unfurled; And after Greece held universal sway, Rome seized the scepter,— where are we today? "Look for the waymarks, the great prophetic waymarks, Down through the ages, past the kingdoms four. Look for the waymarks, the great prophetic waymarks; The journey's almost o'er." THE SUM OF THE EVIDENCE Whenever we add up the evidence of divine prophecy, we find the same result every time : The last days have come. The last message of the " everlasting gospel " is due to the world. The message of Revelation fourteen, proclaiming the judg- ment hour, is that last gospel message. The last church of the prophecy the " remnant," " which keep the commandments of God " (Rev. 12 : 17) — should be abroad in the world preaching that message. And the church of the Advent Movement is that remnant church, proclaiming the message of the judgment hour in the world movement foretold by the prophecy : 14 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT " I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, say- ing 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. . . . Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14: 6-12. A DEFINITE MESSAGE The advent message to the world is not dealing with ab- stract philosophies. The message deals with facts, with events taking place in fulfillment of prophecy, not mere theories. Away in the interior of China a missionary paper of the movement was circulating in many thousands. " Here is some- thing different," said non-Christian Chinese. " Your paper deals with things that we can see and understand. It tells us the meaning of events taking place before our eyes. This is the paper that we want." In proclaiming the verities of fulfilling prophecy we can say with the apostles : " That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life." 1 John 1 : 1. We see that the things foretold of the historic past have come to pass in exact fulfillment of the word of God. Things spoken of these latter times are fulfilling before our eyes. We are dealing with the certainties of fulfilling prophecy. The advent message sums up the great essentials of divine truth. It is the everlasting gospel for every nation, kindred, tongue, and people today. THE BULWARKS OF THE MESSAGE This great body of truth stands foursquare to the needs of all men, and its foursquare bulwarks withstand all the attacks of unbelief. As we review the great fundamentals of gospel truth that stand fast forever, we exclaim with the psalmist : DIVINE CERTAINTY � 15 " Walk about Zion, and go round about her : tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces ; that ye may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God forever and ever : He will be our guide even unto death." Ps. 48 : 12-14. We love to walk round about the citadel of truth built upon the everlasting rock of Holy Scripture, and count the towers thereof and mark the bulwarks. We rejoice that God has given to men excellent things in counsels and judgment, that He might make us know the certainty of the words of truth, the certainty of the things wherein we have been instructed. It is good to go over the evidences of divine certainty in the Advent Movement and message, just as one would go over the columns of figures if life depended on getting the right result. No matter how well we may have known these certainties of divine truth in the past, there is ever new joy and an upspringing of new hope in summing up the evidences. LISTENING TO THE RING OF CERTAINTY One experience that came to me years ago in a South American country well illustrates this joy in going over the evidences that mean eternal life to the believer. I was pro- ceeding to one of our missions. Before our boat reached the port, a revolution had broken out. A thousand revolutionists, with red hatbands and all varieties of weapons, boarded our ship. We landed amidst the firing of guns and the shouts of soldiers. A battle was on in the suburbs of the city. The rail- way leading to the capital and to our mission station had been torn up. Telegraph wires were cut. There was no way of getting in touch with friends. The only thing to do was to get away by boat to our next mission center down the coast. But I had in cash only a single gold piece, having expected to draw funds by letter of credit which I carried. Shops and banks generally were closed. Amidst the disorder and violence filling the streets, would I find some way of securing money? 18 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT THE APOSTLE'S MESSAGE OF FULFILLING PROPHECY Well may we today lift up this " more sure word of proph- ecy." That was the manner of apostolic preaching. The apos- tles preached to men of their generation the things of fulfilling prophecy. They challenged men with the fact that the living God who had spoken the prophecies, was fulfilling them before their eyes. On the day of Pentecost, at Jerusalem, the demonstration of the Holy Spirit falling upon the company of believers brought together a great multitude before the place where the apostles were assembled. Jews and proselytes from many lands were gathered in the city at that time. There were Parthians and Medes and Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, and from Egypt and Cyrene and Rome, Cretes and Arabians, and visi- tors from all round about Jerusalem and Judea. It was a great occasion, and now the apostles were to give their first witness to the risen Saviour. Peter stood up to preach the first sermon under Pentecost. What was his subject? What was the basis of his appeal? It was the evidence of prophecy. He declared : " Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, . . . this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." Acts 2 : 14-16. So the apostle preached the message of prophecy fulfilling before their eyes. He challenged men to give their answer to the living God who had foretold the things of their time through the prophets and now had fulfilled His word in the events taking place. When the apostle Paul preached the gospel message at An- tioch, what was his theme? Again he declared the fulfilling word of prophecy : " We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children." Acts 13 : 32, 33. DIVINE CERTAINTY � 19 It was the constant appeal of the apostolic ministry. The events of the first coming of Christ had fulfilled the writings of the prophets. In His death and resurrection were revealed the crowning things foretold in the ancient Scriptures regard- ing the first advent of the Messiah. " Men and brethren," the apostles cried out, in effect, " long ages ago the Spirit of God foretold these things. The ancient prophets were inspired to write them upon the page of Holy Writ. Generations have passed, the time has come, and we see these things fulfilled and fulfilling before our eyes. The same God who caused them to be written has brought to pass the fulfillment. Ye see it ! men and brethren. The evidence is before your eyes. The living God speaks to you in these events that declare the fulfillment of His word ! What are you going to do about it? " Many who heard the challenge to decision, gave heed and yielded their lives to the Saviour. Near the close of his life of ministry, the apostle Paul de- clared before Agrippa that in presenting the gospel message of salvation to sinners he had been proclaiming only that which the prophets had written. He said : " Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come." Acts 26: 22. Thus the New Testament evangelists preached continually of a Saviour who had come fulfilling the Scriptures. They proclaimed Him the true Messiah by the infallible proofs of the fulfillment of prophecy. They bore to men of that gener- ation the message of things foretold which multitudes had seen fulfilled before their eyes — Christ born into the world, Christ ministering to humanity's need, Christ dying for sinful men " according to the Scriptures," Christ risen again " the third day according to the Scriptures," and Christ ascended to heaven, the risen Saviour ever living to intercede for sinners. 20 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT THE MESSAGE NOW And now what is the message to men in our generation, when this living Saviour is soon to return to end the reign of sin, and by the resurrection to gather the saved of all the ages into the eternal kingdom ? The gospel message in our day again is a message of fulfilling prophecy. The Saviour who came at the first advent in exact fulfill- ment of the prophetic word is coming again in power and glory in final fulfillment of that same sure word. Again the gospel minister has a definite, timely message to preach. On every hand prophecy is fulfilling. We cry to men with the same appeal that the apostles used. We say, " Men and brethren, hearken; this is that which God spoke by the prophets of old. That which God promised unto our fathers by the prophets, the same is He fulfilling before our eyes today ! Long ago these things were written on the pages of Scripture. Generations and centuries have passed, but now by infallible signs we see that the great day of God is approaching. The living God who caused the prophets to write, is fulfilling His word. Day by day and year by year you are eyewitnesses to the fact that the things written afore- time concerning the latter days, are coming to pass in swift succession. Men and brethren, look at facts ! What are you going to do about it ? " The living God is challenging men in this time to give heed to His fulfilling word and believe the gospel. " Awake! Again the gospel trumpet is blown, From year to year it swells to louder tone; From year to year the signs of wrath Are gathering round the Judge's path. Great words fulfilled, and greater works achieved, And truth in all the world both hated and believed." CHAPTER II The Witness to the Living God THE world's great need is to know God. This knowledge is the way of life. Jesus in prayer to His Father said: " This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou halt sent." John 17:3. Two great evidences bear witness to the living and the true God,— His created works, and the fulfillment of His word of prophecy. 1. His Created Works Creative power distinguishes the living and the true God. Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord appeals to all men to recognize Him as Creator by the evidence before the eyes of every intelligent being : " The Lord is the true God, He is the living God, and an everlasting King : at His wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide His indignation. Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth by His power, He bath established the world by His wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by His discretion." Jer. 10: 10-12. The heavens and earth bear this constant witness to the living God : " The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard." Ps. 19: 1-3. 21 22 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT IN ALL THE LANGUAGES OF MAN There is not an ear of conscious intelligence that does not hear the voice of the sun, and moon, and stars. All mankind, lettered or unlettered, may read in the starry heavens of the great Creator's power. As Addison wrote : " The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue, ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim : The unwearied sun, from day to day, Does his Creator's power display, And publishes to every land The work of an Almighty hand. " Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale; And nightly, to the listening earth, Repeats the story of her birth ; While all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole. "What though in solemn silence, all Move round the dark terrestrial ball ? What though no real voice nor sound Amid the radiant orbs be found? In reason's ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice, Forever singing as they shine, ' The hand that made us is divine.' " The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, summed up the testimony borne to all mankind by God's created works, in these words: " Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them ; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without excuse." Rom. 1:19, 20. THE WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD � 23 THE SIGN OF THE TRUE GOD And the memorial, or sign, of this creative power, the seal, or mark, which the true and living God gave to mankind to preserve men's knowledge of Him as Creator, is the Sabbath: " Hallow My Sabbaths ; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Eze. 20: 20. When the Lord laid the foundations of the earth and cre- ated man the sixth day, He rested the seventh day : " Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made ; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." Gen. 2: 1-3. He blessed that day and made it holy. He set it apart for mankind as the memorial of creation. Week by week it comes in blessing, with its reminder of man's origin as a child of the great Creator, to whom worship and reverence are due. Never could the human race have fallen into idolatry and the making of gods of wood and stone had the Sabbath been kept in remembrance. Truly the Sabbath institution is the sign of loyalty to the Creator. Commenting on this text in Ezekiel in which the Lord declares that His holy Sabbath is the sign by which men may know that He is the Lord their God, the learned Dr. William Hales, the chronologist, supplies a striking comment, as follows : " A sign between God and His people (Eze. 20 : 20) ; and a mark of separation from the idolatrous Gentiles, who uni- versally violated it, as we learn from the following exceptions in a curious passage of Julian the Apostate [Greek text omitted] : ' What nation is there, by the gods, who do not think that except the first commandment, Thou shalt not worship other gods, and the fourth, Remember the Sabbath, they ought to observe the other commandments of the decalogue ? ' "—"New Analysis of Chronology," Vol. I, pp. 18, 19. 24 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT The first precept of the law of God as spoken by His own voice and written upon the tables of stone, commands all men to worship only Jehovah the true God ; and the fourth com- mandment, the Sabbath law, tells who the true God is, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Thus the Sabbath is the sign of the true God, and the keeping of it the seal, or mark, of loyalty to Him. " It speaks of Him whose wondrous might The heavens and earth from nothing made ; Who formed the glorious orbs of light, And the deep sea's foundations laid." THE SIGN POINTS MEN TO GOD There is a power in the Sabbath institution to lead men to the living God. Missionaries of the Advent Movement in all the non-Christian lands thank God especially for this Sabbath truth. The Lord who made the Sabbath in the beginning and gave it to man as an everlasting memorial, still makes it a witness to the unbeliever as well as to the believer. The Lord blessed the Sabbath day. Wherever men lay hold upon it in faith, they find the blessing in it and put themselves in touch with actual creative power. The life is changed. As God created the earth in the beginning and man upright upon it, so sinful men must be re-created by the same power of the living God. In the non-Christian lands it is remarkable to see how the original purpose of the Sabbath is fulfilled in actual experience. Here is an illustrative example : A young man of Northern India was taking the law course in Calcutta University. As a means of support he taught the vernacular to foreign missionaries in the city. Coming to our mission to teach, he was struck with the fact that we were wor- shiping on the seventh day, Saturday, instead of on Sunday, as is the common practice in the churches. The difference awak- ened his interest. He asked, " Why is this ? Why are you keeping another day ? " THE WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD � 25 He was directed to the Scripture narrative of creation, tell- ing how God made the world in six days, and how He rested on the seventh day from the work of creation, and then blessed that day and made it holy, setting it apart for mankind as the great memorial of the living and the true God. The inspired narrative sent conviction into the heart of this non-Christian man. The reasonableness of it all appealed to his sense of the fitness of things. The Sabbath as the sign of creative power brought the man into direct contact with God. It became to him -a sign by which he might know God. Giving his heart to the study of the Scriptures, it was not long before he announced his purpose of accepting the Christian faith. It was the Sab- bath that first pointed the way. THIS WITNESS BORNE BY THE ADVENT MESSAGE From the beginning the Sabbath has been set forth as the divinely appointed sign by which men may know God. The prophecy of Revelation fourteen shows that the special gospel call under the Advent Movement is a call to men to know and worship the true God : " 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." Rev. 14: 7. Note that this call to all mankind in the last days quotes the very words of the fourth commandment — the God that " made heaven, and earth, and the sea." Ex. 20: 11. It is the Lord of the Sabbath whom men should worship. And this Sabbath truth, with its witness to the living God, has been committed to the people of the Advent Movement to carry to the world. " God of Sabbaths, 0, forgive, That we use Thy gifts so ill; Teach us daily how to live That we ever may fulfill All Thy gracious love designed, Giving Sabbaths to mankind." 26 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT 2. The Witness of Prophecy to the Living God The power to foretell events of all future time is a dis- tinguishing characteristic of the true God. He alone knows the end from the beginning. Bearing witness to the nations through Isaiah the prophet, in ancient times, the Lord said : " Remember the former things of old : for I am God, and there is none else ; I am God, and there is none like Me, declar- ing the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure." Isa. 46: 9, 10. Again challenging all the false gods of the nations through their votaries, He said : " Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall hap- pen : let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them ; or declare us things for to come. Show the things that are to come here- after, that we may know that ye are gods." Isa. 41: 22, 23. The Lord challenged, and all the gods of the nations were silent, for they are no gods. So repeatedly the Lord throws down the challenge of the prophetic word to silence doubt or unbelief. He says : " I have declared the former things from the beginning ; and they went forth out of My mouth, and I showed them ; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass." Isa. 48: 3. Why has He thus uttered prophecies ? He declared from the beginning the events of future time, often tracing from of old the history of nations and empires before they ever came upon the stage of action. Why did He do it? He has done it because He wished to give sure evidence by which men might know to a certainty that the voice of the living God speaks in Holy Scripture. He tells us why : " Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass ; I have even from the begin- ning declared it to thee ; before it came to pass I showed it THE WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD � 27 thee : lest thou shouldst say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them." Verses 4, 5. IN HOLY SCRIPTURE ONLY It is only in the Christian Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments that we find such writings. Here only are accurate outlines, great historic prophecies, describing the course of human history generations before the events described took place. There is nothing like it in the non-Christian writings. The Hindu may say, as I have heard him say, " The Christian Bible is good for the Christian ; but we also have our sacred books, the Vedas. Your Scriptures are good for you, and our scrip- tures are good for the Hindus." To what may we appeal as evidence that the living and true God speaks in the Bible? We ask, " How is it? Did your sacred books describe in clear outline the course of future his- tory ? Did your wise men of old, writing even in the times when the prophets were writing the Christian Scriptures, fore- tell with accurate detail the rise and fall of empires ? Can you point to the text in your writings and show the fulfillment in history ? " More than once I have heard it from Hindu lips, " No, we know nothing of historic prophecies in our sacred books." The reason for this is simple. It is because the living God is the Author of Holy Scripture. He only can declare the end from the beginning. The sacred books of other religions present to us the picture of man talking about God. The Holy Scriptures is a book in which God talks to man. In these Scrip- tures the living God speaks from heaven, and man on earth makes the response. In the non-Christian writings it is man on earth speaking toward heaven, and there is never an answer back. The gods to whom or of whom these writers speak are not the true and living God, and they can do nothing. As the ancient writer said in the Scriptures : 28 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT " They have mouths, but they speak not : eyes have they, but they see not : they have ears, but they hear not : noses have they, but they smell not : they have hands, but they handle not : feet have they, but they walk not : neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them ; so is every one that trusteth in them." Ps. 115: 5-8. The dreary loneliness of that silence as men call upon those who are no gods, and the helplessness of it all, are well put by Sir Alfred Lyall in his " Meditations of a Hindu Prince: " "And the myriad idols around me, and the legion of muttering priests, The revels and rites unholy, the dark, unspeakable feasts ! What have they wrung from the Silence? hath even a whisper come Of the Secret, whence and whither? Alas, for the gods are dumb!" But when we open Holy Scripture, we hear the voice of our Creator and our Redeemer, who would leave nothing lack- ing to give to our hearts the evidence sure and certain that the voice of God speaks in these sacred pages. It was of these things of divine prophecy, telling the end from the beginning, that Inspiration must have spoken in those words of Proverbs : " Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee ? " Prov. 22 : 20, 21. THE HISTORY OF EMPIRES FORETOLD Take for example one of the great measuring lines of prophecy, the dream which God gave to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, showing the course of world empire from the ancient days to our own times. As Daniel the prophet inter- preted the dream he declared : " There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and mak- eth known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days." Dan. 2 : 28. The great image of the king's dream, with its head of gold, its breast and arms of silver, its sides of brass, its legs and feet THE WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD � 29 of iron, represented the history of the world, beginning with the golden age of Babylon. Speaking to the king, the prophet said, " Thou art this head of gold." Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, was flourishing as though never to come to an end. But the prophet's interpretation continued : " After thee shall arise another kingdom [Medo-Persia] inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass [Grecia], which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth king- dom, shall be strong as iron [" the iron monarchy of Rome," as Gibbon calls it] : . . . and . . . the kingdom shall be divided [the kingdoms that arose within the Western Empire of Rome, represented by the modern kingdoms of Western Europe]. . . . And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed." Dan. 2 : 39-44. The history of empire was never presented in fewer words nor with greater accuracy. As Dr. J. A. Wylie, author of the " History of Protestantism," once wrote : " This dream photographed twenty-five centuries at a stroke. The great future is put before us in miniature, and when we take the microscope of history and examine the picture, each individual event stands out in full body before us. Every king- dom, and throne, and battle is seen to be embraced in the dream and comes vividly into view. The pages of Herodotus and Xenophon, of Livy and Tacitus, of Gibbon and Niebuhr, are but the reproduction on a magnified scale of what was first of all exhibited by Daniel. What have all ages since been, but an unrolling of the prophetic scroll? The thousands of volumes of history which the world contains, what are they but inter- pretations of this dream? What a proof that none but Om- niscience could have constructed this dream! "—" The Great Exodus, or the Time of the End," p. 90. One evening years ago, in India, I sat with a bright young man, a Hindu, a student in the university. The Christian Scripture was an unknown book to him. As we talked, I turned to these pages of Daniel and read to him the outline of the king's dream. Slowly we went over it, thinking our way through that great main current of human history. We fol- 30 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT lowed the outline from Babylon to Rome. We noted the di- vision of the Roman Empire, as foretold, into the kingdoms of Western Europe. Then I asked him if from his own study of history and these young men of the Orient are students, keen and bright, studying all our textbooks of Western learning — I asked him, " How is it? From your own study of history can you say whether this prophecy, written in Babylon nearly two thousand five hundred years ago, has been fulfilled? " He replied : " I know that this describes the course of his- tory just as it has come to pass, and in the exact order of events." Then I saw him turn. A new thought had struck him. There was a look of awe and surprise on his face as he looked up in the light of the study lamp and said to me again, with the force of sudden conviction, " Only the living God could have written that before it came to pass." It is the truth. Divine prophecy bears witness sure and cer- tain that the voice of the living God speaks in the Holy Scrip- tures. God has given to us the evidence by which any man may know the certainty of the words of truth. His challenge is unanswerable. He knows the human heart. He knows how hard we are to convince. He knows the stubbornness of unbelief. With evidence piled upon evidence we say, " Yes, Lord, but — " and then comes the parrying of the truth, the evading of the conclusion. But God is a merciful God. He repeats evidence upon evi- dence. In the sure word of prophecy He has supplied all the facts for that unanswerable challenge : " I have declared the former things from the beginning ; and they went forth out of My mouth, and I showed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass ; I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I showed it thee : lest thou shouldst say, THE WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD � 31 Mine idol bath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them. Thou hast heard, see all this ; and will not ye declare it ? " Isa. 48 : 3-6. Thus the prophetic word bears witness to the true God. And to whom has the message of fulfilling prophecy been es- pecially committed ? All the world recognizes that the Ad- ventist people are ever setting forth the great themes of prophecy. The Sabbath truth and prophetic truth are the special wit- nesses to the living God. By these, men are to know Him. To know God is life eternal. This is the great need of all mankind. And to the people of the Advent Movement has been committed the work of bearing the Sabbath truth and the message of fulfilling prophecy to all the world in these last days. CHAPTER III Witness to the Living God in Ancient Times AGAIN and again in ancient times the witness of the sure word of prophecy was borne to nations beyond the bounds of the ancient people of Israel. THE DELIVERANCE OF THE JEWS FROM BABYLON In the days of Jeremiah the prophet, a time prophecy was uttered, foretelling the time of the deliverance of the children of Judah from captivity in Babylonia ; and all the nations saw the arm of God made bare in bringing about the fulfillment. Jeremiah had long before foretold the doom of Jerusalem. Its people had rejected the counsels of God, whose protection alone had warded off conquest by their more powerful neigh- bors. Now the Lord declared : " This whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonish- ment ; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity." Jer. 25 : 11, 12. The Babylonians came. The Jews were led into captivity. At last the time of the promise was drawing near — the ending of the seventy years. The nations were astir. It was a crisis in history. The time was at hand for God to fulfill His word in the overturning of the empire of Babylonia. Cyrus the Persian was the commander of the army that overthrew Babylon. More than one hundred years before Cyrus was born, the prophet Isaiah had written : " Thus saith the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two- leaved gates ; and the gates shall not be shut." Isa. 45 : 1. 32 WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD IN ANCIENT TIMES � 33 For nearly two centuries that prophecy had stood written on the parchment roll. The night came when the army of Cyrus was to make its attack upon Babylon. The golden city, inside its mighty walls, scoffed at the besiegers. Meanwhile the troops of Cyrus were entering beneath the outer walls, where the Euphrates River flowed into the city and out again. By trenches far above the city, dug by thou- sands of soldiers, the river had been partially drained off into low-lying marshes, until the waters were so lowered where the river entered beneath the city walls that the soldiers could march in along the river bed. But even so they would ordi- narily have gained little ; for massive walls lined the river banks inside the city. Had the gates of these river walls been shut, the troops of Cyrus would have been helpless ; in fact, as Herodotus suggests, they might have been caught by the Chal- deans " as in a trap." But a century and more before, the prophecy had been writ- ten, " The gates shall not be shut." So it must have been that night, for the Medes and Persians entered the city without an assault. The Chaldean scribe who at the time wrote the story on a clay tablet (which was secured by the British Museum in the year 1879) closed his record with the words : " On the sixteenth day, Gobryas, pasha of the land of Gutium, and the troops of Cyrus, without a battle, entered Babylon."— From tablet, " Annals of Nabonidus." CYRUS THE AGENT OF JEHOVAH But Cyrus was not only the rod in the hand of Providence for the punishment of Babylon; he was to be the agent for the deliverance of the Lord's people from captivity. Isaiah's prophecy had said of him : " He is My shepherd, and shall per form all My pleasure : even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built ; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid." Isa. 44 : 28. 3 34 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT The seventy years of the captivity were at an end, and it was time for the work of restoration to begin, according to the prophecy. Josephus, the Jewish historian, says that this proph- ecy came to the knowledge of Cyrus : " This was known to Cyrus by his reading the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies. . . . This was foretold by Isaiah one hundred and forty years before the temple was demolished. Accordingly, when Cyrus read this, and admired the divine power, an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written."—" Antiquities," book 11, chap. 1. How Cyrus fulfilled the word written is told in Scripture : " Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He hath charged me to build Him a house at Jeru- salem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all His people ? