Participants: Jim Nix
Series Code: AOT
Program Code: AOT000143
|
00:12 Welcome to Anchors Of Truth,
00:15 live from the 3ABN Worship Center. 00:21 Hello, good evening, and welcome to the 3ABN Worship Center. 00:25 And we finally get to say, happy Sabbath. 00:29 And we praise the Lord for this opportunity to assemble 00:32 once again in the house of the Lord. 00:34 We are thankful for the Sabbath day. 00:36 We're thankful for the call that brought us 00:38 from darkness to light. 00:40 And we are thankful for our speaker, Jim Nix, 00:43 who is the director of the Ellen White Estate. 00:45 And if you are a lover of history, as I am, 00:47 you have been loving these past several evenings. 00:50 And even those of us who've have studied a bit of 00:52 Adventist history, we've learned more and new things. 00:56 And we've been assured that this movement that we are a part of 01:01 was directed by God, birthed by God, came from the hand of God, 01:05 and will one day return us all to the throne of God 01:09 if we remain faithful to Him. 01:12 So we welcome you, those who are here in this house, 01:15 and those of you who are with us around the world. 01:17 We welcome you to another evening of, 01:20 A Heritage Worth Remembering. 01:23 And tonight the subject is, The Little Flock. 01:25 But I'm told, in parentheses there ought to be added 01:28 the word, "Sabbath." 01:30 So we're going to be talking about the Sabbath. 01:33 The divided Millerites moving toward Adventism were 01:37 held together by three S's, we were told in school. 01:41 Sabbath, Sanctuary, and State of the dead 01:44 were the three doctrines that we sort of coalesced 01:47 around very, very early. 01:48 So we get to mine the truths of one of those. 01:51 And that of course is the Sabbath that we all 01:54 know and love. 01:56 We're going to have prayer, and then we're going to 01:59 sing a song, My Faith Has Found A Resting Place. 02:02 One of the great hymns of the 19th century 02:05 that the Lord has given us on the Pillars project. 02:09 But we are so very, very happy for Jim Nix, 02:12 that he has made his way here to be with us 02:14 from the streets of Washington DC 02:17 and Maryland to the corn fields of southern Illinois, 02:20 and then to the world. 02:21 Shall we pray. 02:22 Father God, we praise You and thank You for another 02:27 opportunity to hear Your word. 02:29 To be reminded again of the wonderful history that 02:33 we have and how You have led and guided this work, 02:39 this movement, really from the days of faithful Adam 02:44 all the way down to the 21st century. 02:48 There has always been a people who have been faithful to You. 02:51 And we are but the last in a long line of faithful pilgrims 02:55 who are following You. 02:57 And we know that as we follow, You will lead. 03:01 And as we faithfully walk in Your footsteps, 03:03 You will one day lead us safely home. 03:06 We ask You to bless the speaker this night. 03:09 Give him again holy unction, holy boldness, and an anointing. 03:12 And then open our ears and hearts 03:15 so that we may be receptive. 03:18 And we thank You for Your presence and Your power. 03:21 In Jesus' name, amen. 03:43 My faith has found a resting place, not in a manmade creed; 03:54 I trust the ever living One, that He for me will plead. 04:04 I need no other evidence, I need no other plea; 04:15 it is enough that Jesus died, and rose again for me. 04:33 Enough for me that Jesus saves, this ends my fear and doubt; 04:43 a sinful soul I come to Him, He will not cast me out. 04:54 I need no other evidence, I need no other plea; 05:04 it is enough that Jesus died, and rose again for me. 05:17 The great Physician heals the sick, the lost He came to save; 05:28 for me His precious blood He shed, for me His life He gave. 05:38 I need no other evidence, I need no other plea; 05:49 it is enough that Jesus died, and rose again for me. 06:09 My soul is resting on the Word, 06:15 the living Word of God; 06:20 salvation in my Savior's name, 06:25 salvation through His blood. 06:30 And I need no other evidence, I need no other plea; 06:41 it is enough that Jesus died, 06:47 and rose again for me. 07:16 Well, good evening. 07:17 Happy Sabbath. 07:20 As Pastor Murray told you, we're going to talk about 07:23 how the Sabbath came into our history. 07:27 I must confess that when they asked a long time ago 07:31 what my topics would be, I wasn't thinking about 07:34 what day of the week. 07:35 When I realized this was Sabbath I said, well come on, 07:37 let's talk about how the Sabbath came into 07:40 the Adventist church, historically. 07:42 This series is history, it's not theology. 07:45 So historically, how did it come? 07:47 And that's what we're going to talk about 07:48 for a little while this evening. 07:50 The whole series is built on Joshua, the concept of Joshua. 07:55 The story that you know when Israel goes into the 07:57 Promised Land, they crossed the Jordan River. 07:59 And they build a monument with twelve stones 08:02 that were taken up from the bottom of the river. 08:05 And Joshua said to them, Joshua 4:21, 08:09 "And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, 08:11 'When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, 08:14 saying, "What mean these stones?" 08:16 Then ye shall let your children know, saying, 08:18 "Israel came over this Jordan on dry land."'" 08:22 Well I like to think that the Seventh-day Adventist Church 08:25 is crossing Jordan on dry land, and it's worth looking back 08:29 and seeing some of these monuments, some of the 08:31 things that happened before. 08:33 And so again this evening in our series, we're going to talk 08:36 about how the Sabbath came to us. 08:39 And in our imagination, we need to travel to a little, 08:43 little, little tiny community in the central part of the 08:47 state of New Hampshire called Washington, New Hampshire. 08:51 Not Washington DC, but Washington, New Hampshire. 08:54 Now Washington, New Hampshire itself is quite proud of the 08:57 fact that they are the first community in the entire 09:00 United States to incorporate, legally, officially incorporate 09:05 under the name of George Washington, our first president. 09:08 So they like to have... 09:09 They have a sign out there telling all that. 09:11 Now that's not really why we're thinking about 09:13 Washington tonight, but it is historical fact 09:16 that the people in that little community 09:18 still to this day are proud of the fact that they, in 1776, 09:23 got permission to incorporate as 09:27 the little village of Washington. 09:29 And there were a number of early settlers 09:31 that came to Washington. 09:32 The Farnsworths and others. 09:34 And in 1839... 09:35 That's getting down closer now to the era 09:37 that we're going to talk about. 09:38 Last night we talked about the Millerite movement 09:40 that ended in 1844. 09:42 There's going to be some overlapping. 09:43 And some of those people that were disappointed, 09:45 Millerites, when Jesus did not return in 1844 09:49 went back to their Bibles to find out why He hadn't returned. 09:54 And among other things, they also came across 09:56 the sanctity, the holiness, the importance 09:59 of the seventh day Sabbath. 