Participants: Jim Nix
Series Code: AOT
Program Code: AOT000142
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00:12 Welcome to Anchors Of Truth,
00:15 live from the 3ABN Worship Center. 00:21 Indeed, we do welcome you to the 3ABN Worship Center 00:25 and to night and presentation number two of, 00:29 A Heritage Worth Remembering. 00:31 Our speaker is the director of the Ellen White Estate, 00:36 and he is Jim Nix. 00:38 And we are so very, very pleased to have him with us. 00:41 On last night, we got an overview of the times 00:46 in which the second coming movement had its birth. 00:51 And we realized that it was not just a North American phenomena, 00:56 but a worldwide phenomena. 00:58 So that when God moves, He doesn't usually 01:00 move in one place. 01:01 He moves everywhere at the same time. 01:03 And it was really quite an interesting presentation. 01:06 As one who loves history, I find this series 01:09 very, very intriguing, very, very interesting. 01:12 Informative, but also very, very inspirational. 01:15 And it does make you, dare I say, humbly proud 01:18 that we come in a line of people that stretches 01:22 all the way back to the very beginning of this earth 01:24 of men and women who follow the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 01:27 And we will discover that again this evening. 01:31 I have with me an artifact that I want to show you. 01:33 I've had it 20 years this year. 01:36 I got this actually the very first time I met Jim Nix. 01:38 This is a slate tile from the roof of William Miller's home. 01:44 Back in 1994, the church was celebrating the 01:47 150th anniversary of the 1844 movement, 01:51 and they were refurbishing the William Miller home 01:53 because the roof beams were rotting. 01:55 So they had to take down all the slate tile, 01:57 and they had this huge pile on the ground. 02:00 And since it was on the ground and I didn't have to climb up 02:02 to the roof to get it, I figured the Lord wanted me to have it. 02:05 And actually, they were trying to get rid of them. 02:07 Because as you can see, it is broken. 02:09 And many of them were broken, 02:10 in being taken down they were broken. 02:12 So I wanted my very own William Miller roof slate tile 02:16 from the original home. 02:18 And so I've had this, yea, these 20 years 02:21 from a big meeting we had at the William Miller farm in 1994. 02:26 So I thought I'd bring this out. 02:28 It doesn't get too much daylight, 02:29 I don't bring it out that much. 02:31 But it's my artifact from the William Miller home. 02:34 We're going to be talking about William Miller tonight, 02:36 and a number of other individuals. 02:38 And I'm, as I've said, very excited and anxious to hear 02:41 Jim Nix's presentation. 02:43 He has done these things all over the world. 02:45 And he is a lover of history and a great speaker 02:48 for the Lord and for our church. 02:51 So without further ado, we're going to have prayer. 02:54 Then after prayer we will have music from Celestine Berry, 02:58 Mike will accompany her on the piano. 03:00 She's going to be singing, The Warrior Is A Child. 03:03 And then after she shall have sung, the next voice that 03:05 you will hear will be that of our friend, Pastor Jim Nix. 03:09 Shall we pray. 03:11 Gracious Father, we praise You and thank You so very, very much 03:16 for Your Word, and we thank You that we can look back 03:21 and see the evidences of Your guiding power 03:24 in the establishment of this church, and we can see a 03:28 remnant line of faithful soldiers of Christ 03:32 stretching all the way back to faithful Adam. 03:35 And so, Father, now as we take a look at our church, 03:39 its formation, those who built the foundation blocks 03:43 that became the Seventh-day Adventist Church, 03:45 the forerunners of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, 03:48 may we rededicate ourselves to go forward in faith 03:53 as we look back and see Your guiding hand 03:56 in our past history. 03:58 For truly, we have nothing to fear for the future 04:00 except that we shall forget the Lord's leading in our past. 04:05 Help us, Lord, always to remember that we are 04:07 never alone, but that God is by our side. 04:10 And if we would but follow Him, He will lead us safely home. 04:15 Bless now our speaker this night. 04:17 Give him words that shall be of inspiration 04:21 and information for us. 04:23 Help us to be hearers of the Word and doers thereof. 04:26 And we thank You, dear Father, in Jesus' name, amen. 04:31 Mike and Celestine. 04:56 Lately I've been winning battles left and right, 05:05 but even winners can get wounded in the fight. 05:15 People say that I'm amazing and strong beyond my years, 05:24 but they don't see inside of me; 05:28 I'm hiding all the tears. 05:35 They don't know that I come running home when I fall down. 05:44 They don't know who picks me up when no one is around. 05:54 I drop my sword and cry for just a while; 06:04 because deep inside this armor 06:10 the warrior is a child. 06:23 Unafraid because His armor is the best, 06:32 but even soldiers need a quiet place to rest. 06:41 People say that I'm amazing, I never face retreat; 06:49 but they don't see the enemies that lay me at His feet. 07:01 They don't know that I go running home when I fall down. 07:10 They don't know who picks me up when no one is around. 07:19 I drop my sword and cry for just a while; 07:29 because deep inside this armor 07:35 the warrior is a child. 07:48 They don't know that I come running home when I fall down. 07:57 They don't know who picks me up when no one is around. 08:06 I drop my sword and look up for a smile; 08:15 because deep inside this armor, 08:21 deep inside this armor, 08:30 deep inside this armor 08:38 the warrior is a child. 09:04 Good evening. 09:06 Glad to see some people back tonight to listen 09:10 to a little more history. 09:11 Always amazes me. 09:12 History is usually not the most popular class in school, 09:16 so I'm always surprised when people show up 09:18 to listen to history. 09:19 Anyway, we're going to talk tonight, 09:20 as has already been announced, about William Miller. 09:23 We're not going to do, like last night, we're not going to 09:25 talk about his theology. 09:26 Others will discuss that. 09:29 We're going to talk about him as a person, 09:30 what kind of a person was he, 09:32 and see if we can share a few things, insights about him 09:35 that maybe you don't know or remind you 09:37 if you've already heard them before. 09:39 I want to start by reading a text. 09:41 This is a text that William Miller marked 09:44 in one of his preaching Bibles. 09:46 It's Psalm 69 verses 3 to 5. 09:49 You probably thought I was going to turn to Daniel 8:14. 09:52 But it's Psalm 69 verses 3 to 5. 09:56 "I am weary of my crying; my throat is dried; 10:02 mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. 10:05 They that hate me without a cause are more than the 10:09 hairs of mine head. 10:11 They that would destroy me, being mine enemies 10:13 wrongfully, are mighty. 