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel, (He is the God,) which is in Jerusalem." Ezra 1 : 1-3. Thus witness to the living God —" He is the God "— was borne by a master of the world before all nations ; and when the seventy years of the prophecy were fulfilled, the return of Jewish people from captivity began. ANGELS AT THE COURT OF PERSIA In the story of the rebuilding of the temple after the return to Jerusalem, an incident is recorded in Scripture which draws aside the veil for a moment, and gives us a thrilling view of the work that angels from heaven are doing in this world of ours. As soon as the work was fairly going forward at Jerusalem, opposition arose. Ezra says : WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD IN ANCIENT TIMES � 35 " Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, and hired counselors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus." Ezra 4: 4, 5. The scene now shifts from Jerusalem to the court of Cyrus, in Persia. The hired counselors are there seeking to turn the king against the work that he had authorized at Jerusalem in accordance with the purpose of God. At the same time Daniel, the prophet, is in Persia, by the river Tigris. For three weeks Daniel had been specially seeking God in prayer. At last an angel came to answer his cry. " Fear not, Daniel," the angel said ; " for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself be- f ore thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words." But why had the angel delayed his appearance for three weeks, if from the first day Daniel's prayer was heard ? The angel told why : " But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days : but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes [" the first " of the chief princes, margin], came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia." Dan. 10: 13. It is all plain � the hired hostile attorneys, and, no doubt, the representatives of the Jews at the Persian court ; the king wavering, and inclined to yield to the opposers of God's plan and purpose ; and there, too, unseen by mortal eyes, were angels from heaven, working day after day to counteract the evil counsel and to lead the king in the right way. And at last the Prince of the host, Michael, Christ Himself, came to help in the great crisis. The king was prevailed upon to do the right, and the work at Jerusalem went forward ac- cording to the prophecy. We know that these same angels of God are still abroad in the earth, ministering to the least of the heirs of salvation, and standing unseen in the courts of kings or in the halls of 36 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT legislation. Earth is full of angels. If our eyes were miracu- lously opened, we would see these hosts that pass to and fro in God's service. " Are they not all ministering spirits," says the Scripture, " sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? " Heb. 1: 14. There is comfort and as- surance in the knowledge that the Lord's eyes are upon us and His care is over all. The God who declared things to come and brought them to pass, and who delivered His children in ancient days, is still the living God. As King Darius once proclaimed him to " all people, nations, and languages," " He is the living God, and steadfast forever, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall be even unto the end. He delivereth and rescueth, and He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who bath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions." Dan. 6:26, 27. This thing is sure we are in the hands of a living God who is able to do things on earth. Above all, we may know that when His word speaks the way of salvation to our hearts, that also is sure and certain : " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1 : 9. " God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3: 16. In a world of actuality � the facts of fleeting life and of sin and death there is nothing like knowing the actual fact that God is over all now and seeking to save. And Holy Scrip- ture teaches the way of salvation. Some in these days tell us of the study of " comparative religions." They urge us to give other religions than Chris- tianity credit for good points. They say that Confucius taught good things in China and Buddha good things in India. WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD IN ANCIENT TIMES � 37 But Confucius is dead; he cannot save me. Buddha is dead ; he cannot save me. Dead teachers may instruct us, but dead teachers can never save us. There was another Teacher who came into the world — Jesus of Nazareth was the name. He taught good things. He, too, died. But He rose again to life ! He is alive today. He calls to us from heaven: " Fear not ; I am the first and the last : I am He that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell [the grave] and of death." Rev. 1 : 17, 18. He is the Teacher who can save, and the " sure word of prophecy " points all mankind to Him. We cry with the exult- ing apostle Paul who was standing for Christ before all the cultured but helpless religion of Rome and Greece : " I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ : for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." Rom. 1: 16. " Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts ! Thou fount of life ! Thou light of men ! From the best bliss that earth imparts We turn unfilled to Thee again." THE WITNESS TO ALEXANDER THE GREAT One incident illustrative of the way in which divine proph- ecy bore witness to kings and conquerors of old is so strikingly related by Josephus that even in this brief review it should not be passed over. A new era was dawning in the history of the world. The dominion so long held by Asia was passing into European hands. The " sure word of prophecy " had declared it genera- tions before. In the last year of the Babylonian monarchy the prophet Daniel was shown in vision the ram with two horns, pushing westward, and the goat that " came from the west," 38 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT with a " notable horn between his eyes." The prophet saw this fleet goat from the west run upon the ram, and trample it underfoot. The angel gave a plain interpretation of these symbols : " The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia : and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king." Dan. 8 : 20, 21. � _ This vision was given about the year 538 B. c., and was written down on the parchment scroll. Two hundred years later Alexander of Macedon, " first king " of united Grecia, was coming swiftly from the west to smite the power of Persia to the earth. Already he had won the decisive victories of Granicus and Issus, and Persia lay prostrate. THE CONQUEROR LISTENS TO THE PROPHECY As the great conqueror approached Jerusalem, he was de- termined to punish the city. It had been slow to transfer its allegiance from Persia to Grecia. But Josephus says that as Alexander drew near the city, the gates were flung open, and a procession of priests and citizens moved out to meet the great conqueror. The priests bore in their hands the book of the prophet Daniel. The historian gives a graphic description of the meeting : " The procession was venerable, and the manner of it differ- ent from that of other nations. It reached to a place called Sapha, which name, translated into Greek, signifies a prospect, for you have thence a prospect both of Jerusalem and of the temple. And when the Phoenicians and the Chaldeans that followed him [Alexander] thought they should have liberty to plunder the city, and torment the high priest to death, which the king's displeasure fairly promised them, the very reverse of it happened ; for Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed with fine linen, and the high priest in purple and scarlet cloth- ing, with his miter on his head, having the golden plate whereon WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD IN ANCIENT TIMES � 39 the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself, and adored that name, and first saluted the high priest. The Jews also did all together, with one voice, salute Alexander, and encompass him about ; whereupon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind. " However, Parmenio alone went up to him, and asked him how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews ? To whom he replied, ' I did not adore him, but that God who hath honored him with his high priesthood ; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians ; whence it is that, having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed ac- cording to what is in my own mind.' " And when he had said this to Parmenio, and had given the high priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him, and he came into the city. And when he went up to the temple, he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high priest's di- rection, and magnificently treated both the high priests and the priests. And when the book of Daniel was shown him, wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the em- pire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended. And as he was then glad, he dismissed the multitude for the present ; but the next day he called them to him, and bade them ask what favors they pleased of him ; whereupon the high priest desired that they might enjoy the laws of their f ore- f athers, and might pay no tribute on the seventh year."— " Antiquities," book 11, chap. 8. Alexander must have been familiar with the oracles of Greece and their enigmatical sayings, capable of double inter- pretation. But here was no blind, oracular utterance. The Hebrew prophet's words, written two centuries before, de- 40 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT dared in plain language the course of history. " Grecia " was to come, said the prophecy, and overthrow the Persians. And what God had declared, was fulfilling before the eyes of men in that generation. The conqueror of the world knew that the God of heaven had borne witness to him in the high tide of his career ; and for the moment he bowed before the living God. THE CERTAINTY OF THE WORDS All along through the history of Grecia and of the Roman Empire that followed, students of Scriptural prophecy were no doubt watching the march of events fulfilling the written word and bearing testimony to the fact that the living God was still in heaven above, overruling in the affairs of men and of kingdoms for the carrying out of His own purposes. Then when the days of the Dark Ages came and the word of God was well-nigh lost to the common people, still here and there students of Holy Writ watched for the dawning of a day of greater light. The glad day came. The Reformation broke over Europe. The word of God began to be translated into the languages of the people, and with glad hearts believers began to search the prophetic word for evidence that Christ's coming kingdom would ere long appear. Speaking of this attitude of the Reformation church toward the sure word of prophecy, Dr. J. A. Wylie says: " The Reformation church early devoted herself to the study of the prophetic page. It was natural she should. No sooner has the mariner freed himself from the skirts of some dense fog, which had shut out sea and sky from his sight, than his first glance is at the stars. With the return of light he en- deavors to ascertain his exact place on the ocean. The church at the Reformation had just escaped from the darkness which had so long enveloped her from the papal abyss ; and her first effort, by the help of prophecy, was to ascertain her position on the chart of time. Lifting her eyes to the firmament of revelation, she began reverently to read the great lights of prophecy."—" The Great Exodus." WITNESS TO THE LIVING GOD IN ANCIENT TIMES � 41 Following on, there came erelong the days of increasing light and knowledge spoken of by the angel to Daniel the prophet in the words : " 0 Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Dan. 12: 4. As a natural sequence of this era of enlightenment that was to come with the time of the end, the era of modern missions came, spreading the light of the Scripture through all the lands, with an influence to uplift and mold and change the attitude of many peoples, even of those who have not accepted the Chris- tian revelation. The latter days have come. Men are running to and fro, light and knowledge are spread abroad, the whole world is brought within small compass, and all the nations are within touch of one another. The doors are open for this light to penetrate regions that were lying unknown and beyond the reach of modern influence a century ago. Everything has turned out for the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning this time of the end. And just here, as this present generation opened, has come the definite Advent Movement of the prophecy of Revelation fourteen, with its witness to the living God for our day. The Sabbath is the sign by which men may know God. The teaching of the Sabbath truth today is committed to the Advent Movement. The word of prophecy bears the great witness that Holy Scripture is the voice of the living God. In a special way the Advent Movement stands for the preaching of prophetic truth. The joining of the Sabbath truth and the prophetic truths — two great phases of teaching that witness to the true God — brings forth the Seventh-day Adventist people in every land as the Advent Movement enters. In the study of the details of this Advent Movement we are led to study two great movements led by the living God. At the Place of the Sea HAVE you come to the Red Sea place in your life, Where, in spite of all you can do, There is no way out, there is no way back, There is no other way but — through? j � Then wait on the Lord with a trust secure Till the night of your fear is gone; He will send the wind, He will keep the floods, When He says to your soul, " Go on." I I I I - Annie Johnson Flint. I I I I-) � 1 1 � l ) � ) ) 1 1 ) � ) I I I I I I I I 1 I t And His hand will lead you through, clear through, Ere the watery walls roll down; No foe can reach you, no waves can touch, No mightiest sea can drown. The tossing billows may rear their crests, Their foam at your feet may break, But over their bed you shall walk dry shod, In the path that our Lord will make. In the morning watch, 'neath the lifted cloud, You shall see but the Lord alone, When He leads you on from the place of the sea To a land you have not known. And your fears shall pass as your foes have passed, You shall be no more afraid; You shall sing His praise in a better place, A place that His hand has made. CHAPTER IV The Exodus Movement and the Advent Movement THE deliverance of Israel from Egypt and their march to the Land of Promise was set as a lesson for all time to come. It illustrates the mighty power of God to deliver. The Chris- tian believer's individual life is a pilgrim journey to the Land of Promise. Every soul knows the bondage of sin and the fettering power of natural habits. Human nature must be delivered from Egyptian bondage: " For Pharaoh lives in every age, To covet lust and power and might; And slaves to serve him are they all Who know not God and shun the right. " Today — alway — a Shepherd's voice Is lifted up to urge His plea, Where wrong enthroned grows hard of heart, And will not let the people free! " — Leiser. Like Israel of old, pilgrims on the way to the better land today must know the delivering power of God. There are Red Seas to cross, through which God's providence alone can make the path. He can do it. He who " made the depths of the sea a way " can still make a way where there is no way. We must have His blessing to make sweet the bitter waters of life's Marahs, and all through the wilderness journey, thank God, the pilgrim on the way to the promised Canaan may drink like Israel of old from the living waters gushing forth from the riven rock, while the soul is fed with the daily manna fresh from heaven. Of the whole body of believers, heavenward bound, it will at last be said, as the apostle said of Israel, that 43 44 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT all passed " through the sea," " and did all eat the same spiritual meat ; and did all drink the same spiritual drink : for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them : and that Rock was Christ." 1 Cor. 10 : 3, 4. The Exodus Movement becomes a type of the experiences of each redeemed soul. One old writer, the learned Dr. Light- foot, says : " The Book of Exodus by the ancient Jews was called the Book of Redemption."—" Remains," p. 29. A TYPE OF THE FINAL DELIVERANCE But more than this, the Exodus Movement becomes a type of the gathering of the people of God throughout the gospel age, and especially of the closing work when the Lord actually gathers out a people from all the ends of the earth, making them ready to march together into the eternal Canaan as the Saviour comes to lead His people in. The prophecies foretelling the world-wide gospel work flash out with special light for the last days, when the work is to be brought to a triumphant conclusion. Again and again prophecy of the final deliverance draws its figures and illustrations from the wonderful deliverance when God led His people out of Egypt and on to Canaan. Dr. J. A. Wylie, the same who wrote the well-known " History of Protestantism," has written an illuminating para- graph on this feature of the prophecies. He says : " When the Bible foretells a deliverance from Egypt, and a deliverance from Babylon, in an age yet to come, and paints, as it does, a triumphal procession of escaped captives coming ' unto Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads,' it is not the literal Babylon that is meant, it is no repetition of the literal drama for which we are to look, but a drama which, while it will greatly transcend the former in its scale, will never- theless be the same in its essential principles,— will resemble it in the power and goodness of God, and the victory it will bring to the church. We cannot safely ignore, in our interpretations THE EXODUS MOVEMENT AND THE ADVENT MOVEMENT 45 of prophecy, the underlying typology of Providence. . . . On this principle, we firmly look for the providence of God culmi- nating in a grand and universal deliverance of the church. Every one of her former deliverances was a step toward her final deliverance."--" The Great Exodus," p. 28. It is not until the last gospel work is accomplished and the children of God of all the ages are led into the eternal kingdom, that the living God ceases this work of redemption to which He has set His mighty hand. And the prophecies concerning the last days tell of the special Advent Movement proclaiming the message of preparation for the coming of the Lord and gather- ing out a people prepared to meet Him from " every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." TWO GREAT MOVEMENTS COMPARED Speaking through Jeremiah the prophet, the Lord compares this gathering of His people under the gospel call with the gathering of His people from the land of Egypt. He says: " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands." Jer. 16 : 14, 15. This does not mean that the day was to come when the wonderful works of God in the deliverance from Egypt would be forgotten. That deliverance in the Exodus Movement was never to pass from memory. The night of the Passover was to be memorialized throughout the generations of ancient Israel until Christ, the antitypical Passover, should be sacrificed for the children of men : " It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord for bring- ing them out from the land of Egypt: this is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their gen- erations." Ex. 12 : 42. At the end of the Exodus journey, when the Lord opened a passage into the Land of Promise through the river Jordan, 46 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT even as He had opened the passage out of Egypt through the Red Sea, the leaders were instructed to take stones from the dry bed of Jordan with which to build a monument to preserve in the memory of their children this wonderful work of God : " That this may be a sign among you, that when your chil- dren ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones ? then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord ; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off : and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel forever." Joshua 4 : 6, 7. The leadership of the living God was manifest in the Ex- odus Movement, and was a testimony to His power before all the world. The Lord told Pharaoh why He had so mightily stretched forth His hand in Egypt : " That My name may be declared throughout all the earth." Ex. 9: 16. The nations had never seen or heard of a work like that. The living God had visited His people. He had delivered them from bondage. By signs and wonders He had led them through the wilderness. He had preserved them, men, women, and children, guiding them by springs of water and bringing forth water in the desert when natural sources failed. By manna rained from heaven He had sustained them. The nations round about, looking on, beheld the people of God marching, marching on to the Land of Promise. As we learn from the book of Joshua, the word that a living God was with that people had gone before them into the land of Canaan, causing the hearts of warlike tribes to melt within them. The Exodus Movement was a wonderful movement, led by the living God. A GREATER WORK IN THE LAST DAYS But this prophecy of Jeremiah tells of a time to come when a greater work would be wrought : " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children THE EXODUS MOVEMENT AND THE ADVENT MOVEMENT 47 of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands." Jer. 16 : 14, 15. The living God was to call His people, not out of one land, but from all the lands. The same living God who brought a people out of Egypt and led them to the earthly Canaan, is to bring a people out of all the lands of earth, and lead them this time into the heavenly Canaan. And this work will be so much wider in its scope — a world- wide movement — and so much more enduring and final and eternal in its results, that instead of recounting the marvels wrought in that movement when God brought Israel out of Egypt, men would be talking of another movement in which the living God brings His people from all the lands, preparing them to enter the heavenly Canaan when Christ shall come to lead them in. WHEN THE SAVED OF ALL THE AGES MARCH IN Indeed, this deliverance is beyond all comparison with the ancient deliverance from the land of Egypt. For really, as a climax to this final work of God, the Lord Jesus comes in glory and calls forth from their graves the faithful of all past ages, who are raised to immortality to join the last generation of believers in the glad march into the eternal kingdom. God's closing work under the world-wide Advent Movement climaxes in the grand event for which all heaven and all humanity have been waiting since Adam lost Paradise. All through the ages, the gospel message has been gathering out the redeemed of every generation. It was not God's plan that these early believers should go on into the heavenly king- dom as their life work ended. Those that sleep in Jesus are waiting to join the triumphant closing of the gospel work on earth. The apostle tells how they are to share with the believers of the last generation the glad joy of entering all together into the kingdom 48 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT " These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise : God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." Heb. 11 : 39, 40. The saints of God of past generations do not enter the eternal kingdom before those of the last generation. And those of the remnant people of God who are alive in the time when Christ shall come, will not precede those that sleep in Jesus. They will all be changed together to immortality, and together will enter the glorious Land of Promise. Thus the apostle speaks: " I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [go before] them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise first : then we which are alive and re- main shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." 1 Thess. 4: 13-18. This is the glorious triumph foreshadowed by the prophecy when it says that the days were to come when it would no more be said, The Lord lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but rather, The Lord liveth, who has brought up His people from all the lands, and in the glo- rious climax, from all the generations past, to lead them in triumph into the heavenly Canaan. A BETTER LAND THAN THIS After all, the earthly Canaan, " goodly land " though it was, was but a land of this perishable, changing world. With all the blessings of God upon it as His people remained faith- THE EXODUS MOVEMENT AND THE ADVENT MOVEMENT 49 ful, it was a land of sickness and sorrow and death. There was no abiding city there. But this eternal Land of Promise and prophecy, this heavenly Canaan, is a country of which the Lord says, " The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick : the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity." Isa. 33 :24. Again the prophecy of old described it : " Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth : and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." " And they shall build houses, and inhabit them ; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit ; they shall not plant, and another eat : for as the days of a tree are the days of My people, and Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." Isa. 65 : 17, 21, 22. In almost the last words of Holy Scripture the prophet John tells of the vision given him on Patmos, of this new earth inheritance finally to be the home of the saved : " I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; and there was no more sea. " And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. " And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. " And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for the former things are passed away." The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it : and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day : for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither 4 50 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie : but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." Rev. 21: 1-4, 23-27. " 0, how sweet it will be in that beautiful land, So free from all sorrow and pain; With song on our lips and with harps in our hands, To meet one another again!" A WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT In the prophecy of Jeremiah 16 the Lord compares the Exodus Movement with the great movement that is to gather His people from all the lands in the latter days. This prophecy, as the immediate context shows, covers more than any return of the people of Israel or Judah anciently from the lands of their captivity. That was not the subject of the prophecy. In the nineteenth verse of Jeremiah sixteen, in which the prophet speaks of this future gathering of the people of God from all the lands, he says that when this gathering takes place, " the Gentiles shall come unto Thee from the ends of the earth." The gathering of Israel in the last days means the gather- ing of the children of faith from all the nations. He counts the believer, the child of faith, as " an Israelite indeed." The promises concerning the gathering of Israel in the last days are promises of the gathering of the children of God of all nations, not merely of Israel after the flesh. As the Scripture says, these promises of the final triumph are all in Christ Jesus. They are for the Jew after the flesh who believes ; they are for believers of all nations. " There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal. 3: 28, 29. Again the Scripture tells us who are Israel, as God counts His children: " They are not all Israel, which are of Israel : neither, be- cause they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, THE EXODUS MOVEMENT AND THE ADVENT MOVEMENT 51 in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God : but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." Rom. 9 : 6-8. These children of the promise, those who believe the prom- ises of God, of all nations and tribes, are the people of whom the prophecy speaks when it says : " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands." Jer. 16 : 14, 15. And where do we find God's final gathering call to His people of all nations? We find this gathering message in that prophecy of Revelation fourteen which foretells the Advent Movement. In a world-wide movement the final gospel call is to be carried to men as symbolized by the angel flying in the midst of heaven to " every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." THE GATHERING OF THE " REMNANT " In another scripture is a prophecy of this gospel work through the centuries, which at the last issues in the gathering out of the " remnant," or the church of the last days under the Advent Movement : " It shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people." Isa. 11 : 11. Isaiah's chapter covers the gathering call of God through all the generations since Jesus was lifted up on Calvary as the " Ensign for the nations." But this eleventh verse plainly closes with the gathering out of the remnant people of God from all lands ; for the verse proceeds to mention the great nations of that time, Assyria and Egypt and all, east, west, 52 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT north, and south. The " remnant " are to come from " the four corners of the earth." Verse 12. As in Jeremiah, this gathering of the scattered Israel and of dispersed Judah, means not Israel after the flesh, but as the Scripture says, the Israel after the spirit,— the believers of all nations and tongues and peoples. Here again, in speaking of the gathering of the believers of the last generation, the comparison is made with the gather- ing of the people of God under the Exodus Movement. In that movement from Egypt to Canaan, the Lord set His hand the first time to gather out a people, leading them into the land of their inheritance. Now the " second time " God sets His hand to gather His people, this time from all the lands ; and He is to lead them, not into a transitory earthly inheritance, but into the eternal Canaan. Over one hundred years ago Dr. Adam Clarke, the Meth- odist commentator, wrote of this verse : " This part of the chapter contains a prophecy which certainly remains yet to be accomplished."— Comment on Isaiah 11. FULFILLING IN OUR DAY In our day it is being accomplished. The gathering call is sounding. The Lord Jehovah is the living God. His work is not completed in the earth until the last sinner willing to re- ceive salvation has been saved unto eternal life. But the judg- ment hour is speeding on. From the day when man sinned, it was inevitable that the time of reckoning would come. As the Scripture said, " It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." It must come at last; and as the prophecy of Revelation fourteen shows, the last message of the ever- lasting gospel is a special warning to men to prepare for the judgment. To every nation, kindred, tongue, and people that warning message is to be carried. The last, the remnant, church of God, is to be gathered out and made ready to meet the test of the judgment and the coming of the Lord. THE EXODUS MOVEMENT AND THE ADVENT MOVEMENT 53 In a world-wide gospel movement — which we call the Advent Movement — that message for the last generation is even now being carried to the world. God has set His hand " the second time," this time to gather the " remnant " of His people, the true Israel of every nation. They are coming at His call. From land to land and from language to language the message of the prophecy is speeding on its way. The prophecy of Jeremiah sixteen, that has been referred to, represents the message as calling the children of the Lord out from the remotest parts, gathering them "from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks." At a camp meeting in the African interior I tried out this prophecy of the mountains and hills and holes in the rocks. It was a scene to move any heart, watching the crowd that night, seated on the ground under the tall eucalyptus trees at Malamulo, row on row of faces upturned in the dim light of the swinging lamps. They had come in from scores of villages in the Nyasaland highlands, upwards of 1,700 believers. " How many of you here tonight has He called out of the mountains? " I asked through the interpreter, James Kalilimba. Hundreds of hands went up in the semidarkness of those straight aisles of eucalyptus trees. " How many of you has He brought out of the hills? " Again hundreds of hands. " How many have come out of ' the holes of the rocks ' into the light of this message? " Not hundreds this time, but scores of hands went up. " And it is the literal fact," said one sit- ting by. The gathering work is going on before our eyes in all the world. The Lord is gathering His scattered flock. His angels are combing the jungles for them. He has set His hand again the second time, and is calling into this Advent Movement the remotest peoples — from the mountains and hills, and from the holes in the rocks. He knows every honest heart, even in these dark heathen lands, and they are coming now at His call. 54 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT That night as we filed down from the speakers' stand, a thousand voices were singing : "All hail the power of Jesus' name, Let angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all," It would melt any heart, as it did mine, to hear those people of mountain and hill and literally of " the holes of the rocks " singing that last stanza, " 0 that with yonder sacred throng, We at His feet may fall; We'll join the everlasting song, And crown Him Lord of all." THE TWO MOVEMENTS COMPARED As the prophetic descriptions of the closing work of the gospel suggest a comparison between the Exodus Movement and this closing Advent Movement, even so the New Testa- ment Scriptures emphasize the story of the Exodus Movement as bearing a lesson especially for the last days. Speaking of the experiences under the Exodus Movement, the apostle Paul says: " Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples : and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." 1 Cor. 10: 11. Like all other Scripture, these things were written for the instruction also of past generations. But in a special sense the story of the Exodus Movement conveys a lesson for those who live in the time of the Advent Movement. In that ancient movement, God set His hand the first time to deliver a people from bondage and to lead them into the land of Canaan. In these last days the Lord has set His hand the second time, and finally, to gather His people of the last generation, the remnant, from all nations and peoples, and to lead them into the eternal Canaan. This is the picture presented before us. And the THE EXODUS MOVEMENT AND THE ADVENT MOVEMENT 55 apostle Paul, by inspiration, tells us that the experiences under the Exodus Movement were " ensamples," or as the margin of the Authorized Version says, " types " for us upon whom the ends of the world are come. The Exodus Movement is in a way a type of the closing work of God under the Advent Movement. As we study the two movements, we find features in which that ancient movement plainly furnishes striking par- allels to experiences through which the last-day movement passes also. Some of these parallels appear as follows : Called to keep God's law. The Sabbath the test of loyalty. Obedience brings opposition. Each movement rises in fulfillment of time prophecy. The Spirit of prophecy in the two movements. Organization and unity in service. Each movement " marked through " to Canaan. These parallels we shall study. CHAPTER V Called Out to Keep God's Law THE message of the Exodus Movement was a message of reform. In the long and bitter bondage in the land of Egypt, multitudes of the people of Israel had fallen away from obedi- ence to God. God's message through Moses His servant was to call the people of Israel to return to obedience. " The Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let My people go, that they may serve Me." Ex. 8: 1. The people of Israel were brought forth that they might serve the living God. He held them long under His own in- struction in the camp about Mt. Sinai. With His own voice He spoke His holy law, the ten commandments, and wrote this law with His own finger upon tables of stone. " And the writ- ing was the writing of God." Ex. 32: 16. Holy Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, covering the entire revelation of God to man, was written by the pen of prophets through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit except God's holy law. This He spoke to the people with His own voice that " shook the world." And then He wrote it with His own finger, writing it the second time with His own hand when the first tables had been broken. Deut. 10 : 2. God brought forth the Exodus Movement in order that His people might keep His law, and be an example to the world of obedience to the divine precepts. The psalmist sang of it in Israel: " He brought forth His people with joy, and His chosen with gladness, . . . that they might observe His statutes, and keep His laws. Praise ye the Lord." Ps. 105: 43-45. 