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Entering The Year 1888
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August 13 - Entering the Year 1888

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Then I saw another beast which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. Rev. 13:11, RSV.

"We turn our eyes to the future," Uriah Smith wrote in his opening Review editorial for 1888. "The prospect, year by year, grows clearer, the evidence surer, that we have not followed cunningly devised fables in making known the soon coming of the Lord. Prophecies are converging to their fulfillment. Events are moving with accelerated velocity. The word of God is demonstrating its claims to truthfulness, and comforting every humble believer with the thought that the hope that is built thereon can never fail."

General Conference president G. I. Butler shared similar perspectives with Smith. "We have much reason to thank God and take courage as we enter the year 1888," he penned in January. Noting that Seventh-day Adventists had "never taken a stand upon Bible exegesis which they have been compelled to surrender," he pointed out that "every year we have more and more evidence that we are right in our interpretation of the great prophetic themes which distinguish us as a people."

January 1888 also saw A. T. Jones, coeditor of the Signs of the TImes, take the position that events then occuring in the uniting of religion and state in America were in "direct course of the fulfillment of Rev. 13:17" with us teaching on the formation of the image of the beast.

Seventh-day Adventists everywhere were excited about the Second Advent in early 1888 as happenings on every side indicated that they would soon see the long-predicted national Sunday law become a reality.

The Adventist interpretation of Revelation 13 predicted a last-day showdown between those who honored the true Sabbath and those who symbolically followed the beast. As a result, Seventh-day Adventists had been publicly predicting since the last 1840s that they would eventually endure persecution for their faithfulness to the biblical Sabbath.

In that historical and theological context it is not too difficult to see why Revelation 14:12 ("Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus") was their flagshp text, printed in full under the masthead of the Review for nearly a century. Given their emphasis, it is easy to see why they were sensitive to Sunday legislation.

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We thank You, Lord, for the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. Help me to study them more faithfully.
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