10:15 Then I restored that which I took not away. 10:19 O God, thou knowest my foolishness; 10:22 and my sins are not hid from thee." 10:26 Why in the world would Miller, of all people, the person that 10:31 we trace historically the "Adventist" part of our 10:34 church name, Seventh-day Adventist, back to Miller, 10:36 why would he mark a text like that? 10:39 Well as I said, let's try to unpack a little bit of the story 10:41 and maybe you'll better understand what he was 10:45 thinking when he marked that particular text. 10:48 He was born February 15, 1782 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 10:53 His father, who was also named William Miller, 10:56 was a veteran of the American Revolution. 10:59 And so from his father he learned the kind of things 11:02 that you would expect a child to learn that was 11:05 the son of a patriot; duty, honor of country, patriotism. 11:09 Those kind of things. 11:10 His mother was named, her name was Paulina Phelps Miller. 11:14 She was the daughter of a Baptist minister. 11:18 So from his mother he learned the kind of things 11:21 that you would expect a devout Christian to teach her children. 11:24 And that is love of God, the value of prayer, 11:27 spiritual values; those kinds of things. 11:30 And there were actually sixteen children in the family. 11:35 Miller, our Miller, William Miller, was the oldest 11:38 of the sixteen. 11:39 They were not all born down in Massachusetts, though, 11:42 because when our William Miller, the one that we're talking about 11:45 this evening, was just four years of age, 11:47 they moved, the family moved from Massachusetts 11:49 up to a little place called, Low Hampton, New York. 11:53 There is no such place now as Low Hampton, New York. 11:56 It was a little community back there in the mid 1780's. 12:01 But today, it is only in the history books, 12:03 or the archives, the county records, 12:05 those kinds of places. 12:07 And there Miller grew up. 12:09 It was very isolated. It's still isolated. 12:11 If you go to the Miller home, which is open to the public 12:15 as a museum, if you go to William Miller's home, 12:17 you'll see it's still isolated all these many years later. 12:20 But not quite as isolated as back then. 12:22 So he's growing up there, he's a farm kid. 12:24 His father owned some land. 12:26 Or at least trying to buy. 12:27 He never did get the mortgage paid off, 12:29 but he was trying to acquire some land. 12:32 And Miller grows up, and there was not much of an opportunity 12:36 to get an education in those days. 12:38 I mean, in the late fall or early winter a school teacher 12:43 would come around maybe for five or six months at the most, 12:46 four or five was probably more apt, 12:49 and would try to teach the kids together a little bit about 12:52 reading, writing, and arithmetic, as they say. 12:54 And that was about it. 12:56 But Miller, Bill Miller as he was known as a young man, 12:59 Bill Miller wanted more. 13:00 He was not happy, he was not satisfied, 13:03 with the limited education that he was getting 13:06 from those country school teachers 13:08 that came through every year and held classes. 13:11 And so as he got a little bit older he would borrow books. 13:14 He would go to the local lawyer or to a physician, 13:17 someone that had maybe more books than what they had 13:20 in the Miller family, and he would borrow them. 13:22 Now the Miller family, we're told, they had three books; 13:25 they had a Bible, they had a hymn book, and a prayer book. 13:29 And Bill Miller had devoured those and still wanted more. 13:33 So that's why he would go borrow books. 13:35 And like Abraham Lincoln did a decade or two later, 13:40 why, at night after the family had gone to bed, 13:43 Bill would get back up, go downstairs, 13:46 light a fire, and by the light of the pine knots, 13:49 the glow of the pine knots, he would read more, 13:53 trying to just become a little more educated. 13:57 His father apparently didn't have a lot of interest 13:58 in education, but one night, not realizing that his son 14:01 did this, he woke up and he saw the glow. 14:04 He thought the house was on fire. 14:06 And he later found out it was just his firstborn 14:08 trying to get an education. 14:11 Now I'm sure you're not going to believe what I'm going to 14:13 tell you next, but when he was a late teenager, 14:17 in the late 1700's, he went about 8 or 10 miles 14:22 east of where they lived to a place called Poultney, Vermont. 14:26 As far as I know, he went over there to work in the summer. 14:29 And while he was over there, guess what. 14:32 He met a young lady. 14:34 Now this is a part of the story I know you'll never believe. 14:36 But from then on, Bill could find more excuses 14:40 to get over to Poultney to be in the company 14:43 of this young lady whose name was Lucy Smith. 14:48 And so he's there and he's courting Lucy. 14:51 And finally in 1803, June 29, Lucy P. Smith becomes 14:56 Lucy P. Miller. 14:58 And now Miller moves over to Poultney himself. 15:02 And unfortunately, we don't know where they lived 15:04 because there was a fire a number of years ago 15:05 that burned all the property records. 15:07 But we do know that the newlyweds 15:10 lived over there in Poultney. 15:11 Now Miller must have... 15:13 And this is not good Adventist theology, 15:15 but I'm going to put it this way anyway. 15:17 When he arrived in Poultney, he must have thought 15:21 he had died and gone straight to heaven. 15:23 Now why do I say that? 15:25 Well according to one history book I was looking at, 15:27 Poultney was the first village in the entire state of Vermont 15:31 to have a free public library. 15:34 He didn't have to go borrow books any more from the lawyer, 15:37 or the teacher, or the physician, or whoever. 15:40 He could go to the public library. 15:42 And his new bride realized that she had married 15:45 this farm kid, and so she thought, "Well if I let him 15:50 go and I let him read, he will become refined. 15:55 And if he becomes refined, he will make a better husband 15:59 and father to any children that we might have." 16:02 And eventually they did have ten children. 16:04 Eight of them grew up, two died young. 16:07 And so he's there reading. 16:09 And he is also... 16:11 I don't want you to think he did nothing besides just read. 16:13 No, no, no, no. 16:14 He was an up and coming young man in that community. 16:17 We know that, for instance, he became a deputy sheriff. 16:21 In 1810 when they took the federal census, 16:24 he was the census taker for Poultney. 16:27 He was also a tax collector for a while. 16:31 He was a good tax collector. 16:33 That may sound like an oxymoron, but anyway 16:35 he was a good tax collector. 16:37 We'll come back to that in a minute. 16:38 Anyway, he's there. 16:39 He also had something else that's kind of interesting. 16:41 He earned a nickname. 16:43 Scribbler General. 16:45 Now what in the world? 16:47 What did he do to get the nickname, Scribbler General? 16:49 Well now remember, he is more educated, 16:52 primarily self educated, he's more educated 16:55 than most of the guys that lived there in Poultney. 16:58 So when some young man would see some lovely young lady 17:02 that he wanted to impress, but he had no idea 17:05 how to go about saying all the wonderful things 17:08 that he wanted to say to the young lady to impress her, 17:10 he would come to Bill Miller. 17:12 And he would describe all the attributes of this 17:15 wonderful young lady, and then Bill Miller 17:18 would write these flowery love letters for the guys 17:21 to give to their girlfriends. 