56 CALLED OUT TO KEEP GOD'S LAW � 57 WITNESSES BEFORE THE WORLD The people under the Exodus Movement were brought forth to be a commandment-keeping people. They were to represent the holy law of God bef ore all the nations. By that law they were to be marked as a people under God's special leadership, representing His truth to the world. The instruction to that people concerning the commandments of God was : " Keep therefore and do them ; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon Him for ? And what nation is there so great, that bath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day ? " Deut. 4: 6-8. And truly, as more than one ancient writer bears witness, this holy law of God did speak in majesty to the nations, im- perfectly as the chosen people represented it in their lives. Phalerius, librarian to Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, urged the king to secure copies of the sacred books of the Jews for the Alexandrian Library. He said : " Now it is necessary that thou shouldst have accurate copies of them. And indeed this legislation is full of hidden wisdom, and entirely blameless, as being the legislation of God ; for which cause it is, as Hecateus of Abdera says, that the poets and historians make no mention of it, nor of those men who lead their lives according to it, since it is a holy law, and ought not to be published by profane mouths."—Josephus," Antiquities," book 12, chap. 2, sec. 4. Unfaithful as the Jewish people oftentimes were, yet through their testimony and the dealings of God with them, the fame of the living oracles was spread abroad among the ancient nations. \ God called His people out in the Exodus Movemenf,7 and gave' them His commandments in order that they might teach the way of life to all mankind. 58 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT This experience in the Exodus Movement was set forth as a type, an example for the people upon whom the ends of the world are come, when God sets His hand " the second time " to gather the remnant of believers and to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. THE CHURCH OF THE LAST DAYS The prophecy of the remnant church harmonizes with the teaching of the type. The Lord describes the closing history of the church in the prophecy of the twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation. The prophecy in this chapter carries the church through the days of persecution in the Dark Ages, describes its preservation through the long period of 1260 days, closing with the breaking of the bands of papal supremacy. Then the prophecy passes to the last days. With the church all along presented under the symbol of a woman, the Lord describes the church in the last days as " the remnant of her seed.' And the characteristic of this last church is thus set forth: " The remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." Rev. 12 : 17. The characteristic of the church in the days of the exodus was that they kept " the commandments of God." In this they were a type of the remnant church in the last days. Again, in the picture of the closing work of the gospel in Revelation fourteen it is said of the church brought forth by the advent message among all nations and kindreds and tongues and peoples : " Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14: 12. Thus the sure word of prophecy describes the fruitage of the advent message. This last gospel movement, the Advent Movement, everywhere brings forth a people keeping the com- mandments of God, a feature which distinguishes them among all people. CALLED OUT TO KEEP GOD'S LAW � 59 Again in modern times in Christendom, as in the days of bondage in Egypt, there has been a falling away from the purity of the primitive faith. The apostle Paul said to the elders of the church of Ephesus : " Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood. . . . Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." Acts 20 : 28-30. Later he wrote that already that falling away had begun, even in his own day, telling the believers that the final gathering together of the people of God and the glorious coming of the Lord Jesus would not take place until the church had passed through the long period of trial, with the great apostasy cor- rupting the faith. He wrote to the Thessalonians : " Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means : for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped ; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work : only He who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way." 2 Thess. 2: 1-7. We need not add to this testimony the description in the prophecies of Daniel and of the Revelation setting forth the working of this great " falling away " in its warfare against the law of God and against the children of God. This apostasy in its self-exaltation was to " think to change times and laws," 60 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT the times and laws of the Most High. Dan. 7: 25. And all Christendom has been led to follow human traditions that make void the commandments of God. In Egypt of old the people of God struggled amidst the influence of apostasy and false worship, and the message of the Exodus Movement came as a message of reform, setting forth anew God's holy law and calling the people to obey His commandments. Even so under the Advent Movement in the last days the message of God calls to reform and to loyalty to " the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." CHAPTER VI The Sabbath the Test of Loyalty A STUDY of the two movements shows in ancient times a people to whom God committed His holy law, His ten com- mandments. Just so, true to the type, the remnant church called out by the advent message bears in the prophecy the distin- guishing mark of loyalty to God's law. Yet another parallel appears. When God called His people out in the Exodus Movement and gave them His commandments, the Sabbath was the test of loyalty. The message which Moses preached in Egypt, the gospel message for that day and generation, was a message of Sabbath reform. Pharaoh complained that Moses was causing the people to observe rest from work in the midst of their tasks. We read : " Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens." Ex. 5 : 5. When the Hebrew writer wrote that word " rest," he wrote the word " sabbatize." Pharaoh's complaint was, " Ye make the people sabbatize," or keep the Sabbath. A MESSAGE OF REFORM Under the pressure of their taskmasters and amidst the influence of false worship in Egypt, there had been evidently a forsaking of the Sabbath of the Lord among many of the people. As Moses and Aaron proclaimed the message given them, the people renewed their allegiance to the God of their fathers. They began to keep the Sabbath. Their sabbatizing, or resting, stirred the anger of Pharaoh, and he commanded that yet more grievous tasks should be laid upon them. The king commanded the taskmasters : 61 62 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT " Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore : let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them ; ye shall not diminish ought thereof : for they be idle; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God." Ex. 5 : 7, 8. To the stubborn king their sabbatizing, or resting, seemed due only to the desire to be idle. Centuries later, in the days of the Romans, the Jews' practice of resting upon the Sabbath brought upon them the charge of idleness. So it seemed to the pagan spectator who knew nothing of Sabbath rest for the wor- ship of God. And thus the king of Egypt sought by laying heavier burdens upon the people of Israel to require so much of them that they would be compelled to work on the Sabbath to complete their weekly task. In recounting these times, Inspiration, through the prophet Ezekiel, gives us the same picture. The Lord said to the people of Ezekiel's day : " Thus saith the Lord God : In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up Mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made Myself known unto them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up Mine hand unto them, saying, I am the Lord your God; in the day that I lifted up Mine hand unto them, to bring them forth of the land of Egypt into a land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands : then said I unto them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt : I am the Lord your God." Eze. 20 : 5-7. " Made Myself known unto them in the land of Egypt," the text says. God made Himself known anew to Israel in bond- age, and called them to put away all the abominations of the idolatrous worship of Egypt. They had become corrupted by that highly refined paganism which helped to establish sun worship throughout the ancient world. At any rate, instead of worshiping the Creator, the true and the living God, the Egyptians had turned to idols and to the worship of beasts and THE SABBATH THE TEST OF LOYALTY � 63 creeping things. The apostle Paul said of this old-time pagan- ism, that they " worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator." To the children of Israel, immersed in this atmosphere of idolatrous paganism, the Lord sent the message calling them back to the worship of the true and living God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. He says He made Himself " known " unto them " in the land of Egypt." It was there in Egypt, before the deliverance, that the message of the Exodus Movement called the people to know God. And in this same chapter the Lord tells us of the sign by which they might know Him : " Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign be- tween Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Eze. 20: 12. In the land of Egypt the message of the Exodus Movement was a message of Sabbath reform. And the Sabbath was the test of loyalty to God, the Creator, whose sign it is. This was the loyalty which Moses and Aaron preached in the land of Egypt. The record of Exodus sixteen shows that in a specific way the Lord tested Israel's loyalty upon this question of the Sab- bath before ever they came within sight of Mt. Sinai, where the law of God was spoken. In the first stages of their journey from Egypt, the Lord through Moses had instructed them that the manna would not be found in the fields on the Sabbath. And when some of the people went out on the seventh day for to gather, and found none, the Lord rebuked them, saying, " How long refuse ye to keep My commandments and My laws? " Verse 28. From creation, the Sabbath was a sign of loyalty to God. It is the sign by which men may know Him as the Creator. In idolatrous Egypt, calling the people to reformation, the Lord made Himself known unto the people of Israel by this sacred 64 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT sign. Pharaoh complained that Moses and Aaron were making the people sabbatize. It is plainly to be seen that the message of the Exodus Movement was a message of Sabbath reform. A CALL TO REFORM IN THE LAST DAYS And these experiences of the Exodus Movement bear their lesson especially for us under the Advent Movement, which was to come in the latter days. Once again let us read it : " Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples : and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." 1 Cor. 10: 11. True to the type, the advent message, the everlasting gospel for the days just before Christ shall come the second time, is a message of Sabbath reform. We see it plainly in that outline of the closing message of the " everlasting gospel " given us in the prophecy of Revelation fourteen. The call is : " 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." Rev. 14 : 7. Men are called to worship the Creator, to recognize Him as the true and the living God. The Sabbath is the memorial of His creative power. Worshiping Him as Creator means re- ceiving the gift of His holy Sabbath and worshiping Him upon the day divinely set apart for men as the day of rest and worship. In the forefront of this message so briefly outlined in Rev- elation fourteen is a direct appeal to the Sabbath command- ment. It is a call to worship the God that " made heaven, and earth, and the sea." The very words are quoted from the fourth commandment. That commandment declares that in six days the Lord " made heaven, and earth, and the sea." When the message of Revelation fourteen repeats these words and calls to men, " Fear God, and give glory to Him ; for the hour of His judgment is come," it is a call to Christendom, and to THE SABBATH THE TEST OF LOYALTY � 65 all non-Christian peoples to turn to the worship of the true and living God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, whose sign is His holy Sabbath. THE SEAL OF GOD Again, in Revelation seven the message of Sabbath reform is clearly shown to be the message for these last days. In that seventh chapter the prophet John was shown the angels of God holding the winds of strife and universal war until the gospel message shall have finished its work. And as in Revelation fourteen, the final gospel movement, the Advent Movement, is symbolized by an angel flying with the message of God. The prophet says : " I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God : and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." Rev. 7: 2, 3. This movement bears " the seal of the living God " to men. What is the seal, or sign, of the living God ? The Lord tells us : " Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Eze. 20: 12. With His own voice in speaking His holy law, the ten com- mandments, the Lord had set forth the Sabbath as the great memorial and sign of His creative power. Therefore when the prophet in this view of the seventh of Revelation describes a message for the last days bearing the seal of the living God, he is describing a message proclaiming the Sabbath of the Lord. THE NEW COVENANT TEST One more scripture on this point. Speaking of the times just before Christ shall appear unto salvation, the Lord says by Isaiah the prophet : 66 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT " Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice : for My salvation is near to come, and My righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it ; that keepeth the Sabbath from pol- luting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil." Isa. 56 :1, 2. Onward through the chapter it is made absolutely plain that this is a prophecy of the last days, of a work to be done under the new covenant, when the Lord is gathering His people. Specifically by the sixth verse the strangers, the Gentiles, the people of all nations, are invited to lay hold of God's Sabbath as a part of the new covenant : " Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of My covenant ; even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer : their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be ac- cepted upon Mine altar; for Mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. The Lord God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to Him, beside those that are gathered unto Him." Isa. 56: 6-8. In the gathering of God's children from all nations, in this time when Christ's second coming is near,— when His salvation is near to come and His righteousness to be revealed,— the Lord calls upon all peoples to keep His holy Sabbath, and pro- nounces His blessing upon those who thus show loyalty to Him. The message of the Exodus Movement called men to keep the commandments of God. It was a message of Sabbath reform, the Sabbath being the sign of loyalty to God. The Lord was preparing that people of Israel to bear anew the light of truth before the nations, preparing the way for the coming of Christ in the first advent to make the great sacrifice for sin. Even so, now, the message of the Advent Movement calls men to keep the commandments of God. It is a message of Sabbath reform, the Sabbath being the sign of loyalty to God. THE SABBATH THE TEST OF LOYALTY � 67 The Lord has called out a people to bear anew the light of truth before all nations and kindreds and tongues, preparing the way for the second coming of Christ in power and glory, to end forever the reign of sin. Of a truth, the Exodus Movement has left " ensamples," or types, for our instruction in the Advent Movement. As the living God led that movement of ancient days, so the living God is leading this movement of today. LOYALTY TO CHRIST There is the same need today as in the days of Egypt to lift up the truth of the Sabbath as the sign and seal of the living God. For Christendom has gone in the way of Egypt. This time of the near coming of Christ is a time for calling men out from the bondage of transgression, back to the divine way of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Christen- dom has been led to set aside God's holy Sabbath, and to follow traditions that have made void the law of God. To set aside God's Sabbath is directly to set aside Jesus Christ, the Son of God. For the Son was the active agent in creation. He made the Sabbath: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men." John 1: 1-4. With use of language in a very literal sense Jesus could say : "Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2: 28. He made it. Wrapped up in this question of the Sabbath is the question of loyalty, not only to the divine law of God, but loyalty to Jesus Christ, in whom only is the light and life of men. " Neither is there salvation in any other : for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts 4: 12. 68 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT In calling all men to Sabbath keeping, the message of the " everlasting gospel " for the last days is calling men to follow Christ. By swerving from the path He trod, Christendom went down into Egypt. We must note the way — watching to see where His footsteps left their imprint, and where human tradi- tion diverged from the divinely set path, and led all Christen- dom into the Egyptian darkness of the Dark Ages. CHAPTER VII Where the Pathway Turned Into Egypt " I AM the way, the truth, and the life," said Jesus. In His earthly life He set the path for all mankind: " I am the light of the world : he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." John 8 : 12. Christianity is the life of Jesus Christ in His followers. Christ, the divine Son of God, lived as the Son of man in this world to show how man ought to live, " leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps." 1 Peter 2 : 21. " He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." 1 John 2 : 6. JESUS A COMMANDMENT KEEPER Jesus was a commandment keeper, and therefore a Sabbath keeper. Christians ought to walk even as He walked. He now dwells with the believer and walks with him, and Jesus Christ is " the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Heb. 13 : 8. Therefore the person who allows Jesus to live in him and walk in him in Christ's own way, will be, like Christ, a Sabbath keeper. Jesus says that He kept His Father's commandments, and He commanded all who should " do and teach them." Matt. 5: 17-19. His gospel, through faith, saves men from sin, which is " the transgression of the law " (1 John 3: 4), and makes them keepers of the law. Jesus came not to save men in sin, but from sin. Matt. 1: 21. Sabbath breaking is sin, and Jesus saves the believer from it, and makes him a Sabbath keeper. It is not that any are saved by keeping the ten commandments ; 69 70 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT they must first be saved from sin through faith in Jesus, in order that, by His power dwelling within, they may keep God's holy law, which is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Rom. 8: 4. "Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling; Naked, come to Thee for dress, Helpless, look to Thee for grace." But the man who is saved will be obedient to God's law. Only the " carnal mind " is " not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8: 7. So the very promise of the new covenant is that God will change the nature of the believer, writing His law in the heart and in the mind. Heb. 8: 10. When the law is so written, it will be lived in the life, for out of the heart are " the issues of life." Prov. 4 : 23. Jesus had the law in His heart. He speaks in the psalm, " I delight to do Thy will, 0 My God ; yea, Thy law is within My heart." Ps. 40: 8. Every heart that lets Jesus in will have also the disposition and power of obedience. JESUS SET US FREE FROM DISOBEYING THE LAW Some men seem to think Jesus came to set men free from obeying God's law. But He came to set us free from disobey- ing it, so that we may, through His indwelling power, keep it now and evermore. In breaking it, is bondage, condemna- tion ; in keeping it, is liberty. Ps. 119: 45. Who walks the streets free from the civil law against stealing, the man who keeps the law or the man who breaks it ? The man who steals is under the law at once. Just so the man who through faith keeps God's law, is free from the condemnation of the law ; but the man who breaks God's law is at once under its condemna- tion. Then who is " under the law " ? The one who breaks it. Who is " under grace " ? The one who accepts the grace of Christ that brings pardon and the power of obedience; for grace reigns " through righteousness." WHERE THE PATHWAY TURNED INTO EGYPT �71 This modern preaching of freedom to disobey is but making a religion of " lawlessness." It will yet fill the earth with vio- lence and lawlessness, as in the days of Noah. When we teach people to follow Jesus in Sabbath keeping, some, we find, take offense at this teaching. But surely it is not a bad thing to teach that we should live as Jesus lived, and walk as He walked ! Jesus did nothing wrong. It is also safe to take the Scriptures as the authority in religion, for they only are able to make the man of God " perfect, thoroughly fur- nished unto all good works." 2 Tim. 3: 16, 17. This is the Protestant faith. THE TESTIMONY OF EMINENT MEN Some who retort with the cry of " ignorance " surely cannot have read what historians and scholars have said about this matter. Here are a few statements, selected from many, show- ing that eminent scholars have freely admitted that there is no instruction in the Bible to keep Sunday, the first day. In some of these quotations the writers wrongly call Sunday the Lord's day. But remember that Jesus said He was Lord of the Sab- bath day, the seventh day, and God calls that day " My holy day." So that not Sunday, but the Sabbath, is the Lord's day. The late Dr. R. W. Dale, of England, the most eminent Congregationalist theologian of his day, said : " It is quite clear that, however rigidly or devoutly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath. . . . There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sun- day."—" The Ten Commandments," pp. 106, 107. Dr. Eyton, Canon of Westminster (Church of England), says: X, " There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstgirling from � on Sunday. . . . The observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands on exactly the same footing as the observance of Sunday."— Id., pp. 62-65. 72 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT Cardinal Gibbons, of the Roman Catholic Church, wrote : " You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of/ Saturday, a day which we never sanctify."—" The Faith of Our Fathers," p. 111. Pastor E. T. Hiscox, D. D., author of a " Baptist Manual," in a paper read before a Baptist ministerial conference in New York, Nov, 13, 1893: " There is no Scriptural evidence of the change of the Sab- bath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week. I wish to say that this Sabbath question, in this aspect of it, is the gravest and most perplexing question connected with Chris- tian institutions which at present claims attention from Chris- tian people." Cassell's Bible Dictionary (London) say: " A very large class of persons, including a very consider- - able portion of English writers, . . . agree in considering the I' first day's rest to be an ecclesiastical institution and not a divine ordinance." Sir William Domville wrote : " Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath." —" The Sabbath," p. 291. The famous bishop of the English church, Jeremy Taylor, using the words " Lord's day " for Sunday, wrote : " The Lord's day did not succeed in the place of the Sab=\ bath, . . . the Lord's day was mere y an ecclesiastical institu- tion, It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth command- ment, because they [the primitive church] for almost three hundred years together kept that day which was in that com- mandment [ Saturday]. . . . " The primitive Christians did all manner of works upon the Lord's day, even in the times of persecution, when they WHERE THE PATHWAY TURNED INTO EGYPT �73 were the strictest observers of all the divine commandments ; but in this they knew there was none."—"Ductor Dubitan- tium," part 1, book 2, chap. 2. Edward Brerewood, long ago professor in Gresham Col- lege, London, said : " It is certain (and little do you know of the ancient condi- tion of the church if you know it not) that the ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed . . . by the Christians of the East church, above three hundred years after our Saviour's death." —" A Learned Treatise on the Sabbath," p. 77. The ancient church of North Scotland, founded by Columba and his followers, were keeping the Sabbath as late as the twelfth century. Andrew Lang says : " They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a sab- batical manner."—"History of Scotland," Vol. I, p. 96. Later they were brought under the Roman custom. The Anglican Church Times, of London, says : " The Sabbath, Dies Sabbati' (as still in Acts of Parlia- ment), never meant anything but Saturday. Till the sixteenth century no Christian ever called ' Sunday " the Sabbath. The great Lightfoot, a Puritan, says, I have diligently searched the Fathers to find " Sabbath " used in the sense of Sunday ; would that I could so find it ! ' " The Church of England journal, Fireside News, of London, quoting the Encyclopedic Dictionary, says : " For the first three centuries, the Christian Fathers in general drew a distinction between the Sabbath . . . and Lord's day. In the Middle Ages, Sabbath meant only Saturday. Ac- cording to the elder Disraeli, it was first used in England for Sunday in 1554.' The Sabbatarians, or those who still keep the Christian Sabbath on Saturday, were not such a small sect as seems to be inferred, in the seventeenth century ; and in the United States the sect have even now very many adherents." The London Daily Telegraph (to quote one secular news- paper) said editorially : 74 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT " For the day of rest as a useful institution we have every respect. It cannot be considered a divine ordinance, unless by the small sect of English Christians who observe Saturday. They and the Jews are the only people who obey the fourth commandment ; all others deliberately violate it when they work on Saturday." � - WHAT GOD SAYS ABOUT IT Thus it is fully declared that there is no instruction in the Bible to keep Sunday. God, who knows, declares that " the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Do you take Him as "thy God " ? Take His Sabbath also. Jesus said that the Sabbath was " made for man." Mark 2 : 27. It was not made for the Jew, but for man, for the human race. From of old God has promised blessings to the son of man, Jew or Gentile, who lays hold upon the Sabbath and keeps it. Isaiah 56. The blessing is still upon it, as everybody finds who really keeps it. In all the New Testament the Holy Spirit calls that day which Jesus kept " the Sabbath." The very word " Sabbath " means " rest." Therefore the Holy Spirit declares over fifty times in the New Testament that the day which the Jews formally observed, and which Jesus kept truly, is the divinely appointed rest day. And the New Testament was written from six to sixty years after the resurrection. The Holy Spirit can- not lie; therefore this day is still the sacred rest day. GOD'S REST DAY A DEFINITE HISTORICAL FACT Men may choose to rest on any other day, but that cannot make any other day God's rest day. One cannot change one's birthday by celebrating some other day as a birthday. It is a historical fact that can never be changed, that one was born on a given day of the month. Just so it is a fact of divine history that God rested on a given day of the week, and on no other. That made the seventh day His rest day, the same now as in the first week of time. WHERE THE PATHWAY TURNED INTO EGYPT �75 " Can length of years on God Himself exact, And make that fiction which was once a fact ? " The seventh day is different from other days in character also, for He blessed it and made it holy. When men deny this difference, they practically say that when God blesses and makes holy, it is a vain performance. He also sanctified the day, and to sanctify means to set apart. God has set it apart, and asks men to treat it so,— as a day apart from other days. NO AUTHORITY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT FOR SUNDAY OBSERVANCE A few texts which mention the first day are sometimes re- ferred to as supporting its observance ; but not one of these texts contains the remotest hint of any religious observance of the day. Not once has the Lord ever said a word about hon- oring the day. Christ showed Himself after His resurrection on the first day, as the disciples were to be witnesses of the fact that He arose " the third day." The disciples were not keeping the day in honor of His resurrection, as some say, for they did not believe He had risen. Mark 16: 14. They were sitting " at meat " in their common living room. In Acts 20: 7 it is said that Paul broke bread on the first day at Troas. The context shows that it was an evening meet- ing, after the Sabbath — Saturday night, as we should call it ; for the Bible reckoning begins the day at sunset. After the Sabbath, Paul's companions resumed their journey by boat, while the apostle had an all-night farewell meeting. Sunday morning he went on his way, walking nineteen miles across country to Assos to meet the boat. (See " The Life and Epis- tles of St. Paul," by Conybeare and Howson.) NO HINT OF FIRST-DAY SACREDNESS In 1 Corinthians 16 : 2 the apostle asked the brethren to lay by in store on the first day of the week a special contribu- tion for the poor at Jerusalem. On the first day of the week 76 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT they were to look over their business affairs of the preceding week, and give as they had been prospered. There is no hint of any meeting on the first day. As Dean Stanley says : " There is nothing to prove public assemblies, inasmuch as the phrase par heauto (` by himself, at his own house ') implies that the collection was to be made individually and in private." It was not a collection of the saints, but far the saints at Jerusalem, whither Paul was going. That Sunday school classic, Smith's Bible Dictionary, after advancing the common inferences from these texts, says : " Taken separately, perhaps, and even all together, these passages seem scarcely adequate to prove that the dedica- tion of the first day of the week to the purposes above men- tioned was a matter of apostolic institution, or even of apostolic practice." A friend of the late John Ruskin once told, in one of the London magazines, how he and Mr. Ruskin went into the evi- dence for Sunday observance. Mr. Ruskin had previously ac- cepted the ecclesiastical interpretation of these texts. When he saw them for himself, he was so disgusted with the untruth- ful inferences drawn from them that he for a time lost faith in all Bible study. " If they have deceived me in this, they have probably deceived me in all," he declared. It was not a logical frame of mind, and showed that his faith had rested in men rather than in personal knowledge of the Bible. But the effort to find authority for Sunday observance in the Bible has led to a method of Scripture interpretation that destroys faith. SUNDAY " THE FIRST DAY " OF THE WEEK Some say that they will begin to count Monday as the first day of the week, and thus make Sunday the seventh! But it was God who made the week. The Holy Spirit plainly de- clares that the Sunday (on which Jesus rose from the dead) is " the first day." Matt. 28 : 1. WHERE THE PATHWAY TURNED INTO EGYPT �77 Anybody who can count seven knows that if Sunday is the first day, it must certainly follow that the day called Saturday is the seventh day. God says that this day is His Sabbath. By the Lord's reckoning of the day, however, it is from sunset Friday evening to sunset Saturday evening. This is holy time, made holy by the holy God, commanded by His holy law. It is a time of blessing and spiritual refreshing to all who keep it. The very men who try to count Sunday the seventh day, to evade the fourth commandment, will, almost in the same breath, tell us that we ought to keep Sunday because Christ rose on the first day of the week. If it be the first, it cannot at the same time be the seventh. Inspiration gave the numer- ical titles to the days of the week, and named the seventh the Sabbath. DOWN INTO THE EGYPT OF MAN-MADE RELIGION When men choose to set apart another day, it is only setting up human authority against divine authority. It is putting the humanly appointed time against divinely appointed time. It is exalting man's sabbath against God's Sabbath. It is man exalting himself " above all that is called God, or that is wor- shiped." 2 Thess. 2: 4. This is what made the Roman Papacy. Paul said that in his day the spirit of the " lawless one " was already working. He said it would lead to a " falling away " from the truth. 2 Thessalonians 2. Dr. Killen, Presbyterian Church historian, says in his " Ancient Church : " " In the interval between the days of the apostles and the conversion of Constantine, the Christian commonwealth changed its aspect. . . . Rites and ceremonies, of which neither Paul nor Peter ever heard, crept silently into use, and then claimed the rank of divine institutions."— Preface. Thus Sunday came in, first as a humanly appointed festival, then as a rival of God's Sabbath. Then the apostate church, having fully adopted the " venerable day of the sun," as the edict of Constantine called it, assumed to set aside the Lord's 78 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT Sabbath. Thus the growth of Sunday and the growth of the Papacy went forward side by side. Bishop Eusebius, the friend and flatterer of the corrupt Constantine, said : " All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sab- bath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day."—" Com- mentary on the Psalms." Dean Stanley says of the associations of the Sunday with sun-worshiping paganism: " The retention of the old pagan name of 'Dies Solis,' or ' Sunday,' for the weekly Christian festival, is, in great meas- ure, owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constan- tine to his subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the `venerable day of the sun.' . . . It was his mode of harmonizing the dis- cordant religions of the empire under one common institution." —" History of the Eastern Church," Lecture 6, par. 15. Dean Milman states that Constantine, who at the time of his Sunday edict had not even professed his spurious conver- sion, had an ambitious scheme to bring about " one great sys- tem of religion " for all, " of which the sun was to be the cen- tral object of adoration." The leaders in the apostasy of the church were ready to compromise. Cardinal Newman says : " Confiding in the power of Christianity to resist the infec- tion of evil, and to transmute the very instruments and ap- pendages of demon worship to an evangelical use, . . . the rulers of the church from early times were prepared . . . to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace."