Jan-Feb 2008

  1. 2008 MOTTO TEXT
  2. THE CLEANSING STREAM
  3. OUR LORD'S RETURN
  4. THE SIXTH DAY OR EPOCH
  5. JUST FOR TODAY
  6. PUBLICATIONS
  7. ANNOUNCEMENTS

Many readers of the Bible Standard know that William Miller and the Christian movement begun by him received much public attention over a century and a half ago. Although he did not understand many features of Truth as clearly as we do today, we believe that he was one of the members of the seven stars of Rev. 1: 16, 20, held by Jesus in His right hand. He was specially assisted by our Lord in his search for those truths concerning prophetic time and our Lord’s Return. He was set forth as the Lord’s choice, to bear the light of advancing Truth as due for the Church in his day. While we are not Seventh Day, nor Second Adventists, we are Adventists who believe in the return of our Lord in His Second Presence. We understand that William Miller was the first reformer in the history of the Christian Church to figure out how (1) the Bible uses prophetic time, and (2) how to locate the time of a certain Bible-prophesied event, and who made a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to determine the date of Christ’s Second Coming. (3) He gave the correct understanding of the saints’ Millennial reign with Christ. His remarkable emphasis on Jesus’ Second Presence drew many to his movement.

A SOLDIER

Mr. Miller was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Feb. 15, 1782; shortly thereafter, his parents moved to Low Hampton, New York, where he was reared in a suburban religious atmosphere. He had an insatiable desire for knowledge and, despite hardships and very meager resources, he pursued his studies, usually with books borrowed from neighbors, and often read at night by the fireside under the light of burning pine knots. When in his twenties, he fell under the influence of deists and, after studying certain philosophies and skeptical books and papers, he at length became an avowed skeptic. In 1803 he married Lucy P. Smith and moved to Poultney, Vermont. In 1810 he was appointed a lieutenant in the Vermont militia. He fought in the War of 1812 and in 1814 was raised to the rank of captain in the U. S. Army. After the war, he settled his little family in Low Hampton.

A SEARCH FOR TRUTH

William’s life was not to be the life merely of a peaceful farmer. There were restless stirrings in his soul. While he had filled his mind with skepticism and therefore saw many things from a mistaken view, still he had an honest heart and a hunger for something that he could not understand. His inner struggle with the prevalent views, fostered in the amalgamation of the Church and the world, is revealed in his statement: “Annihilation was a cold and chilling thought, and accountability was sure destruction to all. The heavens were as brass over my head, and the earth as iron under my feet. ETERNITY! What was it? And death, why was it? The more I reasoned, the further I was from demonstration. The more I thought, the more scattered were my conclusions. I tried to stop thinking, but my thoughts would not be controlled. I was truly wretched, but did not understand the cause. I murmured and complained, but knew not of whom. I felt that there was a wrong, but knew not how, or where to find the right. I mourned, but without hope.”

A SAVIOR FOUND

“At length,” he wrote, “when brought almost to despair, God by His Holy Spirit opened my eyes. I saw Jesus as a friend, and my only help, and the Word of God as the perfect rule of duty. . . . But the question arose, how can it be proved that such a Being does exist?” William Miller was no emotionalist; and his skepticism only intensified his desire for proof. He correctly concludes: “Aside from the Bible, I found that I could get no evidence of the existence of such a Savior, or even of a future state. I felt that to believe in such a Savior without evidence would be visionary in the extreme. I saw that the Bible did bring to view just such a Savior as I needed; and I was perplexed to find how an uninspired book should develop principles so perfectly adapted to the wants of a fallen world. I was constrained to admit that the Scriptures must be a revelation from God; they became my delight, and in Jesus I found a friend.”

