1888 Message: What Should Have Been

1888 General Conference Session, Minneapolis

The Seventh-day Adventist Church faces a monumental theological crisis when confronted with history of the most precious message brought to the Minneapolis General Conference Session in 1888 by Elders Alonzo T. Jones and Ellet J. Waggoneer. The message centered on the means by which God’s remnant church was to obtain the righteousness of Christ and, if accepted, would have brought the Loud Cry of the Third angel’s message and closed the gospel work within a matter of a few years. Tragically, the majority of the leadership and eventually, the corporate body of the church, rejected the latter rain coming from the Holy Spirit and as a result the church entered into a 40 year wilderness wandering parallel with ancient Israel’s failure to enter the promised land in the Exodus movement. The evidence of the church’s inability to confront the impact of this message is proven by the stark reality that we are still here on this sin forsaken world and yet, Jesus has not come. Despite the multitude of efforts by many Adventist authors since the late 1940‘s to try to explain what the message means for the church today, none have been able to given an adequate reason from the scriptures or reveal the Divine remedy.

By God’s infinite wisdom and design the message revival and reformation returned to the mother church in 1930 announcing the sealing of the 144,000, the ones who would finally develop the character necessary to be fitted up for translation into the heavenly portals. Even more alarming is the reality that the church leadership at that time was even farther away from accepting the truth than they were in 1888 and rejected this additional message of the fourth angel of Revelation 18 that will join the three angel’s messages when they are repeated with power and force (EW 277). To the present day this advanced message (the “meat in due season”) is steadfastly resisted by the church leadership and the laity alike. Fortunately, by the grace and mercy of God, there will be a faithful remnant who will not despise prophesying and will study to show themselves approved of God and accept the additional light.

Because of the corporate failure of the SDA church to accept the present truth message the flock needs now (EW 63), the only remedy is for God to demand obedience and enforce executive judgment upon those who would oppose its decree. This sad history of modern Israel’s rebellion and refusal to accept the Divine remedy is carefully laid out in sacred typology of the temples, type and antitype and preserved by His prophet, Haggai who predicted a rebuilding of a spiritual temple whose glory will exceed that of the former (Hag. 2:1-9). Thus, an earnest appeal is made for those who are thirsting and hungering for righteousness, to download the 14 page study linked below and investigate its claims from the original presentation and see its sacred worth.

The Temples: Type and Antitype (PDF, 7.6 MB)

For further documentation about the once held belief that the corporate SDA church entered into a 40 year wilderness wandering due to rejection of the 1888 message, please follow the links below.

Taylor Bunch, “Forty Years in the Wilderness”, 1925 (PDF, 532 KB)

Review and Herald articles: 1929-30 (PDF, 2.5 MB)

Tagged as: 1888 message, A. T. Jones, Christ's righteousness, E. J. Waggoner