The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

XI. Further Proclamation Forecast in Prophecy

But there was yet another angle demanding study, an inkling of which had also been caught by Edson as he walked through the cornfield that epochal October day in 1844. With Crosier and Hahn he also saw that the bitterness of the Disappointment—and in fact of the whole advent experience—was itself a matter of inspired prediction, portrayed through the apostle John in Revelation 10. This they also studied. Here a message, that “there should be time no longer,” is represented as proclaimed on land and sea by a “mighty angel come down from heaven.” And the heavenly messenger “clothed with a cloud” seemingly indicated something that at the time was obscured, or not clearly understood. And with the message that prophetic “time shall be no longer,” there was opened a “little book”—apparently the book of Daniel, a portion of which had been sealed. The eating of this bitter-sweet book obviously symbolized the joy of expectation and the bitterness of disappointment, after which came the declaration, “Thou must prophesy again.” Apparently God still had a work to be done by those who had passed through the Disappointment. Another message was obviously to go forth, after the first and the second angel’s messages had spent their initial force. But how-with all the bitter, unreasoning prejudice from without and the factional disputes within already beginning to grow out of the Disappointment-could they meet the people? And what would be their message? PFF4 900.3

They had thought that when the seventh trumpet should begin to sound the mystery of God, the gospel, would suddenly be finished. They had felt that the close of Christ’s ministry involved a sudden cleansing of the sanctuary and the precipitous end of all things. But now they began to see that there was an interval of time-short, they thought-between the beginning of this trumpet and the second advent. PFF4 900.4

They also saw that when the temple of God was opened in heaven there was to be seen the ark of His testament. (Revelation 11:19.) They became convinced that the particular apartment of the temple, or sanctuary, which contained the ark, was entered only at the close of the typical yearly service, that is, on the Day of Atonement. That was when the high priest entered to cleanse the sanctuary. Moreover, the ark contained the testament, or testimony, that God had given to Moses on Mount Sinai, which He wrote on tables of stone, and which were placed in the ark. Then the thought began to suggest itself that this must involve some special emphasis upon the law of God. This all helped to explain the Disappointment. Even Joseph Marsh, in his Voice of Truth, at Rochester, New York, had written: PFF4 901.1

“We cheerfully admit that we have been mistaken in the nature of the event we expected would occur on the tenth of the seventh month; but we cannot yet admit that our great High Priest did not on that very day, accomplish all that the type would justify us to expect. We now believe he did.” ²² PFF4 901.2