17:23 Or the ones who wanted to have the girlfriends, at least. 17:26 And so he got the nickname of Scribbler General 17:30 because of all the love letters he wrote for these guys 17:32 who couldn't express themselves as they wanted to. 17:35 My point is, he is an up and coming young man. 17:38 As an up and coming young citizen of that town, 17:40 he also joined the deist society. 17:44 Deists were these people, a very popular philosophy, 17:47 that many, many, who knows how long ago, 17:50 somewhere in the dim distant past 17:51 God created the universe. 17:53 And when He created it, created the earth, 17:56 it was sort of like winding up an old fashion clock. 17:58 And He wound it up and set it going, 18:00 and let it tick, tick, tick, tick away. 18:01 He never came back. Had no interest in us. 18:03 And so Miller, this is the popular philosophy of the day. 18:07 He joins the debating society, the deist society, 18:10 there in Poultney. 18:11 In fact, if you go to Poultney today, the local historical 18:14 society has restored what is called the Union Academy. 18:18 It was a school building. 18:19 Downstairs they had the school, 18:21 upstairs they had a big open room. 18:23 You can go in that room if you make arrangements 18:25 with the historical society. 18:27 And you can see where the deists use to meet. 18:29 And there, they would talk about all this philosophy. 18:31 He had been reading, Miller had also been reading the writings 18:35 of Voltaire, and Hume, and Thomas Paine; 18:37 these skeptics, these deists. 18:39 And now he's sharing all of this, what he's been reading, 18:42 there going back and forth talking. 18:44 But sometimes they would really get Miller going. 18:47 And he would begin to mimic the piety of his grandfather 18:51 who was a Baptist minister, of his mother who was a 18:53 pious Baptist, of his wife who was a pious Baptist. 18:57 He loved to mimic their piety. 19:00 And of course, all these deists would sit and 19:02 laugh and laugh and laugh. 19:03 And the more he mimicked, the more they laughed. 19:05 And he had no idea that all of this scorn 19:09 that he was heaping in absentia on his pious relatives 19:14 would come back many times over in the future. 19:18 Now Miller's mother was, of course, concerned about her son. 19:22 And so was his wife. 19:23 They could see what was happening. 19:25 And she went to talk to her father. 19:27 And her father said, "The Lord has a work. 19:29 Just be patient. 19:30 The Lord has a work for Miller." 19:33 And so she was. 19:35 So there he is in the town, an up and coming young man. 19:39 And the United States gets into what we call, the war of 1812. 19:42 Sometimes referred to as the second war 19:45 of American independence. 19:46 The president called for men to come and defend the honor 19:51 of the United States. 19:52 Now guess what. 19:53 Here is the son of a revolutionary war veteran. 19:57 And the country needs to be defended. 20:00 And so what does he do? Obviously he signs up. 20:03 Now I mentioned a couple of minutes ago 20:05 that he was a good tax collector. 20:07 Now here's why I'm saying he was a good tax collector. 20:12 Forty-seven men, forty-seven citizens, 20:16 in that little town of Poultney signed up to go off to war 20:22 on one condition. 20:24 That William Miller be appointed their officer. 20:28 Now I ask you, those that are watching also, 20:31 how many today would go defend the honor of the United States, 20:35 or your home country, but go defend the honor of your country 20:38 on one condition; that your tax agent was made your officer? 20:45 So he had to be a fair tax collector to get that kind of 20:48 response from the citizens. 20:50 Now in the war of 1812, Miller himself was not involved 20:54 in any battles except for one. 20:57 And we're trying, like we did last night, 20:58 to look to see how God moves in the lives of these people, 21:02 tonight it's Miller, how God moves in the lives of these 21:06 people to get them where He wants them to be 21:09 so He can use them to His glory. 21:11 And Miller, as I say, was not in any battles, 21:14 he did mostly recruiting, except for one. 21:18 And it was at the end of the war of 1812, 21:21 and it was a crucial battle. 21:23 The Battle of Plattsburgh. 21:25 Now Plattsburgh; there's a long finger lake called, 21:28 Lake Champlain, that comes from Canada, the Canadian border, 21:31 clear down to Whitehall, New York. 21:33 It's a long skinny lake. 21:35 And on the west side of that, up not too far south 21:38 of the Canadian border, was Plattsburgh. 21:41 And Miller is stationed up there. 21:43 And apparently had a little agreement with his wife 21:45 about letter writing. 21:47 Now remember, there was no texting or email, 21:49 or anything in those days. 21:51 So it's old fashion hand written letters. 21:54 And apparently Lucy was not producing letters 21:58 quite as rapidly as her husband thought. 22:02 And so he wrote to her from up there in Plattsburgh, 22:04 and he said, "Dear Lucy, have you departed this life? 22:09 Or are you so engaged that you cannot devote one hour in a week 22:12 to your humble servant? 22:14 The following are the words you wrote me not long since, to wit; 22:18 quote, 'If I am alive, I shall write to you weekly, 22:21 and put a letter into the post office every Monday morning.' 22:26 Ever since Wednesday noon, I have been dressed in mourning. 22:31 Shall I ever see my Lucy again? 22:33 I have often exclaimed, 'Ah, no. 22:35 She could not tell me a falsehood. 22:37 She must be dead.' 22:39 What can I write to her if she's gone? 22:42 I cannot write anything; she cannot hear me. 22:45 I can only write to my children, into whose hands I hope 22:48 this letter will fall. 22:50 Dear children, you have lost your mother; 22:53 and but a little while, your father must follow." 22:56 Etcetera, etcetera. You get the idea. 22:57 He's using a little humor to get the letter started 22:59 with his wife once again. 23:00 Which apparently they did. 23:02 Anyway, he's up there at Plattsburgh. 23:03 And as I say, it's one of the crucial, 23:06 it is, I guess, one of the most crucial battles in the war. 23:09 Because once the word got to Europe, 23:12 they went ahead and signed the peace treaty over there 23:14 and ended the war. 23:15 Now remember, it took several weeks for 23:16 the news to get over there. 23:17 But in essence, what happened was that the Americans 23:21 were outnumbered at that battle 23:23 fifty-five hundred to fifteen thousand. 23:26 Now you don't have to be a rational logical thinking deist 23:28 even to think, to know that with those kind of odds; 23:31 5500 on our side, and the scouts tell us that were sent out 23:35 to find out what we're up against, there's about 15000 23:38 British troops, who's going to win? 23:40 Obviously, the British are going to win. 23:43 And Miller goes into the battle of Plattsburgh. 23:45 He writes to a friend of his just a day or two before 23:48 the battle, and he all but says, "I know I'm going to 23:52 die in this thing. 23:54 But I'm going to, you know, I'm going to be honorable. 23:56 I'm going to do what's expected of me. 23:58 I'm going to defend the honor of the country." 24:00 And then comes the battle. 24:01 And it was a land battle, and also the British Navy 24:05 was all in full force. 