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Herbert E. Douglass, Th.D. |
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100th
Anniversary-- Sheridan, IL on July 16, 2005 What a glorious time for memories! Young children now have gray heads. Fathers and mothers are resting awaiting the trumpets and the Voice of Jesus. We all are living in the “in-between-times.” The “now” and the “not yet.” I remember
anniversaries well: In 1950, the Advent Review, our
church paper, celebrated its 100th birthday; in 1975,
it’s 125th; in 2005, it’s 161st.
In 1970 the Illinois Conference celebrated its 100th
anniversary, complete with the costumes, the impersonations, the
horse-drawn carriages and the nostalgia.
In Battle Creek
today, the Historic
Adventist Village reminds us of the grit and sacrifice and
excitement of a small group of men and women who made Battle Creek the
center of the Adventist world, as well as the cereal capital of the
world, more than a century ago. And here we are
in old Sheridan. In 1900, Ellen White gave some strong counsel to be
followed for the “school
to be established in Sheridan . . . (Illinois) you will have the
blessing of God, and complete success. Letter 152, 1900, (To Roy F.
Cottrell, November 20, 1900.) {6MR
308.4} In that year, the Sheridan Industrial Academy, later known as
the Fox River Academy, was established.
But in 1933, the Fox River Academy was closed and consolidated
with the school at Broadview, which at that time was an academy and
junior college. So your
roots are deep! How do
Adventists celebrate centennials?
Are we supposed to be happy or sad?
In view of the Adventist mission, is a centennial a sign
of success, and achievement, or something much less? From 1844 to
_______ is a long time. Were
the Adventists in 1850 premature in announcing that Jesus was to
return in their day? Were
they commendably zealous but theologically incorrect
when they proclaimed that our Lord’s coming was near, even at
the door? _______ years is a long time to preach that the Second
Advent is very near! What
does language mean when we say something is “near” for over
160 years? So, we are forced to ask ourselves another
question: What happened! IF JESUS COULD
HAVE RETURNED BEFORE 1900, WHY THE DELAY? Some of us come
down on the side of our early Adventists--they were not wrong! The generation that proclaimed the judgment hour
message from 1844 on could have been and should have been the last
generation--as a very special lady has often told us. For example, she wrote in 1888, in The Great
Controversy, p. 458: “It was not the will of God that the
coming of Christ should be so long delayed and His people should
remain so many years in this world of sin and sorrow.”
In 1901,
writing to P. T. Magan, that remarkable leader who led out in the
early years of Emmanuel Missionary College, Madison College, and then
Loma Linda University, Ellen White penned sorrowfully: “God’s
people have been far behind.
Human agencies under divine planning may recover
something of what is lost because the people who had great
light did not have corresponding piety, sanctification, and zeal
in working out God’s specified plans.
. . . We may have to remain here in this world because of
insubordination many more years, as did the children of Israel;
but for Christ’s sake, His people should not add sin to sin by
charging God with the consequence of their own wrong course of
action.” MS 184, 1901, in MR 20, pp. 310-314. So the
question: How would
Adventists charge God with the consequences of “their own
wrong course of action”? Surely, not directly.
Yet, could it be possible that some of the reasoning
used over the years to explain why Jesus has not returned, may have
done just that—blamed God for man’s failure? For example, such
explanations as, a) Jesus has not come because the angels
have not yet turned all the pages in the books of judgment—when the
last pages of those living have been turned, probation is then closed
and the plagues will fall. Or,
b) God has His own celestial clock; its hands move
inexorably—when the clock strikes twelve, probation will close,
ready or not. Or, c) the Lord can’t come because the world is
not evil enough but when the cup is full, then God says, “That’s
enough, I’ve had it!” Or, d) He can’t return because we
have not seen a universal Sunday law.
Or, e) another reason that has become fashionable in the
last few years in many pulpits and classroom is this lame excuse— we
have no idea when Jesus will return—and there’s nothing that human
beings can do to hasten the Advent. The Bible or Ellen
White or common sense supports none of these explanations! But what is worst, these excuses have lifted
the responsibility for the delay of the Advent from God’s professed
people and “their own wrong course of action” and thrown it
back on God. Unintentionally,
of course, but the effect is the same: Satan is pleased with these
decoys, and the real solution to the delay in the Advent is
overlooked Let’s look at
how Jesus referred to the end of the world in Mark 4: “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed
upon the ground. . . . The earth yields crops by itself: first the
blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.