10:01 But back to Washington, New Hampshire. 10:02 In 1839, the Congregational church built a great big 10:06 imposing edifice on the town green. 10:09 But there were a number of farmers in that community. 10:11 And they really apparently did not feel too at home 10:14 with the more formal type of meeting 10:17 that the Congregationalists had. 10:19 So in 1842, thirty-two of them decided to leave the 10:24 Congregational church and to move about two miles south, 10:28 get some property, and put up a little church, 10:30 a simple little church building that is still standing 10:34 to this today. 10:35 And there they signed a covenant. 10:37 And that was what they were going to organize themselves as, 10:40 this covenant group that would build this little church. 10:44 And they built it, actually, in six weeks, 10:47 according to memory statements many years later. 10:50 Now there was a Methodist preacher, a circuit riding 10:54 preacher, who had several churches in his area. 10:57 His name was Frederick Wheeler. 11:00 We don't have young pictures really of Frederick Wheeler, 11:03 but he was only about 31 at the time. 11:05 So even though the pictures are older than that, 11:08 think about this man being about 31 or 32 when all this 11:12 was happening, because he had been born in 1811. 11:15 And he was invited by this little congregation of farmers 11:18 that had put up their little church building, 11:20 simple little building, to include their church 11:24 in his circuit. 11:25 That means that every, I don't know how many 11:28 churches he had in his circuit, but every other Sunday, 11:30 every third or fourth Sunday, whatever is was, 11:32 he would come and hold services in their church. 11:34 And then the next Sunday he'd be somewhere else, etcetera. 11:37 And so Frederick Wheeler, this circuit riding 11:41 Methodist minister, became the pastor of the 11:44 Washington, New Hampshire church. 11:46 Now also in 1842 and 1843, that time period, 11:51 the Millerite message that we were talking about last night, 11:54 the concept that they believed Jesus was about to return, 11:57 a Millerite preacher by the name of Joshua Goodwin 12:00 came to Washington, New Hampshire 12:03 and preached in that little church. 12:05 And before long the members of that little church all became, 12:09 or almost all of them, became Millerite Adventists. 12:12 Frederick Wheeler becomes a Millerite Adventist. 12:15 So now I guess he was a circuit riding Methodist 12:19 Millerite Adventist preacher. 12:21 Anyway, so they're now having a focus on the 12:25 second coming of Christ. 12:26 It's interesting, historically, that this Goodwin, 12:28 this Joshua Goodwin that came and shared the news 12:32 about the soon coming of Jesus, that he got interested 12:36 in a young lady there at the church. 12:38 And they got married. 12:40 And she was the younger sister of the wife of 12:43 William Farnsworth, who we will be talking about more. 12:46 So Joshua Goodwin and William Farnsworth were brothers-in-law. 12:50 What nobody seems to know now is whether Goodwin came to 12:54 preach the second coming and met Harriet, 12:57 or whether he had somewhere met Harriet and decided 13:01 a good place to go preach would be where she lives. 13:03 We don't know, but anyway, however it all worked out, 13:06 they got married. 13:07 Now in 1843... 13:09 Our story is now going to start incorporating 13:12 the seventh day Sabbath. 13:14 Because in 1843, a young lady by the name of Rachel Delight Oakes 13:20 moved to Washington, New Hampshire. 13:23 Now we usually, in Adventist history, just refer to her 13:25 as Delight, because her mother was also Rachel Oakes. 13:28 So when you have Rachel Oakes and Rachel Delight Oakes, 13:31 you have to differentiate them 13:32 or else you get kind of confused. 13:34 So we call the mother, Rachel, 13:35 and we call the daughter, Delight. 13:37 So Delight was about 18, she was a school teacher. 13:40 And she had been hired to teach in the school there, 13:44 a little one room school. 13:45 And she rented a home, a room I should say, 13:48 in the home of Cyrus Farnsworth. 13:50 Now sometime around Thanksgiving of 1843 13:54 Rachel the mother moved to town. 13:57 She was a widow at this time. 13:58 And she moved to the little community 14:00 to be with her daughter. 14:01 Now both mother and daughter, Rachel and Rachel Delight, 14:05 both of them were Seventh-day Baptists. 14:09 So they kept the seventh day Sabbath. 14:11 And at some point along the line they also became 14:14 Adventist Millerites. 14:16 So they became Millerite, what, Seventh-day Baptists, I guess. 14:20 Anyway, so they are keeping the Sabbath in their own home 14:25 because there were no other 14:27 Seventh-day Baptists in the area. 14:29 And they would go to church in the little church, 14:32 the Washington church, on Sunday, not because 14:35 they believed in Sunday, but just merely 14:38 for Christian fellowship. 14:40 Now it's interesting, we've talked the other nights about 14:42 how God's timing kind of brings things together. 14:45 It's very interesting when you look at the history of the 14:47 Seventh-day Baptists, they basically did not evangelize. 14:51 However, about 1840, apparently the Holy Spirit 14:55 knew it was time for the seventh day Sabbath 14:57 to be one of these truths that was re-discovered. 15:00 And the Seventh-day Baptists, who had been around for 15:04 200 or 300 years, decided they needed to evangelize, 15:08 they need to share their faith with other people 15:10 about the seventh day Sabbath. 15:12 And so Rachel Oakes, the mother, she being a good 15:16 Seventh-day Baptist, she takes to heart 15:19 what the Seventh-day Baptist general conference had voted. 15:22 And that is, "We need to share our faith." 15:25 And so she is trying to share her faith to these members 15:28 of this little church who really are not interested in the 15:31 seventh day Sabbath at all. 15:32 They're Millerites. 15:34 They're interested in the second coming of Christ. 15:36 And so there she is trying her best to get them interested in 15:40 more than just the second coming of Christ, 15:42 because the Sabbath was important. 15:44 But they didn't seem to think so. 15:46 Anyway, so there she is. 15:48 And she, as I mentioned, she would go, and her daughter, 15:51 she would go to church in the little Washington church 15:53 on Sunday for Christian fellowship. 15:57 And that's how we have this famous story that's come down 16:00 to us from that era. 16:02 On this particular Sunday, Frederick Wheel the pastor 16:06 was leading out in the Lord's supper. 16:09 And so here, out there somewhere in the congregation, is Rachel. 16:13 And Frederick Wheeler announces before they have 16:16 the Lord's supper that to participate 16:20 in the Lord's supper you should be a keeper 16:23 of all of God's commandments. 16:26 Now what do you think is going through Rachel's mind? 16:29 Because she's knows they're sitting there on the wrong day 16:31 and they're doing the whole thing at the wrong time, 16:35 but here he made this statement. 16:36 Now typical of Yankees, she might have just stood up 16:42 and told him he was wrong, but she didn't. 16:43 She held her seat. 16:44 They went through the service. 