24:06 Well, those Navy's back then, kind of little tiny lakes. 24:09 You know, there not like today. 24:11 But anyway, a few little ships came down from Canada. 24:15 And the Americans had a few ships. 24:17 And to make a long story short, after the 3 or 4 hour battle 24:21 was finished, those British ships that had not found 24:24 their way to the bottom of Lake Champlain 24:27 they crippled, you know, what was left of them, 24:29 they tried to make their way back up to Canada. 24:32 And again, telling the story from Miller's side, 24:34 he is so excited. 24:36 He cannot believe that the Americans have won. 24:40 And he writes to the same friend that he had written to 24:42 a few days before thinking he was going to die. 24:44 Now he's writing, "Huzzah, huzzah, I'm a man. 24:47 I've learned I can fight." 24:48 So he's all, you know, he's really excited about this. 24:51 Now why I say, not only did this battle convince 24:55 those that were negotiating an end to the war 24:58 over in Europe to finally sign off the peace treaty 25:01 so the war could end. 25:02 But again, according to one source that I was looking at, 25:07 of all the battles the Unites States has ever been in 25:11 in its entire history, there is only one battle 25:14 where the commanding officer, when he filed his initial report 25:18 with his superiors, gave all credit for the victory 25:22 to the Almighty. 25:24 There was no reason, humanly speaking, 25:28 anyone could conceive why the Americans won. 25:32 This is the battle that Miller is in. 25:34 Now of course, he's still a deist. 25:36 He's not thinking about any kind of spiritual things. 25:38 He's not having any impact on his thinking yet. 25:41 He is just, as I said, caught up in the euphoria of, 25:44 "The Americans have won! 25:45 The Americans have won!" 25:46 He's discharged from the army. 25:48 By the way, the battle was September 11th. 25:51 That should be a date you can remember. 25:53 September 11th, 1814. 25:54 He is discharged from the army the next year. 25:57 He goes back home, he builds a house. 26:00 An old, we have an old woodcut of the house 26:03 that he built. 26:04 And that's where he moved his family, was into the house, 26:07 now near where his mother was living. 26:10 Because his father had died while he was in the army. 26:12 And so, now his father never paid off the mortgage. 26:15 So Miller pays off the mortgage, gives the other house to her, 26:18 and he builds the house that is still standing. 26:21 It doesn't look quite like this today. 26:22 This is the way it looked back in Miller's time. 26:25 But he builds that house. 26:27 And he begins to settle in. 26:29 He becomes the justice of the peace. 26:31 Again, like over in Poultney, he is respected. 26:33 Now he's living in Low Hampton, but he's a respected person 26:36 in that community. 26:38 But some thoughts are beginning to go through his mind, 26:40 and during the next year or two. 26:42 He's thinking to himself, "Why, why did the Americans win? 26:48 There's no reason the Americans should have won. 26:51 Could it possibly be that there is a God 26:54 who takes an interest in the affairs of nations?" 26:58 And something else that I forgot to mention to you was that 27:00 during the battle, while he was in the thick of it all 27:04 that September 11th day, why, a cannon ball 27:07 came and landed about a meter, three feet, from where he was, 27:11 exploded, and Miller wasn't even touched. 27:14 And he's beginning to think, "Oh, so could it be... 27:18 Now a deist wouldn't think like this, but could it be 27:21 that there is a God out there that actually protects us?" 27:26 And so these thoughts are beginning 27:28 to go through his mind. 27:29 He still hasn't become a Christian. 27:31 But the Holy Spirit, you can see when you read his life story, 27:34 is beginning to work on him. 27:36 And another thing that bothered him 27:38 was that a deist does not believe in any afterlife. 27:42 So as he described it, "Is there no more to life 27:46 than just a taper?" 27:47 Or we would today say, a candle. 27:49 You know how a candle just will burn down, down, down, down. 27:52 And finally, there'd be one last puff of smoke, and that's it. 27:56 Is there nothing more to life than a taper? 27:59 To use the old term. 28:00 And he said, "Annihilation was a cold and chilling thought. 28:04 The heavens were as brass over my head, 28:06 and the earth as iron under my feet. 28:08 Eternity; what was it? 28:10 Death; why was it?" 28:11 These kinds of thoughts are going through his mind 28:15 as the Holy Spirit is working on him. 28:18 Now down the road from where Miller lived... 28:21 If you kind of imagine, Miller's mother is on a corner up here. 28:25 And she's in the house that Miller had grown up in. 28:27 And he'd paid it off and given it to her after his father died. 28:30 He builds a house half a mile or so down the 28:32 same side of the road. 28:33 And you go down another quarter of a mile or so, 28:34 across the road, there was a little Baptist church. 28:37 Now because it was the proper thing to do, 28:40 Miller would go to church on Sunday. 28:42 He didn't believe it, but that's where you got business. 28:44 And that's, you know. 28:45 Religion, as far as he was concerned at this point 28:48 in his life, "Religion was good for women and children, 28:51 and all that, but not a sophisticated man like me. 28:54 No, so. No, no, no." 28:55 So he would go to church some Sundays, 28:57 but other Sundays he didn't go. 28:59 Now the pastor of that church was his father's brother, 29:03 Elihu Miller. 29:04 Uncle Elihu. 29:06 And so he's pastoring the little Baptist church. 29:10 And the mother is down here on the corner, 29:12 and she notices that some Sundays her son is in church 29:15 and some Sundays he's not in church. 29:17 And she can't quite get it all figured out 29:19 as to what's going on. 29:20 So one day she asked him, she said, "Why is it that 29:23 some Sundays you go to church, and some Sundays you stay home? 29:27 What's going on?" 29:29 Well it so happened that Uncle Elihu Miller 29:32 was a circuit riding preacher. 29:33 In other words, he had several churches 29:35 that he was responsible for. 29:38 And when he was not there in that little church 29:41 in Low Hampton, why, they had sets of books of sermons. 29:45 And one of the deacons would select a sermon, 29:48 and then one of these farmer types would get up and read. 29:51 And they were not use to public speaking, 29:53 and they'd, "Uh, uh, uh, uh." 29:54 And Miller couldn't stand it. 29:56 So he told his mother, "When Uncle Elihu is there, 29:58 I always go to church. 30:01 But when he's not there, I stay home." 30:05 And then he added, "Now if when Uncle Elihu was away 30:10 they invited me to read the sermon, 30:13 I'd always be present." 30:16 Now any mother that's worth her salt, as we would say, 30:20 what is she going to make certain happens? 30:21 Whenever her brother-in-law is called away, 30:24 guess who is going to be invited to read the sermon. 30:27 He didn't have to select it, the deacons could select it, 30:30 but he was asked to read it. 30:32 And that's how he happened to be in church 30:35 on the Sunday closest to the second anniversary 30:38 of the battle of Plattsburgh. 30:40 It was a very patriotic time. 30:41 There had been speeches given, and all that, 30:43 on the weekend, during the weekend. 