Heavenly Visions

MINDS DIRECTED TO SANCTUARY TRUTH

In the section, “The Third Angel’s Message,” there is this description, in the language of symbol and figure, of the rise of the work of the third angel of Revelation 14: HEVI 116.5

“As the ministration of Jesus closed in the holy place, and He passed into the holiest, and stood before the ark containing the law of God, He sent another mighty angel with a third message to the world. A parchment was placed in the angel’s hand, and as he descended to the earth in power and majesty, he proclaimed a fearful warning, with the most terrible threatening ever borne to man. This message was designed to put the children of God upon their guard, by showing them the hour of temptation and anguish that was before them. Said the angel, ‘They will be brought into close combat with the beast and his image. Their only hope of eternal life is to remain steadfast. Although their lives are at stake, they must hold fast the truth.’ The third angel closes his message thus: ‘Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.’ As he repeated these words, he pointed to the heavenly sanctuary.... HEVI 116.6

“It was represented to me that the remnant followed Jesus into the most holy place, and beheld the ark and the mercy seat, and were captivated with their glory.”-Pages 254, 255. HEVI 116.7

Thus those who turned to the commandments of God as the hour of His judgment came, in 1844, were to be straightway directed to the heavenly sanctuary and the ark of God’s testament. The truths of the Sabbath and the sanctuary are inseparable in the advent movement of the prophecy. HEVI 116.8

While this pointing by the angel to the heavenly sanctuary, as he saw the people appear keeping the commandments of God, must apply to the whole body of believers, to our own day, it is interesting to note this very feature in the case of our first Seventh-day Adventist, who led the way in 1844. HEVI 116.9

Speaking at the General Conference, in San Francisco, in 1930, our veteran preacher, E. W. Farnsworth, one of the children of that first church of ours, told us of the experience of his father, William Farnsworth: HEVI 116.10

“My father was the first Seventh-day Adventist in the world. He was the one that began the observance of the Sabbath as an Adventist.... And in a little while nearly the whole church in Washington, New Hampshire, where I was born, had begun to observe the Sabbath. The text of Scripture that attracted my father’s attention first was that text in Revelation, that ‘there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament.’ [Revelation 11:18, 19.] Father said, ‘I wonder what is in that ark,’ and in his thought he opened the ark, and there he saw the law of God, and there he saw the fourth commandment, ‘The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work.’ And he said, ‘I think we had better keep the Sabbath;’ and he began the observance of the Sabbath quite largely on the strength of the statement in that text.”-General Conference Bulletin, 1930. HEVI 116.11