Pioneers

Again and again I have been shown that the past expe­ri­ences of God’s peo­ple are not to be counted as dead facts. We are not to treat the record of these expe­ri­ences as we would treat a last-year’s almanac.–Letter 238, 1903. (To Elder A. G. Daniells, Novem­ber 1, 1903.)

God has given me light regard­ing our peri­od­i­cals. What is it?–He has said that the dead are to speak. How?–Their works shall fol­low them. We are to repeat the words of the pio­neers in our work, who knew what it cost to search for the truth as for hid­den trea­sure, and who labored to lay the foun­da­tion of our work. They moved for­ward step by step under the influ­ence of the Spirit of God.

One by one these pio­neers are pass­ing away. The word given me is, Let that which these men have writ­ten in the past be repro­duced. And in the Signs of the Times let not the arti­cles be long or the print fine. Do not try to crowd every­thing into one num­ber of the paper. Let the print be good, and let earnest, liv­ing expe­ri­ences be put into the paper.  {CW 28.1}

Let the truths that are the foun­da­tion of our faith be kept before the peo­ple. Some will depart from the faith, giv­ing heed to seduc­ing spir­its and doc­trines of dev­ils. They talk sci­ence, and the enemy comes in and gives them an abun­dance of sci­ence; but it is not the sci­ence of sal­va­tion. It is not the sci­ence of humil­ity, of con­se­cra­tion, or of the sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion of the Spirit. We are now to under­stand what the pil­lars of our faith are,–the truths that have made us as a peo­ple what we are, lead­ing us on step by step.– Review and Her­ald, May 25, 1905.  {CW 29.1}

All the mes­sages given from 1840–1844 are to be made forcible now, for there are many peo­ple who have lost their bear­ings. The mes­sages are to go to all the churches.  {21MR 437.1}

When the power of God tes­ti­fies as to what is truth, that truth is to stand for­ever as the truth. No after­sup­po­si­tions, con­trary to the light God has given are to be enter­tained. Men will arise with inter­pre­ta­tions of Scrip­ture which are to them truth, but which are not truth. The truth for this time, God has given us as a foun­da­tion for our faith. He Him­self has taught us what is truth. One will arise, and still another, with new light which con­tra­dicts the light that God has given under the demon­stra­tion of His Holy Spirit.  {CW 31.2}
A few are still alive who passed through the expe­ri­ence gained in the estab­lish­ment of this truth. God has gra­ciously spared their lives to repeat and repeat till the close of their lives, the expe­ri­ence through which they passed even as did John the apos­tle till the very close of his life. And the standard-​​bearers who have fallen in death, are to speak through the reprint­ing of their writ­ings. I am instructed that thus their voices are to be heard. They are to bear their tes­ti­mony as to what con­sti­tutes the truth for this time.  {CW 32.1}

William Miller

William Miller’s Rules of Prophetic Inter­pre­ta­tion  PDF

When Miller was thirty-​​four the Holy Spirit impressed his heart, and he turned to the study of the Word of God. He found in Christ the answer to all his needs. His study led him to the great prophe­cies that pointed to the first and to the sec­ond advent of our Lord. The time prophe­cies inter­ested him, par­tic­u­larly the prophe­cies of Daniel and The Rev­e­la­tion.
In the year 1818, as a result of his study of the prophe­cies of Daniel 8 and 9, he came to the con­clu­sion that Christ would come some time in the year 1843 or 1844. He hes­i­tated until 1831 before he began to announce his find­ings. From his first pub­lic ser­vice we may mark the begin­nings of the Advent move­ment in North Amer­ica. In the months and years that fol­lowed, roughly 100,000 per­sons came to believe in the immi­nence of Christ’s sec­ond com­ing. Fol­low­ing the great dis­ap­point­ment of 1844, Miller lived for sev­eral years before He fell asleep in Christ in 1849. In spite of his mis­un­der­stand­ing of the event that was to tran­spire in 1844, God used him to awaken the world to the near­ness of the end and to pre­pare sin­ners for the time of judgment.