But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle,
because the harvest has come” (4:26-29, NKJV). And John was
given a picture of this kingdom being harvested in Rev. 14:
“And I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat one
like the Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his
hand a sharp sickle. And
another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him
who sat upon the cloud, ‘Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the
hour has come o reap, for the harvest of the earth is y ripe” (14:14,
15, NKJV). WISE
FARMERS KNOW WHAT JESUS KNOWS—THEY WAIT FOR THEIR SEED TO MATURE!
Anyone with a backyard garden understands
our Lord’s words just as much as a corn farmer in Illinois. What is
Jesus saying here? The first lesson I hear is that the purposes
of the kingdom of God and of your backyard gardens or your huge farms
are the same--the harvest is ready when the seed has matured.
Who plants tomatoes or corn just for the fun of it?
Of course there is pleasure in planting the seed; yes, there is
even fun in cultivating growing plants.
But we don’t plant seeds merely for the fun of weeding
the rows. We plant
because we enjoy juicy red tomatoes or full, golden ears. In other words,
just as farmers must wait for their seed to mature, so Jesus
has told us that He will wait until the gospel seed has
produced a harvest that He can stamp with His seal of approval.
When that harvest is ripe, when the wheat and the tares
are fully mature, all the events we associate with the end will
happen very quickly, such as Latter Rain, Loud Cry, Sunday laws,
etc. For example, the “latter rain” falls only on mature, prepared
Christians, which makes possible the “loud cry.” Jesus is telling
us that the harvest is ready when the seed is mature, both tares and
wheat! The wise
Heavenly Reaper waits until the harvest is ready!
The sealing work of Revelation 7 is another way to describe the
ripening of the harvest. The
end comes when the harvest is ripe (Rev 14), that is, when God’s
people are sealed (Rev 7). Use
COL:67, 68, and DA:633, 634 (if time) THE SECOND
LESSON OF OUR LORD’S HARVEST PRINCIPLE IS THIS: FARMERS AND PROPHETS
ENGAGE IN CONDITIONAL PROPHECIES. Farmers know, for example, that early corn should
be ready in 68 days, some corn, in 74, late corn in
88 days. That is
what the seed catalogue promised, if!
If, the corn gets enough rain, but not too much, if
the nights stay warm in July, if the birds don’t eat the
seed--all these ifs, the farmer has no control over. Jesus is
saying, Listen to the parable of the farmer.
The delay in the harvest of this world has not been due to a
change of mind on the part of the divine Farmer.
As far as God’s seed catalog is concerned, the harvest could
have and should have ripened decades ago.
We have been living in the time of the delayed harvest for
far too long. The
fruit, the fruits of the Spirit that reflect the character of Jesus,
have not yet matured. This line of
thought is not new to Seventh-day Adventists.
In 1883, Ellen White pleaded with fellow church members
to understand why Jesus was delaying His return: “It is true that
time has continued longer than we expected in the early days of
this message. Our Saviour
did not appear as soon as we hoped.
But has the word of the Lord failed?
Never! It should
be remembered that the promises and threatenings of God are alike
conditional. [God and
farmers work with conditional promises.] “Had Adventists,
after the great disappointment in 1844, held fast their faith, and
followed on unitedly in the opening providence of God, receiving the
message of the third angel and in the power of the Holy Spirit
proclaiming it to the world, they would have seen the salvation
of God, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their
efforts, the work would have been completed, and Christ
would have come ere this to receive His people to their
reward.”--Selected Messages, book 1, p.
67, 68. (Manuscript
4, 1883) As clearly as
words can convey thought, Ellen White on many occasions declared the
sad yet challenging truth that the return of Jesus was already
delayed in the 1880s! Further,
God would continue to wait until His people were ready for His
endorsement and sealed with His approval. Why is Jesus
waiting? Because He wants
the gospel to go to all the world-- but
it must be a clear gospel without confusion.
The gospel in every church, Catholic and Protestant, often in
our own, is strangely confused for two basic reasons: 1) A
limited gospel focuses on forgiveness as the purpose of salvation but
the everlasting gospel includes the sinner’s restoration
wherein all sin is worked out of the life through the power of the
Holy Spirit. And the second reason:
The everlasting gospel
is the good news about our Heavenly Father—that was our
Lord’s earthly assignment and it is ours.
God is not the Cosmic Cop or the Stern Judge.