30:45 And now on Sunday he's there, and he is reading a sermon 30:50 written by a man named Alexander Proudfit. 30:53 Now the sermon is one that's about duty of parents 30:57 to their children, how we should raise our children. 31:00 Believe me, they raised children a little differently, 31:02 especially with discipline and things, back in those days 31:04 than what they do today. 31:05 But anyway, he was reading this sermon. 31:08 And it's interesting what happened to him. 31:11 He himself tells us that partway through the sermon, 31:15 he broke down and began to weep. 31:18 He could not finish the sermon. 31:20 And he had to go sit down. 31:22 And my guess is, he handed the book to one of those people 31:26 that he despised listening to and let him 31:28 finish reading the sermon. 31:29 Anyway, whatever happened in that regard, 31:31 Miller did not read the whole sermon. 31:34 But the Holy Spirit was once again moving on him. 31:37 And he later would write, "Suddenly, the character 31:41 of a Savior was vividly impressed upon my mind. 31:44 It seemed that there might be a Being so good 31:47 and compassionate as to Himself atone for our transgressions, 31:51 and thereby save us from suffering the penalty of sin." 31:54 And so, now for the first time in his life 31:56 he wants to know what kind of a God is revealed in Scripture. 32:00 And he tells us his method of study. 32:02 It's not what I would recommend that we do today 32:04 with all the various resources we have available to help us 32:07 understand the Bible. 32:08 But his method was, you take your Bible 32:11 and you take your concordance, nothing else. 32:14 He didn't want any commentaries, he didn't want anything. 32:16 Your Bible and your concordance. 32:18 He would start with Genesis 1, 32:19 he would read right straight through the Bible. 32:21 Every time he came to a word he didn't understand, 32:24 he looked it up in his Cruden's Concordance. 32:27 And then he would look up all the text in the Bible 32:29 where that particular word was used. 32:31 And by then he had a pretty good idea how the Bible 32:34 defined the word. 32:35 And he kept on reading. 32:36 This began in 1816. 32:38 And during this next two years he had this intense Bible study. 32:42 And he would later write, "I saw that the Bible 32:45 did bring to view just such a Savior as I needed." 32:49 And he kept reading. 32:50 And again, reading from his description that he wrote 32:53 years later about this time in his life, he said, 32:55 "I was constrained..." As he read. 32:57 "I was constrained..." What does that mean? 32:59 "I was forced." 33:00 "I was forced to admit that the Scriptures 33:03 must be a Revelation from God. 33:06 They became my delight." 33:08 What is, "they?" The Scriptures. 33:09 "...became my delight. 33:11 And in Jesus I found a friend." 33:14 If you don't remember anything else I say about William Miller, 33:17 you need to remember that. 33:18 First and foremost, Jesus became Miller's friend. 33:23 That's the key that unlocks his entire experience. 33:26 Why he did what he did was because Jesus 33:29 became his best friend. 33:30 He went on to say, "The Bible now became my chief study. 33:33 And I can truly say, I searched it with great delight." 33:37 Now during this period of time, he of course is reading 33:40 Daniel and Revelation. 33:42 And I can see him coming to Daniel 8:14, 33:45 "Unto to 2300 days, then shall the Sanctuary be cleansed." 33:48 Well what does, "sanctuary," mean? 33:49 I can see him, if he hadn't already defined it for himself, 33:51 looking it up in Cruden's Concordance, 33:53 and he finds different ways that the word, 33:57 "sanctuary," is defined. 33:58 It's used to talk about the body, 34:00 the Old Testament Sanctuary, the earth. 34:03 You know, so there's various ways that the word was used. 34:06 And Miller also, because of back there when he was studying 34:10 all these books in the little public library in Poultney 34:13 many years before, he'd reveled in reading history, 34:16 now with uncanny ability he was able to decipher 34:20 when that great time prophecy of Daniel 8:14 began and ended. 34:24 And he makes his fatal mistake. 34:27 He concludes that the Sanctuary that's to be cleansed, 34:30 he could not imagine anything in heaven 34:33 that needed to be cleansed, that the Sanctuary must be the earth. 34:37 And it will be destroyed when Jesus comes. 34:40 It will be cleansed at the second coming of Christ. 34:44 And there he is sitting in his study up there in that 34:46 little house, well not so little, but his house 34:49 there in Low Hampton, and he's saying, "Can it be 34:53 that my new best friend Jesus really is going to be 34:57 coming back in about 25 years? 35:00 No, no. That can't be. 35:03 But yes, that's what's so clear here." 35:04 And so he keeps studying. 35:05 For the next five years he studies and restudies. 35:07 And the more he studies, the more convinced he becomes 35:10 that the great time prophecies of Daniel and Revelation 35:12 were about to meet their fulfillment. 35:14 And as he mistakenly understood it, 35:17 when the 2300 day prophecy ended 35:19 Jesus would return. 35:21 Now, when you have that kind of light, 35:24 what do you have to do with it? 35:26 You have to share it, right? 35:29 "But how can I share it? 35:31 I'm a farmer, I'm not a preacher. 35:33 Who'd listen to me?" 35:34 He referred to himself sometimes as the old man. 35:37 "Who'd listen to the old man? Or the farmer? 35:39 Who would possibly listen to me?" 35:42 And yet, he feels compelled he must share. 35:47 Now it's during this period of time that one of those 35:49 interesting stories happened that we like to tell 35:53 when we're talking about Miller. 35:56 And so let's just use a little prop here in a minute. 36:01 One day, one of Miller's children became ill. 36:05 I don't know which one. 36:07 As I said, they had eight of them that grew up. 36:09 So he had plenty. 36:10 I don't know which room in the house. 36:11 I wish I did because it would be fun to go to the room 36:13 where the story happened. 36:14 But one of the children became ill. 36:18 Now there was a doctor in that area 36:20 that had heard about Miller's studying of the prophecies. 36:23 And he thought it was all a bunch of foolishness. 36:25 In fact, the doctor went around telling people 36:28 when they discussed Miller, "You know, he's a good guy. 36:30 He's the justice of the peace, 36:32 he's fair when he renders decisions. 36:34 He's a good guy, except when you get him started 36:37 talking about the prophecies." 36:38 Then he'd say, "Mono maniac." 36:41 Mono, of course, is what? On one topic. 36:44 You get him going on one topic. 36:46 Maniac is crazy. 36:47 So he's crazy on one topic. 36:48 Everything else he's fine. 36:50 Now obviously in a small community, especially 36:53 if you're making that kind of comments about someone, 36:56 guess what. 36:57 Miller is going to hear about it. 36:59 So when one of his children becomes ill, 37:02 guess which doctor he sent for. 37:05 Back in those day, no hospitals with emergency rooms 37:07 and all that, they were house calls. 37:08 So guess which doctor he sent for. 37:11 Well the doctor came, examined the child, 37:14 prescribed something. 