SECOND QUESTION

When Did the Sealing Work Begin?

THE testimonies already quoted as to the reception of the sealing message by the Seventh-day Adventists is also good proof as to the time when the sealing began. The four winds of war were about to blow when that commotion among the nations of Europe broke out. The four angels had their commission to hold those winds of war, that the work of sealing be not hindered. “A check was put on,” so that the sealing might advance.QSM 19.1

We will note other testimonies showing that the sealing work was going on at that time. In “Experience and Views,” “Early Writings,” old edition, page 35, speaking of what was then occurring, we read: “Satan is now using ever device in this sealing time to keep the minds of God’s people from the present truth, and cause them to waver. I saw a covering that God was drawing over His people to protect them in the time of trouble; and every soul that was decided on the truth, and was pure in heart, was to be covered with the covering of the Almighty.”QSM 19.2

From the same testimony, page 36, we read: “I saw that Satan was at work in these ways to distract, deceive, and draw away God’s people, just now in this sealing time.... Satan was trying his every art to hold them where they were, until the sealing was past, until the covering was drawn over God’s people, and they left without a shelter from the burning wrath of God, in the seven last plagues. God has begun to draw this covering over His people, and it will soon be drawn over all who are to have a shelter in the day of slaughter.”QSM 20.1

I will quote from a tract published in 1852, a vision given to Sister White, at the home of Brother Harris, at Centerport, New York, August 24, 1850: “I saw that Satan will work now more powerfully than ever before, for he knows that his time is short, and that the sealing will soon be over. And he will now work in every insinuation to get the saints off their guard, and get them to sleep upon present truth, and doubting it, so as to prevent their being sealed with the seal of the living God.” We read in “Early Writings,” “Experience and Views,” page 49, old edition: “The sealing time is very short, and soon will be over. Now is the time, while the four angels are holding the four winds, to make our calling and election sure.”QSM 20.2

It was because of these plain statements, that our people and ministers, down to 1894, believed and taught that the sealing work had been going on since 1848, and that the 144,000 were being sealed. I do not see how we could draw any other idea, from the testimonies we have quoted, than that the sealing work had begun in 1848-1850.QSM 21.1