The door of salvation was shut for many in the 1840’s: “God was in the proclamation of the time in 1843. It was His design to arouse the people and bring them to a testing point, where they should decide for or against the truth . . . they [ministers and laymen] helped to sound the cry, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come.. . . Angels were watching with the deepest interest the result of the heavenly message, and when the churches turned from and rejected it, they in sadness consulted with Jesus. He turned His face from the churches and bade His angels faithfully watch over the precious ones who did not reject the testimony.” Early Writings, 232–235.
Notice the way that the church was purified in 1843: God sent them light which brought them to a testing point. Would they accept or reject it? The second angel’s message revealed that those who rejected the first angel’s message had “rejected light from heaven and fell from the favor of God.” Early Writings, 237. Many were disfellowshipped and many left their former churches. (Early Writings, 260, 261.)
Any church that received and then rejected the first angel’s message in 1843 fell from the favor of God and the beloved of God had to separate from such a church. (Involved in the first angel’s message is the 2300 days terminating in 1844, the cleansing of the sanctuary, including both an open and a shut door and the call to worship God as the creator.)
“Near the close of the second angel’s message, I saw a great light from heaven shining upon the people of God. The rays of this light seemed bright as the sun. And I heard the voices of angels crying, ‘Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him!’ This was the midnight cry, which was to give power to the second angel’s message.” Early Writings, 238.
The early Adventists thought that the midnight cry was at the end of the path to the city of God, but the Lord revealed to Ellen White that the midnight cry was at the beginning of the path and was of vital importance to the purification of the church. She wrote, “I raised my eyes and saw a straight and narrow path, cast up high above the world. On this path the Advent people were traveling to the City, which was at the farther end of the path. They had a bright light set up behind them at the first end of the path, which an angel told me was the midnight cry. This light shone all along the path, and gave light for their feet so they might not stumble. And if they kept their eyes fixed on Jesus, who was just before them, leading them to the City, they were safe . . . Others rashly denied the light behind them, and said that it was not God that had led them out so far. The light behind them went out leaving their feet in perfect darkness, and they stumbled and got their eyes off the mark and lost sight of Jesus, and fell off the path down in the dark and wicked world below. It was just as impossible for them to get on the path again and go to the City, as all the wicked world which God had rejected. They fell all the way along the path one after another, until we heard the voice of God like many waters.” A Word to the Little Flock, 14.
Are you still on this path? Is your lamp burning and do you have extra oil? Or have you accepted Satan’s sophistry “that God had deceived the people”? (Early Writings, 248.) Is your religious experience vitally involved with the cleansing of the sanctuary, beginning in 1844? Do you know what it means to enter the “Most Holy Place”? Do you understand who and what the spiritual entity called “Zion” is and who and what “Babylon” is? Will you eventually fall off the path? When all who are going to deny the light behind them (the first and second angel’s messages and the midnight cry) have done so, then the church will become purified.
This is taking place with alarming rapidity all around us. As we will see, from the 1950s until the present, many Adventists all over the world have been falling off the path. (Just as the Christians in the 1840s still went to their churches, many of these today are still going to church and calling themselves Adventists, but they have fallen off the path.) Are you going to stay on the path?