—"Development of Christian Doctrine," pp. 371,372. God forbade His people of old to pattern in any way after heathen observances. Deut. 12 : 29-32. " What thing soever I command you, observe to do it : thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." But the Jews at times forsook God, WHERE THE PATHWAY TURNED INTO EGYPT �79 and adopted heathen ways and " observed times." Their his- tory of failure was written as a warning example to later times. But the early church went in the same path of apostasy. Even in the apostles' days the spirit of lawlessness and compromise and self-exaltation, the essence of the Papacy, was already at work. A few centuries later the full system was revealed, ful- filling Daniel's prophecy of the power that was to wear out the saints and " think to change times and laws " of the Most High. Dan. 7 : 25; 2 Thessalonians 2. THE WARNING AGAINST THE MARK OF APOSTASY The Roman Church has always claimed the Sunday as the mark of her authority. The Catholic Church challenges Prot- estants to produce any authority for Sunday keeping save the tradition of the church. The late Cardinal Gibbons declared by his chancellor, H. F. Thomas, in a letter dated November, 1895: " Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act. It could not have been otherwise, as none in those days would have dreamed of doing anything in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical and religious without her. And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power." Many have unknowingly been following the Papacy instead of God's word in this matter of Sunday keeping. " The times of this ignorance God winked at ; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent." Acts 17: 30. When the apostle spoke this, he said the call to repentance was " because He hath ap- pointed a day, in the which He will judge the world." Now, in these last days, we are living in the time of God's judgment, which is to decide who shall be raised to life in the first resur- rection, at Christ's second coming. The gospel message to be preached now is, " Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come." Rev. 14: 7. It warns against following the Papacy or receiving its mark, and the result of 80 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT preaching this gospel of Christ's salvation is to gather out a people of whom the Lord says : " Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14: 12. This preaching of the gospel that really saves men from their sins and makes them keepers of God's commandments, arouses the wrath of Satan. He makes war against the " rem- nant," or last, of the church of Christ, because they " keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." Rev. 12: 17. LET JESUS SAVE YOU Let the Lord Jesus save you from every sin, and live His own blessed life of righteousness in you day by day. The unsaved man cannot keep the Sabbath. ?(The man who lives a selfish life during the week, who is not/honest in busi- ness, who is not true and pure, cannot keep God's Sabbath, which Jehovah says is the sign of His power to sanctify or save. Eze. 20: 12. The Sabbath goes with an upright life of faith in the living God. It is the relic of Eden, which remains un- touched by the curse, coming every week from Eden above as holy and blessed as when God made it. " 0 day of rest and gladness, O day of joy and light, O balm of care and sadness, Most beautiful, most bright; "Thou art a port protected From storms that round us rise, A garden intersected With streams of Paradise; " Thou art a cooling fountain In life's dry, dreary sand; From Thee, like Pisgah's mountain, We view our promised land." WHERE THE PATHWAY TURNED INTO EGYPT �81 This gospel of creative power is needed in our day. God says He made His Sabbath the sign by which it might be known that He is the Lord. This is what all men need to know. God sends the truth of His blessed Sabbath to be a blessing to man- kind. It is included in the " everlasting gospel " of Revelation fourteen, which is to go to every nation and tongue and people. Those who carry it can judge no man. They can only exhort all men to prepare to stand before the Judge of all. " They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places : thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sab- bath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day ; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words : then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Isa. 58 : 12-14. CHAPTER VIII Opposition to the Sabbath in the Two Movements No sooner had the reform message of the Exodus Move- ment preached by Moses and Aaron in Egypt, begun to have the effect of turning the people of Israel to the worship of God and to the observance of His holy Sabbath, than per- secution arose. So it has ever been, from the days of Abel down. Obedience to the light stirs up the opposition of the powers of darkness. Pharaoh complained that the message Moses preached caused the people to rest. We may know well enough that Moses was not in Egypt preaching a " strike." The Lord never sent him to teach the no-work idea. Work, useful activity, is the law of heaven. Jesus said, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." But the gospel message of hope for Israel in Egypt called them to Sabbath rest from labor as a part of the worship of God. And Pharaoh complained of this " rest." PERSECUTION FOLLOWS The narrative shows how persecution arose as the people gave ear to God's message of truth and deliverance : " Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go ? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. " And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God ; lest He fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword. " And the king of Egypt said unto them, Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works ? get you unto your burdens. " And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens. 82 OPPOSITION TO THE SABBATH IN THE TWO MOVEMENTS 83 " And Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, " Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore : let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them ; ye shall not diminish ought thereof : for they be idle ; therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to our God. Let there more work be laid upon the men, that they may labor therein ; and let them not regard vain words. " And the taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spake to the people, saying, Thus saith Pha- raoh, I will not give you straw. Go ye, get straw where ye can find it : yet not ought of your work shall be diminished. " So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw. " And the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfill your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw. " And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and today, as heretofore ? " Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants? There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick : and, behold, thy servants are beaten ; but the fault is in thine own people. " But he said, Ye are idle, ye are idle : therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord. Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye de- liver the tale of bricks. " And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not minish ought from your bricks of your daily task." Ex. 5: 2-19. It was a hard case. Giving heed to the message preached had brought upon these believers bitter persecution. The people cried out that Moses, by urging them to follow the truth of God, had brought them into trouble with the people of Egypt. They said to him and Aaron, " Ye have . . . put a sword in their hand to slay us." 84 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT But as Israel found out later, the way of trial and perse- cution was the way of deliverance and of life. SATAN'S WARFARE Who was at the back of Pharaoh and the power of Egypt in this stubborn resistance of God? Who inspired the haughty challenge, " Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice ? " It was " the god of this world," that power which the prophet John was shown in vision, as the opposer of God from the creation to the end. The opposition began in heaven, when Lucifer, " son of the morning," the bright angel of light, al- lowed pride and ambition to come into his heart, saying : " I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. . . . I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High." Isa. 14: 13, 14. Then primarily applies the description of the conflict be- tween Christ, or Michael (which means " He who is like God "), and Lucifer, or Satan, who sought to exalt himself to be also " like the Most High." " There was war in heaven : Michael and His angels fought against the dragon ; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world : he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." Rev. 12 : 7-9. This is the power that has wrought through all earth's his- tory to resist God and to lead men into rebellion against His holy law. The warfare that the " dragon " began in heaven he has continued on earth. That the dragon was inspiring Pharaoh's resistance of God and the persecution of the people of God, is shown by the prophecy of Isaiah. Referring to the ancient deliverance from Egypt (known in Scripture by the name Rahab), the prophet voices the appeal of God's people in trial : OPPOSITION TO THE SABBATH IN THE TWO MOVEMENTS 85 " Awake, awake, put on strength, 0 arm of the Lord ; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that bath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon ? " Isa. 51 :9. The time had come, in the days of the exodus, for a special work of God. A people were to be called out of transgression to become " the church in the wilderness "— the church of the Exodus Movement. Anew the truth of God was to be lifted up bef ore the world. And there, to inspire an earthly power to resist God and to bring persecution on His people, appeared " the dragon," " that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan." The dragon stood up to oppose the Exodus Movement. THE DRAGON WARS TO THE END Again let us call to remembrance the text : " Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples : and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." 1 Cor. 10: 11. The church of the Exodus Movement was brought into con- flict with the " dragon; " and the church of the Advent Move- ment is brought into conflict with the " dragon." The prophecy of Revelation twelve represents the church, in its experience through the centuries, under the symbol of a woman opposed by the dragon. The church was driven " into the wilderness," the prophecy says, where God preserved her. Verse 6. This was during the Dark Ages of the papal perse- cution. Then, at the very last, the " remnant " church appears in the prophetic picture ; and because of its loyalty to God's law it meets the special wrath of the same old " dragon : " " The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the command- ments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." Rev. 12 : 17. 86 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT It was the message of reform in the days of the exodus that aroused the powers of darkness. It was because of Israel's turning to God's commandments and keeping His Sabbath, or " rest," that Egypt's power was moved to greater oppression and bitter persecution. The dragon of old was wroth against the commandments of God. His opposition to the government of God began in heaven. In Egypt he worked through earthly government and human legislation to oppose God's truth and turn men and women from obedience by stirring up persecution. No wonder, then, that the dragon arouses in the last days as the advent message sounds the call to reform, and brings forth in every nation that remnant church of the prophecy " which keep the commandments of God." It is the same conflict. Of old the living God was to lead the Exodus Movement, lifting up the commandments of God before the nations, and bringing before men anew the Sabbath, as the sign or mark by which men might know Him as the true God, the Creator. The dragon, Satan, rose up to oppose. Now, in these last days, the living God is leading the Advent Movement, lifting up the commandments of God as the founda- tion of His throne, and bringing to men anew the Sabbath as the sign or mark by which men may know Him as the true God, the Creator. And now, as of old, the dragon, Satan, rises up in renewed effort to oppose the truth, making war upon those who " keep the commandments of God." HOW IT WORKS TODAY " But," one may say, " in what way is this opposition to the commandments of God being manifested ? What is there to indicate that in these last days there is likely to arise any perse- cution based upon the keeping of the commandments or the ob- servance of the Sabbath? " As I write, numbers of observers of the Sabbath are in prison for absolutely nothing except loyalty to the command- ments of God. Wherever the message of reform has brought OPPOSITION TO THE SABBATH IN THE TWO MOVEMENTS 87 forth its fruitage, commandment keepers according to the prophecy, one may have heard for years the mutterings of the wrath of the dragon. And in various lands the lash of perse- cution has fallen upon believers under the Advent Movement, even as it fell upon believers in Egypt as the time of the Exodus Movement drew near. For instance, in one of the countries of Europe a group of Adventists were sent to prison under charges by the ecclesias- tical authorities. The jailer said to the group as he put them in the prison ward : " If you were thieves or murderers, we would not treat you so badly, but because you are Seventh-day Adventists you will not get out alive." By God's good providence and through the efforts of an influential advocate, these people did not perish in the prison, but escaped with their lives. Again in another country of Europe, a new convert to the Seventh-day Adventist faith was brought before a court by the priests. Addressing the judge, the man under accusation of the religious authorities said : " Judge, when I was a wicked man, I got drunk, and f ought, and lied, and stole, and did everything that is the breaking of the ten commandments. Then no one put me in prison, and the priests never accused me. But now that God has converted me, and I don't drink, I don't lie, I don't steal, but I keep His commandments and observe the Sabbath of the Lord, they want to put me in prison. I don't understand it." " Nor do I," said the judge, and set him free. Later the judge said, " That was the best defense speech I ever heard." Note that in these cases which illustrate the point by ex- periences that are very real indeed to the men and women pass- ing through the fire, the hostility of a worldly church in com- mand of civil power was vented upon these people simply because of their loyalty to the commandments of God. 88 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT Here is another case, reported as follows from yet another country : " In another town three of our members, women, were summoned to appear before the court. Through the grace of God, however, and the good defense of a lawyer, they were released, but the chief judge said to them, ' If you carry on your propaganda once more, or if you even only lend your books or tracts, then you will experience that, although Christ has suffered once from morning until the afternoon and en- dured, you will not endure what will be done with you. Ad- ventism is finished with. Choose any other religion, Cath- olic, Reform, Greek, or Jewish, but I do not want to hear that you remain Adventists and keep the Sabbath.' " Long centuries ago the sure word of prophecy, portraying the experiences of the church in the latter days, pictured the wrath of the dragon poured out upon the believers because of the commandments of God and the Sabbath of the Lord. In these reports of actual experiences in recent years, witness is borne that what the prophecy said so long ago is beginning to be fulfilled before the eyes of men today. Men and women have been haled to court and to prison. They have been driven from home. Scores at a time have suffered in prison under accusation of the priestly authorities for no reason in the world except that their lives of obedience to God were a constant witness to the truth. EXPERIENCES UNDER ECCLESIASTICAL POWER Strange and stirring experiences have these modern wit- nesses sometimes passed through. One man, for example, in a certain country was a leader in the local Seventh-day Ad- ventist church. He was also mayor of his little town, having repeatedly been called to service by his fellow citizens since he had become an observer of the Sabbath. They felt that he was a good father to their village. One night he was out with a company attending a baptismal service at a river, in the forest. They had retired to a remote OPPOSITION TO THE SABBATH IN THE TWO MOVEMENTS 89 place for the baptism because the ecclesiastical authorities of the district were intent upon prohibiting the worship of be- lievers. A troop of gendarmes came up as the baptismal rite was being administered to the new converts. All the group were commanded by the officer of the gendarmes to follow him, with his companions acting as escort. The officer brought the little group to the office of the mayor, to charge them. As they led their captives into the mayor's room, one of the captives stepped forward to the desk. It was the mayor him- self. As he sat down, he said, " Well, gentlemen, I am the mayor. What are your charges ? " There they were with a band of believers whom they in- tended to charge before the mayor, and, lo, they discovered that they had arrested the mayor himself, who was to act as the judge. With apologies they retired in confusion. Here is an account by a minister who had personal knowl- edge of it, from whose lips I jotted down the story as we trav- eled by train through the country in which the scene of the story was laid : " We have a church in the city of � . One of the priests of the Greek Orthodox Church became a bitter opposer of the truth. He set out to exterminate the believers in that place. " The strain and excitement of war time gave him just the opportunity he had sought to turn public sentiment violently against the little company, and he persecuted them bitterly. " But suddenly in the midst of his persecutions he was stricken ill, seriously ill. On his sick bed he was convicted of his sin of persecuting a simple and earnest people who had given offense to no one. He felt that his sickness had come upon him because of his sin. He confessed this openly in his home, and vowed that if God would spare him, he would cease his persecution of the Adventists. " He immediately began to mend, and returned to full health. " For a time he kept his vow, and the church in - had rest. But after a time the evil spirit of antagonism to the truth got possession of him again. He began as before to 90 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT persecute the Adventists, whose work was winning yet other souls. " These priests have always had much power with the au- thorities, and their word is law. This man resolved now to make thorough work of it. He searched out all the homes of the Adventists. He found their retired place of Sabbath meetings. " He saw the police, and arranged that the next Sabbath the meeting place should be raided by armed soldiers, and all the Adventists taken, ' I will root them out of -! ' he declared. " All was in readiness on Friday evening. The priest's plans were well laid. Next morning the group of Adventists were to be caught in the snare. He returned to his home, well content with the arrangement. " As he sat in his chair at home (the Greek Orthodox priests marry), he related to his wife his plans; and then he asked her to bring in the evening tray, with food and drink. " The wife went out to prepare the tray, and when she returned with the refreshments, she found the priest sitting in his chair, dead. " The wife had told the story of his former sickness, of his vow to cease persecuting, and of his recovery. Now that experience was recalled by the people, and the fear of God came upon the hearts of multitudes. It is not a good thing to persecute these people,' it was freely said. Next morning, however, the soldiers and police were at the meeting place, as they had been ordered, to arrest the Ad- ventist worshipers. But there were none in the accustomed place of meeting that Sabbath morning. " The Friday evening before, the elder of the little church had been warned in a dream not to meet that Sabbath in the usual place. So he had gathered the congregation elsewhere." To the first conference session following the war, believers came in from that church, and reported the work in moving forward with the evident blessing and converting power of God. COULD SUCH THINGS BE IN PROTESTANT LANDS? I think I hear some one saying, " Ah, yes, but this is in the lands of church and state, in the Old World, where religious OPPOSITION TO THE SABBATH IN THE TWO MOVEMENTS 91 liberty is not recognized. Such things never take place in Protestant countries." Would that it were true that such things could never be in lands where the light of the open Bible has shone for gen- erations. The fact is, however, that the prophecy pictures the powers of evil as warring against the truth in every land. In the United States, the classic land of the separation of church and state from the time when the government was founded, the evil principles of religious intolerance have been manifested here and there in opposition to the commandments of God. Many of the States of the American Union have carried with them from colonial times legal provisions for the enforcement of Sunday laws. Even in the old colonial days before the time of this Sabbath reformation came, believers who were quietly keeping God's holy day felt the hand of persecution. Count Zinzendorf, organizer and leader of the Moravian missionary movement, was living in the colony of Pennsylvania, in order to promote missions to the Indians. The record tells us that he was an observer of the seventh-day Sabbath. While writing hymns one Sunday, officers of the law entered and ar- rested him. He was fined at court for working upon Sunday. I wonder if the hymn he composed that day might have been that one of his beginning, " Eternal depth of love divine, In Jesus, God with us, displayed, How bright Thy beaming glories shine! How wide Thy healing streams are spread! " It would be interesting to know if really his offense was writing the gospel hymn on Sunday in his own study, or whether his Sabbath keeping had angered neighbors who did not like the witness of loyalty to the law of God. Here is a case occurring in very recent years that illustrates the point. In one of the Eastern towns of America where there is a church of Seventh-day Adventists, one of the mem- bers was doing some work about his house on Sunday. The 92 �CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT sheriff called upon him and warned him that that was an offense against the Sunday law, an old law which had been preserved on the statute books from colonial days. " But," said the Sabbath keeper, " all about me my neighbors do this same thing freely." " Yes," said the sheriff, " but they do not keep Saturday." It was not what he was doing, it was his Sabbath keeping that was the offense. The prophecy said that the wrath of the dragon would be poured out on the remnant church because of loyalty to the commandments of God. One more illustration only need I give. In another State of the United States a witness was summoned before a grand jury to give testimony as to whether he knew of any violations of the Sunday law. In this case the Sunday law was not a hold-over from the old colonial times ; the legislation repre- sented the modern methods by which ecclesiasticism in our time, as of old, presses the civil power into servitude to the church in order to enforce religious observances. The witness was asked if he knew of any who worked on Sunday. He replied that he did. Thereupon the following questioning ensued : " Who are they ? " " The railroad is running trains every Sunday." " Do you know of any others ? " " Yes ; the hotels of this place are open, and do a full run of business on Sunday, as on other days." " Do you know of any others ? " " Yes, sir ; the drug stores and barber shops all keep open, and do business every Sunday." " Do you know of any others ? " " Yes ; the livery stables do more business on Sunday than on any other day of the week." After several repetitions of this same form of questions and answers, in much the same manner, in relation to other lines of business, this question was reached : OPPOSITION TO THE SABBATH IN THE TWO MOVEMENTS 93 " Do you know of any Seventh-day Adventists who ever work on Sunday ? " " Yes, sir." After getting the names from the witness, indictments were found against five persons, all of whom were observers of the Sabbath. It was Sabbath keeping that was the offense, not the work on Sunday. Let these instances suffice to show the processes by which enmity against the commandments of God is manifested today. True, this war fare so plainly against the truth of God reacts in spreading the light more widely than ever. Whether in ancient time or modern, whether in the Old World or in the New, intolerance always overreaches itself. The Lord gives power to His truth to convict hearts, and in yet greater num- bers believers in a living God take their stand upon the divine platform of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Often the government authorities, men who regard justice and right without reference to religious prejudice, have given their testimony against persecution for conscience' sake. In one European case the judge rebuked the priests who had brought Adventist people before him accused of teaching con- trary to the church. " You let these people alone," he said. And to the police he gave instruction, " Don't you interfere with these people. The more they get to keep the commandments, the less work you will have to do." In the capital city of another country where the same issue was before the authorities, the spokesman of the police depart- ment said, " Yes, we know the Adventists. We wish all the people were Adventists. We would have very much less trouble with lawbreaking and much less to do if all the people were of that faith." By the lessons of the experiences of the Exodus Movement, set forth as a type, and by the prophecy directly describing the issues in the last days, it was foreshown that the enmity 94 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT of Satan, the dragon, against the government of God would be manifested in special opposition to the commandments of God and to those who stand as witnesses for God in the last days. The sure word of prophecy has pictured very clearly the chief agencies through which this enmity against the law of God would be manifested. This we must study. CHAPTER IX The Prophetic Picture of Organized Opposition to the Law of God SINCE Satan lifted up the standard of rebellion against the government of heaven and was cast out into the earth, he has continued on earth the same warfare. In the days of Israel he wrought through the power of Egypt, moving the govern- ment to endeavor to stay the purpose of God in the Exodus Movement. While it seemed to the Egyptians in the interests of the empire to hold these people in bondage, the real purpose behind it all was the determination of Satan, the dragon power (Isa. 51 : 9), to hold the people of Israel in the bondage of sin, and to prevent the work of reform to which God had set His hand as the time of the prophecy came. It was a powerful king and a mighty empire through which the evil one worked. Apparently Egypt was a supreme power in that Far West of the ancient world. Thothmes III had carried the borders of the empire to the Euphrates. Historians count him really the first of the great line of conquerors and empire builders. He had had his own part in possibly the first great Armageddon of the nations, emerging a conqueror from the field of Megiddo, the ancient Armageddon. All this was before the days of the exodus, yet possibly not so long before. Some authorities on Egyptian history place the chronology of the reign of the great Thothmes at a date that makes it possible that he was the Pharaoh from whose presence Moses had to flee into Midian. The point is un- essential, but the possibility of it adds interest to the view as one looks on the carved statues of Thothmes in the museums or gazes at the monuments he set up, one of them the hiero- 95 96 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT glyph needle that stands in Central Park, New York ; another lifting up its head amid the surge and flow of traffic on the Thames Embankment, in London. Whatever the chronology may suggest, it was the ruler of mighty empire who stubbornly resisted God and His truth in the old days, proudly challenging, " Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go ? " Egypt had developed an intricate ecclesiastical organization. It was proud of its religious institutions ; it despised this people Israel who did not worship according to the popular religion, and who now, under the message of reform preached by Moses, were taking their stand yet more fully to represent the truth and the law of Jehovah. GOD'S WAY OF RELIGION OR MAN'S WAY? 2Iistory through the ages reveals one unfailing purpose orf the part of the god of this world,— to build up false religions in order to lure humanity away from the truth of God. The great struggle has not been between religion and no religion; it is between God's religion and man's religion. That was the -- � ,........- issue in the first conflict, revealed in the story of Cain and Abel. Cain was religious as well as Abel. But Abel chose God's way in religion, the way of faith. He was obedient to the command of God in bringing the offering of the lamb of the flock, representing faith in the coming Christ, the Lamb of God, who was to give His life as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. Cain was religious, but he would be religious in his own way. Against the commandment of God in the matter of offer- ings, he would set up his own commandment. His way would do just as well as God's way. And when Abel stood for the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus in that ancient time, Cain, moved upon by the evil one in the warfare against the commandments of God, rose up to persecute and even to slay the representative of the truth of God. ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE LAW OF GOD �97 This has been the controversy through the ages. Not often has it been a conflict between religion and irreligion. The test- ing issue today is, Shall it be God's Sabbath, or man's sabbath? It is the old issue. The enemy of righteousness whose working is seen through the whole history of mankind, has ever led men to substitute their own ways in religion for God's way, so illus- trating the tendency of the sinful heart to exalt itself above God ; while all through the ages since Abel stood for the true God and for obedience to His commandments, the Lord has had His witnesses calling men to give Him worship and honor. THE CONFLICT WITH ANCIENT ECCLESIASTICISM While pagan powers have persecuted the church of God through the ages, the prophetic word represents the later con- flicts as arising within Christendom. It is from an apostasy within that the greatest peril comes to the church. The spirit of apostasy was at work in apostolic days. " The mystery of iniquity doth already work," said Paul. 2 Thess. 2: 7. Its working was seen in the corrupting of the truth and in the spirit of self-exaltation. Man was put in the place of God. The Christian faith was changed. Human authority was set above God's authority. Earthly priests were introduced between the sinner and the great High Priest who ministers for us in the heavenly sanc- tuary. The hand of human ecclesiasticism was laid upon God's law and even the holy time of that law. The holy Sabbath was changed by human authority that set up itself in the place of God. It was the working out of the very evil forewarned against by Daniel the prophet, to whom was shown this ecclesiastical power, rising to dominion in the midst of the Roman Empire at the time when the empire was broken into lesser kingdoms. Just there, according to the prophecy, the apostasy culminated in the rise of the papal monarchy. It was of this power that the prophet said : 7 98 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT " He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws : and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." Dan. 7: 25. The time (one year), times (two years), and half a time are three years and one half, or 1260 days literal time; as symbolically used in prophecy, a day for a year (Eze. 4 : 6), the prophetic period is 1260 years. This same time of papal supremacy is repeated in the sym- bol shown to John in the thirteenth chapter of Revelation. There again prophecy describes an ecclesiastical power rising in the field of the Roman Empire of which it was said : " There was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies ; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. . . . And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them : and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations." Rev. 13 : 5-7. It is the same period of time as in Daniel 7 :25 � 1260 days, literally years — and the same kind of power as is de- scribed in Daniel's prophecy, an ecclesiastical power warring against the truth of God. THE SEAT Rome papal followed the empire.AThe old empire was represented in the twelfth chapter of Revelation as the great red dragon seeking to put Christ to death when He came into the world` It was by order of a governor of the Roman Em- pire that Christ was crucified. And this power it is that gave its own seat, the Roman capital, to the Roman Papacy. Of-) the papal power that succeeded Imperial Rome it is said, " The dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority." One Catholic writer tells how the seat of the ancient empire came to the Pope : " Long ages ago, when Rome through the neglect of the / Western emperors was left to the mercy of the barbarous ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE LAW OF GOD �99 hordes, the Romans turned to one figure for aid and protection, and asked him to rule them ; and thus, in this simple manner, the best title of all to kingly right, commenced the temporal sovereignty of the popes. And meekly stepping to the throne of Caesar, the vicar of Christ took up the scepter to which the emperors and kings of Europe were to bow in reverence through so many ages."