A DILIGENT STUDY

The news of Miller’s conversion brought a reaction from skeptical friends, one of whom faced him with his own former deistical arguments on the inconsistencies, contradictions and mysticisms which he had claimed are to be found in the Bible. He states: “I replied that if the Bible was the Word of God, everything contained therein might be understood, and all its parts be made to harmonize; and I said to him that if he would give me time, I would harmonize all these apparent contradictions, to my own satisfaction, or I would be a deist still.” He adds: “I then devoted myself to prayer and to the reading of the Word. I determined to lay aside all my preconceptions, to compare thoroughly, Scripture with Scripture, and to pursue its study in a regular and methodical manner. I commenced with Genesis, and read verse by verse, proceeding no faster than the meaning of the several passages should be so unfolded as to leave me free from embarrassment respecting any mysticism or contradictions. Whenever I found anything obscure, my practice was to compare it with all collateral passages; and by the help of Cruden [a concordance], I examined all the texts of Scripture in which were found any of the prominent words contained in any obscure portion. Then by letting every word have its proper bearing on the subject of the text, if my view of it harmonized with every collateral passage in the Bible, it ceased to be a difficulty.”

RESEARCHING PROPHECY

For two years Miller concentrated his studies by comparing Scripture with Scripture and prophecy with history. He noted that Bible prophecies regarding Christ’s First Advent were literally fulfilled though couched in figurative or symbolic language. By analogy
he reasoned that similar prophecies regarding Christ’s Second Coming would likewise have a fulfillment in His literal coming. He states: “Finding all the signs of the times and the present condition of the world, to compare harmoniously with the prophetic descriptions of the last days, I was compelled to believe that this world had about reached the limits of the period allotted for its continuance. As I regarded the evidence, I could arrive at no other conclusion.” He thought that the cleansing of the sanctuary mentioned in Dan. 8: 14 would involve the purging of the earth by fire, and that the 2300 years—the “days” in symbolic prophecy standing for years, would end about 1843. He stated: “I was thereby brought, in 1818, at the close of my two years’ study of the Scriptures, to the solemn conclusion, that in about twenty-five years from that time all the affairs of our present state would be wound up. I need not speak of the joy that filled my heart in view of the delightful prospect, nor of the ardent longings of my soul, for a participation in the joys of the redeemed. The Bible was now to me a new book.”

However, Bro. Miller did not rush into print nor seek a following. He feared lest others might receive his understanding without sufficiently examining the Scriptures in demonstration of its truth. He states: “I therefore feared to present it, lest by some possibility I should be in error, and be the means of misleading any.” He spent five more years in study, after which he states: “I was then fully settled in the conclusions which seven years previously had begun to bear with such impressive force upon my mind. The duty of presenting the evidence of the nearness of the advent to others—which I had managed to evade while I could find the shadow of an objection remaining against its truth—again came home to me with great force.”

KNOWLEDGE
BRINGS RESPONSIBILITY

He then began to present his findings openly to “neighbors, to ministers, and others.” But, to his astonishment, he found “very few who listened with any interest.” He then resorted to six more years of careful study, with the increasing conviction that he had “a personal duty to perform respecting this matter.” He states: “I tried to excuse myself to the Lord for not going out and proclaiming it to the world. I told the Lord that I was not used to public speaking, that I had not the necessary qualifications to gain the attention of an audience, that I was very diffident and feared to go before the world.” By 1829 he had developed his system of prophetic chronology and doctrine quite fully and had proved it to his own satisfaction, and was conversing on it with others, though not yet publicly.

MILLER’S PUBLIC MINISTRY

In the summer of 1831 Miller was suddenly and more deeply than ever overwhelmed with the conviction that he should tell his findings to the world, and his objections and protests seemed to have less weight than usual. He relates his experience as follows: “My distress became so great, I entered into a solemn covenant with God, that if He would open the way, I would go and perform my duty to the world. ‘What do you mean by opening the way?’ seemed to come to me. Why, said I, if I should have an invitation to speak publicly in any place, I will go and tell them what I find in the Bible about the Lord’s coming. Instantly all my burden was gone; and I rejoiced that I should not probably be thus called upon; for I had never had such an invitation: my trials were not known, and I had but little expectation of being invited to any field of labor.”

