<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Advent HOPE - Adventist History Class

Tim Arakawa

The Great Advent Awakening

Norman McNulty

The Midnight Cry

The 1888 General Conference

The Health Message and Kellogg

Madison and True Education

The History of Questions On Doctrine

The Desmond Ford Apostasy

Current Events in Adventism

Dear Father in Heaven, we want to see you.

We want to understand what happened in 1888, and most importantly, we want to see what you wanted to happen in 1888.

Help us to learn the lessons so that we can apply those to our lives.

Well, today we are going to be talking about 1888.

And like I mentioned just before, there's a lot of material to cover and so many things that could be said, we're only going to be able to hit the highlights today.

Last week, we talked about, the title was Almost a Canaan.

And we talked about some of the instances, the episodes in Adventist history where God wanted to bring us to the promised land, but for some reason we didn't quite make it.

And I believe that 1 of those times happened in 1888, and the time that occurred right after 1888.

And so this is very important for us to study and to understand what happened.

It's probably 1 of the most famous times in Adventist history.

And so we will try to cover some of those things today.

Before we begin that though, I want to kind of give you a background of what was happening during those times.

I would like to give you a context so that you can view these events within the historical period that they happened.

And 2 weeks ago, Adrian talked about the development of present truth that happened in the Adventist church in the decades following 1844.

And this is very important context for us to know and perhaps the best way to describe this is that after 1844, there were a certain system of truths that were developed, I believe, led by God, that our church found.

And we can kind of summarize it by saying that central to our theology at that time was the sanctuary, because that explained kind of what happened in October 22, 1844 and afterward.

And within the sanctuary, In the most holy place, there was the law, right?

And within the law, there was the fourth commandment, the seventh-day Sabbath.

And there are many other truths that were surrounding these, But those were very, very important parts of our theology at that time.

They were consistent with each other, and they fit together in a nice package.

They had been prayerfully and painstakingly studied and thought through in the years following 1844.

But as we'll come to find out, there was now a group, a generation of young ministers and church workers who were not there during that process of studying out these different doctrines.

They didn't have that experience right after 1844, and they were accepting these truths as they were taught, but not really having thought through them themselves.

Also happening during this time, and this is important because we have to realize that in 1888, God was bringing not only the church but history in general to a point of opportunity.

And so during this time in the government of the United States, there was also a movement to begin to legislate religious laws.

And there was a National Reform Association that had been started precisely to lobby for this type of thing.

They wanted an amendment that would put religious language, actually acknowledge God in the constitution of the United States.

They also were pushing for a national Sunday law at that time.

And there were several of these, but Senator Blair, who was in the Senate at that time, had introduced the bill in around 1888.

It's Senate Bill 2983, and its object was, quote, to secure to the people the enjoyment of the first day of the week, commonly known as the Lord's Day, as a day of rest, and to promote its observance as a day of worship.

Jones, who we'll talk about in a moment, actually went to the Senate hearings and testified representing the Adventist viewpoint of religious liberty.

Actually, it died and it never left committee, as far as I can tell.

So, during this time, there was the opportunity for a National Sunday Law as well as a real revival in the church through the messages of righteousness by faith.

Let's talk a little bit about the people that were involved in the General Conference at 1888.

We'll start with the 2 that are most famous, and that is Jones and Wagner.

Now, Jones' name was Alonzo Trevier Jones.

And he was, he is described as being tall and angular.

He's a former soldier in the United States Army, and he had been converted while he was stationed at Fort Walla Walla.

He's also described as being aggressive and abrupt.

He was a self-educated man and he had a photographic memory and that really helped him while he was testifying in front of Congress, the Senate committees.

Jones was 38 years old, relatively young.

There's also another man named Elliot Joseph Wagner, or E.J.

Wagner, And he's described as being the opposite of A.T.

He had been classically trained as a medical doctor, but he had turned to the ministry at that time.

They were co-editors of the Signs of the Times in 1886, and they also taught at Healdsburg College and preached in the surrounding Bay Area.

That's what they were doing at that time.

Now both of these men began to study their Bibles and began to teach ideas that were different than the traditional Adventist ideas at that time.

Jones, he began to study Daniel chapter 7.

The 10 horns that are listed there represent tribes that William Miller had studied and come up with a list of who those tribes might be.

Jones studied those same tribes and he came to the conclusion that 1 of those tribes was the Alamanni.

And he felt that they better fit the description than the Huns, which was the traditional Adventist thinking at that time.

So he began to teach this at Healdsburg College and also publish articles about this in the signs of the times.

Wagner also began to study, except he was studying the book of Galatians, and specifically he was studying the law in Galatians.

If you have your Bibles with you, you can turn to Galatians chapter 3 verse 24 and you'll see what E.J.

But since I don't see the microphone, perhaps I should read that for the sake of time.

Galatians 3 verse 24 says, Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith." So you can see here that the law is vitally connected to justification by faith.

Wagner felt that the law that was in this text was referring to the moral law, the 10 Commandments.

And the traditional Adventist understanding was that the law represented here was the ceremonial law, the types that were pointing to Christ.

Wagner began to also preach his views and to publish them.

Both of these men were invited to the 1888 General Conference to share their views.

And we'll talk a little bit more about those in a moment.

But before we go to that, let's talk about 2 other people.

Because 1888 was, there tended to be 2 sides to this controversy.

And the 2 people on the other side were George Butler and Uriah Smith.

And there were others, but they tend to represent that group.

Now George Butler was the president of the General Conference at that time.

He had taken over when James White died and so he had been thrust into leadership unexpectedly And something unfortunate and actually perhaps kind of dangerous began to happen during his time as president.

And that is, remember I talked before about how these truths that had been developed over time after 1844, people began to take them for granted.

And they were taught them, but they hadn't really studied them out for themselves.

Back to Menu

Series

Advent HOPE - Adventist History Class

The 1888 General Conference

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The Gospel According To Romans

46m

The Ark Enigma

42m

Established in the Present Truth

The Law of the Lord is Perfect

1h 7m

Jesus at God’s Right Hand

35m

Alistair Huong: Examining Our Motives

When Men Have Labor Pains

36m

Keeping Focus

Keeping Focus Part 3

48m

Balaam, Balak and the Nicolaitans

46m

Dave Fiedler: Core of the Controversy

Alpha - Anything but God

1h 20m

Seminars

Beholding Christ in Service: Reflecting His Character in Our Work

1h 1m

Lessons from a King: The Experience of Solomon

52m

WYC 2009 Plenary Sessions

Likeness of Man

34m

WYC 2009 Plenary Sessions

As You Think

40m

Sound Doctrine