— Rev. James P. Conroy, in the Amer- ican Catholic Quarterly Review, April, 1911. No history passes over the times of the break-up of the Roman Empire and the growth of the Papacy without drawing in modern terms again the very picture of the ancient proph- ecies.NIn the prophecy it was foretold that just as the Roman Empire was divided into lesser kingdoms, a great ecclesiastical power would rise to supremacy and oppose the truth of God. In the history, just where the Western Empire of Rome was divided, there rose the ecclesiastical power of the Papacy, which was described as being given special power to work its way for the 1260 years of the prophecy. Not that the Papacy would come to its end at the ending of the period of special supremacy. In all the prophecies relating to it, the papal power is repre- _, sented as continuing even to the end. THE PERIOD OF SUPREMACY The period of special papal supremacy began with the lifting up of the Roman Papacy to the supreme rule over the church, in the days of Justinian. It was a great epoch in history. Fin- lay, the historian of the Greek Empire, says : " The reign of Justinian is more remarkable as a portion of the history of mankind, than as a chapter in the annals of the Roman Empire, or of the Greek nation. The changes of centuries passed in rapid succession before the eyes of one generation."—" Greece Under the Romans," p. 231. Just here it was that Justinian's letter of 533, having all the force of a decree of the empire, declared the bishop of Rome supreme above the bishops of the East. In the process of clearing the way for the Papacy, in the year 538 the sword of 100 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT empire dealt the heretical Ostrogoths a decisive blow at Rome, and the arms of the empire set on the throne of the Papacy the first of the new order of popes. Henceforth, as one historian says, the popes were no longer to belong solely to the church, but " they are men of the state, and then rulers of the state." Out of that eventful time, when the changes of centuries of ordinary history passed in rapid succession before the eyes of one generation, rose this papal power to supremacy. Twelve hundred and sixty years from that time the world was in the midst of another crisis, when the changes of centuries were crowded into a few short years. The long reign of absolutism in religion, reflected in civil affairs, had brought about the great cataclysm of the French Revolution. Alison says : " There is no period in the history of the world which can be compared, in point of interest and importance, to that which embraces the progress and termination of the French Revolu- tion. In no former age were events of such magnitude crowded together, or interests so momentous at issue between contending nations. From the flame which was kindled in Europe, the whole world has been involved in conflagration ; and a new era has dawned upon both hemispheres from the effects of its ex- tension."—" History of Europe," Vol. I, p. 1. And just as the rule of the Papacy began in the epoch- making time of Justinian, the 1260 years of predicted su- premacy came to a close amidst the events of the French Revolution. In the early days of the Papacy, France had been the eldest son of the church. It had been a supporter of that ecclesias- tical power through the centuries. But now in the midst of revolution that support was withdrawn, and with a crash that shocked the world France smote the papal power. The decree of the French Convention sought to abolish all religion, in 1793, and in 1798,— 1260 years after the stroke with the sword in Rome in behalf of the Papacy,— a deadly blow was struck by the sword in Rome against the Papacy. In the prophecy pic- ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE LAW OF GOD � 101 turing the Papacy the prophet saw it " as it were wounded to death." Rev. 13: 3. It was foretold that this power that had led into captivity in its warfare against the saints, would go into captivity. Let a Roman Catholic writer tell the story of the fulfillment of this prophecy. He tells it with no thought of this pro- phetic application, but he supplies the facts. Rev. Joseph Rick- aby, of the Jesuit order, says : " When, in 1797, Pope Pius VI fell grievously ill, Na- poleon gave orders that in the event of his death no successor should be elected to his office, and that the Papacy should be discontinued. " But the Pope recovered. The peace was soon broken ; Berthier entered Rome on the tenth of February, 1798, and pro- claimed a republic. The aged Pontiff refused to violate his oath by recognizing it, and was hurried from prison to prison into France. Broken with fatigue and sorrows, he died on the nineteenth of August, 1799, in the French fortress of Valence, aged eighty-two years. No wonder that half Europe thought Napoleon's veto would be obeyed, and that with the Pope the Papacy was dead."—" The Modern Papacy," p. 1 (Catholic Truth Society, London). It was exactly what the prophecy had said. This power was to be given a deadly wound. But the prophecy continues, " His deadly wound was healed : and all the world wondered after the beast." The Papacy has passed through an experi- ence corresponding in every detail to the predictions of the prophecy. Smitten so that half Europe, as this writer says, thought that the Papacy was dead ; its revival, and now its restoration to temporal sovereignty, the Pope being again an earthly king among the princes of this world, the time is surely near when all the world will wonder after this power. THE MARK OF PAPAL AUTHORITY In no way has Christendom given greater honor to this power of the Papacy than in accepting the papal doctrine of AbVattigt IEVITAGE MIMS James alto Lbw, ANDREws l TNII,trt.qrry 102 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT tradition as superior to the Scriptures, which it does in ac- cepting the Sunday of ecclesiastical authority in place of the Sabbath of the Bible. While before ever the Papacy appeared in the ancient city of Rome the worldly church had gone into apostasy and in places had adopted the Sunday institution, that institution has been built up and exalted before the modern world by the Roman Catholic Church. That church was the inheritor of the whole system of the " falling away " that came after apostolic days. 'Around this question of the Sunday in- stitution as the suppranter of the Sabbath of the Lord revolves the whole conflict between human authority and divine author- ity. Through the centuries the Church of Rome has set forth/ the Sunday institution as the mark of its authority. In one standard Catholic catechism, " An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine," we read of the power claimed by the church: " Question.— How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days ? " Answer.— By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of, and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded' by the same church. " Ques.— How prove you this? " Ans.— Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the church's power to ordain feasts, and to command them un- der sin." So this power sets forth the Sunday institution as the test, or badge, or mark, of its power, the Sunday of tradition being acknowledged by all Christendom. It is against this very mark, against this following of human tradition in the matter of the Sabbath, that the message of the " everlasting gospel " lifts its warning. In the picture presented by the prophecy of Revelation fourteen we see plainly a great threefold message to be preached to the world in the last days. ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE LAW OF GOD � 103 The first message is a call to worship God as Creator. " Worship Him that made heaven, and earth." His Sabbath is the sign, or mark, of His creative power. The second message of warning proclaims the departure from the faith and the confusion of teaching in all Christendom as the result. " Babylon is fallen, is fallen." The third message warns against following the Papacy in this matter of the substitution of the Sunday, the sign, or mark, of papal authority, as opposed to the Sabbath of Scripture, the divinely appointed sign, or mark, of the Creator. It is God's appeal to loyalty to His throne. " The third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tor- mented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." Rev. 14: 9, 10. This is the message of " the everlasting gospel " for all mankind. The preaching of the full gospel to men today includes the warning against receiving the sign of disloyalty, and calls men to the New Testament platform of the " com- mandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." YET LATER ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE TRUTH The gospel warns not only against the worship of the beast, the symbol of the Papacy, but against the worship of an " im- age " or likeness of the Roman Papacy. What is this image? It can only be some system not of the Papacy itself, but a like- ness of it. The thirteenth chapter of Revelation, as we have seen, fore- told the development of the Papacy, its warfare against the truth through the 1260 years, down to the days when it re- ceived its deadly wound, which wound was to be healed. But just there, where the prophecy pictures this power going into 104 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT captivity and receiving its deadly wound by the sword, we have a description of another power rising up. The prophet says " I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon." Rev. 13 : 11. The old commentators had looked for the fulfillment of all these prophecies generally in the Roman Papacy. Most of them understood this other power rising up as somehow a repetition of some phase of papal domination. A PROPHECY OF THE NEW WORLD However, from the more advantageous viewpoint of these latter days, we can see more clearly the rise and work of this other power in the field of which an image to the Papacy is to be made. Another power was rising in the field of world ac- tivities about the time when the deadly blow was dealt the Papacy in 1798. It was to rise " out of the earth." In the his- toric prophecies dealing with the populous Old World the prophets saw these beasts that symbolized earthly powers rising up " out of the sea." We are told that seas or waters in the usage of prophecy symbolize " peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues." Rev. 17: 15. Rising up " out of the sea," all these powers of the Old World came up amidst the breaking up of peoples and the over- turning of kingdoms. How appropriate this description is to the circumstances of the rising of the power of the Papacy amidst the nations, as symbolized by the first beast of Revela- tion thirteen. But another power rises in the prophet's vision, this time " out of the earth." It rises apart from the multitudes and nations. Its horns are like the horns of a lamb. The pic- ture suggests the American bison, or buffalo. Prominent in its rise, evidently, is the lamblike feature boding good to man. But later a voice is heard speaking within its bounds, that sounds the old note of intolerance. It speaks " as a dragon." ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE LAW OF GOD � 105 Evidently there arises an ecclesiastical power in the territory of this second beast akin to the intolerant religious systems of old. It is the voice of the same old dragon. Somewhere, then, about the time when the Papacy was dealt the deadly wound, in 1798, this new power was seen coming up ; not amidst the peoples and nations crowding the Old World, not coming up " out of the sea," representative of the multitudes, but coming apart, " out of the earth." Where does history show such a power coming up ? As every one knows, in those days when the times of papal per- secution were being cut short by the great Reformation and by a spreading era of enlightenment introducing a struggle toward a new order of things, apart from the Old World, with its contests and strife, the seeds for a new nation were being planted in the New World. And in the closing decades of the eighteenth century the American commonwealth was springing into world prominence. It came indeed " out of the earth." Writers speaking of its growth almost unconsciously repeat the picture of the prophecy. Some time ago the London Economist, dealing with world trade and with relations between the great powers, described the United States. Notice how its rise is pictured, apart from the mixtures and conflicts of peoples and tongues in the Old World. In other words, to put it in the language of ancient prophecy, this new power came up " out of the earth." The London journal says : " Here is a nation which, in the moment of becoming a nation, was withdrawn, partly by external circumstances and partly by its own volition, from the vortex of international affairs which at that time centered round Europe. . . . The American people, which had started its career as a loose string of European colonies clinging to one coast of the American continent, has become a nation almost twice as strong in num- bers as the numerically strongest European nations of the pres- ent day ; and this nation has acquired, as its national home, the best part of a continent that has proved to contain material 106 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT wealth beyond the dreams of European economy. This gigan- tic growth in wealth and numbers — a growth which made the United States potentially the greatest of the great powers of the world, if she chose to play that role — was achieved by an unusual concentration of the national energies upon internal affairs as opposed to foreign affairs, and upon mastering phys- ical nature as opposed to dealing with other people." FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY By all the aims and efforts of its founders this new power endeavored to proclaim liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof. As one writer said of the Amer- ican tradition from the beginning : " The feeling that his nation was ' a beacon to all mankind ' helped to shape the typical American of early generations." John Adams, one of the founders of the new nation, wrote : " I always consider the settlement of America with rever- ence, as the opening of a grand scene and design of Prov- idence." People in the Old World and in the New recognized the upspringing of this new power, with its cutting loose from the old-time union of church and state, and with its proclamation of religious and civil liberty, as the hope of the world : " Foreseen in the vision of sages, Foretold when martyrs bled, She was born of the longing of ages, By the truth of the noble dead And the faith of the living fed." The founding fathers of the new land, in order to provide a perpetual barrier against the age-old peril of state religion and of the establishment of religious observances by civil law, placed as the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States the provision : " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment / of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE LAW OF GOD � 107 AS JESUS STOOD FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM This stand has had an influence throughout the world in favor of the same religious liberty which Christ stood for when He declared against physical coercion of the conscience, seeing that every man must answer to God Himself in the last day : " If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not : for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him : the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." John 12 : 47, 48. The United States Constitution leaves the divinely appointed sphere of civil government exactly where Jesus left it when He said : " Show Me the tribute money. And they brought unto Him a penny. And He saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription ? They say unto Him, Caesar's. Then saith He unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's ; and unto God the things that are God's." Matt. 22 : 19-21. On the reverse of the great seal of the United States this feature of civil and religious liberty is expressed in a Latin motto that means, "A New Order of the Ages." Bancroft, the classic historian of the United States, declares of this stand for a new order of things in the world : " Vindicating the right of individuality even in religion, and in religion above all, the new nation dared to set the ex- ample of accepting in its relations to God the principle first divinely ordained in Judea. It left the management of tem- poral things to the temporal power ; but the American Con- stitution, in harmony with the people of the several States, withheld from the Federal Government the power to invade the home of reason, the citadel of conscience, the sanctuary of the soul ; and not from indifference, but that_ the infinite Spirit of eternal truth might move in its freeaom and purity 108 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT and power."— Bancroft's "History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States," book v, chap. 1, par. 11. Thus this power lifted up the torch of a new era of reli- gious liberty. It is making no invidious comparison between earthly governments when we rejoice in the fact that the pioneers of America laid a foundation which has been a bless- ing and a help to the cause of liberty of conscience in all the world. Even in lands of union of church and state, the new order has had a helpful influence. TURNING BACK But the scene changes. The prophecy pictures the devel- opment of a religious system making use of civil legislation to reverse the purpose of the founders, and to introduce in the New World the principles for which the Papacy stood through the centuries in the Old. This ecclesiastical develop- ment, it was foretold, would make an " image " to the Papacy. Note how the prophecy pictures the rise of the New World power, then of the religious development in it that speaks with; dragon voice : " I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth ; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed ; . . . saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live." Rev. 13 : 11-14. The papal system in the Old World was an ecclesiastical organization able to influence civil legislation to give effect to its practices and doctrines, and thus to force the consciences of men through the civil authorities, ''Alikeness or image to' , the Papacy, and yet not of the Catholic Papacy itself, could be nothing else than a professedly Protestant development in- fluencing civil legislation to enforce religious observances. This ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE LAW OF GOD � 109 image of the old system seeks to coerce men into receiving the mark of papal authority : " He causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads : and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." Rev. 13: 16, 17. There is the plain prophecy of things to come. But, says one, how could a thing like that ever come? In the early days of the Advent Movement it was seen that the prophecy f ore- casts just such a development. In one of the early issues of the Seventh-day Adventist church organ, the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, for May 19, 1851, one of the editors, commenting on this prophecy of Revelation thirteen, declared : " If Satan has been permitted to make use of paganism as an instrument of deception, and also of Papacy, which is Chris- tianity in a corrupt form, why may he not be permitted to make use of Protestantism also, when it becomes corrupt, as, if pos- sible, a more efficient instrument of deception than either of the former ? . . . " An image to the beast that received the deadly wound must be made. The beast was, in truth, a church clothed with civil power and authority by which it put to death the saints of God. Rev. 13 : 5-8 ; Dan. 7 : 23-26. An image to the beast then must be another church clothed with civil power and authority to put the saints of God to death. This can be nothing else but the corrupt and fallen Protestant church." MOVING IN THE DIRECTION FORETOLD In those early times not a sign of such a development in America could be cited. However, forty years passed, and the same organ, expounding the same prophecy, called atten- tion to the fact that Protestantism in the New World had in- deed taken long backward strides in the pathway foretold : " That which we have, for the last thirty or forty years, proclaimed would come, is now here; and the trumpet of every watchman upon the walls of Zion should raise the alarm. 110 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT " Prophecy represents Protestantism as having lamblike horns, but speaking like a dragon. Already we are beginning to hear the voice of the dragon. There is a satanic force pro- pelling the Sunday movement, but it is concealed. Even the men who are engaged in the work, are themselves blinded to the results which will follow their movement. . . . " The National Reform movement, that the world and the church have linked hands to bring about, will manifest the same oppression, haughtiness, arrogance, and intolerance which have prevailed in past ages. The powers of human councils then assumed the prerogatives of Deity, crushing under their despotic will, liberty of conscience and the right of individual responsibility."— Review and Herald, Jan. 1, 1889. Not one association merely, but numbers of church and interchurch organizations have been created to work for the enforcement of the Sunday institution by civil law. These organizations necessarily must attack the fundamental princi- ples of government as expressed in the American Constitution by its founders. Without naming individual speakers or the churches represented, we give a few statements showing what these organizations aim to do. One says : " Constitutional laws punish for false money, false weights and measures. So Congress must establish a standard of re- ligion." Another at a great reform convention declared : " We want state and religion, and we are going to have it." Then mentioning atheists, deists, Jews, and seventh-day ob- servers as " one class," so far as the reform purposes are con- cerned, this same speaker summed them all up in one word, " atheism," and declared : " Atheism and Christianity are contradictory terms. They are incompatible systems. They cannot dwell together on the same continent." Again, an official of one of these interchurch organizations declared for state-enforced religion as follows : ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE LAW OF GOD � 111 " Our remedy for all these malefic influences is to have the government simply set up the moral law, and recognize God's authority behind it, and lay its hand on any religion that does not conform to it." There is the dragon voice, assuredly. The central aim throughout is to compel men to recognize the Sunday which ecclesiastical power has set up in the place of the Sabbath of Jehovah. The Sunday institution is the mark of the Papacy, the system symbolized by the first beast of Revelation thirteen. The prophecy of the same chapter, outlining the course of religious history in the New World, foretold that reactionary Protestantism would build up an ec- clesiastical system in the likeness of the Papacy, and that it would seek to enforce upon all the mark of papal authority. What the prophecy declared so long ago we see in preparation before our eyes. In the Old World the Papacy is reviving in power, in the New World the forces of reaction are work- ing to make the image to the Papacy. The conflict, as of old, is between the commandments of God and the traditions of men. The final issue will be the same as in every conflict between truth and error since the world began. God will vin- dicate His truth. He says of all the powers of opposition: " These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them : for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings and they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faith- ful." Rev. 17: 14. In the final message of the gospel we are exhorted not to fear men or to give honor to the traditions that make void the commandments of God, but to " fear God " and keep His commandments. The message foretold by the prophecy is to ring out with a loud voice to all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples : " 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." Rev. 14 : 7. 112 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT The same issue is before men today that led the children of God in past ages to take their stand to fear Him and obey Him in face of hardships imposed by religious laws that seek to coerce the conscience. This generation must meet the final effort of Satan to lead the world to choose his side in the great controversy between truth and error that soon is to be decided. Faith must choose God's side. Drawing upon one of the lessons of the Exodus Movement, the prophecy of Isaiah exhorts believers in the last days to remember God's delivering power in Egypt and at the Red Sea, and to remember that the Lord is the same living God now as in ancient days : '<" Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the people ifi whose heart is My law ; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool : but My righteousness shall be forever, and My salvation from generation to generation. " Awake, awake, put on strength, 0 arm of the Lord ; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art Thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon ? Art Thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that bath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over? Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion ; and ever- lasting joy shall be upon their head : they shall obtain gladness and joy ; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away." Isa. 51: 7-11. Satan, the dragon, who began his war against God in heaven, sought to frustrate God's purpose as the Exodus Move- ment began. But the living God smote the power of the dragon, delivered His people from bondage, and led them_ into the Land of Promise. things happened unto them for ensamples, and are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. We know that as surely as God led that movement ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE LAW OF GOD � 113 of ancient days in triumph, just so surely will He lead the Advent Movement in triumph into the heavenly Land of Prom- ise. The remnant church meeting the final wrath of the dragon will come through victorious in the Lord. Far down the ages now, Her journey well-nigh done, The pilgrim church pursues her way In haste to reach the crown. The story of the past Comes up before her view ; How well it seems to suit her still, Old, yet ever new. No wider is the gate, No broader is the way, No smoother is the ancient path That leads to light and day. No sweeter is the cup, No less our lot of ill; 'Twas tribulation ages since, 'Tis tribulation still. " No slacker grows the fight, No feebler is the foe, No less the need of armor tried, Of shield and spear and bow. Still faithful to our God, And to our Captain true; We follow where He leads the way, The kingdom in our view." 8 CHAPTER X Each Movement Rose at the Time Foretold ANOTHER parallel between the Exodus and the Advent Movement : Each one came at the right time in fulfillment of a time prophecy. It is a wonderful thing to watch the course of fulfilling prophecy. The Lord speaks the word. He fore- tells events. A generation passes. Centuries come and go. The time of the prophecy comes. We look, and, lo, there in history appears the event foretold long before. We see that of a truth the living God who spoke the word was watching, and when the hour struck the fulfillment came. Things like this cannot come by chance. We know to a certainty that Holy Scripture is the voice of God. THE EXODUS MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD The Lord revealed to Abraham that his children would go down from Canaan into a strange land, and that after an appointed time He would visit them and bring them forth into the land promised to Abraham, in which the Amorites and kindred tribes were dwelling. This word of prophecy, spoken by the mouth of the Lord long aforetime, was as follows : " He said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them ; and they shall afflict them four hundred years ; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and after- ward shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace ; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again : for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." Gen. 15 : 13-16. 114 EACH MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD � 115 Abraham died " in a good old age," and was buried. Isaac, his son, followed him; and in the days of Abraham's grandson, Jacob, under the overruling providence of God saving them from famine, the family of Israel migrated from Canaan and settled in the land of Egypt, where Joseph, son of Jacob, had become prime minister. Covering the days of their sojourn, first as wanderers in the land of Canaan and afterward as so- journers in the land of Egypt, four hundred years were drawing to an end. A new dynasty had arisen in Egypt, regarding not the services of Joseph aforetime as God's agent in delivering the Egyptians from famine. The people of Israel, now become numerous, were hated as foreigners of alien religion, and were forced into bondage. The servitude was bitter, and their faith that might have sustained them, was weakened and corrupted by the false religions of Egypt. It must have seemed to the people at last that the God of their father Abraham, the living God, had forgotten them and forsaken them. But God never forgets. His spoken word of prophecy always meets its fulfillment. The Lord had promised Abraham that after four hundred years of this sojourning He would visit that people and bring them forth out of Egypt and lead them into the land of Canaan. The prophecy had been uttered centuries before. Its fulfillment was absolutely certain. The hand of God was shaping events for the fulfillment, as the time approached. This appears in the book of Acts, in the record of Stephen's defense before the Jewish council. Ste- phen is reviewing the story of their nation. Calling attention to this promise to Abraham, he says, " The time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, . . . in which time Moses was born." Acts 7 : 17, 20. The " time of the promise " was drawing near. In that time " Moses was born." The two facts go together. The Lord is never overtaken unprepared. He was watching the 116 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT time. His eye was also upon the human agent whom He should call to be the instrument in His hand in leading the movement forth from Egypt. And when the time of the promise was fully come, Moses had been schooled for the task. First there was the forty years' course in the land of Egypt, in later years as master of armies, learning to organize and lead masses of men. Next, that he might know how to wait on God, by whose power alone the work could be done, Moses had that forty years' post- graduate course as shepherd of sheep in the land of Midian. And when the time of deliverance was fully come, the ap- pointed hour of the prophecy, Moses was ready. God stretched forth His hand, and the Exodus Movement started on its way out of Egypt toward the land of Canaan. The prophecy was fulfilled. When the time came, the work began. Naught could stay it, for the sure word of prophecy had spoken. The living God led the movement forth. The Exodus Movement rose at the right time, fulfilling time prophecy, and in this again we may apply the lesson of Scripture : " Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples [or " types," margin] : and they are written for our admoni- tion, upon whom the ends of the world are come." 1 Cor. 10: 11. THE ADVENT MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME OF THE PROPHECY Just as the Exodus Movement came forth at the right time, fulfilling time prophecy, so, true to the type, the Advent Move- ment of Revelation fourteen has arisen in our day, at the right time, fulfilling time prophecy. It appeared in the world at the appointed hour, proclaiming, " The hour . . . is come ! " The rise and flight of the movement from land to land in the last days was described by the prophet under the symbol of an angel's flight : EACH MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD � 117 " Having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come." Rev. 14 : 6, 7. Prophets and apostles had foretold a coming hour of judg- ment. The apostle Paul before Felix preached of a judgment " to come : " " As he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judg- ment to come, Felix trembled." Acts 24: 25. In the apostle's day it was an hour of judgment " to come." But this Advent Movement bears the message to all mankind that the hour of God's judgment " is come." Do not confuse this judgment hour with the final judgment day, the great day of wrath that follows a thousand years after Christ's coming. It is another judgment hour of which the Lord warns men in this gospel proclamation to every nation and tongue, " Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come." Just before Christ comes in glory, there is a work of judgment in heaven, deciding every case for life or death, while still men here on earth are going about their business, and the daily routine of human life flows on. " The judgment was set, and the books were opened," said the prophet Daniel, who was shown this scene in the heavenly court just before Christ's appearing. By this investigative judgment will be determined who are righteous and who are unrighteous, and the line will be drawn forever before our Lord appears. Therefore, as the solemn hour of this investigative judgment opens in heaven above, God sends the message of the judgment hour to warn men to prepare to meet the calling of their names in that great assize. And the sure word of prophecy foretold the time when this judgment hour would open. The year was appointed from 118 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT of old. And in that very year the definite Advent Movement of the prophecy rose to herald the message, " The hour of His judment is come." When the hour came, the movement came proclaiming the message, " The hour . . . is come ! " Things like this do not come by chance. The beginning of this " hour of His judgment " is fixed by the longest time prophecy of the Scriptures. Let us follow the historical outline of world events in the prophecy of the eighth chapter of Daniel, which introduces this measuring line of prophecy that runs through the ages to mark the opening of this judgment hour. It is awe-inspiring to watch the course of history, and see the exactness with which events that are subjects of prophecy take place to meet the specifications of the divine word. The Lord speaks. A thousand years may pass. Dynasties rise and fall. History has entered era after era. Then as the flight of time brings the hour for the fulfillment, the