This was on a Saturday morning. Shortly there- after a young man from the near-by town of Dresden entered Miller’s study with the announcement that there was to be no preaching in the Dresden church on the morrow and that it was desired that Mr. Miller come and talk to the people on Christ’s Second Coming. Miller was overwhelmed. He states: “I was angry with myself for having made the covenant I had; I rebelled at once against the Lord, and determined not to go.” He left the room, going through the house and out of the back door—this time not for the barn or the field, but for a grove near by, where he could pray. This was a great turning point in his life. There were in his members two spirits warring, the one against the other. The Spirit of the Lord won the victory. A man of Miller’s character, despite his intense inner conflict and its tremendous upheaval, could find only one answer. Surely he could not make a covenant with God and then renounce it! He claimed by faith the Lord’s prom- ise to stand by him and give him the needed words to utter. He went into that grove a farmer; he came out a preacher. The next morning he spoke to a well-filled house of attentive people, and of his experience he records: “As soon as I commenced speaking, all my diffidence and embarrassment was gone, and I felt impressed only with the greatness of the subject, which, by the providence of God, I was enabled to present.” The speech was well received and he was invited to remain and lecture during the week. People gathered from surrounding towns and a real revival resulted. This was only the beginning. Invitations came from various quarters and Miller preached to ever-increasing audiences. But he maintained a proper humility and reverence for God, with a sense of his own insufficiency and God’s all-sufficiency. Once on receiving a letter addressed to “Reverend William Miller,” he replied, “I wish you would look into your Bible and see if you can find the word ‘Rev.’ applied to a sinful mortal as myself and govern yourself accordingly.” Soon thousands were thronging to hear his lectures, including many ministers of various denominations, such as Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Universalists. While some opposed, many listened attentively and expressed much interest, concerning which Miller stated: “I can only account for it by supposing that God is supporting the old man, weak, wicked, imperfect and ignorant as he is, to confound the wise and mighty. . . It makes me feel like a worm, a poor, feeble creature, for it is God only that could produce such an effect on such audiences.”

DISAPPOINTMENT SETS IN

The Second Advent message increased and it began to take hold upon the hearts of the people, and as ministers of various denominations began to preach it, people thronged in still greater numbers and in ever-widening circles. Of course, ridicule and persecution grew proportionately. Miller was honest and sincere in his convictions and the Lord has richly blessed His people through Miller’s bringing to light the importance of prophetic time, though Bro. Miller was mistaken in his expectation that the Lord would return visibly in the flesh, and that in 1843, and then, this failing, on Oct. 22, 1844. His chronological periods in the main were correct, though he applied some parts of them incorrectly. For one thing, he made the 1335 days of Dan. 12: 12 begin thirty years earlier than they should have been made to begin. However, after the great disappointment of 1844, this faithful man of God, amid public scoffing and persecutions, exhorted the brethren to “hold fast”; he stated: “I have reckoned all the time I can. I must now wait and watch until He is graciously pleased to answer the ten thousand prayers that daily and nightly ascend His holy hill, ‘Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.’”

FAITHFUL TO THE END

In a letter to Joshua Himes (Miller’s ablest personal helper) Bro. Miller wrote: “Although I have been twice disappointed, I am not yet cast down or discouraged. God has been with me in spirit, and has comforted me. I have now much more evidence that I do believe in God’s Word; and although surrounded with enemies and scoffers, yet my mind is perfectly calm, and my hope in the coming of Christ is as strong as ever. I have done only what after years of sober consideration I felt to be my solemn duty to do. If I have erred, it has been on the side of charity, the love of my fellow men, and my conviction of duty to God.”