16:45 But a few days later she met him somewhere, town or somewhere, 16:49 and she said, "Last Sunday when you stood there in the church 16:54 and you told us that to participate in the 16:57 Lord's supper we should be keepers of God's 17:00 ten commandments, I almost," she said, "I almost stood up 17:05 and told you that you should put the cloth back on the emblems 17:09 and you should not participate yourself until you kept 17:12 the right day for the Sabbath." 17:14 Now he was very startled, as you can imagine, 17:16 but he was an honest man. 17:18 And she was ready for the occasion. 17:20 She had some Seventh-day Baptist literature to give to him. 17:24 And Frederick Wheeler, to his credit, read the literature, 17:30 looked up the text, and decided that his outspoken member 17:37 was correct; that the seventh day is the Sabbath. 17:42 And on the back of an old picture of Frederick Wheeler 17:46 is a note; that he preached his first sermon advocating the 17:50 seventh day Sabbath on March 16, 1844, 17:54 not in Washington, New Hampshire. 17:56 He actually lived a short distance to the east, 17:59 yeah, to the east in upper Hillsboro. 18:02 And that's where, in a school house near where he lived, 18:06 is where he preached. 18:09 And the school house doesn't stand anymore. 18:11 Up till a few years ago when somebody came in and 18:14 bought the property and moved dirt around so they could 18:16 build another building, and all that, you could actually see the 18:19 foundation stones which is probably the site 18:22 where the first sermon by an Adventist, 18:26 a Methodist Adventist, circuit riding preacher 18:29 advocating the seventh day Sabbath was preached 18:32 in that little school house that use to stand there. 18:36 Well the members of the Washington, New Hampshire 18:39 church, they now have a pastor that believes 18:43 in the seventh day Sabbath. 18:44 He's also a Millerite Adventist. 18:46 They have a couple of people that attend, 18:49 they're not members of their church, 18:50 that are advocating the seventh day Sabbath. 18:53 But they are not at all, as I mentioned a minute ago, 18:56 they're not at all interested in the seventh day Sabbath. 19:00 In fact, by and large, the Millerite Adventists 19:03 were not interested in the seventh day Sabbath. 19:06 Their view was, "Don't let anything distract us 19:09 from our assignment. 19:11 Our assignment is to warn people that Jesus is about to return. 19:15 And if we get on the other side and He tells us that we should 19:18 be keeping the seventh day Sabbath, 19:20 why, we'll do it over there. 19:22 But right now, don't let anything... 19:24 We've got enough problems with all the ridicule, 19:26 scorn, and everything that's heaped upon us, 19:28 let's not bring in something else that may divide us." 19:31 And so there is some discussion in the weeks, the months 19:35 and the weeks leading up October 22, 1844 19:38 when they thought the Lord was going to return, 19:41 there was some discussion in the Millerite papers 19:43 about the seventh day Sabbath. 19:44 But the leaders of the movement, by and larger... 19:47 Well I shouldn't say, by and large. 19:48 The leaders, all of them, said nothing doing about this 19:52 seventh day Sabbath stuff. 19:53 And so Rachel is very frustrated, as you can imagine. 19:57 Here, she knows the Lord's coming. 19:59 She knows that they're on the wrong day. 20:01 I don't know how much Frederick Wheeler actually 20:04 advocated the seventh day Sabbath, even though 20:06 apparently he had preached it in March of 1844. 20:09 How much he incorporated it into this sermons, 20:11 we don't have a record of. 20:12 But the fact is that there were at least a small group 20:16 that's advocating the seventh day Sabbath. 20:19 Now sometime after the disappointment... 20:21 And again, here we have problems because 20:25 we have memory statements. 20:26 And some people said this happened in late 1844, 20:29 and other people remember, "No, it was early 1845." 20:32 But at some point, late 1844 or early 1845, 20:36 anyway, after the date when they expected the Lord would return, 20:40 one Sunday a big man, a member of that church, 20:45 stood up to preach. 20:46 He stood up, excuse, stood up to make an announcement. 20:50 And his name was William Farnsworth. 20:53 He weighed 260 pounds. 20:55 He was a big farmer. 20:57 At this point in 1844 he had already fathered seven children, 21:01 of whom six were living. 21:03 And eventually he would have twenty-two children. 21:06 Eleven by his first wife. 21:08 She died, he got re-married, and he had eleven more. 21:10 Actually, he had two more than that because there were 21:12 two that died young. 21:13 So there was really twenty-four all together. 21:15 But some of you may have seen the book that came out 21:17 a number of years ago, William and His Twenty-Two. 21:20 It's not a rifle. 21:21 It's the number of children that grew up that he had. 21:24 Anyway, William Farnsworth stood up in this church 21:27 on a Sunday and he announced that from henceforth 21:31 he and his family would keep the seventh day Sabbath. 21:35 Now I can imagine that Rachel was thrilled. 21:38 And as I told you, with twenty-two children eventually, 21:41 they were a good part of the congregation. 21:44 Because it's a small little church. 21:46 Anyway, so he stands up. 21:48 Excuse me. 21:50 His younger brother, Cyrus, according to one account, 21:53 the following week he stood up and announced he was going to 21:56 keep the seventh day Sabbath. 21:58 And furthermore, their parents, Daniel and Patty Farnsworth, 22:01 they stood up. 22:02 And so you have at least a small group of Farnsworths, 22:05 and then a few others, who started keeping 22:08 the seventh day Sabbath. 22:09 I might also mention that Cyrus Farnsworth, 22:12 he had a little extra curricular activity going on. 22:14 Because he married the school teacher, 22:17 Rachel Delight Oakes. 22:18 So now you have Delight also as part of this Farnsworth clan 22:23 that are keeping the seventh day Sabbath. 22:25 Just to give you a little insight, I was reading 22:27 one time in some recollections of some of the old Farnsworths. 22:30 We have a bunch of correspondence 22:32 from some of the Farnsworths, 22:33 some of those twenty-two children, in our files 22:35 at the White Estate. 22:36 And I was reading, and one of them recalled that Daniel, 22:40 that would be this man's grandfather, 22:42 Daniel Farnsworth, he use to say, "A little less 22:45 straight testimony and a little more straight living 22:49 will be better for all of us." 22:51 So he was one of these outspoken people. 22:52 Anyway, so you have Rachel, Delight I should say, 22:57 she's married into the family, and we have a small group 22:59 of Sabbath keepers. 23:00 Now the problem is that the majority of that congregation 23:04 did not immediately accept the seventh day Sabbath. 23:08 And as was typical in those days in New England churches, 23:12 the congregation who had all pooled their money to build it, 23:15 why, whoever was in the majority, they owned the church. 