everlasting-gospels.gif What About Date Setting?-4
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April 9  What About Date Setting?-4

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As the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. Matt. 25:5, RSV.

Ellen White's dealing with Bates in 1851 was not the first time she had opposed date setting. As early as 1845 she had repeatedly warned her fellow believers that time was no longer a test and that every passing of a suggested date would weaken the faith of those who had put their hope in it. Even her first vision hinted that the city might be a "great way off." In response to her position on date setting, some charged her "with being with the evil servant that said in his heart, 'My Lord delayeth his coming'"(EW 14, 15, 22).

She was clear that the third angel's message provided a more certain foundation for their faith than date setting. Beyond that, in relating to time setting she consistently pointed the Sabbatarians away from excitement and toward their present duty on earth. That emphasis would, as we shall see, eventually form the rationale for the creation of Adventist institutions that could take Seventh-day Adventism to the far corners of the earth.

Jesus seems to be clear on the topic of date setting in Matthew 24. But if that isn't enough, Ellen White pounds home the problems associated with it.

Yet the Seventh-day Adventist date setters go on and on in their desperate attempt to continue the excitement. I remember 1964. Many were quite sure that Jesus would come that year because the Bible taught that "as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of man"(Luke 17:26, RSV). And hadn't Noah preached his message for 120 years before the Flood came? Voila! There you have it. Adventists had been preaching their message for 120 years since 1844. The "proof' was conclusive. Jesus would return in 1964, probably on October 22.

And then there was the year 2,000, the beginning of the seventh millennium, the Sabbath millennium of heavenly rest. People everywhere got excited about that one. About that year a best-selling Adventist book hit the market featuring a clock indicating that it was merely minutes until midnight, "when the Bridegroom cometh."

The sad fact is that Adventists are still high on eschatological excitement and low on "PRESENT DUTY." They, unfortunately, have it just backward from Jesus' message of Matthew 24 and 25.

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Help us, Lord, to deisre solid food rather than spiritual sugar.
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