Chapter 7: The Millerite Movement
“The armies of the living God.” 1Samuel 17:36
The seventh chapter of the Revelation opens up as an answer to the last words of chapter six, “The great day of His wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?” Chapter seven deals with this question, and since chapter six is showing the end of the world, chapter seven is a view of a last day event. It is a continuation of the chapter six motif; it is an extension of the Millerite movement. The Revelation has very quickly brought us down through the centuries to the subject of the last faithful group before Jesus returns. And, therefore, as we shall see, most of Revelation deals with the next 150 years following the Great Disappointment of the 1840’s.
But before the special ones are described who stand through the actual coming of Christ, an angel gives the command to hold back winds of destruction. Desolation mercifully remains at bay in order for a period of peacetime be given for these special people to grow strong. And in the end they are to be sealed, the law of God fixed in them. Locked into dependence on Jesus, their determination to honor God will be harder than flint. “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” Rev. 7:3. Let’s understand the symbology used here.
The “sea” represents the unruly, nominal majority, those organizations which operate independently from God and comprise the bulk of the world, “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” Rev. 17:15. “The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Is. 57:20, 21. “He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Jas. 1:6-8. Flowing into the turbulent sea is a wide river of enthrallment to this world, whose current picks up unwary young and old in its path and carries them easily and carelessly to its bosom of confusion. By contrast, the “earth” represents God’s peaceful people, “those who turn from transgression in Jacob.” Is. 59:20. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.” Ps. 24:1.
The “trees” are those individuals among God’s people who stand tall in His behalf, even if some have begun to decay. “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green.” “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.” Jer. 17:7, 8, 5, 6.
Just prior to the period of the 7th seal, a process begins for numbering a figurative twelve thousand out of each tribe of Israel, 144,000 able-bodied soldiers, preparing to fight for heavenly Canaan. This prophecy is patterned after the experience of the Israelites. When they came out of Egypt, circa 1500 B.C., Moses was given the command to number them. “Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fathers, with the number of their names, every male by their polls; from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel.” Num. 1:2,3.
All of the millions of men, women, children and mixed multitude were full of high hopes of going to a paradise where they could live just as they pleased. No more taskmasters lording over them, everyone was going to have complete freedom to do whatever came to mind! Their interpretation of liberty was to receive a big correction and they would soon be crying to go back into Egyptian slavery.
The trip to the promised land which might have only taken eleven days turned into a long 40 year delay. While wandering in circles out under the hot desert sun, presented to them were many opportunities to see just what it was that the Person behind the pillar of cloud had in mind when defining “freedom.” One statute after another came forth, one reform after another, test after test, ordeal after ordeal. The wilderness became a school, preparing those who were willing, and teaching those who wanted to be taught.
“God takes men as they are, with the human elements in their character, and trains them for His service, if they will be disciplined and learn of Him. They are not chosen because they are perfect, but notwithstanding their imperfections, that through the knowledge and practice of the truth, through the grace of Christ, they may become transformed into His image.” Desire of Ages, p. 294. Revelation, chapter seven shows the vast group of hopefuls who, like Israel after the exodus, came out of the preaching of that great movement proclaiming the Lord’s return in the 1830’s and 40’s. They felt confident that they were ready for that day when the elements would melt with fervent heat and not a hair of their head would be singed. And they are seen as God sees them through the intercession of Christ, a glorified army clad in garments of sanctified characters. “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel: the Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a King is among them.” Num. 23:21. When this blessing was first pronounced there were many thousands of Israel who were on the verge of complete apostasy, soon to take place at Baal-peor. Nevertheless, God did not look upon His people then nor does He look upon the Adventists today as He could or as we deserve. He sees them as what they may become through His abounding love and grace. All heaven stood ready to mold this group and send them to the world to finish the work of proclaiming the coming King.
The Advent band prior to the Great Disappointment was made up of every cross-section of society, from holier-than-thou church-goers to brothel house owners, the vast mixed multitude who counted themselves in, but stayed at the fringes of the movement. In many respects it was a motley crew expecting to be translated.
Yet there were some who had already put themselves under the molding influence of the Holy Spirit. Through the eyes of one young girl who found it her greatest joy to be involved at the movement’s center, the workings of heaven could be seen in that development. With fond memory, she later wrote, “Every morning they felt that it was their first duty to secure the evidence of their acceptance with God. Their hearts were closely united, and they prayed much with and for one another. They often met together in secluded places to commune with God, and the voice of intercession ascended to heaven from the fields and groves.” Great Controversy, p. 403. “Of all the great religious movements since the days of the apostles, none have been more free from human imperfection and the wiles of Satan than was that of the autumn of 1844. Even now, after the lapse of many years, all who shared in that movement and who have stood firm upon the platform of truth still feel the holy influence of that blessed work and bear witness that it was of God.” Great Controversy, p. 401.
“But,” she admits, “the people were not yet ready to meet their Lord. There was still a work of preparation to be accomplished for them...Those who are living upon the earth when the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above are to stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator. Their robes must be spotless, their characters must be purified from sin by the blood of sprinkling.” Great Controversy, p. 424, 425.
Yet God rejoices in anticipation to see that final group ready to stand before His holy presence. And He shows us how He views this motley bunch of adventists, even of today—as already faithful in tribulation and victorious over the sin problem; then He looks beyond to the controversy ended, the curse never again to burden His creation. “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Rev. 7:14. “And in this Mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And He will destroy in this Mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it...And in this Mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest.” Is. 25:6-10.
