Anti-Triumphal Self-Understanding

This anti-triumphal self-understanding stirred Sabbatarian Adventists to renewed missionary activity, hoping thus to hasten the Advent. However, most church members heard the mission emphasis without the deeper implication: “The heart must be purified from sins which have so long shut out Jesus .... But as they failed to see the powerful work accomplished in a short time, many lost the effect of the [Laodicean] message.... It is designed to arouse the people of God, to discover to them their backslidings, and to lead to zealous repentance, that they may be favored with the presence of Jesus, and be fitted for the loud cry of the third angel.” ^{27Testimonies for the Church 1:186.}MOL 272.2

One of Ellen White’s consistent themes is that character preparation is needed before God can endorse the church’s missionary efforts with the latter rain experience and the resulting “loud cry” world-shaking interventions just before the Advent: “If the message had been of as short duration as many of us supposed, there would have been no time for them to develop character. Many moved from feeling, not from principle and faith.... It wrought upon their feelings, and excited their fears, but did not accomplish the work which God designed that it should.” ^{28Testimonies for the Church 1:186, 187.}MOL 272.3

In this same chapter, “The Laodicean Church,” Mrs. White gave candid counsel regarding what the Laodicean message needed to accomplish if members of the last-day church were to complete their assignment as the proclaimers of the three angels’ messages. She emphasized that those who apply the message to their lives will be “purified through obeying the truth“: they will have stood “every test, and overcome, be the price what it may“: they will “have heeded the counsel of the True Witness [Laodicean message].”MOL 272.4

When God’s people have fully cooperated with the Lord who stands at the door, when, by the enabling power of the “indwelling Christ,” God’s people will “overcome ... as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne” (Revelation 3:21), then “they will receive the latter rain, and thus be fitted for translation.” ^{29Testimonies for the Church 1:186-188.} “This antitriumphalism in the Laodicean context has continued to be an important factor in the Adventist theology of mission up till the present. It has not only improved the spiritual climate for mission work but has also provided a rationale for the delay of the parousia [Second Advent].” ^{30Damsteegt, Foundations, p. 248.}MOL 272.5

Because of Ellen White’s eschatological teachings, Adventists think differently about the return of Jesus than do other Christians. They know that “certain events in the history of salvation” must yet occur. ^{31Testimonies for the Church 1:270.} Using the Elijah motif, ^{32A reference to Malachi 4:5 and Luke 1:17—that God will raise up a people before the Second Advent “in the spirit and power of Elijah.”} a special emphasis was placed on the work of restoration as a specific burden of the third angel’s message. One of these specific burdens was the place that health reform would serve in preparing a people for fulfilling their spiritual responsibilities. ^{33Testimonies for the Church 3:62, 63.}MOL 272.6