23:19 So sometimes in Adventist history you'll hear it said 23:22 that the Washington, New Hampshire church 23:25 is the oldest Seventh-day Adventist church, 23:27 because this congregation became Seventh-day Adventist. 23:29 Well technically that's not true. 23:32 Technically, it's the oldest congregation 23:35 of Sabbath keeping Adventists, yes. 23:37 But the church itself did not become a Seventh-day Adventist 23:40 church until the early 1860's when now there were more 23:43 Sabbath keepers than Sunday keepers. 23:45 And so it switched. 23:46 And it's been a Seventh-day Adventist church ever since. 23:49 But how did the Sabbath get from Washington, New Hampshire 23:55 out to the rest of... 23:57 Well the world, I guess you'd say; there was no church. 23:59 I started to say, the rest of the church. 24:00 There was no church yet. We hadn't organized. 24:02 So how did it go from Washington to a wider circle? 24:08 Well, what I'm going to tell you now is conjecture. 24:13 We really do not know. 24:16 I am not aware of any Adventist scholar, historian, 24:20 who has ever been able to prove what we conjecture happened. 24:23 But we do not have that, you know, that piece of paper 24:27 that actually records. 24:29 Maybe it's still in some attic somewhere and somebody 24:31 will find a letter some day that will make it clear. 24:33 But here's what I think happened. 24:36 There was a Free Will Baptist minister living over in 24:40 Nashua, New Hampshire by the name of Thomas M. Preble, 24:44 T.M. Preble. 24:45 He also was a Millerite. 24:48 And in 1845, February of 1845, Preble published an article 24:54 in a paper, the paper was published in Portland, Maine, 24:57 called, The Hope of Israel. 24:59 And that paper, with Preble... 25:01 Now in a minute I'll try to connect Preble with 25:03 Washington, New Hampshire. 25:04 But that paper with the article advocating the holiness of the 25:08 seventh day Sabbath, one of the subscribers to that paper 25:12 was a man who would eventually be one of the co-founders 25:14 of the Seventh-day Adventist Church; 25:16 Joseph Bates. 25:18 Now Joseph Bates was living in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, 25:21 which is down on the southern coast of Massachusetts. 25:24 He subscribes to the paper and he reads the article, 25:29 looks up the text that Preble has used, 25:32 and he concludes that the seventh day is the Sabbath. 25:37 Now the story tells us that Bates wants more information. 25:43 So he goes, not to Preble, but he goes to visit 25:49 Frederick Wheeler in Hillsboro where Frederick Wheeler 25:53 was living with his brother-in-law. 25:56 Now here's where I think, this is the conjecture now, 25:59 my guess is that what happened was, at some meeting where 26:04 ministers, circuit riding ministers happen together, 26:06 Frederick Wheeler is there, he's talking about 26:09 the seventh day Sabbath. 26:10 Preble is there. 26:12 He gets interested in what Wheeler is saying. 26:16 And so he looks up the text that Wheeler is sharing with him. 26:20 Maybe Wheeler gives him some Seventh-day Baptist literature. 26:22 I really don't know. 26:23 But anyway, Preble then decides the seventh day is the Sabbath 26:28 and writes the article that's published in, 26:30 The Hope of Israel, in Portland, Maine. 26:32 And a subscriber down in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, 26:35 Joseph Bates, reads the article. 26:38 Now the reason I say that I think that Preble 26:41 probably got, must have gotten the Sabbath 26:44 from Frederick Wheeler is, normally if you read 26:47 something and you want to contact the author, 26:50 you want more information, who do you contact? 26:53 You contact the author. 26:54 But Bates does not contact Preble, as far as we know. 27:00 There's nothing now stamped that says so. 27:03 He contacts Frederick Wheeler. 27:04 So what I think probably happened... 27:06 This is where I'm hoping some letter will show up someday 27:08 in some attic. 27:09 What I think happened was that probably Joseph Bates 27:13 read the article by Preble, wrote to Preble. 27:16 Found out he was in Nashua, writes to him. 27:20 Preble says, "The person you really need to talk to 27:22 that I got it from is Frederick Wheeler over in Hillsboro. 27:25 So go contact him." 27:26 Now again, we can't make that connection, 27:28 but it makes sense that this is what happened. 27:31 Because Bates shows up about ten o'clock at night 27:35 at Frederick Wheeler's, or the Barnes' home there in Hillsboro. 27:39 Knocks on the door. 27:40 You can imagine a sleepy eyed Frederick Wheeler. 27:43 I mean, you went to bed with the chickens back in those days. 27:46 So I can imagine they had long been to bed. 27:48 But here's Joseph Bates. 27:50 He's traveled all the way from Fairhaven clear up there 27:53 to the center part of New Hampshire. 27:54 And he's wide awake, you know, and he's knocking on the door. 27:58 So you picture, here goes poor ole Frederick Wheeler 28:01 to the door to see who in the world, what's going on. 28:04 And there he is, this guy is all bright and ready to go 28:08 and wants to study. 28:09 So what do they want to study? 28:10 He wants to study the seventh day Sabbath. 28:12 So they get the candles out, or the whale oil lamps, 28:16 or whatever they were using there in 1845, 28:19 and they study all night. 28:22 The next day they go over to Cyrus Farnsworth's home 28:27 in Washington, Hew Hampshire. 28:28 The house is still standing. 28:30 There use to be some big maple trees that were 28:33 standing until about 20 years or so ago, or a little more. 28:37 Those maple trees, under those trees you have 28:41 Joseph Bates, and you have Frederick Wheeler, 28:45 and Cyrus Farnsworth. 28:47 We don't know if William Farnsworth was there. 28:50 But a small group studied the seventh day Sabbath 28:53 even more diligently. 28:54 Now if you know anything at all about Bates' experience, 28:58 you know that he is all fired up at this point. 29:01 And so he heads back down to Fairhaven, Massachusetts 29:04 where he lives. 29:05 He's coming into Fairhaven. 29:06 He may have walked the whole way. 29:08 I mean, it's amazing how much that guy would walk. 29:10 He might hitchhike a little bit. 29:12 But anyway, I don't know how he traveled. 29:14 But he gets all the way back down there. 29:16 He's into New Bedford, which is on the western side of 29:19 the Acushnet River. 29:20 He's walking across the old bridge across the Acushnet River 29:24 and he runs into a friend. 29:26 Someone that he knows there from Fairhaven, 29:28 which is on the east side of the river. 29:30 And this guy has a very patriotic name, by the way. 29:33 James Madison Monroe Hall. 29:36 Can you imagine a mother naming her son for 29:40 two presidents of the United States? 29:41 James Madison and James Monroe. 29:43 But anyway, that was his name; James Madison Monroe Hall. 29:46 And Hall sees Bates. 29:48 Now back in those days, everybody knew 29:50 everybody's business. 29:52 So he knew that Bates hadn't been in town for a little while. 29:54 And since news was very slow traveling in those days, 29:59 why, naturally if somebody is gone somewhere, 30:01 what you want to know is, "Where have you been? 30:03 What's been going on? What have you learned? 