1888 Minneapolis General Conference Session
As the old saying goes those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. We might add that this also applies who do not know their own history in the first place. How might this apply to us as Seventh-day Adventists? The month of April brings to remembrance at least two significant events in Adventist history, events that the church is a bit hesitant to make much press about for reasons that will become apparent.
The first incident occurred twenty years ago and involves the infamous government showdown with David Koresh and his sect of Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists that ended in a fiery burnout that left 86 men, women, and children dead. The church struggled mightily to distance themselves from the uncomfortable fact that most of Koresh’s followers were Seventh-day Adventists. A recent article from the Adventist Today website asks the question regarding this tragic incident, “20 Years After the Waco Tragedy: What Have Adventists Learned?” We submit that Seventh-day Adventists have still not learned their lesson from this chapter in church history since the leaders continue to remain hushed and rarely if ever take up the subject since it has close association with the Shepherd’s Rod message which they are loathe to discuss and fearful to address openly. A recent post from this site brings out this glaring inconsistency and the complete failure to distinguish between true Davidian Seventh-day Adventists and the branch counterfeit started by Ben Roden in 1955. A research article has been published for some time that makes clear the distinction between the two groups.
A recent Washington Post article makes note that this year in the 150th year anniversary of the organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. However the article points out one increasingly awkward inconsistency, if the church believes and preaches in the imminent return of Christ and the end of all things as we know it, then why are we still here?
Over the past 150 years, Seventh-day Adventists have built one of Christianity’s most inventive and prosperous churches — while praying for the world to end as soon as possible.
A small band of believers has mushroomed to more than 17 million baptized members, including 1.2 million in the U.S. Nearly 8,000 Adventists schools dot dozens of countries. Hundreds of church-owned hospitals and clinics mend minds and bodies around the world.
You might expect Adventists to celebrate their success while marking their church’s 150th anniversary this May. There’s just one problem: the church wasn’t supposed to last this long.
The church leaders and historians are incapable to providing a completely satisfactory answer to this dilemma because they have lost sight of our role in Bible prophecy by failing to advance with the progressive unrolling of the prophetic scroll. This is coupled in another confused period of church history and that is the infamous 1888 General Conference Session in which the message of Christ and His righteousness was introduced by Elders Jones and Waggoner and, had it been accepted, would have closed the gospel in a matter of a few years. If this were the case none of us should be here. Despite the contemporary historical revisionism on this portion of our church history, the fact remains that the only answer to this paradox has to come from the Holy Bible. This has been highlighted in an earlier post on this website; the answer is plainly laid out in a study of the Temples: Type and Antitype. We encourage all sincere Seventh-day Adventists and students of history the hear out this prophecy and weight the evidence before deciding for or against. You might just be amazed how our history has been foretold in great detail in the prophecies of the prophets of old and brought to light through the Shepherd’s Rod message and the interpretative voice of the last day antitypical Elijah the prophet. Come and see for all the blessings are yours and a gift straight from the heavenly throne to not only know a correct view of our history, but the certainly of where God is leading His faithful saints today.
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THIS PICTURE IS INTERESTING AS IT APPEARS LIKE THESE MEN COULD QUALIFY AS JEWISH MEN FROM NEW YORK WHO BELONG TO CHABAD. YOU COULD LABEL THE PICTURE AS CHABAD OF MINNEAPOLIS. NOTICE MANY OF THE MEN HAVE BEARDS AS EGW DICTATES ‘THE BREATHERN GREATLY ERR IN DONNING A STASH AND/OR GOATEE’. THERE ARE SOME OR MOST OF THE SDA MEN WHO DISOBEY THIS COMMAND AND EVEN WILL KICK YOU OUT OF THEIR SDA CHURCH IF YOU LET THEM KNOW ABOUT THIS COMMAND FOUND IN THE SCRIPTURES LEV 19:29. TODAY THE COUNTERFEIT SDA MEN LOOK LIKE LITTLE SCHOOLBOYS WITH CLEAN SHAVEN FACES. MANY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WOULD KNOW A JEWISH PERSON , AN AMISH OR A MENNINOTE , BUT WOULD HAVE A HARD TIME FIGUREING OUT WHO THE SDA ARE. WHAT ARE THEY HIDING FROM? I GUESS ALL THE MSG AND HIDDEN MSG AND OTHER GARBAGE IN THEIR FOOD SUPPLY HAVE BECLOUDED THEIR MINDS
Yes it is interesting to see how times have changed. The actual scripture I believe you make reference to is Lev. 19:27 about the trimming of men’s beards. We can agree that if one is going to grow a beard it should not be fashioned into a goatee but keep neat and grown in as natural a state as possible without excessive trimming and shaping.