Josiah Litch

Dr. Josiah Litch, a 19^th Cen­tury physi­cian and itin­er­ant min­is­ter for the Methodist Epis­co­pal Church, accu­rately pre­dicted two years in advance, the fall of the Ottoman Empire in August of 1840 (a for­mi­da­ble alliance of Arab nations gov­erned from Turkey). This was an exact ful­fill­ment of Bible prophecy in “Rev­e­la­tion” chap­ter nine. Con­tin­u­ing his research, two months before the event he pre­dicted the exact day, August 11, 1840, and it was widely cir­cu­lated in Chris­t­ian jour­nals and news­pa­pers. If was from this point the first angels mes­sage went to every mis­sion­ary sataion in the whole world. (See Great Con­tro­versy p611) This pre­dic­tion brought thou­sands to the fold and the mes­sage of Christ s com­ing was widely circulated.

Ellen G White

Ellen Gould White born to Robert and Eunice Har­mon, was a strong instru­men­tal fig­ure used by the Lord in found­ing the Seventh-​​day Adven­tist Church. In Decem­ber of 1844, Ellen received her first vision, regard­ing the trav­els of the advent peo­ple to the city of God and it was then The Lord called her to a life-​​long min­istry as His mes­sen­ger at then ten­der age of 17.

She met James White in Feb­ru­ary 1845, mar­ry­ing him in August of 1846. In 1849 in response to a mes­sage from God through Ellen, James began a pub­lish­ing work, begin­ning with the Present Truth.

Her writ­ings cover a broad range of sub­jects, includ­ing reli­gion, edu­ca­tion, health, social rela­tion­ships, evan­ge­lism, prophecy, pub­lish­ing, nutri­tion, and man­age­ment. Her life-​​changing mas­ter­piece on suc­cess­ful Chris­t­ian liv­ing, Steps to Christ, has been pub­lished in nearly 150 lan­guages, with well over 100 mil­lion copies in cir­cu­la­tion. Her crown­ing achieve­ment is the five-​​volume “Con­flict of the Ages” series, which traces the con­flict between good and evil from its ori­gin to its dra­matic, soon-​​to-​​unfold conclusion.

Ellen G. White is the most trans­lated woman in lit­er­a­ture and the most trans­lated Amer­i­can author of either gen­der. An une­d­u­cated and frail woman, she man­aged to write over 5,000 arti­cles, 40 books and 50,000 pages of man­u­scripts. Her writ­ings on health and tem­per­ance were ground-​​breaking and were way beyond the med­ical insti­tu­tions of her time.

“The light that has been given I dare not with­hold. The Lord has appointed me as His mes­sen­ger, and I must speak the words He gives me.” {SpTB07 49.1}

“God has given me a mes­sage for His peo­ple. They must awake, spread their tents, and enlarge their bor­ders. My brethren and sis­ters, you have been bought with a price, and all that you have and are is to be used to the glory of God and for the good of your fel­low men. Christ died on the cross to save the world from per­ish­ing in sin. He asks your co-​​operation in this work. You are to be His help­ing hand. With earnest, unweary­ing effort you are to seek to save the lost. Remem­ber that it was your sins that made the cross nec­es­sary.” –Tes­ti­monies, vol. 7, p. 9.

James White

James White was born in the town­ship of Palmyra in Maine. The fifth of nine chil­dren, James was a sickly child who suf­fered fits or seizures. Poor eye­sight pre­vented him from obtain­ing much of an edu­ca­tion and he was required to work on the fam­ily farm. At age 19 his eye­sight improved and he enrolled at a local acad­emy. He earned a teach­ing cer­tifi­cate and briefly taught at an ele­men­tary school. He was bap­tized into the Chris­t­ian Con­nex­ion at age 16. He learned of the Mil­lerite mes­sage from his par­ents and after hear­ing pow­er­ful preach­ing at an advent camp meet­ing in Exeter, Maine, White decided to leave teach­ing and become a preacher. Con­se­quently, he was ordained a min­is­ter of the Chris­t­ian Con­nex­ion in 1843. White was a pow­er­ful preacher and it is recorded that dur­ing the win­ter of 1843, 1000 peo­ple were accepted the Mil­lerite mes­sage owing to his preach­ing. White was the pub­lisher of the first peri­od­i­cal issued by Seventh-​​day Adven­tists, Present Truth (1849); the first edi­tor of the Review and Her­ald (1850), the Youth’s Instruc­tor (1852), also the Signs of the Times (1874). He was pres­i­dent of the Gen­eral Con­fer­ence between 1865–1967, 1869–1871, and 1874–1880.
If there was a founder of the Review and Her­ald Pub­lish­ing Asso­ci­a­tion, it was James White along with his wife, Ellen. He was the spon­sor and pro­moter of the Pacific Press Pub­lish­ing Asso­ci­a­tion.
He died August 6, 1881, when he was only sixty. He lit­er­ally worked him­self to death. The brethren leaned on him so heav­ily that his tow­er­ing fig­ure fell. His sixty years of life were spent unselfishly and sac­ri­fi­cially. No other Seventh-​​day Adven­tist min­is­ter did more than he to build high prin­ci­ple and effi­ciency into the life of our churches and institutions.