Bro. Miller died on Dec. 20, 1849, Joshua Himes being at his bedside to cheer him with words of comfort, which were well deserved by this victorious soldier of Jesus Christ. His body was laid to rest in a little cemetery near his old home. At the top of his tombstone are the appropriate words: “At the time appointed the end shall be.” And below his name appear the equally fitting words of Dan. 12: 13: “But you go your way till the end; for you shall rest, and will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days.”

NOT DUE TIME

Although Mr. Miller did not figure some of the Bible’s prophecies correctly, especially those that surrounded our Lord’s Return, it may be important to point out to the reader the particular miscue in his thinking that made it impossible for his expectation to be realized. Moreover, before we get into these details there is another reason for his mistakes. It was not God’s due time for some of these truths to be made known. To be specific the 1290 symbolic-days’ prophecy (Dan. 12: 11) pointed to the inception of his own Christian Movement and the disappointment that came about as the result of his miscalculations. It seems that the Lord wished these severe trials of faith to come upon those 50,000 adherents to test the metal of their characters. The prophet Malachi describes this very condition: “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when he appears? For, He is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; . . . And purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the LORD an offering in righteousness” (Mal. 3: 1-3). Therefore, neither Bro. Miller nor any others, no matter how pious or faithful they might have been, could have provided the information that Mr. Miller sought concerning The Second Coming, because it was not God’s due time for it to be made known (Rom. 5: 6; 1 Tim. 2: 6).

WRONG TIME AND INVISIBLE

 

Common View of Our Lord's Return

Mr. Miller’s main misconception concerning Christ’s Second Coming centers on the manner of His return. He believed, as millions of mainline Christians believed and still believe, that Jesus would return as a human person in a body of flesh visible to the natural eye. He was influenced to this conclusion by the text in Revelation “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him” (Rev. 1: 7). As the Lord’s people, in considering day- to-day secular subjects, our thinking is often very astute but when considering the Divine plan, we seem to lose sight of the fact that our Creator bestowed on us a wonderful brain and mind and that it will work on religious subjects also. All we have to do is use it, under the guidance of His spirit.

CHRIST’S PRESENCE
A STUMBLING-STONE

The text in 1 Pet. 2: 8 seems to imply that God’s people at this time would be in a position of special trial, as with a stumbling-stone in our midst. The Scriptures allude to the fact that Jesus Christ was a special trial on the Jews at the time of His First Coming. It was at the close of the Jewish Age, when He presented Himself as their Messiah and the manner of His presence was so foreign to their expectations. He came as a lowly obscure preacher of righteousness—when they were looking for a great deliverer, as a Moses or a Joshua with a great army to free them from the Roman yoke. This brings to remembrance that which the Bible prophetically foretold concerning Him, saying, “He shall be . . . for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel” (Isa. 8: 14). These two houses were the Jewish people in the Harvest of the Jewish Age and the Christian family in the present Harvest of the Gospel Age. This symbolic stone, as the Apostle points out, was stumbled over in the end of the Jewish Age (1 Peter 2: 7, 8). The Scriptures set forth that for many years, set forth the idea that, when Christ returns in His Second Coming, He will whisk up the Saints to safety in heavenly glory, and then in His wrath, He will destroy the planet earth (“the earth remains forever” Eccl. 1: 4) and the people who are unbelievers. This idea is now brought into question, because the Trouble in world society is year after year, becoming more and more severe and the Christian world has not been delivered, but they are still on the earth experiencing this Jesus was the only way to gain salvation: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14: 6; Acts 4: 11, 12)