event is brought forth. It is the working of Him in whose sight a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. A PROPHECY OF THE COURSE OF EMPIRE Now for the historic outline of the eighth of Daniel. In the third year of Belshazzar, the last year, probably, of the last king of Babylon, the Lord gave to Daniel a vision of the course of empire following Babylon, and the rise of the great apostasy that was to come in later times. First he was shown that the kingdom of the Medes and Persians would follow Babylon, and that Grecia would come next upon the stage of world dominion. Dan. 8: 20, 21. The views were like moving pictures upon the screen, one power appearing, doing its work, then giving place to the next. Note how graphically the main points of history were sketched by the few words of the prophecy. The very symbols were precise. As now in current usage nations are represented by symbol — EACH MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD � 119 the British lion, the American eagle � so it was anciently. The ram was nationally a symbol in Persia, and the goat a familiar symbol of Macedonian Greece. The prophet saw in vision the Medo-Persian Empire spreading its conquests : " Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns : and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great." The two horns, signifying a dual empire, made up of Medes and Persians, fit to the minutest detail, for " the higher came up last." Exactly so the Persian branch of the monarchy de- veloped last, then rose in dominating influence above the Medians. By its northward and westward push the ram aroused the western power that was first to carry the conquests of Europe into Asia : " As I was considering, behold, a he-goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground : and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns : and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him : and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. Therefore the he-goat waxed very great." The angel's explanation of the vision made it all plain : " The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia : and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king." Even the division of the Grecian Empire into four main parts, under the generals of Alexander the Great, the first king, is noted by the prophecy. And all this was written in the 120 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT scroll of the Book long before the events came to pass. The Lord was saying to men, as event after event came to pass ful- filling the word : "Before it came to pass I showed it thee : lest thou shouldst say, Mine idol hath done them. . . . Thou hast heard, see all this ; and will not ye declare it ? " Isa. 48 : 5, 6. We are setting our feet in the way of divine certainty as we follow the prophetic outline that is to stretch onward to our own times, and fix the beginning of the judgment hour in heaven that precedes Christ's glorious appearing. Following Grecia, which was " very great," the prophet be- held the rise of a power of " fierce countenance," stern soldiers, who were to take possession of the " pleasant land," or Pales- tine. It was the Roman Empire that followed Grecia, and that annexed the Holy Land. It was " exceeding great." AN ECCLESIASTICAL POWER RISES But as Daniel watched the later history, he saw a change come. Just as in the seventh chapter the division of the Roman Empire was followed by the rise of a persecuting power, the Roman Papacy, so here the prophet saw a religious power de- veloping, exalting itself, treading under foot the people of God : " It cast down the truth to the ground ; and it practiced, and prospered." Verse 12. The prophet's heart must have cried out to know if this power — which we know to be the Roman apostasy — would forever prosper in its work ; for next he heard the voice of a holy one asking the question for him : " How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden underfoot ? " Verse 13. The answer came back : " Unto two thousand and three hundred days ; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Verse 14. EACH MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD � 121 In symbolic prophecy a day stands for a year. (See Eze. 4: 5, 6.) This two-thousand-three-hundred-year period, we know, reaches to the latter days ; for the angel said further, " At the time of the end shall be the vision." Verse 17. The question was, " How long? " or, more literally, " Until when " shall apostasy work its way, seemingly unhindered? When will the truths trodden underfoot by human tradition be lifted up again? When will the Lord give answer to the great apostasy? And the answer was, " Unto two thousand and three hun- dred days [years] ; then "— then what? —" then shall the sanc- tuary be cleansed." Then, according to the burden of the prophecy, we may look for God to lift up truths trodden under- f oot by human tradition that has made void God's law. WHAT THE CLEANSING OF THE SANCTUARY MEANS The cleansing of the sanctuary, then, brings God's answer to error and apostasy. The cleansing of the sanctuary is to lead to the end of the way of error and the reign of sin. Apostasy may for a time exalt itself against God, and tread underfoot the people and the truth of God; but the just balances of the sanctuary will yet pronounce judgment, and the apparent pros- perity of evil .be cut short. " I was envious," said the psalm- ist, " when I saw the prosperity of the wicked," " until I went into the sanctuary of God ; then understood I their end." Ps. 73 : 3, 17. Looking into the sanctuary of God, we too may understand how an end is to be brought to wickedness and sin. The cleansing of the sanctuary, which is Christ's last service in the heavenly temple, pronounces judgment against sin. This judgment service was to begin at the end of the long period of 2300 years. " Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." This was to be in the latter days, for the angel said, " At the time of the end shall be the vision." We are dealing here with mo- mentous truths for our own time. 122 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT Exactly what, then, is involved in the cleansing of the sanc- tuary? Let us follow step by step the teaching of Scripture. For we are living in the time of the cleansing foretold. This matter is of vital concern to us. The cleansing of the sanctuary, in the typical service of the earthly tabernacle, or sanctuary, was the last phase of the ministry of the high priest. When the cleansing of the sanc- tuary took place in the Levitical ministry, on the last day of the yearly round of service, the high priest entered the most holy place with the blood of the sin offering. Until that last day's service, day by day all through the year, the sinner, at the door of the sanctuary, had been confessing his sins over the sacrifice, which was his substitute, dying in his stead. The blood of these offerings, figuratively bearing the sins, had been ministered day by day by the priests in the holy place, the first apartment of the sanctuary, before the second veil. But on the last day of the yearly round, the tenth day of the seventh month, the high priest entered the most holy place with the blood of the offering, and the sanctuary was cleansed from the sins of the people. (See Leviticus 16.) Sins had been forgiven day by day as the penitents brought their offerings. But all the record of the year was registered in the sanctuary by the sprinkled blood of the sacrifice over which the sins had been confessed. A JUDGMENT HOUR Now, when the time of the cleansing of the sanctuary from all this record came, on the last day of the yearly ministry, it was a miniature day of judgment in Israel. Every man's life came in solemn review that day. Whoever was not found right with God, as that cleansing of the sanctuary was finished, lost his part with the Lord's people : " Whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people." Lev. 23 : 29. EACH MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD � 123 That " tenth day of the seventh month " was called the " day of atonement." It was indeed a day of judgment in Israel. A modern Hebrew poet says of it : " The great white fast ! the day that solemnly Its clarion call sent over land and sea, In gracious summons of the Voice divine That bade the soul before truth's inner shrine, Clad in the whiteness of humility, Itself disrobed of all externals be,— What mandate gave the day to you and me? It is the judgment day of all the year ! " And Dean Farrar, quoting from ancient authors, shows that the Jewish people really counted this clay of the cleansing of the sanctuary as a veritable hour of judgment : So awful was the day of atonement that we are told in a Jewish book of ritual that the very angels run to and fro in fear and trembling, saying, `Lo! the day of judgment has come.' "—" The Early Days of Christianity," p. 38. All this service in the typical sanctuary on earth was but an " example and shadow of heavenly things : " " Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum : We have such a High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." Heb. 8: 1, 2. The service of the priests on earth was a type of the min- istry of our great High Priest, Jesus, in the true sanctuary above, the heavenly temple. There by His own blood He entered, ever living to make intercession for us. " And now before His Father's face His precious blood He pleads ; For those who seek the throne of grace His love still intercedes." The last phase of Christ's ministry just before His second coming to this earth, must likewise be a work of judgment. It 124 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT is a review of the heavenly record, corresponding to the min- istry in the second apartment of the earthly tabernacle on that last day of the Levitical service when the sanctuary was cleansed. The great antitypical day of atonement must come, deciding every case for eternity. THE SCENE IN THE HEAVENLY SANCTUARY Daniel the prophet was shown in vision this change in Christ's ministry in the heavenly temple, the true sanctuary. He saw the opening of the judgment hour in heaven while still men and nations on earth were following the even tenor of their ways, all unconscious that the Court of High Heaven had opened session, and that the hour of His judgment was come. The prophet describes the wondrous scene in heaven as the living throne moved into the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary for the closing work of Christ's ministry : " I beheld till the thrones were cast down [" placed," R. V.], and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like the pure wool: His throne was like the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him: thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him : the judgment was set, and the books were opened." Dan. 7: 9, 10. It is the time of the cleansing of the sanctuary from the record of sin. Every one of us has a record in those books. In this hour of His judgment either the record of sins will be blotted out or the name will be blotted out from the book of life. According to the teaching of the type, whosoever, when that work closes, is not found right with God, loses his part with the people of God. But our great High Priest has made the promise: " He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment ; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels." Rev. 3: 5. EACH MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD � 125 In view of the solemnity of this hour of His judgment, well may we repeat the question which one of the holy ones asked in Daniel's hearing, " How long shall be the vision? " In other words, " When will this hour of judgment in heaven begin? " The answer was, " Unto two thousand and three hun- dred days [prophetic days, literally, 2300 years] ; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Then should the final ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary begin that is to cut short the reign of sin and apostasy. And then also on earth should the standard of truth be lifted up, a witness against the apostasy that had trodden the truth underfoot. For, in Revelation fourteen, the prophet John was shown that when this hour of the investigative judgment should begin in heaven, a special gospel movement was to arise on earth, carrying the message to every nation and tongue that " the hour of His judgment is come," and warning against fol- lowing the great apostasy, and calling all men to keep " the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." GABRIEL TO EXPLAIN THE TIME Where, then, does the great prophetic measuring line begin — the 2300 years that were to reach to the opening of this judg- ment hour ? When do they end? It was for our sake that the holy one in Daniel's vision asked, " How long shall be the vision ? " We know the period of the 2300 years reaches to these last days ; for as the angel said, " at the time of the end shall be the vision." Dan. 8: 17. The angel Gabriel was commanded, " Make this man to understand the vision." Verse 16. Then if we follow the angel's explanation, we may understand about this long pro- phetic period of 2300 years. The angel explained the first part of the vision of Daniel eight. As we have seen in former pages, it is a plain prophecy covering events from the days of Medo-Persia, through Grecia and Rome, to the development of the apostasy that plunged Europe into the Dark Ages. That was made plain. 126 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT But before the angel Gabriel explained the vision of the 2300 years, Daniel had fainted. This prophetic period was im- portant. In fact, the 2300 days (" evening-mornings," margin of verse 14) gave the title to the vision. The angel said, " The vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true." Verse 26. But Daniel could then bear no more of this story of the great controversy between truth and error. He " fainted, and was sick certain days." Then Daniel went about the king's business, still thinking of the vision. The angel's last words had declared that this vision of the 2300 days, or years, was " true," and that it would be for " many days,"— far in the future — even " at the time of the end ; " but no explanation had been given Daniel as to when the long prophetic period would begin. The angel's commission to " make this man to understand the vision " was left un- fulfilled so far as the time prophecy was concerned. Daniel said, " I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it." Verse 27. But in the next chapter the angel Gabriel came to complete the explanation. It may have been a few weeks or months later, or possibly a year or more. The vision of the 2300 days in the eighth chapter was given " in the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar," of Babylon. This was probably his last year, when Babylon was overthrown by the Medes and Per- sians. The next chapter of Daniel opens " in the first year of Darius " the Mede. And in this ninth chapter the angel Gabriel appears to continue his explanation of the vision to Daniel. An ancient kingdom had been overturned. The scepter of world empire had passed from the Babylonians to the Medes and Persians. It was an epochal time. But the angel had not as yet fully discharged the command of God to make Daniel " understand the vision." No angel would ever leave a divine commission but partially fulfilled, and here in the ninth chap- ter, the angel Gabriel, messenger of God to the prophet, comes to complete the work committed to him. EACH MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD � 127 The angel in his former interview had broken off his ex- planation with the assurance that the vision of the 2300 years was " true." He now resumes his commission to make Daniel understand, beginning where he left off, with the vision of the time period, saying, " 0 Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. . . . Therefore understand the matter, and con- sider the vision." Dan. 9: 22, 23. First of all, the angel dealt with the events of the first por- tion of the long 2300-year measuring line of prophecy that was to run through the centuries to that " time of the end." The first portion � 490 years of it, as we shall see — was allotted to the Jewish people, and especially to Jerusalem. This shorter period was " determined," or " cut off," as the word signifies, — cut off, necessarily, from the long period of 2300 years which the angel had come to explain. The angel Gabriel said : " Understand the matter, and consider the vision. Seventy weeks [490 days; literally, 490 years] are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy." Verses 23, 24. Thus the first portion — 490 years of the long prophetic period was to reach to the times of Christ's ministry on earth at His first advent, when He came as the great Sacrifice " to make reconciliation for iniquity," while the end of the long period was to mark the opening of the judgment hour in heaven, the cleansing of the sanctuary, preparatory to His second advent. THE EVENT THAT MARKS THE BEGINNING OF THE PERIOD And now come the fateful words : the angel's explanation cites the event that marks the beginning of the prophetic period. This is all-essential to understanding " the vision." Without this we cannot begin to follow the thread of the time prophecy 128 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT that runs through the times of the Messiah on earth to the beginning of His closing ministry in heaven. " Know therefore and understand," said Gabriel to the prophet, thus showing that now he is actually to fulfill the divine charge, " make this man to understand the vision." We listen with all ears; for what we too must understand is where the long measuring line begins, along which, as on a knotted cord, the great events associated with the times of Christ's first advent are set, while at the end the line touches the grand event of the opening of the judgment hour in the last days, with its issue of eternal life or eternal death to every one of us. " Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and three- score and two weeks : the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times." Verse 25. When did this commandment to restore and build go forth? The vision had been given in the days of the captivity. The Jewish people were scattered over Babylonia and Persia. Jeru- salem lay desolate. Three kings of Persia issued decrees con- cerning the return from captivity. In what year of history did " the commandment " of the prophecy go f orth? Holy Scripture, with its handmaid, History, gives the answer. THE DECREE OF 457 B. C. In a single passage, Inspiration notes the decrees of Cyrus and Darius touching the return of the Jews from captivity, and includes both with the decisive decree of Artaxerxes to Ezra, as constituting " the commandment " to restore and build Jeru- salem: " They builded, and finished it [the temple], according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia." Ezra 6: 14. EACH MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD � 129 Thus " the commandment " is spoken of as one threefold commandment, completed in the sweeping and inclusive com- mission given to Ezra by Artaxerxes. Here, then, was the " going forth of the commandment to restore and to build." And this decree to Ezra " went forth " in the seventh year of Artaxerxes. Ezra 7: 7-9. And the seventh year of Artaxerxes was the year 457 B. c. That is the date with which the long prophetic period begins. It fills one's heart with awe to follow the great measuring line of prophecy from that established date of history, B. C. 457. The first " seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks,"— sixty-nine weeks of the seventy (483 years),— were to reach " unto the Messiah the Prince." Counting 483 full years from the decree of 457 B. c., we arrive in the year A. D. 27. That year was a sabbatical year, when the land was to rest. And in the quietness of that year, already a voice had been lifted up crying in the wilderness, " Prepare ye the way of the Lord ! " " On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry Announces that the Lord is nigh; Awake and hearken, for he brings Glad tidings of the King of kings." The time prophecy fixed the hour of " the Messiah the Prince." Messiah means the " anointed." As Jesus appeared ) to John by Jordan and was baptized of him, lo, the heavens k opened, and in the form of a dove the Holy Spirit was visibly revealed, anointing the Saviour for His ministry on earth. Thus He was proclaimed the Messiah, the Anointed One. (See Acts 10 : 38.) The time of the prophecy was fulfilled, and from that time He went forth preaching: " The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel." Mark 1: 15. The time had come, and the work foretold had begun at the end of the sixty-nine weeks. 9 130 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT THE GREAT SACRIFICE FOR ALL MANKIND But this is not all that this time prophecy has to say of Christ's work at this first advent. One week, or seven years, yet remained of the seventy weeks allotted to the Jewish nation. Within this time, said the angel, " shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself." Dan. 9: 26. " Not for Himself," but for His chosen people and for all people was He cut off. It was " for the sins of the whole world " that He offered Him- self on the cross as the great Sacrifice to which all the sacri- fices of faith had pointed since Abel brought his lamb of the flock. Jesus was the Lamb of God, God's Lamb, yielded up by the Father at infinite and unthinkable cost to the Father's heart, accepted by Infinite Justice in the stead of the life of lost humanity, forfeited by sin. The stroke of death that would have fallen upon us all, fell upon Him. He stepped in between. He " interposed Himself." Heb. 6 : 17, margin. He died for me, He died for you. He bore our sins upon that cross, and died in our stead, that we might have in Him for- giveness of sin and life eternal. " He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief : and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. " Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows : yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. " But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. " All we like sheep have gone astray ; we have turned every one to his own way ; and the Lord hath laid on Him the in- iquity of us all." Isa. 53: 3-6. The time prophecy had fixed the very period within which the great sacrifice would be made. Of that last " week " of seven years the angel said to Daniel: " He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week : and in the midst of the week He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease." Dan. 9: 27. EACH MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD � 131 " IN THE MIDST OF THE WEEK " For three years and a half, according to the record of the Gospels, Christ wrought at His ministry following His bap- tism. Then, " in the midst of the week," came the great hour for which lost creation had waited, and the divine Sacrifice was " lifted up " on Calvary. It was the supreme hour of type and prophecy, and round that cross of Calvary all history centers. "At last the word of death is given, The form is bound, the nails are driven ; Now triumph, scribe and Pharisee ! Now, Roman, bend the mocking knee! The cross is reared. The deed is done. There stands Messiah's earthly throne ! " This was the earth's consummate hour. For this had blazed the monarch's power ; For this had swept the conqueror's sword, Had ravaged, raised, cast down, restored; Persepolis, Rome, and Babylon,— For this ye sank, for this ye shone. " Yet things to which earth's brightest beam Were darkness, earth itself a dream ; Foreheads on which shall crowns be laid Sublime, when sun and stars shall fade, World upon worlds, eternal things, Hung on Thy 'anguish, King of kings ! " — Croly. In person, Christ, " The Messenger of the covenant," had confirmed the covenant with many for three and a half years. Then, in the " midst of the week " He caused the sacrifices to cease by the sacrifice of Himself. He ascended to heaven, there to minister as our High Priest in the true sanctuary, of which the earthly was but the type. To Him as priest may every sinner come direct. And still He says, " Come unto Me." For the remaining three and a half years of this " week " 6f the prophecy His Spirit attended the efforts of the disciples in confirming the covenant especially with the Jewish people. 132 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT The first gospel effort was for them. But as the 490 years of the prophecy especially allotted to Jerusalem drew to an end, in A. D. 34, we find the priests and rulers sealing their rejection of the message by the stoning of Stephen and the persecution of the followers of Christ. These were driven from Jerusalem. They preached as they went. Acts 8: 5. Samaria received the word ; the Gentiles began to hear. And erelong the word was, " Lo, we turn to the Gentiles." How truly and exactly had come to pass in the history of Jerusalem the prophecy of the first seventy weeks (490 years) cut off from the 2300-year period and allotted to the holy city and its people. Let us look once more at the picture presented in the angel's ex- planation : " Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy." Dan. 9 : 24. The detailed fulfillment of prophecy in this first portion of the prophetic period, sets the divine seal of certainty upon the whole vision and prophecy of the 2300 years which the angel was explaining. The effect of it, as the angel said, is " to seal up the vision and prophecy." As surely as the events of the first portion of this long time prophecy came to pass in ancient times, so surely has the latter portion come to pass in our time. REACHES TO THE YEAR 1844 Measuring onward from 457 B. c., where the long prophetic period begins, the 2300 years_ end in the year 1844. In that year, then, the solemn service of cleansing the sanc- tuary in heaven began. From that day onward the gospel mes- sage has been, " The hour of His judgment is come." And in that very year, 1844, arose the specific Advent Movement f ore- told in Revelation 14: 6-12, which was to proclaim the hour of EACH MOVEMENT ROSE AT THE TIME FORETOLD � 133 God's judgment come and to lift up the truths of the com- mandments of God and the faith of Jesus, which had long been trodden underfoot by the great apostasy. The prophecy of Daniel eight had fixed the hour of the opening of the judgment work in heaven. The prophecy of Revelation fourteen foretold the rise of this Advent Movement on earth when that judgment work should begin in heaven. When the hour of the prophecy came, the movement began. It was so in the Exodus Movement. " When the time of the promise drew nigh," said Stephen, " in that time Moses was born." The Lord was preparing the human agents, and when the time of the prophecy was fully come, God led the movement out of Egypt. When the hour of the prophecy came, the Exodus Movement of the prophecy began. " Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples : and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." 1 Cor. 10: 11. True to the type, this definite Advent Movement of our day has come at the right time, fulfilling time prophecy. But before going into details to show how the Advent Movement that rose in 1844 is fulfilling the prophecy, let us note the certainty of the evidence establishing the date B. C. 457 as the point from which the longest measuring line of prophecy runs on to modern days. CHAPTER XI The Certainty of the Date 457 B. C. WELL may we pause to insure the certainty of the date 457 B. c. as being the seventh year of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, the year of "the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem." That is the event that marks the beginning of the prophetic period of the 2300 years of Dan- iel 8 : 14. We want surety. We search the evidence for certainty, and here the Holy Scripture supplies the unerring guide into the history of the reign of Artaxerxes. Where the history lacks, Inspiration fills the gap. Not another reign in the list of Persian kings is fixed with such certainty as this one. Providence has so ordered it that inspired Scripture and secular history unite in establishing that year B. c. 457, from which the longest prophetic measuring line runs on through ancient to modern times. In this provision for certainty as to the date, we see again the illustration of the divine declaration : " Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee ? " Prov. 22 : 20, 21. PTOLEMY OF EGYPT One witness to the date B. c. 457 as the seventh year of Artaxerxes, is the famous Canon, or list of kings, compiled by Ptolemy. Claudius Ptolemy, mathematician, astronomer, geog- rapher, and chronologist, dwelt in Alexandria, Egypt. He died about the year 151 A. D. In that ancient seat of learning, with its library collections, Ptolemy compiled his list of kings of the ancient world, with the years of their reigns. 134 THE CERTAINTY OF THE DATE � 135 He began with Nabonassar, founder of the new Assyro- Babylonian line, B. c. 747, and followed with the chronological list of the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Roman rulers to the second century A. D., when his own death ended the recorder's task. His moving pen had set the kings and empire builders of well-nigh a thousand years parading across his pages in orderly array. That line of kings in Ptolemy's list — of Babylon, Medo- Persia, Greece, and Rome — is in striking parallel to the pro- phetic outline of Daniel two, in which the metallic image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream foretold the course of history through the four universal empires — Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome. Some writer — I have forgotten the name — once in- closed Ptolemy's list of kings within a pen-drawn outline of the metallic image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and the cor- respondence of history to the prophecy was strikingly pictured. Daniel the prophet foretold the order of empire before the events came to pass. Ptolemy the historian recorded it after 1 the events had come to passWhen Ptolemy, in his study room in the temple of Serapis, made up his list of kings of the im- perial lines, he was all unconsciously bearing witness to the fulfillment of prophecies uttered by Daniel in Babylon seven hundred years before, when the prophet said to the king : " There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days." Dan. 2 : 28. Along with his list of kings, Ptolemy compiled also a record of ancient astronomical observations, called in later times the " Almagest " (an Arabic word meaning " greatest composi- tion "). This " contains most of what is known of the as- tronomical observations and theories of the ancients."— Web- ster's Dictionary, under " Alntagest." When Ptolemy records the fact that in such and such a year of a king's reign an eclipse of the sun or moon occurred, the modern astronomer and mathematician can verify the chronological record. 136 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT RELIABILITY OF THE RECORD The learned Dr. William Hales, chronologist and historian, said of Ptolemy's Canon : " From its great use as an astronomical era, confirmed by unerring characters of eclipses, this Canon justly obtained the highest authority among historians also. It has most de- servedly been esteemed an invaluable treasure, . . . and of the greatest use in chronology, without which, as Marsham ob- serves, there could scarcely be any transition from sacred to profane history."—" Chronology," Vol. I, p. 166. William Whiston, the successor of Sir Isaac Newton in the chair of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, says of the service of Ptolemy's Canon in the study of Scripture prophecy : " This Canon does exactly agree in everything with the chronology of the Old Testament confirms the fulfilling of ancient prophecies, and particularly, that famous one of the seventy weeks in Daniel fixes the years of Artaxerxes, and Tiberius, on which it chiefly depends and for its exact cor- respondence with the sacred and infallible, justly deserves the first place among the profane historians."—"A Short View of the Chronology of the Old Testament," p. 13. Thus Ptolemy's work appears as an instrument of Provi- dence in tracing the fulfillment of prophecy. Speaking of con- spicuous providences in the provision of historical facts, Dr. H. Grattan Guinness, of London, wrote as follows of Ptolemy's Canon: " In the existence of this invaluable work, and in its preser- vation as a precious remnant of antiquity, the hand of Provi- dence can clearly be traced. The same divine care which raised up Herodotus and other Greek historians to carry on the rec- ords of the past- from the point to which they had been brought by the writings of the prophets at the close of the Babylonish captivity,— the Providence which raised up Josephus, the Jewish historian, at the termination of New Testament his- tory, to record the fulfillment of prophecy in the destruction THE CERTAINTY OF THE DATE � 137 of Jerusalem,— raised up also Ptolemy in the important inter- val which extended from Titus to Hadrian, that of the com- pletion of the Jewish desolation, to record the chronology of the nine previous centuries, and to associate it in such a way with the revolutions of the solar system as to permit of the most searching demonstration of its truth."—" Creation Cen- tred in Christ," pp. 292, 293. For no ordinary purpose would we carry the reader into the details of the Canon. But we are fixing a date of supreme importance in prophecy. We must " know the certainty of the words of truth." So, with all patience and carefulness we listen to the witness of Ptolemy, and seek to make his testimony so plain that we can see the certainty of these things displayed before our eyes. HOW PTOLEMY RECKONED Now, what is the testimony of the Canon to the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, when the decree to Ezra went forth? Ptolemy, of course, knew nothing of the later system of reckoning years before Christ and after Christ. He began with the era of Nabonassar of Babylon. Of the origin of this system, Dr. Hales says : "Nabonassar, having collected the acts of his predecessors, destroyed them, in order that the computation of the reigns of the Chaldean kings might be made from himself. It began, therefore, with the reign of Nabonassar, Feb. 26, B. c. 747." —" Chronology," Vol. I, p. 155. That day was the Egyptian Thoth, or New Year. It begins the year one of Ptolemy's Canon, which thenceforth numbers off the years, one, two, three, etc., straight on through history, telling in what year each king began to reign, always counting full years from New Year to New Year. It is like a rigid measuring rule, just three hundred sixty-five days long, laid down over history. Knowing the starting point, Feb. 26, 747 B. C., it is but a matter of computation, or measuring, to tell in 138 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT what year, according to our modern reckoning, a given year of the Canon falls. According to Ptolemy, the year in which Artaxerxes began to reign was the two hundred eighty-fourth year of the Canon. This year 284, according to our calendar, began Dec. 17, 465 B. C.