The Seventh Month Movement

January 23  The Seventh Month Movement

 

On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement. Lev. 23:27, NASB.

Hope found rebirth in the ranks of the somewhat-listless Millerite Adventists in August 1844 when a Methodist minister by the name of Samuel S. Snow demonstrated from the Bible that they had been looking at the wrong dates for the fulfillment of the 2300-day prophecy of Daniel 8:14.

Miller himself had put forth the logic of the new understanding in a Signs of the Times artical on May 17, 1843. At that time he argued that the first advent of Christ had fulfilled the spring feasts of the ceremonial year set forth in Leviticus 23, but that the autumn or seventh-month feasts needed to be connected with the Second Advent.

That logic is sound enough. After all, the offering of the first-fruits, Christ's death as the Passover lamb, and the Pentecostal outpouring had all taken place according to the New Testament. But none of the seventh-month feasts tied to harvesttime had met any fulfillment during the New Testament period.

Those facts led Miller to suggest that this followers should look to the seventh month of the Jewish religious year for the fulfillment of the prophecy they had identified with the Second Advent.

Miller may have developed the seventh-month argument in May 1843, but he let the matter drop and reverted back to a a first-month or Passover dating. Snow, howeer, followed William's logic to its natural conclusion. Looking for Christ's return at the end of the 2300 days, he predicted that Jesus would come on October 22, 1844, the seventh month of the Jewish year, the Day of Atonement.

Snow had first published his findings in The Midnight Cry of February 22, 1844, but no one was ready to listen. By August, though, they were all ears.

The seventh-month movement took Millerism by storm. In the October 3 issue of The Midnight Cry George Storrs wrote that "I take up my pen with feelings such as I never before experienced. Beyond a doubt, in my mind, the tenth day of the  seventh month will witness the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds of heaven. we are then within a few days of that event. . .Now comes the TRUE Midnight Cry. The previous was but tha alarm. NOW THE REAL ONE IS SOUNDING: and oh, how solemn the hour."

Now, here's true excitement. How would you live if you believed you could calculated mathematically that Jesus would appear in less than three weeks? That is precisely how we need to live every day.

Here is the announcement of that wonderful truth, so full of encouragement and comfort, that God loves us as He loves His Son. This is what Jesus said in His last prayer for His disciples, Thou "hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me." John 17:23(TFMB 103).