The Lord is now a “stone of stumbling” in the pathway of many in the present Gospel Harvest. These passages do not apply to the world. The Gentile nations did not stumble over Jesus at His First Coming, but it was the Jews, the true Israelites, who were there stumbled. The text also implies the stumbling of some Christians of our day, during the time of our Lord’s Second Presence, because of the Lord coming in a way totally different from what has been anticipated, and similar to the wrong expectations of those in the Jewish Harvest. So we believe that there Trouble (Dan. 12: 1; Matt. 24: 21). They have been sleeping under this cloud of error so long, and have been unaware that, Christ, since His crucifixion and death, is an invisible spirit being. The problem is, these brethren have had wrong, unscriptural ideas as to the manner of our Lord’s Second Coming and have been looking for Him to come in a physical human body, failing to note the instruction of the Scriptures, that He laid down the human body as the price of redemption for Adam and his race. His humanity was the ransom price. The Apostle are many good Christian people today, who are stumbling over Christ’s Presence. They have thought, and some still believe, that Christ is going to come in a body of flesh and “every eye shall see Him”. These words are from the book of Revelation, which is a highly symbolic writing and without careful thought they have put a literal interpretation to its statements of clouds, sight and trumpets (1 Thes. 4: 16, 17). World conditions are so different from what they have imagined and expected and it is similar to what it was in the end of the Jewish Age, when the Jewish religious leaders stumbled at the time of the crucifixion. Some are beginning to reject this erroneous projection.

CHRIST NO LONGER HUMAN

Likewise, it has been in the end of this Christian Age in its Harvest. Many religious authors and preachers have, John records Jesus’ own words on this point: “the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6: 51). He can never take up the human form of existence again, for it would negate the redemption given on Calvary’s Cross. Therefore, since His resurrection on the third day, He is a Divine spirit being with a spirit body that is invisible to the physical human eye. Those who are expecting to see Jesus as He was, and not as He is, will be disappointed, if they have not already become disillusioned, for no one will ever see Him alive in His human body again. As Paul states: “though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more” (2 Cor. 5: 16; Heb. 2: 9).

The question is asked: How do you explain the text “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him and they who pierced Him” (Rev. 1: 7)? You will observe that this passage is from the book of Revelation which is a highly symbolic writing. This verse states that when Jesus comes, “He is coming with clouds.” It is not literal clouds that are here referred to, but rather the symbolic clouds of wrath and Trouble that are now manifest in the earth everywhere. The prophet Daniel and our Lord prophesied of this tribulation saying “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world” (Matt. 24: 21; Dan. 12: 1). This great Time of Trouble is one of the signs that Jesus gave to indicate that He is now present in the earth, together with His elect Bride, working toward the destruction of Satan’s evil empire. Satan is not going down to defeat without a fight and that is the reason for all the social unrest. This is due to calamities, war, revolution, anarchy, famine, etc. Let us consider that part of the verse that says “every eye shall see Him.” If we think of these words in an intelligent, logical, and reasonable way, we must acknowledge, that the word “see” has more meanings than merely to behold with the physical eye. Webster’s second definition for the word “see” is as follows: “To deduce mentally after reflection or from information; to understand.” It is this meaning that we believe is meant by the phrase “every eye shall see Him.” The world of mankind in the earthly phase of the Millennial Kingdom will come to recognize our Lord Jesus Christ as the righteous ruler of that 1,000 year day, not by viewing Him with their physical eyes, for He is now a Divine spirit being and invisible to humans (John 1: 18; 1 Tim. 6: 16). The world will see Christ Millennially with their eyes of understanding. Jeremiah writing of this time says: “After those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD” (Jer. 31: 33, 34).

AWAKE! AWAKE!

Dear brethren, it is high time to awake from our slumber. As Christians, we may have failed to note that the truth of God’s Word is progressive (Prov. 4: 18) and that way back in the Jewish Age Harvest, nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus said that He would return and, in the prophecies, has indicated when His Second Coming would occur. The Time of Trouble which followed His Second Presence has already been with us for many years (Dan. 12: 1; Matt. 24: 21). Let us wake up to the Lord’s instructions that clearly show where we are on the stream of time. Failing to do so, will find us experiencing the awakening of earth’s dead (John 5: 28, 29 R.V.) and wondering where we have been all this time; we will, by then, have missed the opportunity to be assistants of our Lord in leading the world toward the Millennial salvation (Rom. 12: 11, 12).

2008 MOTTO TEXT