30:05 What's the news?" 30:06 So Hall sees Bates and says, 30:08 "Captain Bates, what's the news?" 30:11 And I think probably Hall was a little 30:13 surprised at the response when Bates said, 30:16 "The news is that the seventh day is the Sabbath." 30:19 I don't think that's what Hall was expecting. 30:21 But anyway, that was the news. 30:24 And would you know, that Joseph Bates set up 30:27 a series of Bible studies with Hall and his wife. 30:31 And the two of them became Bates' first converts 30:35 to the seventh day Sabbath. 30:37 And they stuck. 30:39 By that I mean, you go down several years later 30:42 and you will find the obituaries for both 30:45 James Madison Monroe Hall and Abigail Hall 30:48 in the pages of, The Review. 30:50 So the two first converts stuck. 30:52 Now it's interesting that Joseph Bates had a wife 30:55 by the name of Prudence Bates. 30:59 He called her, Prudy. 31:01 She didn't initially go with this Sabbath business. 31:05 She had been with him on the Millerites, 31:07 the second coming of Christ, but she did not immediately 31:12 accept the seventh day Sabbath. 31:15 And so Bates was not going to go to the church on Sunday anymore, 31:18 his mind was made up. 31:19 He's not about to go to the church. 31:21 But his wife wants to go to church on Sunday. 31:24 So guess what he does. 31:26 He's a good husband. 31:27 So he gets the buggy out and he drives her to church. 31:31 And all of his former church mates, I mean members, 31:35 who had known him there, they're all walking into church. 31:38 And his wife, he helps her go into church. 31:40 And he's giving this silent little witness, testimony, 31:44 because they all know he's not about to come 31:46 into their church on Sunday because he worships on Sabbath. 31:50 And then he would go back home. 31:52 And when it was time for services to be over, 31:54 Bible study number two, silent Bible study number two. 31:57 Or witness, whatever you want to call it. 31:58 I guess it wouldn't be Bible study. 31:59 He's back there waiting for his wife. 32:01 They all come out of church, he helps her into the buggy. 32:04 And everybody is coming out of church, and they all know 32:06 why Captain Bates is not there in services. 32:09 They know he's a seventh day Sabbath keeper. 32:12 So eventually by 1850, Prudy accepted 32:16 the seventh day Sabbath. 32:18 Well, there's some other interesting things that were 32:20 going on about this same time. 32:23 Joseph Bates... 32:25 Talk about how like dropping a pebble 32:29 into a pond and the ripples go out in ever widening circles, 32:33 like we talked about Miller's preaching, 32:35 well this would be true also of the Sabbath. 32:39 Now the article that T.M. Preble had written that Joseph Bates 32:43 read in, The Hope of Israel, was put into a little pamphlet. 32:46 This is a photocopy of the pamphlet. 32:48 It's just twelve pages long. 32:50 And a copy of this pamphlet found its way up to another 32:56 little city, or village, not a city but a village 32:59 in Maine this time. 33:01 And it was called, Paris Hill, Maine. 33:04 And a copy arrived in the home of the Stowell family. 33:08 They had been Millerites, disappointed Millerites. 33:11 Jesus had not returned. 33:13 And now they had, this is the same content as what was in, 33:16 The Hope of Israel, the paper that Bates had read. 33:19 And so father and mother Stowell looked it all over, 33:23 and they could see no sense in this seventh day 33:26 Sabbath business at all. 33:28 Made no sense to them. 33:30 And so they kind of just put the pamphlet aside. 33:34 Well they had a daughter, whom I have not been able to find a 33:37 picture of, so you're not going to see one this evening. 33:39 But she was 15 years of age. 33:41 Her name was Marian. 33:43 She saw the pamphlet over there and she picked it up. 33:47 And she got her Bible and she began to look at the text 33:51 that Preble had used in the pamphlet. 33:53 And she became convinced that they were worshiping 33:56 on the wrong day. 33:58 The seventh day Sabbath was the day they 34:00 should be worshiping on. 34:02 So, but she's just a 15 year old girl. 34:04 What does she know? 34:06 So she decided to ask her older brother, Oswald Stowell. 34:09 Oswald was two years older. 34:12 And what does he think about it? 34:14 And so Oswald reads the pamphlet and he checks 34:18 all the text out with his Bible. 34:21 And guess what he concludes. 34:23 The seventh day is the Sabbath. 34:25 So now these two teenagers, whose parents have said 34:28 there's nothing to it, and they have virtually discarded 34:31 the pamphlet, now these two teenagers decide, 34:34 "Next Sabbath, we're going to keep the Sabbath." 34:38 Well they weren't exactly sure how you keep the Sabbath. 34:40 But they were of course good Sunday keepers, so they assumed 34:43 you keep the Sabbath much like you kept Sunday. 34:46 And so they tried their best to keep the Sabbath 34:49 the next Sabbath. 34:51 Sometime the following week Marian's thinking to herself, 34:54 "Well, you know, what if we're wrong? 34:58 As far as we know, nobody's keeping the Sabbath. 35:01 What if we're wrong?" 35:03 And so she decides there is someone here in this community 35:08 who knows his Bible better than anyone else. 35:11 And let's ask him. 35:13 And so she took the pamphlet and she gave it to John Andrews, 35:18 J.N. Andrews. 35:20 Now John Andrews was a brilliant young man. 35:24 He was about 16 years of age at this time. 35:27 We're told that he use to get up at 4:30 in the morning, 35:29 an hour before his chores, to study his Bible. 35:33 And he was known, he had the reputation already 35:36 at the age of 16 of being a real Bible scholar. 35:40 And so John Andrews now, Marian says, "I've got this tract. 35:45 And I want you to look at it. 35:47 And I want you to tell me whether it makes any sense. 35:50 Are we worshiping on the wrong day? 35:51 Or is the seventh day Sabbath, is that really 35:54 the Sabbath of the Lord?" 35:55 And so John Andrews takes the tract and he looks up the text. 36:01 And he comes back to Marian a short time later and he said, 36:04 "We're wrong. 36:06 We are wrong. 36:07 The seventh day is the Sabbath. 36:09 That's the day we should be keeping. 36:13 What are you going to do about it," John asks Marian. 36:17 And Marian said, "No, no, John. That's not the question. 36:21 The question is, what are you going to do about it? 36:25 Because Oswald and I kept last Sabbath. 36:28 And will you keep the next Sabbath with us?" 36:30 And so now you have three teenagers there 36:34 in Paris Hill, Maine. 36:36 And they then start working on their parents. 36:39 And before long, the Andrews and the Stowells, and some others, 36:42 became Sabbath keepers. 36:45 And of course, John Andrews himself would go on 36:48 to be an advocate of the seventh day Sabbath. 36:54 Now we're going to talk a little bit... 36:55 So that's sort of the story of how the Sabbath began. 36:59 It began with the Seventh-day Baptist 37:01 there in Washington, New Hampshire. 37:02 It spreads out as Preble probably gets the Sabbath 37:06 from Frederick Wheeler. 37:08 He writes an article. Bates gets it. 37:11 Bates, by the way, in 1846... 37:13 This is a facsimile of Bates' Sabbath tract. 