37:16 Knowing the state of medicine in the United States 37:18 in those days, it probably would have been better if the child 37:20 had not taken whatever it was that the doctor prescribed. 37:24 But anyway. 37:25 And the doctor is ready to leave, and Miller is 37:27 sitting there by the door. 37:29 And he is looking very down and dejected, 37:33 like he's got something wrong with him. 37:35 And the doctor looks at him and says, 37:36 "Are you alright today?" 37:38 "Well I really don't know," Miller said. 37:43 And then he held out his hand so the doctor 37:46 could check his pulse. 37:48 "Well that seems to be fine. 37:49 What's wrong? How are you feeling?" 37:52 "Well," Miller said, "I really don't know. 37:58 Do you think, doctor, that maybe I could be a mono maniac?" 38:04 Now the doctor knew he was cornered. 38:06 What he didn't know was that once Miller had you cornered, 38:08 he didn't let go. 38:10 He went right on. 38:11 He said, "Doctor, would you really know a mono maniac 38:15 if you saw one?" 38:16 Well the doctor stammered and stuttered, 38:18 according to the old story. 38:19 But Miller is not going to let him off that easily. 38:22 He's going right on. 38:23 He says, "You've got to examine me. 38:26 You know, it's for my mental, my mind." 38:29 Well, some things haven't changed. 38:30 Our mental health we still have to know about. 38:32 "My mind. 38:33 You've got to examine me. 38:35 Find out if I'm really a mono maniac. 38:38 And by the way, doctor, when you give the examination, 38:43 you can charge your normal fee." 38:46 Now do you realize what Miller was just saying? 38:48 Miller knew there was only one way that this doctor 38:51 was going to find out whether or not Miller was a mono maniac 38:54 on these prophecies that he'd been studying. 38:57 And that is, he was going to have to have a Bible study. 39:01 And Miller was so interested in that doctor's soul 39:05 that he was willing to pay the examination fee to that doctor 39:08 if he could just share with that man 39:11 why he thought his best friend Jesus 39:13 would be coming back before long. 39:15 Well there was obviously no way that the 39:16 doctor could get out of it. 39:17 So what do they do? They go to Miller's study. 39:20 And there, they go in and sit down. 39:22 They open the Bible to Daniel 8; they work down through Daniel 8. 39:25 They go back to Daniel 2; they work through Daniel 2. 39:28 They go forward then to Daniel 7, and on into Daniel 9. 39:32 And guess what. 39:33 The doctor can't believe his eyes or his ears, 39:35 what he's learning. 39:36 It makes sense. 39:38 It is not some crazy gobbledygook. 39:41 It makes sense. 39:43 And away he headed out the door. 39:46 Because, you know, that's the last thing he could admit. 39:48 The next morning, according to the old story, 39:50 there's a knock on the door. 39:52 And who's there but the doctor. 39:54 He looks like he hasn't slept a wink all night. 39:56 He confirms, when Miller comes to the door, that in fact 39:58 he had not slept all night. 40:00 And he says to Miller, "You've got to study with me. 40:03 I'm a lost man. 40:05 I'm not ready to meet the Lord. 40:07 You have to study with me." 40:08 And so they set up a course of studies. 40:11 Sometimes the old 19th century English gets in the way, 40:14 but other times it is so quaint it's really kind of beautiful. 40:18 And the old story tells us that Miller set up the 40:21 course of study and pointed the doctor to the ark of safety. 40:26 And at the end of that series of studies, 40:28 the story tells us the doctor went away rejoicing, 40:32 as much a mono maniac on the prophecies 40:35 as William Miller. 40:37 Now this is one on one witnessing. 40:40 There is no way that Miller thinks he could stand up 40:43 and preach a series of sermons. 40:45 No way. Couldn't do it. 40:48 But he could witness one on one. 40:51 Then in August of 1831 according to some accounts, 40:56 1833 according to other accounts... 40:58 Anyway, sometime this happened whether it was 31 or 33. 41:02 I don't think any of us were there, so we're not going to 41:04 be able to discuss which one it really was. 41:06 But one of those years. 41:08 Miller, on a Saturday morning... 41:11 Why didn't I say Sabbath? 41:13 He's a Baptist. When was his Sabbath? 41:16 Sunday, right? 41:17 So on this Saturday morning, it's not his Sabbath, 41:19 so he's in his study and he is studying. 41:22 And he's coming under conviction. 41:25 The Holy Spirit is moving in on Miller 41:28 and telling him, "Go tell the world." 41:29 "I can't go tell the world. 41:30 Who'd listen to me?" 41:32 "Go share what you've been..." 41:33 "No," he says to his conscience, "I can't go." 41:35 And his conscience, the Holy Spirit is working on him. 41:38 Finally, to shut up his conscience, Miller says, 41:41 "If I'm ever asked to preach, I'll go. 41:46 Whew." 41:47 Oh yeah, he's read sermons that somebody else has written. 41:51 But to be asked to preach? 41:53 Nobody has asked the farmer, or the old man, to go preach. 41:57 Whew. 41:58 Well, as probably most of you have discovered, 42:01 you don't make a commitment to God unless you're serious. 42:04 Because within 30 minutes of having told God, 42:07 "If I'm ever asked to preach, I will go and preach," 42:11 there is a knock on the door. 42:13 He goes to the door and there is his 16 year old nephew, 42:16 Irving Guilford, his sister's son, 42:18 who lived over in Dresden about 16 miles or so to the west. 42:22 And he's just ridden up on a horse. 42:24 Now remember, in 1831 or 33, whichever year this happened, 42:27 there's no telephones, no way to make communication. 42:30 I can imagine the first thing that went through Miller's mind 42:33 as he saw his nephew there and the horse panting, probably... 42:36 I mean, he's a teenager. He probably rode the horse fast. 42:38 Anyway, panting you know, and the kid is, young man 42:42 is out of breath a bit himself. 42:44 And I'm sure Miller is thinking, "What in the world? 42:46 Something happened. Is everything okay?" 42:48 "No, it's all fine. It's fine Uncle Bill. 42:50 But the pastor has been called away unexpectedly. 42:54 And father is responsible for church tomorrow. 42:59 And he's wondering, would you come over 43:01 and share with us what you've been studying 43:04 from the books of Daniel and Revelation?" 43:07 Wow, now this is not what Miller was expecting 43:10 when he told God 30 minutes earlier, 43:11 "If I'm ever asked, I'll go." 43:13 He is so mad, he goes out into the maple grove 43:17 out to the west of his house. 43:18 And there like Jacob of old, he wrestles with God. 43:21 Whether he was jumping around, whether he was waving his fists 43:23 at God, what, I don't know. 43:25 He was angry, he was loud probably out there. 43:27 His little daughter, Lucy, his youngest child, 43:30 comes out of the house, sees her father out there 43:32 in the maple grove, gets scared, runs back into the house 43:35 and says, "Mama, mama, come quick. 43:37 Something's happened to papa." 43:39 And sure enough, something had happened to papa. 43:42 As an Adventist historian described it many years ago, 43:45 Miller went into that grove of trees a farmer. 43:50 He came out a preacher. 