Mr. Canright knew what he was talking about, not only from his long service with the Adventists, but the terrible persecution that followed his departure from them, and his attempt to expose them. His books, and those of Mr. E. B. Jones, of Minneapolis, are the best exposes of this cult ever written. Mr. Jones was a missionary to India for the Sev enth-day Adventists, and worked with them for 20 years, and he too has suffered greatly from their lies about him, and their attacks upon his character. But God is using his writings and through them helping many people to learn what Adventism really teaches. It is strange that the Adventists want to move in Chris tian society and use their leaders for a cloak when they have such a hostile attitude toward all organized churches. Their prophetess, Mrs. Ellen G. White, of whom I shall tell you more later on, wrote: "I saw the state of the dif ferent churches since the second angel proclaimed their fall (1844). They have been growing more and more corrupt. Satan has taken full possession of the churches as a body . . . The churches were left as were the Jews, and they have been filling up with every unclean and hateful bird. I saw great iniquity and vileness in the churches. Yet they profess to be Christians. Their professions, their prayers and their exhortations are an abomination in the sight of God. Said the angel, God will not dwell in their assemblies. Selfish ness, fraud and deceit are practiced by them without the reprovings of conscience.” ( Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 1, pp. 189, 190.) How absurd for them to speak o f fraud and deceit! This appeared in the Review and Herald, Adventist pub lication, dated May 3, 1887: "He [God] has not been with the popular churches in a marked manner since they rejected the Adventist message of 1843, 1844.” ’ The organized church of today is called Babylon by the Seventh-day Adventists even as it was stated as far back as April, 1850, in Present Truth: "Babylon, the nominal church, is fallen. God’s people have come out of her. She is now the synagogue of Satan.” This teaching that they are the only group who have the revelation of God is characteristic of all the cults. T hank God for the thousands of Protestants in united' in one purpose of evangelizing the world for Christ ere He returns for His own! The Adventists are outside of this fellowship because of their heresies which we will now examine under the lens of Holy Writ. Origin of Seventh-day Adventism This system began in the imagination of a simple, un educated farmer named William Miller, who was born at Pittsfield, Mass, in 1782. He moved to Low Hampton, New York, where at the age of 61, he gave himself to a study of the Scriptures and Ussher’s chronology. Taking the fourteenth verse of Daniel 8 as his basic text, "And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,” he predicted that Christ would return and the world would end October 10, 1843. He wrote a pamphlet entitled, Evidence from Scripture and History o f the Second Coming of Christ about the Year 1843. Although the Lord Jesus Christ had plainly stated "Ye know not when the time is” (Mark 13:33); "Watch there fore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come” (Matt. 24:42); "But of that day and hour knoweth no man,
no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matt. 24:36), Miller declared he knew. Here are his exact words: "I believe the time can be known by all who desire to understand . . . Between March 21, 1840 and March 21, 1844, according to the Jewish mode of computation, Christ will come” ( Life of Miller, p. 172). Here are some reactions from his followers: "This is God’s truth; it is as true as the Bible” ; "There is no pos sibility of a mistake in this time” ; "Those who reject this light will be lost” ; "Those who do not accept this argument are backsliders” ( History of Advent Message). Miller went about preaching "the time.” Those who did not receive the message were branded- enemies, evil servants, rejected of God and lost. Amazing as it now seems, this movement spread like wildfire from Maine to Ohio and in a short time the old farmer had 50,000 followers. Fanati cism took hold on the people. They discarded their pos sessions, gave up their property, neglected their business, allowed the harvest to rot in the fields, refused to sow new crops, took their children out of school and everywhere announced that they knew the day and the hour of Christ’s return. When the night predicted arrived, these fanatics arrayed themselves in white muslin robes, and sat on hillsides and roof-tops, awaiting the great event with songs and prayers and shouting. It was really pathetic, but had they read the Word of God and not relied upon the word of a mere man, they would not have been disappointed and dis illusioned. When Christ did not come, as scheduled by William Miller, the people were panic-stricken. He was found to be a false prophet according to Deut. 18:22: "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously.” Immediately Miller tried to retrieve his influence by stating that he had made a mistake in the first calculation by following the Hebrew chronology when he should have followed the Roman. So he set another date, a year later, and excitement was renewed among his followers. They went through the very same routine and watched and waited but nothing happened. The movement as formed in one body by Miller broke up in confusion. A number of them went into other groups and some suicides followed this bitter experience. M iller and his followers had claimed that Daniel 8:14, which refers to the "cleansing of the sanctuary,” meant that Christ was coming to earth in 1843 and then in 1844, to cleanse the earth. When He did not, they looked in the Bible and found "heavenly sanctuary” mentioned in Hebrews 8:2, and "the temple of God” referred to in Revelation 11:19, and so they built a new theory. Since Jesus did not come to earth, He came to heaven. They had their explanation. He entered into an outer heaven, outside of the presence of God, when He ascended, they stated; but in 1844 he entered into the sanctuary in heaven, to cleanse it. Later, I will discuss a little more fully this ridiculous sanctuary theory for which there is not one Scriptural proof. The Adventists have never given up any of the errors with which they started, from William Miller down, nor have they ever admitted that anything was a real mistake. Their lame explanation for the failure o f Christ to come to earth when people had disposed of all their possessions did not work too well. The Millerites split into four parts, the Seventh-day Adventists, k Advent Christians, Churches MORE W
hundreds of Christian groups, true to the Word of God, who, though they may not agree on every nonessential point, still unite around the cross o f Christ, believe in Him as the only Saviour and are
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