37:16 It's forty-eight pages. 37:17 Preble's was only twelve. 37:19 But Bates writes his own tract in 1846 on the Sabbath. 37:24 Guess who he gives a copy of the tract to. 37:27 He gives it to some newlyweds; James and Ellen White, 37:30 who had gotten married just a few weeks before 37:33 or about the time this tract came out. 37:35 They read it, they accept the Sabbath. 37:38 And now you have the three co-founders of what would 37:40 become the Seventh-day Adventist Church; 37:41 Joseph Bates, James White, Ellen White. 37:43 They're coalescing around the Sabbath. 37:46 And so, as they say, the rest is history. 37:49 The Sabbath continues to go out, 37:51 with J.N. Andrews becoming the lead scholar. 37:54 Bates initially. 37:55 His little pamphlets on the Sabbath. 37:57 Then Bates gets older and Andrews moves into the center. 38:01 He's writing books on the seventh day Sabbath. 38:04 And the Sabbath continues to go until now, of course. 38:06 It is known and kept around the world. 38:11 I want to spend a few minutes this evening, though, 38:13 looking at some interesting human interest stories 38:16 about some of the members at that 38:18 Washington, New Hampshire church. 38:19 You know, we look at these old pictures of the pioneers 38:22 and they usually... 38:24 Of course, they're black and white because they didn't 38:25 have color photography. 38:26 And they look so solemn staring at us. 38:29 And you forget that they were real people. 38:33 So I would like to just take a few minutes to unpack 38:36 some of the human interest side of some of those people that 38:39 were there in the Washington, New Hampshire church. 38:43 J.N. Andrews visited Washington, New Hampshire 38:48 sometime about 1865 or 1866. 38:51 I should probably tell you that Frederick Wheeler, 38:53 their pastor... 38:54 James White was urging, the church was trying to 38:57 get started, and James White was urging the few ordained 39:00 ministers that we had to move away. 39:02 "Don't congregate in one place. 39:04 Get out and do evangelism." 39:06 And he worked on, James White worked on Frederick Wheeler 39:09 for some time. 39:10 Finally in 1857, he convinced Wheeler to move out 39:14 to New York state. 39:15 And that's where Wheeler then lived the rest of his life, 39:18 was out in West Monroe, New York. 39:20 And so this little congregation that was use to have a pastor, 39:23 now it had no pastor, no regular pastor. 39:26 And so the spirituality of the congregation kind of 39:29 went up and down depending on how things were going. 39:33 Well, there was a young man by the name of Eugene Farnsworth. 39:36 He was son number nine of William Farnsworth. 39:40 And Eugene was growing up there in the church. 39:42 And later he would tell a story about how he interacted 39:47 and how his life was changed by J.N. Andrews. 39:49 Our scholar friend that we mentioned who was a great 39:52 preacher of the seventh day Sabbath. 39:55 Elder, later he became elder, he was an ordained minister, 39:58 but Eugene Farnsworth would tell many years later 40:01 about how one time J.N. Andrews came to 40:04 Washington, New Hampshire sometime around 1865 or 1866. 40:09 Eugene said, "I was out in the field hoeing corn 40:13 when Elder Andrews came." 40:14 He said, "I didn't like being around preachers at all. 40:16 I tried to stay away from them as much as I could. 40:19 But," he said, "he caught me out there hoeing corn." 40:23 And he said, "Here he came." 40:25 And he said, "I saw him coming and I thought, oh no. 40:28 Well, I knew there was going to be some kind of discussion." 40:31 And he said, Elder Andrews, there was a hoe there 40:34 on the fence, and he picked it up, 40:36 and he started trying to hoe. 40:38 Now Eugene, years later, who respected Elder Andrews greatly, 40:42 but he said, "It was obvious the man didn't know 40:44 anything about hoeing corn." 40:45 He said, "I don't think he probably ever hoed corn 40:47 before in his life." 40:48 I mean, he's a scholar. He's not a farmer. 40:51 Anyway, he said he was out there. 40:53 And finally he comes down the row and he gets to 40:56 where Eugene is. 40:57 And he says, "Eugene, what's the purpose in your life?" 41:02 Well Eugene would recall, "I like that frank way of 41:04 just asking right straight out." 41:06 He said, "Well, Elder Andrews, I'm going to be a lawyer." 41:10 "Well," Andrews responded, "you could do a great deal worse." 41:14 Now he said, "You know, he didn't condemn me 41:16 for being a lawyer, but he just commented that, 41:19 "You could do..." 41:21 And he said, "Well, then what are you going to do 41:24 before you become a lawyer?" 41:26 And Eugene said, "Well, I'm going to go to school 41:30 and get an education." 41:32 And Elder Andrews said, "And what will you do then?" 41:35 "Well, I'm going to study the law." 41:37 "Well yes, yes, yes, and what next," 41:39 Elder Andrews wanted to know. 41:41 "Well, I'll practice." 41:43 "And then what next?" 41:45 "Well," Eugene responded, "I hope to earn some money 41:48 and get a competency, and get a home, and have a family." 41:52 "Yes, and what next," Elder Andrews wanted to know. 41:56 Eugene, as he told the story many years later, said, 41:58 "I began to grow nervous. 41:59 I didn't like the direction this thing was going." 42:01 Because he hadn't completely given his heart to the Lord, 42:03 and he didn't really like where Elder Andrews was headed 42:05 with this conversation. 42:07 He said, "Well, I suppose I'll grow old like everybody else." 42:12 Well you know the next question of Elder Andrews. 42:14 "Well then, what next?" 42:16 And Eugene said, "Well, I suppose I'll die." 42:20 And of course the final question is, 42:22 "And what next?" 42:25 And Elder Eugene said, "I tell you, that great good man 42:29 had driven me to the end of my chain. 42:31 Those words stuck in my memory. 42:34 Then with his great blue eyes looking straight through me, 42:37 he said, 'My boy, you take hold of something that will 42:41 help you to span the chasm, something that will land your 42:44 feet safely on the other side where you will be safe 42:48 for eternity.'" 42:51 That's the kind of interaction that these, frank interaction, 42:54 but they move these young people. 42:55 Eugene Farnsworth would later become a minister, 42:58 conference administrator, and evangelist. 43:01 He lived, I think, until about 1935 or so. 43:06 But much of it could be attributed to Eugene's 43:11 conversation with J.N. Andrews. 43:14 But now a couple of humorous things just to let you know 43:16 these people were real people back in those days. 43:19 William Farnsworth, the guy that we've talked about 43:22 who had the twenty-two children, who stood up and announced, 43:24 "From henceforth, my family and I, we're all 43:26 going to be Sabbath keepers." 43:28 Well, one night he went to this same Eugene. 43:30 He woke him up in the middle of the night. 43:32 And Eugene was sleepy eyed. 43:34 He didn't even want to get awake, 43:35 he didn't want to get out of bed. 43:36 And William Farnsworth is all excited, and said, 43:39 "Get up, get up, get dressed. Hitch up the horse. 43:42 You've got to go to Marlow. 