The seventh chapter of the Revelation opens up as an answer to the last words of chapter six, “The great day of His wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?” Chapter seven deals with this question, and since chapter six is showing the end of the world, chapter seven is a view of a last day event. It is a continuation of the chapter six motif; it is an extension of the Millerite movement. The Revelation has very quickly brought us down through the centuries to the subject of the last faithful group before Jesus returns. And, therefore, as we shall see, most of Revelation deals with the next 150 years following the Great Disappointment of the 1840’s.
But before the special ones are described who stand through the actual coming of Christ, an angel gives the command to hold back winds of destruction. Desolation mercifully remains at bay in order for a period of peacetime be given for these special people to grow strong. And in the end they are to be sealed, the law of God fixed in them. Locked into dependence on Jesus, their determination to honor God will be harder than flint. “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” Rev. 7:3. Let’s understand the symbology used here.
The “sea” represents the unruly, nominal majority, those organizations which operate independently from God and comprise the bulk of the world, “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” Rev. 17:15. “The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Is. 57:20, 21. “He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Jas. 1:6-8. Flowing into the turbulent sea is a wide river of enthrallment to this world, whose current picks up unwary young and old in its path and carries them easily and carelessly to its bosom of confusion. By contrast, the “earth” represents God’s peaceful people, “those who turn from transgression in Jacob.” Is. 59:20. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.” Ps. 24:1.
The “trees” are those individuals among God’s people who stand tall in His behalf, even if some have begun to decay. “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green.” “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.” Jer. 17:7, 8, 5, 6.
Just prior to the period of the 7th seal, a process begins for numbering a figurative twelve thousand out of each tribe of Israel, 144,000 able-bodied soldiers, preparing to fight for heavenly Canaan. This prophecy is patterned after the experience of the Israelites. When they came out of Egypt, circa 1500 B.C., Moses was given the command to number them. “Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fathers, with the number of their names, every male by their polls; from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel.” Num. 1:2,3.
All of the millions of men, women, children and mixed multitude were full of high hopes of going to a paradise where they could live just as they pleased. No more taskmasters lording over them, everyone was going to have complete freedom to do whatever came to mind! Their interpretation of liberty was to receive a big correction and they would soon be crying to go back into Egyptian slavery.
The trip to the promised land which might have only taken eleven days turned into a long 40 year delay. While wandering in circles out under the hot desert sun, presented to them were many opportunities to see just what it was that the Person behind the pillar of cloud had in mind when defining “freedom.” One statute after another came forth, one reform after another, test after test, ordeal after ordeal. The wilderness became a school, preparing those who were willing, and teaching those who wanted to be taught.
“God takes men as they are, with the human elements in their character, and trains them for His service, if they will be disciplined and learn of Him. They are not chosen because they are perfect, but notwithstanding their imperfections, that through the knowledge and practice of the truth, through the grace of Christ, they may become transformed into His image.” Desire of Ages, p. 294. Revelation, chapter seven shows the vast group of hopefuls who, like Israel after the exodus, came out of the preaching of that great movement proclaiming the Lord’s return in the 1830’s and 40’s. They felt confident that they were ready for that day when the elements would melt with fervent heat and not a hair of their head would be singed. And they are seen as God sees them through the intercession of Christ, a glorified army clad in garments of sanctified characters. “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel: the Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a King is among them.” Num. 23:21. When this blessing was first pronounced there were many thousands of Israel who were on the verge of complete apostasy, soon to take place at Baal-peor. Nevertheless, God did not look upon His people then nor does He look upon the Adventists today as He could or as we deserve. He sees them as what they may become through His abounding love and grace. All heaven stood ready to mold this group and send them to the world to finish the work of proclaiming the coming King.
The Advent band prior to the Great Disappointment was made up of every cross-section of society, from holier-than-thou church-goers to brothel house owners, the vast mixed multitude who counted themselves in, but stayed at the fringes of the movement. In many respects it was a motley crew expecting to be translated.
Yet there were some who had already put themselves under the molding influence of the Holy Spirit. Through the eyes of one young girl who found it her greatest joy to be involved at the movement’s center, the workings of heaven could be seen in that development. With fond memory, she later wrote, “Every morning they felt that it was their first duty to secure the evidence of their acceptance with God. Their hearts were closely united, and they prayed much with and for one another. They often met together in secluded places to commune with God, and the voice of intercession ascended to heaven from the fields and groves.” Great Controversy, p. 403. “Of all the great religious movements since the days of the apostles, none have been more free from human imperfection and the wiles of Satan than was that of the autumn of 1844. Even now, after the lapse of many years, all who shared in that movement and who have stood firm upon the platform of truth still feel the holy influence of that blessed work and bear witness that it was of God.” Great Controversy, p. 401.
“But,” she admits, “the people were not yet ready to meet their Lord. There was still a work of preparation to be accomplished for them...Those who are living upon the earth when the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above are to stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator. Their robes must be spotless, their characters must be purified from sin by the blood of sprinkling.” Great Controversy, p. 424, 425.
Yet God rejoices in anticipation to see that final group ready to stand before His holy presence. And He shows us how He views this motley bunch of adventists, even of today—as already faithful in tribulation and victorious over the sin problem; then He looks beyond to the controversy ended, the curse never again to burden His creation. “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Rev. 7:14. “And in this Mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And He will destroy in this Mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it...And in this Mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest.” Is. 25:6-10.
posted by David | 10:17 AM
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