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Ellen G. White and the Shut Door Question - Contents
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    The Similar Experience of the Early Adventists

    So it was with the Adventists in 1844 and the painful years immediately following. The story is one of agonizing perplexity; of earnest Bible study; of God’s providences in the historical developments; and of revelations given through His messenger. All of these combined, first held the people steady to basic truths with confidence in God’s leadings in their first “sweet” and then “bitter” experience, and then opened before them the full understanding of the truth and the responsibilities before them as they were to “prophesy again before many peoples and nations.” (Revelation 10:11).EGWSDQ 3.3

    From time to time down through the years there have been those who looking at our spiritual forefathers, have thought it strange that immediately after the great disappointment of October 22, 1844, and, for a few years following, rather than engaging in evangelism, they held that probation for the world generally or for certain classes of people had closed and, as they said, “the door was shut.” That such a position was taken is borne out well by the documents of the time. What might be termed the “shut door era” in our history extended from 1844 to 1851 or 1852.EGWSDQ 3.4

    The crucial question, however, is: “Was Ellen G. White shown in vision that the door was shut and consequently probation for the world was closed?”EGWSDQ 4.1

    In dealing with this particular question we have but a slim handful of documents. Our search for the answer will lead us to a careful study of such documents that we do have and a review of the experiences of the times as reported by the participants.EGWSDQ 4.2

    Our forefathers passed through an excruciating experience, clinging tenaciously to each peg which offered some security. They saw many of their fellow believers release their grasp of confidence in God, His Word, and the prophecies, and then flounder in the seas of fanaticism, ridicule, indifference, and atheism. Again and again our pioneers came back to the evidence of God’s special blessing in the great Advent awakening under the leadership of William Miller and his associates. Even though sore distressed in their bitter disappointment, they felt they could not deny the manifest working of the Spirit of God. And yet, could it be that nothing took place on October 22? Many pondered as did Hiram Edson:EGWSDQ 4.3

    My advent experience has been the brightest of all my Christian experience.... Has the Bible proved a failure? Is there no God, no heaven, no golden city, no Paradise? Is all this but a cunningly devised fable? Is there no reality to our fondest hopes and expectations?—The Review and Herald, June 23, 1921, p. 5.EGWSDQ 4.4

    They dare not release their grasp of one peg until they found another securely driven that would bear their weight. Most of them were in virtual poverty for they had invested their property in heralding the first angel’s message. The world treated them as outcasts. It wanted none of the “deluded Adventists.”EGWSDQ 4.5

    And then a maiden in their midst was given a vision. She saw the Advent people traveling to the city of God and Christ leading them. Their advent experience had not been a grand delusion, but God was in it, and He was still leading them.EGWSDQ 5.1

    Surely, they thought, Christ’s coming was imminent. Would it be in a few weeks, or perhaps a few months? It could not be long delayed. They could not release their grasp of the peg of confidence in the fulfillment of prophecy on October 22. The coming of the Lord must be very near, most likely in the “fourth watch” which some reckoned to be the 10th day of the seventh month in 1845. (See James White in the The Day-Star, September 20, 1845, and “A Word to the Little Flock, 22)EGWSDQ 5.2

    But again God spoke. He sent a warning message through vision to Ellen Harmon. Those who had fixed their eyes on deliverance in the fall of 1845 would be disappointed. Before Christ could come “the saints must pass through the ‘time of Jacob’s trouble’ which was future.”—Word to the Little Flock, p. 22EGWSDQ 5.3

    And so God led, comforted and strengthened “His ‘scattered,’ ‘torn’ and ‘pealed’ people” (Word to the Little Flock, p. 21) in their determination to know the truth and walk in it safely. They were often widely separated, and James White refers to the group as “the little remnant scattered abroad.” The lines of communication were tenuous. Some were able to grasp opening truth more quickly than others. But move ahead they did in such a way as to build a firm foundation for the church.EGWSDQ 5.4

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