Jospeh Bates

Joseph Bates was forced into servi­tude for the British navy and spent time as a pris­oner dur­ing the War of 1812. After his release he con­tin­ued his career even­tu­ally becom­ing cap­tain of a ship. Dur­ing one of his voy­ages he read a copy of the Bible that his wife packed for him. He expe­ri­enced con­ver­sion and became involved in a vari­ety of reforms includ­ing help­ing to found an early tem­per­ance soci­ety. In 1839 he accepted the teach­ings of William Miller that Jesus was com­ing soon.
After Octo­ber 22, 1844, like many other Mil­lerites, Bates sought mean­ing out of the Great Dis­ap­point­ment. Dur­ing the spring of 1845 Bates accepted the seventh-​​day Sab­bath after read­ing a pam­phlet by T. M. Pre­ble. Bates soon became known as the “apos­tle of the Sab­bath” and wrote sev­eral book­lets on the topic. One of the first, pub­lished in 1846, was enti­tled The Sev­enth Day Sab­bath, a Per­pet­ual Sign.[3] One of Bates’ most sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion was his abil­ity to con­nect the­o­log­i­cally the Sab­bath with a unique under­stand­ing of the heav­enly sanc­tu­ary. This apoc­a­lyp­tic under­stand­ing of the­ol­ogy would become known as the Great Con­tro­versy theme.

Joseph Bates was a strong sup­porter of James White and the prophetic gift, which he believed was man­i­fested in visions received by the young Ellen G. White. He con­tributed to early pub­li­ca­tions such as A Word to the “Lit­tle Flock.”

Charles Fitch

Stephen Haskell

Stephen N. Haskell was an evan­ge­list and admin­is­tra­tor. He began preach­ing for the non-​​Sabbath keep­ing Adven­tists in New Eng­land in 1853. Later that year he began to wor­ship on Sat­ur­day, or Sab­bath. He worked with­out pay in New Eng­land until his ordi­na­tion in 1870. He was pres­i­dent of Seventh-​​day Adven­tist churches in var­i­ous parts of the United States.
In 1885 he led a group of mis­sion­ar­ies who began to spread the Adven­tist mis­sion in Aus­tralia and New Zealand. In 1887 he began to estab­lish the Adven­tist church in Lon­don, Eng­land. He trav­elled the world as a mis­sion­ary between 1889 and 1890, vis­it­ing West­ern Europe, South­ern Africa, India, China, Japan, and Australia.

John Nevins Andrews

A Seventh-​​day Adven­tist min­is­ter, mis­sion­ary, writer, edi­tor, and scholar. Born in Poland, Maine in 1829, Andrews was con­verted in Feb­ru­ary 1843 and began to observe the seventh-​​day Sab­bath in 1845. He met James White and Ellen G. White in Sep­tem­ber 1849. Later, the Whites boarded with the Andrews fam­ily. In 1850 he began itin­er­ant pas­toral min­istry in New Eng­land and ordained in 1853. Andrews played a piv­otal role in the estab­lish­ment of Adven­tist theology.

In June 1862 John left Waukon to work with the evan­ge­lis­tic tent in New York and assisted in the found­ing of the New York Con­fer­ence. In Feb­ru­ary 1863 Ange­line and their two chil­dren moved from Iowa to join him in New York. Two more chil­dren were born to John and Angelina while in New York, both of whom died in infancy from tuber­cu­lo­sis. In 1864, John was cho­sen as the denom­i­na­tional rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Provost Mar­shall Gen­eral in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., to secure recog­ni­tion for the church as non­com­bat­ants. On May 14, 1867 Andrews was elected the third pres­i­dent of the Gen­eral Con­fer­ence (until May 18, 1869) after which he became edi­tor of the Review and Her­ald (1869−1870), now the Adven­tist Review.