* But according to the rule of Ptolemy, this means only that somewhere between Dec. 17, 465, and Dec. 17, 464, Artaxerxes came to the throne. At whatever time in the year a king came to the throne, his reign was counted in the Canon as beginning with the first of that year. To illustrate : If we were following that plan now of recording the reigns of kings,--- by years only, not counting parts of years,— and a king should come to the throne in July, his reign would be set down as beginning with the preceding New Year, January 1, for in the year then opening he began to reign. There was Ptolemy's method. Dr. Hales states the rule : " Each king's reign begins at the Thoth, or New Year's Day, before his accession, and all the odd months of his last year are included in the first year of his successor."— Id., p. 171. He cites the following proofs of the rule (which we will illustrate by diagrams) : " Thus, the actual accession of Alexander the Great was at the decisive victory of Arbela, Oct. 1, B. C. 331, but his reign in the Canon began the preceding New Year's Day of the same current Nabonassarean year, Nov. 14, B. c. 332. [See Fig. 1.] " The death of Alexander the Great was in the 114th Olym- piad, according to Josephus, May 22, B. C. 323; but the era of his successor, Philip Aridus, began in the Canon the preceding New Year's Day, Nov. 12, B. c. 324. [See Fig. 2.] . * As the exact 365-day year of the Egyptians made no allowance for leap year, the Egyptian Thoth, or New Year, drops back in our calendar about a day every four years. So that, while it fell on Feb. 26 in 747 s. c., where the years of the Canon begin, in this 284th year of the Canon it falls on Dec. 17, 465. In Canon Actual Time OCT. I Years of Canon 424 r Nov iz L ----- 425 NOV. t8 � +- 1 1926 < In Canon Actual Time MAY 23 Years of Canon 783 AU G.14 784 Aus.14'" . � 785 � < In Canon Actual Time MAR.16 B.C. 324 A.D. 36 323 37 322 . � 38 Years of Canon 416 _Vpy, 14_ 417 51_0y. 14 418 330 Years of Canon 283 DEC +7 264 _ g_ 28 C_ 465 4,9/ 11 12 +e` lit ! 10 MONTHS OF JEWISH YEAR 464 r YEAR 463 • 462 3C • 461 4" 460 s. 459 • 458 457 8 • � ete 456 THE CERTAINTY OF THE DATE � 139 " Tiberius died March 16, A. D. 37, but the reign of his successor, Caius Caligula, began in the Canon from the preced- ing New Year's Day, Aug. 14, A. D. 36. [See Fig. 3.] "— Ibid. Therefore, inasmuch as the Canon shows only that Artax- erxes began his reign sometime in the year beginning Dec. 17, Fig. � Fig. 2 � Fig. 3 Alexander's Accession Philip's Accession � Caligula's Accession 465 B. c., and ending Dec. 17, 464 (see Fig. 4), the question is, At what time of the year did he come to the throne? With this answered, we can readily determine the seventh year of Fig. 4 � Fig. 5 � Fig. 6 Artaxerxes' Accession � The Time of Year � The Seventh Year Artaxerxes, as the Scripture would reckon it from the time when he actually began to reign. And here Inspiration itself gives the answer. It is because the secular historian has no particular reason for exactness here and does not turn to the 140 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT Scripture for the facts, that he often dates the reign of Ar- taxerxes from 465 instead of 464. The record of Nehemiah and Ezra fully establishes the fact that Artaxerxes began his reign at the end of the summer, or in the autumn. Neh. 1: 1; 2 : 1 ; Ezra 7: 7-9. The texts referred to prove that the king came to the throne after midsummer, toward or fully in the late autumn. Nehe- miah (1 : 1) begins the record : " In the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year." Nehemiah (2 : 1) continues : " It came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes." Thus it is plain that in the first year of the king's actual reign the month Chisleu (late November to late December) came first in order, and then Nisan (April), the first month. And in the same year of the king's reign also came the fifth month, August ; for Ezra (7 : 7-9) shows that the first and fifth months — in that order — also fell in the same year of his reign. Then we know of a certainty that his reign began somewhere be- tween August and the latter part of November. The diagram (Fig. 5) illustrates the lesson of these texts. Artaxerxes' first year, therefore, was from late 464 B. C. to late 463 B. C. and his seventh year was from late 458 B. C. to late 457 B. c. (Fig. 6.) The narrative in the seventh chap- ter of Ezra shows that the decree was issued in the earlier part of the Jewish year, hence it was in B. c. 457 that the command- ment " to restore and to build " went forth. THE GREEK RECORD CONFIRMS 457 B. C. The records of the Greek Olympiads come forward also with confirmation of 457 B. c. as the seventh of Artaxerxes. The Grecian love of athletics led to the establishment of the Olympic games at Elis, held every f our years for centuries. The first Olympiad was in July, 776 B. C. ; the second in July, 772, etc. Greek historians used these four-year cycles for general chronological purposes. An event was said to have occurred in the first, second, third, or fourth year of such and THE CERTAINTY OF THE DATE � 141 such an Olympiad. The exact year might be further desig- nated by the name of the archon (chief magistrate) of Athens who that year held the archonship. By one of these entries in the Greek history, we know the date of the death of Xerxes the Great, father of Artaxerxes, and so can determine when Artaxerxes came to the throne. William Watkiss Lloyd, an English writer on Greek history, says: " The date of the death of Xerxes is one of the most hap- pily certified points in the chronology of these times, and sup- plies a limit for the dates of several events in Greek history proper. Diodorus assigns it to the archonship of Lysitheus ( July, 465 B. C., to July, 464 B. C.)."-" The Age of Pericles," Vol. I, p. 356. Somewhere between those two dates, according to the record by Olympiads, Artabanus, captain of the guard, had Xerxes assassinated. Artabanus ruled seven months (this time being counted with the years of Xerxes in the chronology), and then came Artaxerxes to the throne, in 464 B. C. This agrees en- tirely with the record of Ptolemy's Canon, and makes the sev- enth year of Artaxerxes 457 B. c. Sir Isaac Newton, the great mathematician and scientist, made an analysis of Greek and other records bearing witness to 457 B. c. as the seventh year of Artaxerxes. For the famous discoverer of the law of gravitation was an earnest student of prophecy, and of that greatest of all sciences — the science of salvation. In his work on the " Prophecies of Daniel," he gives various independent lines of proof for the date 457 B. C. as the seventh year of Artaxerxes, whence the prophetic period was to be reckoned. Reference to three of these lines of evi- dence must suffice : 1. Newton shows that soon after an anniversary of his ac- cession, Xerxes began to march his army over the Hellespont into Europe, " in the end of the fourth year of the seventy- fourth Olympiad," which ended in June, 480 B. c. 142 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT " In the autumn, three months after, on the full moon, the sixteenth day of the month of Munychion, was the battle of Salamis, and a little after that an eclipse of the sun, which by the calculation, fell on October 2. His [Xerxes'] sixth year, therefore, began a little before June, suppose in spring, An. J. P. [Julian period] 4234 [B. c. 480] and his first year consequently in spring, An. J. P. 4229 [B. c. 485], as above. Now he reigned almost twenty-one years, by the consent of all writers. Add the seven months of Artabanus, and the sum will be twenty- one years and about four or five months, which end between midsummer and autumn, An. J. P. 4250 [B. c. 464]. And at this time, therefore, began the reign of his successor, Artax- erxes, as was to be proved."—" Observations on the Proph- ecies," part 1, chap. 10. Again, Newton takes the writings of Africanus, a Chris- tian of the third century : " The same thing is also confirmed by Julius Africanus, who informs us out of former writers, that the twentieth year of Artaxerxes was the one hundred fifteenth year from the beginning of the reign of Cyrus in Persia, and fell in with An. 4, Olympiad 83 [the fourth year of the eighty-third Olym- piad]. It began, therefore, with the Olympic year soon after the summer solstice, An. J. P. 4269 [B. c. 445]. Subduct nine- teen years, and his first year will begin at the same time of the year An. J. P. 4250 [B. c. 464] as above."— Ibid. Another of Newton's arguments in proof of the date, the last that we have space to refer to, is based on testimony as to the death of Artaxerxes. It will be more easily followed if we quote more fully than Sir Isaac Newton does from the original authority cited ; and indeed the story is an interesting one apart from its contribution to chronology. It is from the " History of the Peloponnesian War,"— really a contest be- tween Sparta and Athens,— written by Thucydides. Writing of the winter season of 425-424 B. C., he says : " During the ensuing winter, Aristides, son of Archippus, one of the commanders of the Athenian vessels which collected tribute from the allies, captured at Eion, upon the Strymon, THE CERTAINTY OF THE DATE � 143 Artaphernes, a Persian, who was on his way from the king [Artaxerxes] to Sparta. He was brought to Athens, and the Athenians had the dispatches which he was carrying and which were written in the Assyrian character, translated. . . . The chief point was a remonstrance addressed to the Lacedxmo- nians by the king, who said that he could not understand what they wanted. . . . If they meant to make themselves intelli- gible, he desired them to send to him another embassy with the Persian envoy. Shortly afterward the Athenians sent Ar- taphernes in a trireme to Ephesus, and with him an embassy of their own; but they found that Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, had recently died ; for the embassy arrived just at that time."— Jowett's " Thucydides," book 4, par. 50; Vol. II, pp. 37, 38. As all this happened " during the winter," it is evident that the envoys from Greece on the way to Persia, and the embassy from Persia announcing the king's death, met in Ephesus (in Asia Minor) in the early months of 424 B. C.; and that the death of Artaxerxes must have occurred toward the end of 425 B. C. Sir Isaac Newton shows that his precise reign was thirty-nine years and three months. Counting this time back from the end of 425 B. C., the beginning of his reign comes in 464 B. c., just as we have seen by other witnesses, and the seventh year of his reign would be 457 B. c. This is but a rough calculation, based on an estimate of the reasonable time elapsing in the journeying of the embassies. It is related to the exact chronology of Ptolemy's Canon only as the " log " reckoning of a ship is related to the sure obser- vation by the sun or stars in determining the ship's position. But it is interesting as showing how fragmentary details of chronological history join in confirming an important date in prophecy. The testimony of the Olympiads agrees with that of Ptol- emy's Canon in fixing the year period within which Artaxerxes began to reign. And just where the testimony of history is uncertain as to the season of the year — the voice of In- spiration speaks. 144 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT A MILESTONE OF PROPHECY The year in which the great commission was granted to Ezra to restore and build Jerusalem was 457 B. C. History seems to have marshaled all its records of the time to supply certain confirmation of this date from which the line of prophecy runs on to mark the year 1844, when the judgment hour opened in the courts above. God would have men know when that hour opened. The exact time of Christ's second coming is not revealed in the Scriptures. " Of that day and hour knoweth no man," said Jesus, " no, not the angels of heaven, but My Father only." Matt. 24: 36. All attempts, therefore, to set a date for the second advent are vain, and contrary to the words of Christ Himself. This prophetic period of 2300 years reached to the last date set in time prophecy, the year 1844. As the ministry of the " cleansing of the sanctuary " in the Levitical type continued but a brief period at the close of the yearly round of service, even so may we know that the time of the " cleansing " of the heavenly sanctuary will not continue long. The prophecy was given in order that we in this generation may know that the judgment hour is passing in heaven above.::_.., It first passes upon the cases of the dead from the days of Adam down. It is " the time of the dead, that they should be judged." Rev. 11: 18. Some day that solemn review of the record books of heaven will come to the living. " The judgment has set, the books have been opened; How shall we stand in that great day When every thought, and word, and action, God, the righteous Judge, shall weigh?" Our hope then will be only in the promise of an Advocate to represent us there : " If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." 1 John 2: 1. THE CERTAINTY OF THE DATE � 145 The Lord does not leave His children in ignorance of the times and the seasons. " Ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. . . . Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober." 1 Thess. 5 : 4-6. These prophecies, written in ancient times, were set down in Holy Writ especially for this last generation, in which we live. The prophetic periods of this prophecy are a part of those things which Jesus said were " spoken of by Daniel the prophet." And concerning these writings of Daniel, as the time of fulfillment should come, Jesus also said, " Whoso readeth, let him understand." Matt. 24: 15. That year 457 B. c., therefore, is a date of profound im- portance. It stands like the golden milestone by the ancient Forum in Rome, from which ran out all the measurements of distance to the ends of the empire. From this date, 457 B. c., run out the golden threads of time prophecy that touch the events in the earthly life and the heavenly ministry of Jesus that are of deepest eternal interest to all mankind today. 10 CHAPTER XII The Heavens Confirm the Prophecy and History THOSE divinely set timekeepers, the heavenly bodies in their revolutions, bear witness in confirmation of the history that fixes 457 B. C. as the seventh of Artaxerxes, from which the long prophetic period runs on to 1844. We have noted the fact that Ptolemy's Canon of the kings of the ancient empires was accompanied by his " Almagest," a record of ancient astronomical observations. This record contributes its part in making known to us " the certainty of the words of truth." Of the certainty that Ptolemy's Canon has come down to us correctly copied, Hales says : " To the authenticity of these copies of Ptolemy's Canon, the strongest testimony is given by their exact agreement throughout, with above twenty dates and computations of eclipses in Ptolemy's Almagest.' "—" Chronology," Vol. I, page 166. In the preface to a book on ancient chronology and its as- tronomical confirmations, James B. Lindsay, an English writer, says : " The Syntaxis of Ptolemy contains an account of many historic events, and blended with them is a multitude of astro- nomic observations. The astronomic and historic cannot be separated, and they must both stand or fall together. The astronomic can be rigidly verified, and the truth of the his- toric is a legitimate deduction."—" The Chro-Astrolabe," pref- ace, p. vi (London, 1858). Again this writer — who has not at all in mind any relation of these facts to Scripture prophecy goes on to say of Ptol- emy's work : 146 THE HEAVENS CONFIRM THE PROPHECY �147 " His account of ancient eclipses, and of their connection with historic facts, is more precious than gold."— Id., p. 86.: For lack of such perfection of instruments as modern in- vention has provided, the records of the ancient observations may show slight variations as now worked out mathematically. But these slight variations, Lindsay exclaims (p. 86), only add confirmation of the authenticity of the record : " The motions and phases of the luminaries are visible every day, and with these alone we have been able to authen- ticate the whole of the Almagest.' Even the errors of Ptolemy augment, if possible, the evidence for the authenticity of the Syntaxis, and," he cries out in conclusion, " A foundation is laid for chronology sure as the stars." It fills one's heart with awe to think of these shining points of light in the heavens bearing their witness to the truth of historic dates on which time prophecy depends. Take one illustration, and one which shows even by slight variations how the modern mathematician verifies the ancient observation: Ptolemy's " Almagest " preserves the record of an eclipse of the moon observed at Babylon on the night of the seventeenth of the month Phamenoth, in the seventh year of Cambyses, king of Persia, the year 225 of the Canon. That meant, in our reckoning, the night following July 16, B. C. 523. The modern astronomer sits down with pencil and paper, and the figures of his calculation show that on that very night an eclipse of the moon must have been observable in Babylon. In looking it up in two learned authors, I find an interesting variation. Sir Isaac Newton gives the exact time of that eclipse as just before twelve, midnight, of July 16, B. c. 523. The chronologist Dr. William Hales makes it twelve seconds after that midnight hour, and so on July 17. The few seconds' or minutes' vari- ation in tracing the revolving spheres through the ages, only adds interest to the fascinating subject in the layman's mind. They tell us that during the Great War the top of the ruin supposed to be the base of the tower of Babel was used by 148 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT the British forces in Mesopotamia as a wireless station. The ancient tower base may still serve some purpose that sets the ways of this modern age of science in contrast with the ways of men in the dawn of history. But year in and year out, night after night and day after day, regardless of passing events in this little world, the heavenly timekeepers have turned in their orbits, looking down on us today as they looked upon Thebes and Nineveh and Babylon in the days of old. The theme we follow here is the contribution of ancient observations to the certainty of historical facts connected with divine prophecy. Professor Mitchell, an astronomer, speaks of this certainty in the verification of ancient eclipses : " Go back three thousand years, stand upon that mighty watchtower, the temple of Belus, in old Babylon, and look out. The sun is sinking in eclipse, and great is the dismay of the terror-stricken inhabitants. We have the fact and circum- stances recorded. But how shall we prove that the record is correct ? The astronomer unravels the devious movements of the sun, the earth, and the moon, through the whole period of three thousand years ; with the power of intellect, he goes backward through the cycles of thirty long centuries, and an- nounces that at such an hour, on such a day as the Chaldean has written — that eclipse did take place."—"Sacred Chronol- ogy," by S. Bliss, chap. 8. The ancients, of course, in determining the time of day or night, depended upon the casual observation of the heavens. In one of the poetical pieces of Euripides (B. c. 480-407) the time of night is in question, and one says, "What is the star now passing? " Another answers, " The pleiades show themselves in the East; The eagle soars in the summit of heaven." Beyond the reach of daily time bells or guns and electric time regulators and clocks, modern man still follows the hours by the same methods that served his ancient forefathers. THE HEAVENS CONFIRM THE PROPHECY �149 A YOUNG MATHEMATICIAN'S FIGURES The infinite precision of the host of heavenly timekeepers, and the complexity of their related motions, bear witness to the divine personal regulating Hand. The story of the dis- covery of the planet Neptune is a romance of mathematical astronomy. In the '40's young John Couch Adams, who had distinguished himself in mathematics at Cambridge, England, set out to study a peculiarity about the movement of the planet Uranus. The narrative, told by Orrin Lake, goes on : " Uranus was first detected by Sir William Herschel in 1781. But this planet was a peculiar one. Its motions were so irregular as to seem erratic. " When, according to the fixed laws of astronomical science, it ought to have been in a certain place, it was found to be somewhere else. That is to say, Uranus, unlike the other plan- ets, wandered from its regular course. " But in the universe, everything is controlled by inflexible law. If this great heavenly body seemed to violate the law which astronomers knew, it must be for some cause or by reason of some other law of which astronomers were ignorant. Who could explain this thing? " To this task the young Cambridge mathematician set him- self, not with telescopes and astronomical apparatus, nor by gazing upon the heavens ; but in his study with pencil and paper, and by the aid simply of his profound mathematical knowledge. " The thought occurred to him that if Uranus moved ir- regularly, it was perhaps because some larger planet, which no man had ever seen, lay beyond it, and that by the attraction of gravitation this huge unknown mass of matter affected the course of Uranus and drew it from its normal path. " By a long and most complicated mathematical process, Adams determined to his own satisfaction, first, that a planet did exist ; second, its distance from the earth; and furthermore, its regular sidereal motion, its eccentricity, and its size. He drew up a memorandum setting forth these results, and placed it in the hands of the Astronomer Royal at the Observatory in Greenwich. 150 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT " Adams also had declared that, if a certain portion of the heavens were swept by a powerful telescope at a period which he named, the new planet would be visible. The Astronomer Royal brought to bear the power of his great telescope upon that portion of the sky, and he actually beheld a new and bril- liant star ; yet, curiously enough, he failed to recognize it as a body which had not been seen before. This was because there was as yet in England no star map. " But on the evening of Sept. 23, 1846, the German as- tronomer, Dr. Galle, of Berlin, gazing through his telescope, saw the hitherto unknown planet, and knew it to be a heavenly body hitherto unknown, and looming out of the depths of in- finite space. " Here was indeed a scientific marvel. A young mathema- tician, by calculations upon paper, had not only learned that a planet was in existence far beyond human sight, but he had been able to describe it, and even to weigh it, and to predict the time when it would come within the range of astronomic vision ! " We too celebrate the skill with which the mathematician and scientifically trained observer works out some of the mar- vels of creation. But how infinitely beyond all human thought is the power of the Creator who sets all the unnumbered worlds in their orbits, giving each its name and its mission. The liv- ing God challenges all the unbelief of the ages : " To whom will ye liken Me, or shall I be equal ? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by num- ber : He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power ; not one faileth." Isa. 40 : 25, 26. " BY THE WORD OF HIS POWER " And the One who keeps them from falling, who issues this challenge, is Jesus, our Saviour. He was the active agent of the Father in creation. " All things were made by Him." John 1 : 3. He who upholds all the worlds on high is the One who died for us, and who now, as our High Priest, ministers THE HEAVENS CONFIRM THE PROPHECY �151 forgiveness and power from the heavenly sanctuary to every believer who comes by faith to Him. " And He who rolls the stars along, Makes all the promises." The first business of Heaven now is the saving of this lost world in the great universe of God. It is written : " God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, bath_in _these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the rilht-hand of the Majesty on high." Heb. 1 : 1-3. " Upholding all things by the word of His power ! " And He says to us, " Fear not ; I will uphold thee." We look at the heavens. He upholds them. " Not one faileth." Oh, the certainty of the things of God ! The apostle Paul gloried in the certainty : " As God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in Him was yea. For all the prom- ises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." 2 Cor. 1: 18-20. We are dealing with everlasting foundations and eternal sureties all the way. All created things bear witness of the living Creator. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans of the unreasonableness of unbelief in his day, so is it true of unbelief today : " Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them ; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without excuse." Rom. 1 : 19, 20. 152 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT A ROMAN WHO SAW IT An ancient pagan poet, Manlius, saw this evidence in the starry creation of the controlling hand of a personal Creator : " Yet these still keep one course: they still pursue Their constant track, nor vary in a new ; " From one fixed point they start, their course maintain, Repeat their whirl, and visit it again. " And this is strange, and this doth more surprise Than all the other wonders of the skies, " That such unwieldy frames their signs should draw, As moved by Reason, and controlled by law ; " No change in distance nor in site appear, Though great their number, long the rolling year. "A most controlling reason, drawn from sense, That this vast frame is ruled by Providence. . . . " It must be God; nor was it made by chance." — Book 1, pp. xi, xii, translation by Creech. „ If men would follow the evidence in creation of a living personal God and search for Him, they would find Him. But the divine plan does not leave men with the voice of nature only. There is the written revelation in Holy Scripture ; and God calls those who know Him to world-wide missionary service in carrying this light of the written word to men. In this time when the judgment hour is passing in heaven above and the destiny of all mankind is soon to be fixed for all eternity, it is not at all strange that Satan should spread abroad unbelief in the written word, and put into the popular mind the idea that the account of creation and the fall of man in Holy Scripture is but a myth. It is the way that Satan, the old dragon who has resisted Christ all the way through, would naturally work as the end nears. Speaking of these times of His second coming, Christ said, " Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth? " Luke 18 : 8. Yet never in any age before did men have so great an insight THE HEAVENS CONFIRM THE PROPHECY �153 into the wonders of created things, from a world to an atom. Every new telescope of added power enlarges our view of God's, handiwork. An English writer, Arthur S. Eddington, pro- fessor of Astronomy at Cambridge University, says : " The largest telescopes reveal about a thousand million stars. Each increase in telescopic power adds to the number, and we can scarcely set a limit to the multitude that must exist." — Harper's Magazine, October, 1928. " Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end." Isa. 9 : 7. " The heavens declare the glory of God," not only in the shining witness they bear to His creative and upbuilding power, but in the evidence they give us of the certainties of His fulfilling word of prophecy. THE CARE AND POWER OF GOD How infinite the wisdom and the power of God ! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out, save as He reveals them to us in the unerring word of Holy Writ ! " In its sublime research, philosophy May measure out the ocean deep, may count The sands or the sun's rays, but God! for Thee There is no weight nor measure; none can mount Up to Thy mysteries. Reason's brightest spark, Though kindled by Thy light, in vain would try To trace Thy counsels, infinite and dark ; And thought is lost ere thought can soar so high. " 0 Thou eternal one: whose presence bright All space doth occupy, all motion guide; Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight ; Thou only God! There is no God beside! " Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround, Upheld by Thee, by Thee inspired with breath ! " A million torches lighted by Thy hand Wander unwearied through the blue abyss : They own Thy power, accomplish Thy command, All gay with life, all eloquent with bliss. 154 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT " Thou art! directing, guiding all, Thou art! Direct my understanding, then, to Thee; Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart : Though but an atom, midst immensity, Still I am something, fashioned by Thy hand! " Creator, yes ! Thy wisdom and Thy word Created me! Thou source of life and good! Thou Spirit of my spirit, and my Lord! — Derzhavn. A divine hand moves the clock of the universe. There is no slipping of the wheels, no weakening of the springs of action. ',The same divine hand overrules in the kingdoms of men, and through all history He has been working out His purpose, to save men and finally to put an end to sin and death. By the testimony of fulfilled and fulfilling prophecy we may know to a certainty that the voice of the living God speaks in Holy Scripture. All creation leaves the skeptic without excuse. The prophetic word, fulfilled to the letter, rebukes the stub- bornness of unbelief. " Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass ; I have even from the be- ginning declared it to thee ; before it came to pass I showed it thee : lest thou shouldst say, Mine idol bath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, bath commanded them." Isa. 48 : 4, 5. Many today serve the god of chance. Even the ancient pagans had such a god. Pliny, the Roman, wrote : " Fortune is the only god whom every one invokes. . . . We are so much in the power of chance that chance itself is con- sidered as a god."—"Natural History," book 2, chap. 5. That dreary doctrine of utter helplessness is the best that the most refined philosophers of unbelief can provide, either ancient or modern. But chance is not guiding and controlling the starry heavens above in their circuits, and chance is not ruling the world below. Events are moving with swift and cer- tain tread along the course foretold in prophecy. CHAPTER XIII The Rise of the Advent Movement at the Appointed Hour ON the Isle of Patmos, nineteen hundred years ago, the Lord revealed to the prophet John in vision the scenes of the last days. He beheld the second coming of Christ in glory, coming to reap the harvest of the earth : " I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap : for the time is come for Thee to reap ; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth ; and the earth was reaped." Rev. 14: 14-16. It is a picture in symbol that applies at the very end of the world ; for Jesus said to His disciples of old, " The harvest is the end of the world." Matt. 13: 39. WHAT COMES JUST BEFORE THE END But just before the coming of Christ, the prophet was shown the rise of a special gospel movement bearing to the world a definite message of preparation for the coming of our Lord in power and glory. What he saw in this vision of the closing gospel movement he wrote on the page of prophecy. We read it in the fourteenth of Revelation just as he wrote it nineteen centuries ago. This, in brief outline, is what he saw in the vision : 1. He saw a movement rise and spread swiftly, its flight symbolized by an angel flying " in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the 155 156 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." Verse 6. As the prophet listened in the vision, he heard the mes- sage that was preached by this movement to every nation and tongue: " 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. " 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. " And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God." Rev. 14: 7-10. As the prophet watched in the vision, he saw the dis- tinguishing mark of the people who would carry on this move- ment the kind of people who would spring up among all nations at the preaching of the threefold message. The proph- ecy describes them in the twelfth verse : " Here is the patience of the saints : here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Then, when the message reached all nations, the vision closed with that picture of the coming of Christ on the great white cloud, to reap the harvest of the earth. THE PICTURE IN PROPHECY The picture of the prophecy is clear. In fact, these repre- sentations to the prophets of old in vision seem like the passing of a moving picture across the screen. The prophet John saw the coming of the time of the judg- ment hour in heaven in the year 1844. Just there he saw the rise of a people keeping the com- mandments of God, as distinguished from the traditions of men. THE RISE AT THE APPOINTED HOUR � 157 And he saw this people spreading through the world in one great Advent Movement, preaching, " The hour of His judg- ment is come." This was written on the prophetic page on the Isle of Pat- mos. The centuries passed. The predicted "falling away " from the primitive faith came. Christendom went into the Dark Ages. .