43:43 Mother's about to have a baby." 43:46 Well, that's the last thing Eugene wanted to do, 43:48 was to get up, number one. 43:50 And number two, to go to Marlow to get the doctor. 43:54 And William Farnsworth wondered, 43:55 "Why is it that you don't want to get up? 43:57 You know, mother, she's in labor. 43:59 She needs the doctor." 44:01 And so he asked his son, "Why don't you want to get up? 44:04 You know this is the situation." 44:05 Well Eugene responded, "There are already 44:08 too many children in our family. 44:09 We don't need another one. 44:10 So I don't want to get up and go get the doctor." 44:13 Well, William quoted Scripture to his son telling him that, 44:17 you know, the Good Book tells us to increase and multiply 44:20 and replenish the earth. 44:21 By this time Eugene was fully awake, because he 44:24 responded to his dad, "Yes, but He didn't tell you 44:27 to do it all." 44:31 And when you look at those old pictures that seem 44:33 so glum, you know, and the old albums and all, 44:37 remember they had a good sense of humor. 44:39 Another story from that period of time. 44:42 Cyrus Farnsworth, the younger brother of William, 44:45 he was for many years the head elder of the 44:47 Washington, New Hampshire church. 44:48 And there was a fellow by the name of Wooster Ball. 44:52 Now Wooster Ball apparently was quite a character. 44:55 He was in the church, out of the church, 44:57 following this, doing that, doing the other thing. 44:59 Anyway, on one occasion Wooster was testifying. 45:03 They use to, because they didn't have a pastor, 45:05 why, they use to have long testimony meetings. 45:07 People would get up and testify about whatever was 45:10 going on in their life. 45:11 And Wooster apparently enjoyed testifying. 45:13 And so he's testifying and testifying and testifying. 45:16 And finally Cyrus had enough. 45:18 And he said, "Wooster, you've testified long enough. 45:23 Let someone else give their testimony." 45:25 But Wooster went right on testifying. 45:28 Cyrus let him continue a bit longer, when he said, 45:30 "Now Wooster, I said sit down." 45:33 Well, Wooster hesitated a little bit, but he went 45:36 right on testifying. 45:37 So Cyrus went around, put his hands on Wooster's shoulders, 45:42 and said, "I told you, sit down." 45:45 And with that, the testimony ended. 45:49 I mean, as I say, these are real people. 45:51 Another time, talking about Wooster Ball, another time 45:54 Wooster was belaboring the feminine members 45:59 of that congregation for, quote, "their immodesty in dress." 46:05 He thought the sisters were not dressed properly. 46:09 And so after he had finished going on with his testimony 46:13 to the ladies who were not dressed according to his view 46:17 as being properly dressed, another fellow by the name of 46:21 Hosea Dodge, Hosea Dodge looked over at Wooster 46:25 and he said, "Wooster, have you never read where it says, 46:29 'Thou shall not rebuke the daughter of my people?'" 46:33 Well the next Sabbath Wooster came back to the church, 46:36 and he said to brother Dodge, "During this last week 46:40 I have gone through my Bible from cover to cover 46:43 trying to find that text about not rebuking 46:46 'the daughter of my people.' 46:48 I can't find it." 46:50 And Hosea got a twinkle in his eye and he said, 46:53 "Wooster, I never said it was in the Bible. 46:55 I just asked if you had read it?" 46:58 As I say, these people, when you look at those old pictures 47:00 and they look so glum, well you have to realize 47:03 some of them had a good sense of humor, like Hosea Dodge. 47:07 Wooster also had another problem. 47:09 We opened a school, South Lancaster Academy. 47:12 Later it was Atlantic Union College. 47:15 But they opened this school down in 47:18 South Lancaster, Massachusetts. 47:19 And some of the members of the congregation 47:22 sent their young people to attend the new school. 47:27 And would you know, there was liberalism in that school 47:31 that Wooster just could not stand. 47:34 He had to talk about it, how liberal this school was, 47:38 "And we're sending our young people down there 47:41 and they're being infected with this liberalism." 47:45 Well, what was it that had Wooster all worked up? 47:48 What was the liberal thing that these young people 47:51 were learning at South Lancaster Academy? 47:54 You may laugh when you hear. 47:56 They were teaching them to eat with a fork. 48:00 Now everybody knows you do not eat your meals with a fork. 48:04 Wooster knew that. 48:05 And that was this liberalism coming in. 48:08 Everybody knows you eat with a knife. 48:10 You do not eat with a fork. 48:12 And he could not stand this liberalism that was 48:15 creeping into the church. 48:18 Well, they were interesting characters. 48:21 And there were a couple more. 48:22 I think I have enough time still to share at least 48:25 one, maybe two more stories. 48:28 One has to do with the revival... 48:32 Well no, I'm going to start with this other one; Stephen Smith. 48:34 There was a fellow by the name of Stephen Smith. 48:39 It was interesting, because he was one who joined the church, 48:46 got critical of the church, complained about the church, 48:49 got disfellowshipped from the church, came back. 48:53 I think he has the distinction of being the first person 48:56 disfellowshipped from a Sabbath keeping Adventist church. 48:58 I don't know if that's a distinction you 48:59 necessarily want to have by your name, 49:01 but I think Stephen Smith has that one. 49:03 Anyway, so he's then back in the church. 49:06 And all the time he's becoming more and more disgruntled 49:10 as time passes by. 49:13 Well finally, it became so bad that the church had to 49:18 part company with Stephen Smith. 49:21 And you know, just because sometimes things become 49:24 so untenable that the church has to say, 49:29 "Sorry, it's not working," God doesn't give up on us 49:32 just because the church may have to finally say, 49:34 "Look, it's just not working. We need to separate. 49:37 And you go your way, and we'll stay here by ourselves." 49:41 So God gave a vision to Ellen White. 49:45 And in this vision she was given a message for Stephen Smith. 49:50 And she wrote it out and sent it to him. 49:55 And when he went to the post office to call for his mail, 49:59 and he realized that he had this letter, this envelope, 50:02 from Ellen White, it made him furious. 50:08 "What in the world does this old woman know for me," 50:10 he thought to himself. 50:12 Now he couldn't quite bring himself 50:15 to throw the letter away. 50:16 He did not open it. 50:18 So he did not read it. 50:20 But the old story tells us that what he did was, 50:23 he took the letter, took it home, 50:27 looked around at some place where he could stick that letter 50:30 out of sight and out of mind, saw a trunk where his wife 50:34 kept their winter blankets and coats, and things like that. 50:38 Today we'd call it an antique trunk. 50:41 Back then it was just a trunk. 50:42 Anyway, so he sees this trunk and he reaches down 50:46 into the trunk, pulls up the stuff, moves things around 50:50 a little bit, slams the letter in there in the 50:52 bottom of the trunk, and then puts the lid down, locks it, 50:56 and that's the end of that letter. 