He is the Good Shepherd, our Waiting Father who is always
reaching for His lost sons and daughters. Only when God is
truly known can people make an informed choice.
And Jesus makes it very clear that He will not return until
every living person in the last generation has had enough information
to say Yes or No to the Light of Truth.
Not equal information but enough! But that gospel
can be given only by those who know this truth about God and can
give a personal witness to what this truth has meant to them: “And
this good news about the Kingdom will be preached through all the
world for a witness to all mankind; and then the end will
come” (Matt. 24:14, TEV). In other words, when people look at you
and listen to you, what kind of a God are you representing? Are you a
good witness? But here’s our
problem: we may be using the right words but still not telling the
truth about God and how the world will end and when Jesus will
return. We may not be
truthful witnesses. Many
Christians use the right words, such as grace, faith, righteousness by
faith, justification and sanctification, but they put different
definitions on them; they are not telling the truth about God, even in
our own church. We end up
in theological fog. What is even
worse is that many Christians may have the truth about God but they
are not good witnesses—they do not walk the talk!
If they were charged in a court of law for saying that
they were good Christians, would there be enough evidence to be
convicted? In Matthew 24
and 25, Jesus kept His eyes on the church rather than on the world.
Why? For
this reason: to place undue emphasis on world conditions, which are
always in distress, would be similar to a farmer saying: “I oiled my
combine, it must be time to harvest the wheat.”
Or, “It looks like there will be a bad thunderstorm.
It must be time to pick my corn.”
There is as much relationship between a thunderstorm and
picking ripe corn as there is between distress in the world and the
readiness of the church for the Advent. JESUS
IS STILL LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO WILL STAND UP TO THEIR ASSIGNMENT LIKE
HE LOOKED UP TWO DISCOURAGED PREACHERS IN 1856. The
story travels across Illinois, not far from here. On the first weekend
of December 1856, Ellen, now 29, and James at 35 were in Round Grove,
Illinois, to meet with Adventist believers, some they had known in New
England. This was a time
when the “west” was opening up to new settlers.
Compared to New England, the fertile land on both sides of the
Mississippi River was compared to heaven. Many Adventists had said
good-by to the rocky farms of New England where poverty was pervasive.
The call of the rich prairies was very strong and compelling.
Among those who had gone west were the Andrews, the Stevens, and the
Loughboroughs—some of the strongest Adventist families. For
example, the Loughboroughs at 25 struggled through 1856 in tent
meetings, working during the week haying and harvesting, averaging
$4-5 dollars per week. After
the fall settlement, Mary Loughborough said, “This is too much, we
can’t live any longer in this way.”
John had been a good cabinet-maker and he told Mary that they
would go to Waukon, Iowa, and rejoin John Andrews and his family who
were already there. In
Iowa, they found a very sick Andrews at 28 (our best theologian at
that time). John Loughborough, much discouraged, had little energy to
help restore the wavering families who were buying up more land and
working even harder to find the end of the rainbow. Now,
back to Round Grove, Illinois: On December 9, Ellen White had a
vision: “I was shown that the company of brethren at Waukon, Iowa,
needed help; that Satan's snare must be broken, and these precious
souls rescued. My mind could not be at ease until we had decided to
visit them.” But
an Illinois winter had set in and the Mississippi River had no bridge;
it had to be crossed, either by boat or on the ice. The Whites were
staying with the Harts and the Everts, former New England families
These two men had learned to trust Ellen’s convictions and they were
impressed to take the Whites by sleigh. Ellen
White tells the story: “It
was then good sleighing, and preparations were made to
go with two horses and a sleigh; but as it rained for
twenty-four hours, and the snow was fast disappearing, my husband
thought the journey must be given up. Yet my mind could not rest; it
was agitated concerning Waukon. Brother
Hart said to me, ‘Sister White, what about Waukon?’ I said, ‘We
shall go.’ ‘Yes, he
replied, ‘if the Lord works a miracle.’ “Many
times that night I was at the window watching the weather, and about daybreak there was a change, and
it commenced snowing. The next evening, about five o'clock, we started
on our way to Waukon. . . . Arriving at Green Vale, Illinois, we held meetings with the brethren there. But
at Green Vale another severe snowstorm struck, delaying the journey
nearly a week. But they pressed on. As they neared the Mississippi
River they made many inquiries about crossing. No one thought it could
be done. The horses were breaking through the crusted snow at almost
