Bates Spreads The Sabbath-4

March 9  Bates Spreads The Sabbath-4

 


Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent. Acts 18:9, ESV.

Bates, as we have noted, didn't have a bashful bone in his body when it came to telling others about the Sabbath. But one of his most conspicuous failures on the topic was his own wife. Even though he wrote book after book on the topic and must have badgered her constantly, she must have been as stubborn as he was. As a result, "he kept the Holy Sabbath alone."

Fairhaven tradition has it that "Captain Bates used to take his wife in their carriage to the Christian church on Sunday, but he himself would not enter to worship 'on the pope's Sabbath'; he would return for her after church." The good news is that Prudence Bates accepted the seventh day in 1850. His prayers, example, and impatient patience had finally paid off. Like many of our friends and family, she was apparently listening when she appeared not to be doing so.

More good news for Bates came with the conversion of James and Ellen White to the seventh day, probably in November 1846. James later reported that "by reading" Bates' Seventh-day Sabbath, a Perpettual Sign, "I was established upon the Sabbath, and began to teach it."

That acceptance set the stage for the formation of Seventh-day Adventism. From that point on Bates and the Whites began to work together.

Events were finally beginning to move. By December 1846 Bates' Seventh-day Sabbath had apparently reached western New York. Late in the year Bates and James had hoped to meet with Hiram Edson, O.R.L. Crosier, and F. B. Hahn New York (the developers of the heavenly sanctuary understanding) at Edson's Port Gibson, New York, home, but circumstances detained White in the east.

One item on the agenda was the seventh-day Sabbath, which Edson claims he had been favorable toward for some months, but without any definite conviction.

But after Bates' presentation, during which Edson "could scarcely keep his seat," "Edson was on his feet and said, 'Brother Bates, that is light and truth. The seventh day is the Sabbath, and I am wih you to keep it.'"

Thus by late 1846 we find a group of believers uniting on three key doctrines-the Second Advent, the Sabbath, and the heavenly sanctuary. The stage was set for the rise of Seventh-day Adventism.

God may, from our perspective, lead slowly, but He leads certainly.

Help us, Lord, to be patient with Your direction.

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