50:58 And for year after year that letter remained 51:02 in the bottom of the trunk, unread. 51:06 Stephen Smith is more and more cantankerous. 51:10 People that knew him that wrote about him later 51:12 said he had the most biting, cantankerous tongue 51:16 of any person you can possibly imagine. 51:18 From the accounts that I've read about the man, 51:20 I think he's the type person that if you were in town 51:23 and you saw him coming down the sidewalk your direction, 51:27 you'd walk across the street and go down the other side 51:30 so you didn't have to listen to him 51:32 when he would yell at you, or whatever. 51:34 People use to think about his poor wife, Matilda Smith. 51:38 "This poor dear woman. 51:39 She is such a sincere person. 51:42 And look, she's married to this hateful, cantankerous 51:46 difficult man. 51:48 And the children, the Smith children. 51:50 Can you imagine," people said, "them growing up 51:54 in that kind of environment with this man." 51:56 But there he was, he had been a member 51:59 of the Washington church. 52:01 Well, the Smiths moved to about 12 miles away to a little place 52:04 called Unity. 52:06 And over the next several years his wife Matilda, Matilda Smith, 52:11 she kept subscribing to the church paper, The Review. 52:14 Now how she got the money or why he let her do it 52:17 when he was supporting everything that was 52:19 against the church, I have no idea. 52:21 But the old story is that she continued 52:25 subscribing to, The Review. 52:27 Along about 1884, so 27 or so years after this letter 52:33 was sent by Ellen White to Stephen Smith, 52:36 about 1884, sometime in and around there, 52:40 Stephen Smith picks up a copy of, The Review, 52:43 that his wife subscribed to. 52:45 Back in those days the lead article, the open article, 52:48 in almost every issue was an article by Ellen White. 52:52 And he read it. 52:54 And he thought to himself, "Well that's not so bad." 52:56 Of course he didn't want his wife to know, so he put it back. 52:58 And the next week another article. 53:00 Another issue I should say, another article. 53:02 And, "Well that's not so bad." 53:03 And he puts it back. 53:05 Doesn't want his wife to know. 53:06 But people noticed that as the time passed 53:10 he didn't lose his temper quite so often. 53:12 He wasn't flying off the handle all the time. 53:15 And nobody could quite figure out what was going on. 53:19 Nobody knew that as he read, the Holy Spirit 53:22 was working on his life. 53:24 Well in the summer of 1885 Eugene Farnsworth, 53:28 now an ordained minister, came home to spend some time 53:32 to visit his father and his stepmother. 53:37 And it was announced that Eugene was going to 53:39 be there for two weeks. 53:40 So there'd be three Sabbaths, but the two weeks in between. 53:43 And it was announced that Eugene was going to preach. 53:46 And some way over in Unity 12 miles away, 53:49 Stephen Smith heard about it. 53:51 And he announced to his wife, Matilda, 53:53 "I think I want to go listen to Eugene next Sabbath." 53:58 Well of course his wife was absolutely, 54:02 I mean, she was just flabbergasted. 54:04 He hadn't been to church for years. 54:06 But one thing she knew about Stephen Smith was, 54:08 don't argue with the man. 54:09 If he's made up his mind, that's what we're going to do. 54:11 And of course she wanted to go to church. 54:13 That was fine with her. 54:14 So the next Sabbath, there they are in church. 54:18 Now Eugene, who wrote a letter to Ellen White 54:21 just a short time afterwards, and he told this whole story. 54:24 So we have very contemporary evidence for what happened. 54:27 Eugene did not know that Stephen Smith was going to be there 54:32 when he planned his topic for that Sabbath. 54:35 And what he had chosen to talk about was, 54:37 "The Seventh-day Adventist Church; 54:40 A Movement of Prophecy." 54:43 Now if anything is going to set off Stephen Smith, 54:45 it would be a topic like that. 54:47 And at the end of the sermon, old brother Smith stood up. 54:52 Eugene told Mrs. White in the letter that he wrote to her, 54:54 as I say, just a few days later, he said, "I didn't know 54:57 whether to let him speak. 54:58 I thought for sure he was going to blast 55:00 me for what I had said." 55:02 But old brother Smith said something like, 55:04 "Don't be afraid of me, brethren. 55:06 I didn't come here to criticize. 55:08 I've quit that kind of business." 55:10 And then he told how through the years he'd followed this 55:13 movement and that movement, 55:14 and sent money here and sent money there. 55:17 None of them still exist. 55:18 And finally he said, over the last year or two he had been 55:21 kind of comparing things. 55:23 And he realized that none of these other movements existed. 55:27 All that was left was the church. 55:31 "Facts," he said, "are stubborn things. 55:33 But that's the fact. 55:34 All that's left is the church. 55:36 I want to be reunited with this church." 55:38 Well to make a long story short, the next Thursday... 55:41 I mean, everybody of course was thrilled at his announcement. 55:44 But the next Thursday, Stephen Smith remembers that letter 55:48 that he had received 27 years before. 55:51 And so you can picture him going and wondering 55:53 what he did with it, and finally he remembers that trunk. 55:55 And probably thought to himself, "Has my wife cleaned it out?" 55:57 And you can picture him patting around down there 55:59 trying to find it, and finally he gets the letter, 56:01 now yellow with age. 56:02 He opens it up, and here was the message that God had sent him 56:06 27 or 28 years before. 56:09 The next Sabbath he's in church. 56:11 Eugene knows nothing about this until after the sermon. 56:14 The sermon that Sabbath was on the spirit of prophecy 56:17 and the remnant church. 56:18 Again, something that would have set Stephen Smith off. 56:21 But now as soon as the sermon is over, 56:22 the old man is on his feet. 56:24 And he's wanting to say something. 56:25 And he's telling them, "I got a message from Ellen White 56:28 myself about 28 years ago, but I didn't read it until Thursday." 56:34 Then he went on to tell how she had shown him, 56:37 had been shown that he should settle into the truth, 56:40 know what he believed. 56:41 Don't chase after every wind of doctrine. 56:44 He said, "I've come to the place where I realize 56:46 that everything in that letter was true. 56:49 Everything she was shown about me was true. 56:51 And how different it would have been if I had just 56:55 read and heeded." 56:57 He said, "Facts are stubborn things. 57:01 But those messages from Ellen White always lead you to God, 57:05 never away from God." 57:07 He said, "I'm too old to get out to tell people my story 57:11 and what God did for me." 57:13 But he said, "I want you to tell my story." 57:14 That's why I'm using his name this evening as we close. 57:17 He said, "And when you tell my story, 57:20 make certain that you also add this..." 57:22 And so we'll close with what he said. 57:25 "Make certain you tell them, 57:26 'Another rebel has surrendered.'" 57:30 Praise the Lord, 57:32 praise the Lord, 57:33 for that man there at Washington. |
Revised 2015-04-09