Stories in the Rearview Mirror

“Stories in the Rearview Mirror:

Why I Believe in the Third Person’s Last Rain”

www.pmchurch.tv

• Waggoner and White
  • EJW: “I was sitting a little apart from the body of the congregation in the large tent at a camp meeting in Healdsburg, one gloomy Sabbath afternoon. . . . All that has remained with me was what I saw. Suddenly a light shone round me, and the tent was more brilliantly lighted than if the noon-day sun had been shining, and I saw Christ hanging on the cross, crucified for me. In that moment I had my first positive knowledge which came like an overwhelming flood, that God loved me, and that Christ died for me. God and I were the only beings I was conscious of in the universe. I knew then, by actual sight, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself; I was the whole world with its sin. I am sure that Paul’s experience on the way to Damascus was no more real than mine.” (Ron Duffield, The Return of the Latter Rain, 45)
  • EJW: “I knew that in the Bible I should find the message of God’s love for individual sinners, and I resolved that the rest of my life should be devoted to finding it there, and making it plain to others. The light that shone upon me that day from the cross of Christ has been my guide in all my Bible study; wherever I have turned in the Sacred Book, I have found Christ set forth as the power of God, to the salvation of individuals and I have never found anything else.” (Ibid)
  • EGW: “I have been instructed [by God] that the terrible experience at the Minneapolis Conference is one of the saddest chapters in the history of the believers in present truth.” (The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials 1796)
  • EGW: “I have had the question asked, ‘What do you think of this light that these men are presenting? Why, I have been presenting it to you for the last 45 years—the matchless charms of Christ. This is what I have been trying to present before your minds. When Brother Waggoner brought out these ideas in Minneapolis, it was the first clear teaching on this subject from any human lips I had heard, excepting the conversations between myself and my husband. . . . [E]very fiber of my heart said, Amen.” (1888 Materials 348)
  • Woodrow Whidden: “In the face of the stiff opposition to Waggoner’s emphases, Ellen White gave strong personal support to his (and Jones’s) basic theological thrust. Her outspoken affirmations of Jones and Waggoner’s Christ- and grace-centered emphasis would be sustained until at least 1896. . . . The Christ-centered focus of Jones and Waggoner was the inspiration for the most concerted emphasis that Ellen White would ever make on ‘justification by faith’ in the ‘imputed [credited to our account] merits of Christ.’ When all that she ever wrote on justification by faith from 1844 to 1902 is surveyed, roughly forty-five percent of the entire mass was written between late 1888 and late 1892.” (The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia 535)

• Jesus and Andrews
  • Jesus: “When the Spirit comes, He will testify of Me” (John 15:26; 16:14).
  • EGW: “The Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people through Elders Waggoner and Jones. This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God. Many had lost sight of Jesus. They needed to have their eyes directed to His divine person, His merits, and His changeless love for the human family. All power is given into His hands, that He may dispense rich gifts unto men, imparting the priceless gift of His own righteousness to the helpless human agent. This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel’s message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure [latter rain].” (Testimonies to Ministers 91-92)
  • EGW: “Meetings were held in the College which were intensely interesting. The Spirit of the Lord wrought upon hearts, and there was a precious work done in the conversion of souls. There has been no excitement felt or manifested. The work has been accomplished by the deep movings of the Spirit of God, and [students] have moved intelligently and in faith. . . . He [Jesus] who had been to them as a root out of dry ground, without form or comeliness, became ‘the chiefest among ten thousand,’ and the one altogether lovely.” (Review and Herald February 12, 1889)
  • EGW: “Thursday at 5:00 p.m. I spoke to the college students. The Lord gave me the word which seemed to reach hearts. Professor Prescott [the college president] arose and attempted to speak, but his heart was too full. There he stood for five minutes in complete silence, weeping. When he did speak he said, ‘I am glad I am a Christian.’ He made very pointed remarks. His heart seemed to be broken by the Spirit of the Lord. I invited those who had not accepted the truth, and those who had not the evidence of their acceptance with God, to come forward. It seemed that the whole company were on the move.” (Arthur White The Lonely Years 421)
  • EGW: “The promise [Mt 18:19, 20] is made on condition that the united prayers of the church are offered, and in answer to these prayers there may be expected a power greater than that which comes in answer to private prayer. The power given will be proportionate to the unity of the members and their love for God and for one another.” (Manuscript Releases 9:303)
  • What if the daughter of Battle Creek College asked God to pour out the Spirit of Jesus upon us like He did 127 years ago?

What if we kept asking until He did?