every step. A foot of water was flowing over the ice on the
Mississippi. Ellen White recounted the breathtaking experience. “When
we came to the river, Brother Hart arose in the sleigh and said, ‘Is
it Iowa, or back to Illinois?’. . . . We answered, ‘Go forward,
trusting in Israel's God.’ We
ventured upon the ice, praying as we went, and were
carried safely across. As we ascended the bank on the Iowa side
of the river, we united in praising the Lord. A number of persons told
us, after we had crossed, that no amount of money would have tempted
them to venture upon the ice, and that several teams had broken
through, the drivers barely escaping with their lives.” After
spending the Sabbath with church members in Dubuque, six miles from
the crossing, they moved on to Waukon, still four days sleighing away,
near the Minnesota border. After
reaching Waukon Ellen wrote: “We reached Waukon Wednesday night, and
found nearly all the Sabbathkeepers sorry that we had come.” Years
later Loughborough gave a vivid description of the meeting of the
travelers with the believers in Waukon. “As Brother Hosea Mead and I
were working on a store building in Waukon, a man looking up saw me,
and inquired, ‘Do you know a carpenter around here by the name of
Hosea Mead?’ I replied, ‘Yes, sir, he is up here working with
me.’ Brother
Mead said, ‘That is Elon Everts' voice.’ Then he looked down, and
Brother Everts said, "Come down; Brother and Sister White and
Brother Hart are out here in the sleigh.’
As I reached the sleigh, Sister White greeted me with the
question ‘What doest thou here, Elijah?’ Astonished at such a
question, I replied, ‘I am working with Brother Mead at carpenter
work. The second time she repeated, ‘What doest thou here,
Elijah?’ . . . “I
was brought by these bare questions to very seriously consider the
case of Elijah, away from the direct work of the Lord, hid in a cave.
. . . The salutation most thoroughly
convinced me that there was going to come a change, and a
‘go-back’ from the labor in which I was then engaged.” At
one of the meetings Ellen White was taken off in vision, and in vision
solemnly repeated the words “Return unto me, and I will return unto
you, saith the Lord.” These words brought consolation and hope to
Mary Loughborough, who in days past had been left at home alone while
her husband was away preaching, and she was tempted to murmur. She
confessed her bitterness of spirit in a powerful testimony and urged
her husband to return to his ministry.
At
another meeting John Andrews renewed his consecration to God and to
service in the Lord's cause. The few days James and Ellen White spent
in Waukon were not in vain. Think
about it! Besides
reestablishing a growing church in Iowa, two special leaders in the
development of the Adventist Church were reclaimed.
John Andrews, after he regained his health, returned to Battle
Creek and elsewhere, a remarkable Bible student and historian, and our
first foreign missionary. Today, we remember this man who turned his
back on a fortune to be made in Iowa when we think of Andrews
University. John
Loughborough returned with his valiant wife, and entered a
distinguished career as conference president of five conferences,
treasurer of the General Conference, church planter in many fields,
and author of several books that are prized today. Never
again did those two men waver. At one of the Waukon meetings,
young Loughborough rose and said: “I have laid up my hammer!
I have driven the last nail!
Henceforth my hand shall hold the sword of the Spirit, and
never give it up. So help me, God!” The
Waukon dash was just one example of how far Ellen White would go to
encourage two great preachers to do their duty.
All because of a vision in the middle of winter in frozen
Illinois somewhere close to Sheridan. There
would be no centennial anniversary in Sheridan today if men like
Andrews and Loughborough stayed in Iowa.
Or if Ellen White did not trust the vision and the men folk
around her did not trust her! One
of these days, finally, the Lord’s bride will be ready for the
wedding. Read about it in
Revelation 19. She has
left the Lord standing at the altar for a long, long time. Some bride!
But, one of these days, the Lord will declare the waiting over.
The bride will have made herself ready.
And then our Lord Jesus will invite the redeemed of all the
ages, beginning with Adam and Eve, to “the marriage supper of the
Lamb.” What a table that will be! Wedgewood china, Rogers Silverware, angelic music and a place card at every seat. Fathers and mothers will go up and down the rows, looking for their sons and daughters. Sweethearts will look for lovers once lost in war. Spouses will look for their faithful mates. When your father or mother looks for you, or your earthly mate, will you be at your seat or will your seat be empty? That’s the question only you can answer and only you and Jesus can do anything about it. Before you leave this church today, I think we all should be making some promises that we will be found in our places at the Lamb’s marriage supper. - Herbert E. Douglass, ThD |
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