March 20  The Gathering Time-2

And the master said to the servant, "Go out to the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled." Luke 14:23, RSV.

By mid-1847 the leaders of what was becoming Sabbatarian Adventism had generally come to accept a core of beliefs. The next step would be to share them with others. Their primary tactic was to organize a series of conferences whose purpose, according to James White, was the "uniting [of] the barethren on the great truths connected with the message of the third angel."

By 1848 many Adventists in New England and western New York had become convinced of the truth of one or more of the Sabbatarian doctrines, but they lacked a consensus.

The series of conferences beginning in 1848 would spread the Sabbatarian message evangelistically. Given the fact that the Sabbatarians were shut door Adventists who believed that probation had closed for all but those who had accepted Miller's message, the invitees to the conferences were limited to those Adventists who had accepted the first angel's message and hopefully the second. The task of the evangelists was to present the thrid angel's message as part of the answer to what took place at the end of the 2300 days, thus revealing where they stood in prophetic history.

James White, reporting on the first conference in April 1848, noted that about 50 people attended, "They were not all fully in the truth. . .Bro. Bates presented the commandments in a clear light, and their importance was urged home by powerful testimonies. The word had effect to establish those already in the truth, and to awaken those who were not fully decided."

The goals of the conferences emerged even more clearly in Ellen White's report of the one held in "Bro. Arnold's barn" in August 1848. Noting that there were about 35 present, she reported that "there were hardly two agreed . . .All were anxious for an opportunity to . . .preach to us." But "they were told that we had not come so great a distance to hear them, but had come to teach them the truth." She also gladly observed that after a strenuous meeting the participants eventually united "upon the third angel's message" (2SG 97-99).

God still uses men and women who grasp His Word to guide others into biblical understanding. He may even desire to use you in that endeavor this very day.

Christ is the only true standard of character, and he who sets himself up as a standard for others is putting himself in the place of Christ(TFMB, 125).