43:53 And so he went with his nephew later that day 43:57 over to the home in Dresden, to his sister's home. 44:01 And there, not in a little white, you know, 44:03 not a little white framed church with a steeple, and all that... 44:06 No, that's not where the movement began. 44:09 He still wasn't quite over his shyness. 44:12 So his sister and her husband, they arranged for the people, 44:16 for the members of the little church to come over there 44:19 to their own home. 44:20 And Miller, we're told, sat with a Bible 44:23 in his sister's armchair and opened it up to them, 44:27 and began to share with them why he thought 44:29 his best friend Jesus would be coming back in a few years. 44:32 And guess what. They got excited. 44:34 And guess what else happened. 44:35 Now remember, this is 1831 or 33, 44:37 depending on which year you want. 44:39 And he's been studying this since 1817 or 1818 back there. 44:42 He's got a lot of stuff up here in his mind. 44:44 And they asked him to stay all week and hold meetings. 44:47 And he did. 44:49 And then when he got home, there was a letter 44:51 from over in Poultney, the Baptist church in Poultney 44:53 where he'd lived years before. 44:55 The associate pastor asked him to come and share. 44:59 So within one week of telling God, "If I'm ever asked 45:01 to preach, I'll go preach," he had his first two invitations. 45:05 And over the next few years he kept preaching and preaching. 45:09 He kept a log book or a journal where he wrote all the places, 45:13 the dates, the text that he opened his talks with 45:16 at every place; it's quite interesting. 45:18 And if you plot it on a map, it's sort of like dropping a 45:20 pebble in a lake or throwing a pebble out in the lake 45:23 and you see the ripples. 45:24 Well that's the way it was with Miller. 45:26 It just seems to get larger and larger. 45:28 So you plot a place here, and here, and here, and here. 45:32 Because as one pastor would talk to another pastor and say, 45:34 "You know, if you want to get revival and reformation 45:36 in your church, get that Miller guy to come. 45:39 I mean, the Lord honors and revival will 45:42 break out in your church." 45:43 And pastors wanted that. 45:44 So this is safe, it's still several years before 45:47 Miller is saying the Lord will come sometime 45:49 around the year 1843 or 1844. 45:51 So it's way in the future, so sure. 45:53 Revival and reformation is breaking out. 45:55 And Miller is getting more and more speaking appointments. 45:58 And as I say, if you plot them on a map, 46:00 it's sort of like dropping a pebble in the water. 46:03 By 1839, early 1839, Miller had not yet preached 46:08 in any of the large cities of the United States 46:11 back in those days, like Portland, Maine, 46:13 Boston, New York, Philadelphia, etc. 46:16 He had not preached in any of those at that point. 46:20 But there was a pastor by the name of Timothy Cole 46:24 who lived in Lowell, Massachusetts. 46:26 He was the pastor of a church in Lowell, Massachusetts. 46:29 And Cole heard about what happened when Miller 46:33 was invited to preach. 46:35 And of course, he wanted that in his congregation. 46:39 So he wrote to Miller and he asked Miller if he would come 46:42 and hold meetings in his church. 46:45 Now Cole... Remember this is 1839. 46:47 There were no newspapers that had pictures. 46:49 Photography was very new. 46:50 The newspapers didn't know how to produce 46:53 pictures to put in there. 46:54 They had some primitive woodcuts, but no pictures. 46:57 And so Cole really didn't know what Miller looked like. 47:00 And he wrote to Miller and asked Miller, "Now when you come 47:02 on the train, what will you look like? 47:05 What will you be wearing? How will I know you?" 47:08 You know, I mean, he must make certain that he's 47:10 getting this impressive person that has such an impact. 47:15 He wants to make certain he knows what he looks like. 47:16 So anyway, Miller writes back and says, 47:18 "I'll be wearing a white hat and a camlet coat." 47:22 A certain kind of cloth. 47:23 Camlet coat. 47:24 And so I can imagine this young man marching up and down 47:27 there waiting for that early train to come in. 47:30 Now the train is not the kind you're probably thinking about. 47:32 They were very primitive still in 1839. 47:35 And they probably did all of 18 or 20 miles an hour 47:39 at top speed. 47:40 But anyway, pretty soon... 47:41 Yeah, that's the way they looked. 47:43 There's a picture of one. 47:44 Thank you for showing us that. 47:45 So here they came, the train came in squeaking, you know, 47:49 and the brakes, and all that. 47:50 You can just kind of imagine. 47:51 And the people start getting off the train. 47:53 And Cole is looking for somebody, as we would say, 47:57 tall, distinguished, handsome. 47:59 Anybody that's having that kind of impact must be 48:01 really impressive looking. 48:03 But, what? What? 48:05 There's nobody tall that's wearing a white hat. 48:07 Pretty soon there is a gentleman over there. 48:11 He's an older gentleman. 48:12 He's got a white hat. 48:14 He's wearing a camlet coat. 48:17 But look at him. 48:19 That can't be the guy. 48:20 The newspapers tell us that Miller had auburn hair, 48:23 reddish hair, a round face, a bull neck, 48:28 a body that's corpulent. 48:30 You know that old word, corpulent. 48:32 Fat, in other words. Heavy, overweight. 48:34 He was corpulent. 48:35 And I can imagine Cole looking and saying, 48:38 "That can't possibly be the guy." 48:40 And so he goes over, and he doesn't put his hand out 48:42 and say, "Hello, are you brother Miller? 48:44 I'm Pastor Cole." 48:45 No, he whispers in his ear, "Are you William Miller?" 48:49 Because there might be people on the platform 48:51 or on the station there that knew that wasn't Miller. 48:53 It would be embarrassing, wouldn't it, to not know 48:56 the speaker yourself. 48:58 And Miller said, "Yes, I am." 49:00 And so, away they go to home. 49:02 And Cole, being younger, he heads off first. 49:05 Miller is coming along with this trunk trying to 49:07 follow along as best as he could. 49:09 They go to Cole's house for a meal, 49:12 and then they go to the church. 49:13 And during this period of time Cole is thinking, 49:15 "Oh my, look at that." 49:16 Now something else I haven't mentioned to you is, 49:18 the newspapers mention, describe, that when 49:22 Miller spoke his hands would shake. 49:25 And some also talk about his head shaking. 49:28 So put that with the auburn hair, and the round face, 49:31 and the bull neck, and the corpulent body. 49:33 And you can see why this younger minister is thinking, 49:35 "Oh my word. 49:36 Oh I hope everybody has misunderstood." 49:39 But he gets to the church and it's full. 49:41 It's always full when Miller was going to preach. 49:43 And so he shows Miller to the pulpit. 49:46 I think Miller knew what a pulpit was, frankly. 49:48 He had been preaching two sermons a day 49:50 for I don't know how many years. 49:52 I think he knew what a pulpit was. 49:53 But anyway, the story says he showed him to the pulpit, 49:55 and Cole goes and sits down somewhere out there, 49:57 and Miller begins to speak. 50:00 He gets up, he lines out a hymn, teaches it to them line by line. 50:04 They sang a cappella in those days. 50:05 He lined out a second hymn. 50:07 And then he turned to the text that he used to open more series 50:11 of meetings than any other; Titus 2:13. 