Hiram Edson

Edson spent Octo­ber 22, 1844 with friends wait­ing for the event, and was heart-​​broken when Jesus did not return as expected. He later wrote:
“Our fond­est hopes and expec­ta­tions were blasted, and such a spirit of weep­ing came over us as I never expe­ri­enced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no com­par­i­son. We wept, and wept, till the day dawn.“
On the morn­ing of Octo­ber 23 they were pass­ing through Edson’s grain field where he had a vision. In this vision, Edson came to under­stand that “the cleans­ing of the sanc­tu­ary” meant that Jesus was mov­ing from the Holy Place to the Most Holy Place in the heav­enly sanc­tu­ary, and not to the Sec­ond Com­ing of Jesus to earth:“We started, and while pass­ing through a large field I was stopped about mid­way of the field. Heaven seemed opened to my view, and I saw dis­tinctly and clearly that instead of our High Priest com­ing out of the Most Holy of the heav­enly sanc­tu­ary to come to this earth on the tenth day of the sev­enth month, at the end of the 2300 days, He for the first time entered on that day the sec­ond apart­ment of that sanc­tu­ary; and that He had a work to per­form in the Most Holy before com­ing to the earth.“
Edson shared what he believed he saw with many of the local Adven­tists who were greatly encour­aged by his account. As a result Edson began study­ing the bible with two of the other believ­ers in the area, O. R. L. Crosier and Franklin B. Hahn, who pub­lished their find­ings in a paper called the Day-​​Dawn. This paper explored the bib­li­cal para­ble of the Ten Virgins.

John Nor­ton Loughborough

John is well known for writ­ing the books The Rise and Progress of Seventh-​​day Adven­tists and The Great Sec­ond Advent Move­ment. Like most of the early Advent lead­ers, Lough­bor­ough took a real inter­est in the lit­er­a­ture work. He and James White dis­cussed ways and means of advanc­ing the work of the gospel.

It was sug­gested that if books were offered to the pub­lic in con­nec­tion with preach­ing ser­vices, the peo­ple would be will­ing to pay a small price for them. Thus, the way would be pre­pared for more lit­er­a­ture to be pro­duced. Young Lough­bor­ough tried this method, and it was a success.Loughborough spent his last years in the St. Helena San­i­tar­ium, where he passed away peace­fully on April 7, 1924, at the ripe old age of ninety-​​two.

Uriah Smith

Born in 1832 in West Wilton, New Hamp­shire. His fam­ily accepted the Mil­lerite mes­sage and in 1844 expe­ri­enced what has become known as the Great Dis­ap­point­ment. That same year, Smith had his left leg ampu­tated due to an infec­tion. Fol­low­ing the Dis­ap­point­ment. Around 1852, he became involved in the early Seventh-​​day Adven­tist Church. In 1853, he began work­ing at the offices of the Advent Review and Sab­bath Her­ald (now the Adven­tist Review), becom­ing its edi­tor in 1855. His main con­tri­bu­tion to Adven­tist the­ol­ogy was a com­men­tary on the prophetic Bib­li­cal books of Daniel and the Rev­e­la­tion orig­i­nally called ‘Thoughts on Daniel and the Rev­e­la­tion) This book was greatly endorsed by Ellen White and she even referred to it as ‘God’s help­ing hand.’

Alonzo T. Jones

Alonzo was bap­tized when he left the Army, and began preach­ing on the West Coast. In May, 1885, he became edi­tor of the Signs of the Times, and was later joined by E. J. Wag­goner.
In 1888, these two men stirred the Gen­eral Con­fer­ence ses­sion in Min­neapo­lis with their preach­ing on right­eous­ness by faith. For sev­eral years there­after, they preached on that sub­ject from coast to coast. Ellen White accom­pa­nied them on many occa­sions. She saw in Jones’ pre­sen­ta­tions of “the pre­cious sub­ject of faith and the right­eous­ness of Christ…a flood of light” (EGW 1888 Mate­ri­als, p. 291).
Jones was on the Gen­eral Con­fer­ence Com­mit­tee in 1897 and editor-​​in-​​chief of the Review and Her­ald from 1897 to 1901.