-The Reformation came, breaking light for a new day by restoring the word of God to men. The " time of the end " came, of which the angel had said to Daniel the prophet : " Thou, 0 Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end : many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Dan. 12: 4. Amidst spreading to and fro of light and increasing knowl- edge, the movement of modern missions and the era of Bible societies and translation of the Scriptures came, great agencies by which the Spirit moved upon the face of the darkness over- spreading the peoples. All the time it stood written on this page of the Revelation that when the time of the judgment hour in heaven should come, this special Advent Movement would come on earth, and a people keeping the commandments of God would arise to preach the definite message for the judgment hour. THE PROPHETIC PICTURE FULFILLED It was written on the prophetic page, yet nowhere on earth was such a movement seen, nowhere in the world had such a people appeared, preaching this definite message of the proph- ecy — until the year 1844 brought the opening of " the hour of His judgment." Then, at that very hour, in the year 1844, the movement of the prophecy arose, the people of the prophecy appeared, keep- ing " the commandments of God," preaching the definite mes- sage of the prophecy proclaiming the hour of God's judg- ment come, and warning against following the ways of human 158 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT tradition in this time when soon the Saviour is coming in power and glory to reap the final harvest. It was in 1844, in Washington, New Hampshire, that a group of believers in the near advent of Christ Adventists they were — saw in Scripture the call of God to " keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus " in preparation for the judgment hour. They saw that the true Sabbath — the seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment — was still the Sabbath of the Lord their God. These Adventist believers began to keep it in the fear of God and in loyalty to His holy law. From that beginning, in 1844, the work of Seventh-day Adventists — as they were later called — has spread through- out the world today. Their forces are made up by the incoming everywhere of thousands from all churches and no churches, from Christendom and heathendom and the Moslem peoples, answering the call of the message, to take their stand upon the New Testament platform —" the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." -i-They follow the example of Christ and the apostles in keeping the Sabbath of the Lord instead of the. Sunday of human authority. WHEN THE HOUR STRUCK, THE FULFILLMENT CAME When the hour of the prophecy came, the movement of the prophecy appeared. Things like this do not come by chance. The same living God who set the hour by the vision of Daniel, in the days of ancient Babylon, wrought the fulfill- ment when the hour struck in 1844. There is the precision of eternity in the working out of the time schedules of divine prophecy. I am reminded of an illustration furnished by a famous clock overlooking a square in the medieval city of Nuremberg. I stood one day watching the clock tower just before the hour of midday. Others gathered there. They had heard the fame of the clock's mechanism. The hour of twelve began to strike. THE RISE AT THE APPOINTED HOUR � 159 Immediately a little door opened in the face of the clock. A group of doll-like figures, dressed in sixteenth century costume, came out upon a platform. They represented Charles the Fifth and his princes. The emperor took his throne, the princes bowed before him while the hour of twelve was striking; and when the striking ceased they all disappeared again. That was the exact mechanism of the old timepiece. When the hour struck, those little figures stepped onto the platform and did their work. Just so, when the clock of time struck the opening of the judgment hour in heaven above in 1844, there stepped onto the platform of this world's activities, that people of the proph- ecy keeping the commandments of God and preaching the mes- sage of the prophecy, with faces set toward every nation and kindred and tongue and people. The certainty of this Advent Movement is capable of mathe- matical demonstration. One may work it out with pencil and paper as one works out a problem in arithmetic. It began at the right time, according to the prophecy ; the right factors were present in it — a people keeping the commandments of God ; and the movement set its face in the right way, toward " every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." Now and then in the movement we have seen some man become disaffected. He falls out with his associates or with the church. Everything, he feels, is going wrong. " Oh, come," he says, in effect, as he starts something of his own, " this is not the right advent movement. Come with me, and we will start the right one ! " " Ah," we reply, " but when, according to the prophecy, must the right Advent Movement rise ? It must begin in 1844, when the hour of God's judgment began. This movement began in 1844, when the hour of the prophecy came. If this has not been the right movement, then it is over eighty years too late to start the right one, and there has been a failure somewhere." 160 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT But there has been no failure. When the time came the Advent Movement appeared, bearing the message of the prophecy. By evidence upon evidence the Lord gives us cer- tain foundation for faith. Again and again that assurance of His rings in our souls : " Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee ? " Prov. 22 : 20, 21. CHAPTER XIV Preparation for the Advent Movement IT was D'Aubigne, speaking of the times of the Reforma- tion, who said that God prepares from afar for special develop- ments in His work on earth, and when the time comes, is ready to carry out the divine purposes by use of the simplest means. From afar His providence prepared for the definite Ad- vent Movement of Revelation fourteen. The Reformation had set free the word of Holy Scripture. The era of exploration had come, with the discovery of a New World, as though Providence had timed the opening of all the lands of earth to receive the light as the Reformation lifted up again the shining Lamp for humanity's feet. INCREASE OF KNOWLEDGE The last decade of the eighteenth century had brought the ending of the prophetic period of the 1260 years of papal su- premacy, amidst the upheavals of the French Revolution. The prophecy had said that the people of God would be under trial, " to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end." Dan. 11: 35. The ending of that period of trial, then, brought " the time of the end," the ushering in of the latter days. To the new era applied the angel's words to Daniel : " But thou, 0 Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end : many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Dan. 12: 4. Upspringing with that very time came the era of religious and educational and industrial revival. The minds of men 11 � 161 162 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT were awakened to new activity. The spirit of invention and research brought new methods for old. A new birth of mis- sionary interest came to Christendom, and the great work of modern missions and of Bible translation and distribution be- gan. They are agencies of Providence for " the time of the end " when knowledge was to be increased and men were to run " to and fro " through all lands. It is fascinating to watch fulfilling prophecy. In the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, the angel foretold the modern era of increase of knowledge. The centuries ran on. Empires had risen and fallen. The great apostasy of early Christendom had developed the predicted ecclesiastical kingdom of the Papacy. All the time that word to Daniel the prophet stood written on the page, awaiting the hour. And when the time of the end came,— at the close of the prophetic period,— how dis- tinctly was the prophecy fulfilled in the spreading to and fro over the earth of increased knowledge and light. The coming of this era in the closing years of the eighteenth century prepared the way for a great advent awakening in the early decades of the nineteenth century. EVENTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION The events of the French Revolution had given new impetus to the study of prophecy. The upheavals in France against the papal religion had been so clearly foretold in the prophecy of the eleventh chapter of Revelation that for more than a hundred years students of the Scriptures had looked to France as the scene of this break with the Papacy. In 1639 Dr. Goodwin, of England, had written that it seemed to him France should deal the stroke. Jurieu, in Holland, in 1687, wrote, " I cannot hinder myself from believing that this hath a particular regard to France." When, therefore, the sword of France dealt the Papacy the " deadly wound " in 1798, even the secular historian must needs note the awakening of interest in prophetic study aroused by PREPARATION FOR THE ADVENT MOVEMENT � 163 the event. In his " History of France From 1790-1802," John Adolphus, an English historian, wrote in 1803: fic " The downfall of the papal government (in 1798), by hatever means affected, excited perhaps less sympathy than - � that of any other in Europe : the errors, the oppressions, the tyranny of Rome over the whole Christian world, were remem- bered with bitterness ; many rejoiced, through religious an- tipathy, in the overthrow of a church which they considered as idolatrous, though attended with the immediate triumph of infidelity; and many saw in these events the accomplishment of prophecies, and the exhibition of signs promised in the most mystical parts of the Holy Scriptures."—Vol. II, p. 379 (Lon- don, 1803). A London religious quarterly, the Morning Watch, or Quarterly Journal on Prophecy, itself a sign of this early advent awakening, wrote in 1829 of the influence of the events of the French Revolution upon prophetic study : " The consequences of this terrible convulsion to the church were most important and beneficial. She was thereby shaken out of the sloth which had crept over her; was driven in her terror to the Scriptures, her only anchor and polestar ; and found, to her joy, that they were no longer a sealed book, but that the mystery of God was drawing to its close, and that the events of every year explained something previously unknown. Multitudes, no doubt, thus strengthened their faith, who have never published the results ; but many did immediately publish, and the sudden perspicuity of interpretation is very observable." — December, 1829. From the presses of England, Germany, America, and other lands, books and documents on prophecy and the second com- ing of Christ began to pour forth. The great catalogue of the British Museum Library during this period bears particular witness to the awakening of interest in the doctrine of Christ's second coming. It was like a trumpet call in all Christendom. Indeed, well before the coming of the last day of the sanc- tuary service in ancient Israel — their annual judgment hour, 164 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT when the sanctuary was to be cleansed — the people were fore- warned by trumpet call of the coming of the great day. This day of atonement was on the tenth day of the seventh month. But on the first day of the month there was " a memorial of blowing of trumpets." Lev. 23 : 24. The silver trumpets pealed forth over the camp, summoning all the people to holy convocation, putting them in remembrance of the near approach of the solemn hour when they were to be brought before the judgment throne of the divine Presence, as their high priest entered within the most holy place of the sanctuary. That " memorial of blowing of trumpets " called for preparation of heart to meet God in the coming day of the cleansing of the sanctuary. THE ADVENT AWAKENING True to the type, before ever the year 1844 brought the opening hour of the great antitypical cleansing of the true sanctuary above, this advent awakening swept over Christen- dom, sounding the trumpet call to give attention to the near approach of " the hour of His judgment." Many preachers and students of the Bible were moved upon in various lands to sound the cry that the coming of the Lord was drawing near. Witnesses were raised up in Holland, Germany, Russia, the Scandinavian countries, as well as in England, America, and other parts. By the early '40's the awakening cry was sounding like a " memorial of blowing of trumpets " over Christendom. Mourant Brock, M. A., of the Church of England, wrote in those times before 1844 : " It is not merely in Great Britain that the expectation of the near return of the Redeemer is entertained, and the voice of warning raised, but also in America, India, and on the Con- tinent of Europe. � was lately told by one of our German ( missionaries that iri Wirtemberg there is a Christian colony of several hundreds, one of the chief features of which is the looking for the second advent. And a Christian minister from near the shores of the Caspian Sea has told me that there is the same daily expectation among his nation. They constantly PREPARATION FOR THE ADVENT MOVEMENT �165 speak of it as ' the day of consolation.' In a little publication entitled, ' The Millennium,' the writer says that he understands in America about 300 ministers of the word are thus preaching ' this gospel of the kingdom,' while in this country, he adds, about 700 of the Church of England are raising the same cry." — Advent Tracts, Vol. II, quoted in Advent Herald, July 22, 1846. Of the activities in America, Josiah Litch, of Boston, said in 1842 : " Within the last three years there have been sent from our office in this city second advent publications to nearly all the English and American missionary stations on the earth. They have been sent to China, to Burmah, to Hindostan, to the East Indies, to Persia, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Constantinople, into Africa, the West India Islands, the islands of the Pacific, the Indian missions both sides of the Rocky Mountains. They have also been scattered broadcast all over these States, and in the Canadas, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, etc. There are now probably five or six hundred ministers of the gospel in the United States who are engaged more or less in preaching the doctrine of the speedy coming of Christ, and a large number who are devoted entirely to the work. The doctrine has made more progress within the last four months than in all previous time."— Advent Library, 1842. There was by no means agreement in detail of prophetic interpretation. It was a new study. But the essence of it all was that prophecy and the signs of the times proclaimed the second coming of Christ and the judgment hour drawing near. Some saw that the 2300 years of Daniel's prophecy would end in 1844. Authors publishing this view included the learned William Cuninghame, of Scotland; Matthew Habershon, of the Church of England ; William Miller, of America. But there was not agreement as to the event to take place in 1844. Not one of those pre-1844 students understood the meaning of the cleansing of the sanctuary, or that the prophecy of the judg- ment hour pointed to the wondrous scene in the heavenly sanc- 166 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT tuary when Christ would enter upon His closing ministry as our High Priest before the Ancient of days. THE MOVEMENT IN AMERICA While Europe produced the greater volume of books on prophecy and the second advent in those times, it was in America that the awakening took the form of an organized movement. In Europe the writers and preachers of various denominations worked generally from their individual pulpits, publishing on their own initiative. In America the view that the cleansing of the sanctuary in 1844 meant the coming of Christ in glory, gave great impetus to the advent proclamation. It formed a distinct Adventist body, numbering many thou- sands, working in close co-operation, sounding the call to pre- pare to meet God. It was no preaching of sensationalism, but a call to sober living and thinking, and to genuine conversion of heart and putting away of sin. Most of the leaders were ministers formerly with the various denominations, but now out as evangelists giving the warning cry. Beyond the United States and Canada it seems that only in England was there a definite call to prepare to meet the sec- ond coming of the Lord in 1844. In England, under Robert Winter and others, who worked in co-operation with the effort in America, many looked for the advent at that time, and some thousands were baptized into the advent faith. THEIR MISTAKE AND DISAPPOINTMENT After the passing of the time, unbelievers scoffed. The Lord had not come to earth. Those who had looked for His glorious appearing were disappointed. But they had given the call to prepare for the hour of God's judgment, and that was the call due to be given the world at that time. The proclama- tion turned men's thoughts to the coming of the judgment hour in 1844, though those who sounded the cry were mistaken as to the place of the judgment work and as to Christ's part in it. PREPARATION FOR THE ADVENT MOVEMENT �167 They were right as to the time, and God's providence was in the great advent awakening. In the days of the first advent the apostles and believers were mistaken as to the event to follow Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. They cried, " Hosannah to the Son of David," and expected to see Him come at that time to the throne. They were disappointed ; but even so the message of hosannahs was due at that moment in fulfillment of prophecy: All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee." Matt. 21: 4, 5. The time had come for that cry to be heard, and the be- lievers in old Jerusalem sounded it, even though not under- standing it, and though facing all unconsciously a bitter dis- appointment. Just so the trumpet call of preparation for the coming judg- ment hour was due to the world in the years preceding 1844. The awakening call was sounded, attended by the power of God. When the time drew near, the providence of God raised up the witnesses, even though those engaged in the work did not fully understand the course of events to follow. On that day df Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, some of the Pharisees heard even the children crying, " Hosan- nah," and they felt " sore displeased." As they were looking on and descendants of theirs there are who are always merely looking on they asked Jesus to rebuke the disciples. These unbelievers had no thought of any fulfillment of proph- ecy in the cry. But Jesus answered : " I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." Luke 19: 40. The prophecy had foretold such a cry, and the time for it was come. So as the times drew near to 1844, the cry of the coming judgment hour was bound to be heard. It is inter- esting to note that in one land, where the authorities endeavored 168 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT to silence the cry, even children — like the children of the Jerusalem streets were inspired to proclaim the coming of the Lord. It was in 1843. In one part of Sweden, preachers had been silenced and one or two imprisoned. " In many places where the preachers of the Lord's soon coming were thus silenced, God was pleased to send the mes- sage, in a miraculous manner, through little children. As they were under age, the law of the state could not restrain them, and they were permitted to speak unmolested. " The movement was chiefly among the lower class, and it was in the humble dwellings of the laborers that the people as- sembled to hear the warning. The child-preachers themselves were mostly poor cottagers. Some of them were not more than six or eight years of age; and while their lives testified that they loved the Saviour, and were trying to live in obedience to God's holy requirements, they ordinarily manifested only the intelligence and ability usually seen in children of that age. " When standing before the people, however, it was evident that they were moved by an influence beyond their own natural gifts. Tone and manner changed, and with solemn power they gave the warning of the judgment, employing the very words of Scripture, ' Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come.' They reproved the sins of the people, not only condemning immorality and vice, but rebuking worldliness and backsliding, and warning their hearers to make haste to flee from the wrath to come. " The people heard with trembling. The convicting Spirit of God spoke to their hearts. Many were led to search the Scriptures with new and deeper interest, the intemperate and immoral were reformed, others abandoned their dishonest prac- tices, and a work was done so marked that even ministers of the state church were forced to acknowledge that the hand of God was in the movement. " It was God's will that the tidings of the Saviour's coming should be given in the Scandinavian countries ; and when the voices of His servants were silenced, He put His Spirit upon the children, that the work might be accomplished."—" The Great Controversy," pp. 366, 367. Those who came up to 1844 fully expecting to see their Saviour come, passed through bitter disappointment. They PREPARATION FOR THE ADVENT MOVEMENT �169 could not understand. Multitudes gave up all hope of the advent. Some joined the scoffers. THE DISAPPOINTMENT EXPLAINED Others prayed for light and leading, and light and under- standing came. It was said of the disciples who had sounded the hosannahs at Christ's entry into Jerusalem, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah, but only to be disappointed in their expectations : " These things understood not His disciples at the first : but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of Him." John 12: 16. Just so, as some of these disappointed Adventists in the days of 1844 prayed for light, understanding came. One who had passed through the experience was a sturdy farmer, Hiram Edson, of western New York. He was a keen Bible student and a good writer. He first, of all students of the prophecy, caught a glimpse of the true meaning of the cleansing of the sanctuary, and saw that instead of the 2300 years of Daniel 8: 14 meaning that Christ would come to earth in 1844, it foretold His coming into the judgment scene, in the most holy of the heavenly sanctuary. Of his own disappointment in 1844, on that day of October 22 —" the tenth day of the seventh month "— and the coming of light to his soul the day following, Mr. Edson wrote: " Our expectations were raised high, and thus we looked for our coming Lord until the clock tolled twelve at midnight. The day had then passed, and our disappointment had become a certainty. Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never ex- perienced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept and wept, till the day dawn. . . . " I mused in my heart, saying : ' My advent experience has been the brightest of all my Christian experience. . . . Has the Bible proved a failure ? Is there no God, no heaven, no golden 170 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT city, no Paradise ? Is all this but a cunningly devised fable? Is there no reality to our fondest hopes and expectations ? ' . . . " I began to feel there might be light and help for us in our distress. I said to some of the brethren: ' Let us go to the barn.' We entered the granary, shut the doors about us, and bowed before the Lord. We prayed earnestly, for we felt our necessity. We continued in earnest prayer until the witness of the Spirit was given that our prayers were accepted, and that light should be given,— our disappointment explained, made clear and satisfactory. "After breakfast I said to one of my brethren, ' Let us go and see and encourage some of our brethren.' We started, and while passing through a large field, I was stopped about midway of the field. Heaven seemed open to my view, and I saw dis- tinctly and clearly that instead of our High Priest coming out of the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary to this earth on the tenth day of the seventh month, at the end of the 2300 days, He, for the first time, entered on that day into the second apartment of that sanctuary, and that He had a work to per- form in the most holy place before coming to the earth. — Quoted in the Review and Herald, June 23, 1921. INCREASING LIGHT Meantime, while Mr. Edson and a group of Adventist believers in western New York were studying anew and pre- paring to publish the exposition of the sanctuary and its cleans- ing, another group of Adventists in New England, as we have seen, had found the Sabbath truth, and were lifting up the standard of " the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." These groups, joined by others, composed the first Sabbath-keeping Adventists Seventh-day Adventists, as they were known later. They saw that of a certainty the hour of God's judgment had come in 1844, according to the prophecy, and that henceforth the threefold message of Revelation 14: 6-12 was the special gospel message that was to be carried to all nations. The definite Advent Movement of the prophecy had begun. And from that day of small things, the movement has spread into all parts of the world. PREPARATION FOR THE ADVENT MOVEMENT � 171 Printing houses in many lands, established by Seventh-day Adventists, are printing/ the message in hundreds of languages. A recent report showed" a new language added every twenty-two days over a series of six years, and fifty-five languages added to the list in the last year fully reported. Schools are training thousands of youth to give their lives to the work of spreading the message. Many sanitariums or health centers are treating the sick and training nurses for mis- sionary service, while a full medical college turns out physicians for medical missionary work in all lands. Christ says of the end of the missionary enterprise (in which naturally Seventh-day Adventists gladly recognize in all the churches every agency that is spreading gospel light) : " This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations ; and then shall the end come." Matt. 24: 14. The world is not to be converted. But when the witness of the gospel of the kingdom has reached all nations, the Saviour will come in power and glory to reap the harvest of the earth. It stands written in the Scriptures of truth that the message of Revelation 14 : 6-12 is the special message of the " ever- lasting gospel " now, and the hand of Providence has won- drously prepared the way and the means fore carrying the message to all nations in our day. CHAPTER XV Providential Provision for a Quick Work NOTICE how visibly the hand of Providence has prepared the way for a quick work of world evangelization in this hour of God's judgment. In the prophecy, the onward flight of the Advent Move- ment, carrying the special message of " the everlasting gospel " for this hour, is represented under the symbol of an angel flying " in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, 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." Rev. 14 : 6, 7. A few years before the coming of the hour and the rise of the movement, in 1844, there was not a railway train on earth nor had a steamship crossed the seas. Men were traveling as the ancients traveled, as fast as horse or camel could run or as fast as a sailing boat could go. That had been the history of man for nearly six thousand years. THE SUDDEN CHANGE But the hour of God's judgment was at hand, when the light of the everlasting gospel was to be spread quickly through all lands. And what do we see? — Suddenly the whole history of man changes. Stephenson's first passenger locomotive was running in 1825. The first steamships to cross the Atlantic under all steam power, arrived in New York from England in 1838, and the newspapers of the day hailed their arrival as ushered in the era of transoceanic steamship travel. Professor Alfred Russell Wallace, the scientist, wrote : 172 PROVIDENTIAL PROVISION FOR A QUICK WORK � 173 " From the earliest historic and even in prehistoric times till the construction of our great railways, . . . there had been absolutely no change in the methods of human locomotion."-- "The Wonderful Century," p. 7. Why should men go the old way for nearly six thousand years, and then suddenly everything change ? It is the prep- aration of Providence for the quick evangelization of the world in this generation. When the Exodus Movement came out of Egypt, the Red Sea was before them. There was no way to cross it. But the living God " made the depths of the sea a way." He can make ways where there are no ways. In Isaiah's prophecy of world evangelization in the last days, the word of the Lord says : " I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west ; I will say to the north, Give up ; and to the south, Keep not back : bring My sons from far, and My daughters from the ends of the earth." Isa. 43: 5, 6. And He adds : " Thus saith the Lord, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters." Verse 16. As verily as ever He made a path through the Red Sea in the days of the Exodus Movement, He has in our time made a path over all the seas � to the uttermost ends of the earth. As Kipling says, " He bath made the deep as dry, He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the earth." RUNNING TO AND FRO Later came the application of electricity to rapid locomo- tion and the transmission of news. The motor car is rapidly putting the world on wheels. Men are truly running " to and fro," according to the prophecy of the time of the end. Now come the airships and the airplanes to make the air a way for swift intercommunication and travel. The marvels of the 174 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT wireless or radio suggest how close to one another the whole world dwells today, within speaking distance, and add a sug- gestion as to how quickly, in some great crisis, the gospel mes- sage may be spread literally to all mankind. A writer, review- ing a book of travel of forty years ago, says : " Forty years ago ! The radio not even a dream. The flying machine but a made-up adventure by the wholly mythical Darius Green. The automobile, a crazy contraption, wobbling along the roadway to the terror of both horse and man. A long time ago, forty years — several hundred years in effect. " Today everybody is on wheels rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. Ships sail the air, today, roundingthe earth from side to side, from top to bottom. The radio brings immediate world-wide contacts, even from the far Antarctica itself, as if this were but a suburb of the vast continental masses to the north of it. Truly exploration is not what it used to be, not what it was only a half century ago."— Ida Gilbert Myers. So rapid are the developments of these news-carrying and space-shrinking inventions that no one can venture to write about the latest in a printed book. It requires the daily press to keep the record. But here let us inscribe what is known as " the first radio hymn," acknowledging the hand of God in these t ngs that TaT hold of the hitherto unknown forces in nature to spread abroad light and knowledge : " 0 Thou who first didst use a sign To keep Thy children from despair — The pillared cloud, the fire divine, The rainbow pledge of future care — " Imperfectly we know Thy thought, Yet dare recall Thy ways of yore; Behold, 0 Lord, what Thou hast wrought, And bless the radio, we implore. " The speeding message far transcends The bounds and limits man assigns; We use Thy lightning for our ends Afar; we follow Thy designs. PROVIDENTIAL PROVISION FOR A QUICK WORK � 175 " Thy laws fulfilled, we work our will With clever touch of sentient keys, And unseen wavelets bear the thrill To distant shores of ether seas. " 0 may the wave lengths of our souls Be tuned and measured to Thine own. And keyed to pitch no foe controls, Preserve our contact with Thy throne." —Alice M. Shepard. We do well to recognize the hand of Providence in these developments that speed on world enlightenment. To many a pioneer in invention may be applied that word of the Lord to Cyrus the Great : " I girded thee, though thou hast not known Me." Isa. 45 : 5. ''Yet many a searcher into these new ways of our generation has felt upon him a divine impulse to persevere, like Morse, one of the inventors of the telegi-aph, whose first long-distance message, sent in 1844, from Balti- more to Washington, was a text of Scripture : " What hath God wrought ! " HASTENING ON THE GOSPEL The missionary enterprise lays hold of all these things as gifts of God for hastening on the gospel message. What pos- sibilities of a final quick closing of the work may lie in future developments of these means, we know not. Our hope is in the fact that the Holy Spirit speaks to every soul on earth, and that it is God who is to finish the work, not men, not mission forces, as it is written : " He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness : because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth." Rom. 9 : 28. Yet He uses material agencies. When I think of the air- ship, I am thinking most of all of what it may mean in quicker spreading of the gospel light. I remember the service of one of the earliest airships of pre-war days.',.,In one city of Europe, 176 � CERTAINTIES OF THE ADVENT MOVEMENT where religious liberty was then not enjoyed, a preacher of the advent message was distributing invitation cards to his lectures, the topics of the month being listed. He was arrested and forbidden to give out the cards. Then a watchful Providence*7 sent a royal prince with an airship, who distributed the an-4 nouncements from the air with at least one interesting response; from one who so received an invitation over the border in another country. " Take these cards up with you," said an official to the prince, " and drop them out. The people will think they fell down from heaven." Whatever direct missionary use the future airplane may furnish, one might make up a list of helpful missionary serv- ices already renderedX In mountainous Colombia, for instance, where formerly a certain trip required four or five days' jour- ney by mule, a colporteur with his books preaching the advent message covered the happy journey by airplane in less than an hour, and sold two of his books to fellow passengers while tin the air ! THE DOORS OF ACCESS SWING OPEN We have seen in this generation a distinct opening of doors of access to hitherto barred-in peoples. Remarkably many of these door openings seem to center around the time of 1844 and shortly after. The advent message due in 1844 was to go to " every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people," and we seem to see long-closed doors swinging open before it. By no means do I suggest the work of this Seventh-day Adventist people as the sole recipient of these provisions of Providence. These provisions have been brought forth for all mankind, and for the whole missionary undertakings of all societies and all agencies that make Christ known to men. But the fact remains that with the coming of the hour of God's judgment came the time for the special gospel message of Revelation fourteen. Every missionary agency that spreads the Holy Scriptures is distributing a Book that declares to men PROVIDENTIAL PROVISION FOR A QUICK WORK � 177 now, " The hour of His judgment is come." And every agency that lifts up the Holy Scriptures before men is proclaiming a holy law that says, " The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," and lifting up a Book that now calls all men to take their stand for " the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." But note this opening of doors round the times of 1844: In the history of African missions the years from 1841 to 1860 appear as years of extension into the interior. In 1844 Krapf, of the Church of England, landed at Mom- basa, and from the grave of his wife sent the message to Europe : " This is a sign that you have commenced the struggle; the hour is at hand when you are summoned to the conversion of Africa from its eastern shore."—"Africa Waiting," p. 73. " In 1845," says one record, " Livingstone's overmastering thought began to grow upon him. We find him saying: ' Who will penetrate through Africa ? ' " s