The Scattering Time1

January 26  The Scattering Time1

 

The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered. John 16:32, RSV.

Josiah Litch used words full of biblical meaning when he wrote two days after the October disappointment that "it is a dark day here-the sheep are scattered-and the Lord has not come yet." Profound spiritual disappointments have always tended toward disillusionment and the scattering of believers.

So it was with the Millerite Adventists in late 1844 and early 1845. To put it midly, they were disoriented and confused as they sought to find meaning in their recent experience. The height of their hope had led to the depth of their despair.

It is impossible to get a completely accurate picture of the disappointed Millerites, but it is probable that the majority abandoned their Advent faith and either went back to their previous churches or drifted into secular unbelief.

We can view those who maintained their hope in the soon return of Christ as belonging to one of three general groups. The big question that faced all of them was What, if anything, had happened on October 22 at the close of the 2300 days of Daniel 8:14?

The first identifiable group to arise in the wake of the Disappointment was the spritualizers. This sector of Adventism claimed that the movement had been correct on both the date and the event. That is, Christ had come on October 22. But it had been a spiritual entrance into their hearts rather than a visual return in the clouds of heaven.

With that interpretation they took a major step away from Miller's understanding of the Bible. They began to spiritualize its meaning, even in places where it was obviously speaking of literal events. And with that, they opened themselves to all sorts of deception.

Fanaticism easily arose among the spiritualizers. Some claimed that since they were in the kingdom they were of necessary sinless and beyond sin. Among that group some took "spiritual" husbands and wives, with some very unspiritual results. Others held that since they were in the seventh millennium it was wrong to work. And still others, following the biblical injunction that members of the kingdom would be as little children, discarded forks and knives, ate with their hands, and crawled around on their hands and knees. Needless to say, outbreaks of charismatic enthusiasm swept through their ranks.

There is an important lesson for us here. We need to be careful and intelligent in our reading of God's Word. To spiritualize away the plain meaning of Scripture is to open ourselves to spiritual disaster.

The perception of God's love works the renunciation of selfishness. In calling God our Father, we recognize all His children as our brethren. We are all a part of the great web of humanity, all members of one family. In our petitions we are to include our neighbors as well as ourselves. No one prays aright who seeks a blessing for himself alone(TFMB 105).