How the Visions Gave Guidance

As fast as the early Advent believers could grasp a concept of the task before them, God had through the visions pointed the way to a world mission. Ellen White traced this back to her first vision in December, 1844. Again in the vision at Dorchester, Massachusetts, in November, 1848, she was instructed to tell James White to start a paper, and “from this small beginning it was shown to me to be like streams of light that went clear round the world.”—Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 125.EGWE 30.2

Then, three years before J. N. Andrews left the shores of America to sail for Europe, the Lord's messages had marked out a work of world dimensions:EGWE 30.3

“December 10, 1871, I was shown that God would accomplish a great work through the truth, if devoted, self-sacrificing men would give themselves unreservedly to the work of presenting it to those in darkness.... Angels of God are moving on the hearts and consciences of the people of other nations, and honest souls are troubled as they witness the signs of the times in the unsettled state of the nations. The inquiry arises in their hearts, What will be the end of all these things?”—Ibid., 203.EGWE 30.4

Again in the vision of April 1, 1874, the angel instructed her:EGWE 31.1

“Never lose sight of the fact that the message you are bearing is a world—wide message.... Your light ... must be placed on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in God's house—the world. You must take broader views of the work than you have taken.”—Testimonies for the Church 7:35, 36.EGWE 31.2

A little later James White would say that statements like these from the Spirit of Prophecy troubled the early believers. They could not understand how, with limited time and their few numbers and small resources, they could possibly encompass the earth.EGWE 31.3

Arthur W. Spalding, Seventh-day Adventist historian, referred to the “young church” that “understood little more of its destiny and its career than babes of earth.”EGWE 31.4

“They said that it must be that this gospel is to be preached to all the world in token. Here in America we meet representatives of every race and every nation. How good the Lord is to bring to our hand Jew and Gentile, Anglo-Saxon, Teuton, Latin, Slav, Indian, Negro, Mongolian! We may reach them here, and so fulfill the terms.”—Origin and History of Seventh-day Adventists, vol. 2, p. 193.EGWE 31.5

By “terms” they meant the requirements of the gospel commission. They reasoned that if the third angel's message were preached throughout the United States, it would thus have been preached to all the world!EGWE 31.6