50:14 "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing 50:17 of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." 50:19 And he began to share with them why he thought 50:22 his best friend Jesus would be coming back in a few years. 50:26 Timothy Cole has gone out there and sat down 50:28 somewhere in the congregation. 50:29 He's listening. 50:30 He's forgotten all about the auburn hair. 50:32 He's forgotten all about the bull neck. 50:34 He's forgotten all about the tremor. 50:36 What he's hearing is a message that's touching his heart. 50:38 And the story tells us that within 15 minutes he gets up, 50:41 he walks up on the platform, sits down behind Miller. 50:44 He waits until the sermon is over, he rushes over, 50:47 thanks him profusely, and said, "Will you stay 50:49 and hold meetings in my church?" 50:52 And at the end of that series of meetings, Timothy Cole himself 50:55 decided to become a Millerite lecturer. 50:59 That's the kind of impact that Miller's preaching was having. 51:03 And during the next few years, they began to publish papers. 51:06 Things were getting... 51:07 The movement is having a great impact. 51:11 You read the newspapers, and they're mostly critical, 51:14 but you do realize that the newspapers are reporting 51:16 on the fact that things are happening. 51:18 The Millerites are holding meetings 51:19 even though almost all of them are critical. 51:22 Now Miller himself, of course, had said the Lord would come 51:24 sometime about 1843 or 1844. 51:29 The reason he didn't set a date is because the Bible tells us, 51:31 no man knows the day nor the hour. 51:33 But Miller said, if you have 2300 years, 51:35 why, certainly at the end of the 2300 years 51:38 you've got a whole year. 51:39 So he expected that the Lord would come sometime between 51:42 the beginning of the Jewish year March 21, 1843 51:45 and March 21, 1844. 51:47 When the Lord did not come in the spring of 1844 as Miller had 51:51 first thought, why, we call it the spring disappoint. 51:55 There was a lot of disappointment. 51:56 The newspapers had been full of all kinds of 51:59 terrible things they were saying about the Millerites 52:01 just leading up to the March/April era of time in 1844. 52:06 And somebody wrote to Miller a little while later 52:10 and said to him, "How are you doing?" 52:13 And Miller writes back, and I want to read 52:14 just a few lines from his... 52:16 It gives you the measure of this man, actually. 52:19 A few lines of the response that he sent to Elon Galusha. 52:22 He said, "I'm doing fine. Thanks for asking." 52:24 And then he goes on to say, and I'm quoting now, 52:26 "Why then should I complain if God should give a few days 52:29 or even months more as a probation time 52:31 for some to find salvation. 52:33 It is my Savior's will. 52:36 And I rejoice that He will do things right." 52:40 It's as if Miller is saying, "Let them ridicule me 52:42 from the pulpit. 52:43 Let them say whatever they want on the street corners about me. 52:46 Let them call me names. I don't care. 52:48 If God, my best friend, Jesus, if He wants 52:52 to wait just a little longer to save someone else 52:55 for whom He died, what's it to me?" 52:59 What an attitude. 53:01 Well, then you go through the summer of 1844. 53:04 They don't know what's going on. 53:05 Someone else comes up with the October 22 date. 53:08 And that's Samuel Snow. 53:09 Miller does not accept it until October 6th. 53:11 But he sees the power of what is known as the 53:15 first angel's message; the preaching, the power. 53:17 He cannot deny that something is going on. 53:19 And so on October 6th, he writes and says, 53:22 "Glory, glory, I'm almost home." 53:25 And then comes October 22, which we call now in history, 53:28 the great disappointment. 53:30 And as you probably know, Miller again, he's devastated. 53:37 But he's not totally devastated. 53:39 He says that he has fixed his mind on another time. 53:44 "And here I mean to stand until God gives me more light. 53:47 And that is today, today, today until He comes." 53:53 Miller died December 20, 1849. 53:56 No, he never accepted the seventh-day Sabbath. 53:59 No, he never understood why the Lord had not come 54:02 and returned on October 22, 1844. 54:06 Miller gave his life preaching the first angel's message. 54:11 And some may say, "Well, he didn't have the full message." 54:14 But he did what God called him to do. 54:17 And in, Early Writings, Ellen White has written that, 54:20 "Angels watch the precious dust of this servant of God, 54:24 and he will come forth at the sound of the last trump." 54:29 Early Writings, page 258. 54:31 Now as we come to the end of this meeting this evening, 54:35 I want to share with you a description of the 54:39 second coming of Christ that was written by William Miller. 54:42 Now this was not written in the heat of the anticipation of 54:46 October 22, 1844. 54:48 No, no, no, this was written way back in 1832 54:53 to a Brother Truman Hendryx. 54:56 And listen to how excited and how real, how vivid 55:00 the second coming of Christ was to William Miller. 55:04 Here's what he wrote. 55:05 This is just the last part of a letter, 55:07 but the last part of the final paragraph. 55:09 "Look! Look again! 55:12 See crowns, and kings, and kingdoms tumbling to the dust! 55:16 See lords and nobles, captains and mighty men, 55:19 all arming for the bloody, demon fight! 55:21 See the carnivorous fowls fly screaming through the air! 55:25 See, see these signs! 55:27 Behold, the heavens grow black with clouds; 55:30 the sun has veiled himself; the moon, pale and forsaken, 55:34 hangs in middle air; the hail descends; the seven thunders 55:37 utter loud their voices; the lightnings send their 55:40 vivid gleams of sulfurous flame abroad; and the great city of 55:43 the nations falls to rise no more forever and forever! 55:48 At this dread moment, look, look! 55:51 O, look and see! What means that ray of light? 55:55 The clouds have burst asunder; the heavens appear; 55:58 the great white throne is in sight! 56:00 Amazement fills the universe with awe! 56:03 He comes! He comes! 56:05 Behold, the Saviour comes! 56:07 Lift up your heads, ye saints; He comes! He comes! He comes!" 56:14 And he signed it, William Miller. 56:17 I wish you could see all the exclamation points here 56:20 in his written description. 56:23 And here we are, Seventh-day what? 56:26 Seventh-day Adventists. 56:29 What does that mean? 56:31 That means we're looking for the coming of the Lord. 56:35 And the question that I think we must ask ourselves 56:38 as we think about Miller's story is, 56:40 how real, how vivid, is the second coming 56:45 still in our lives today? 56:47 For Miller, it overarched everything he did. 56:50 Every person he saw was a candidate, 56:53 a potential citizen for heaven. 56:56 Is that the way we view things today? 56:59 Or have we kind of just become so use to hearing about 57:03 the second coming that we don't think much 57:06 about it really anymore, and it doesn't impact the decisions 57:10 that we make in our lives. 57:12 William Miller, the man for whom the "Adventist" part 57:16 of our name, Seventh-day Adventists, our church name, 57:20 historically is traced back to. 57:23 William Miller was thoroughly in love with Jesus. 57:27 He could hardly wait for Him to return. |
Revised 2015-04-09