One of the claims most frequently made by all of us as we stand on the rostrum in an evangelistic effort is that we are students of the prophecies. We laud the prophecies. We declare that we are the preachers of the prophecies. We insist that we come before the world with no newfangled ideas but are the expositors of the historic prophetic positions taken by devout men in former centuries.
Now these are large claims, but they are of the essence of our position on prophecy. I have often wondered how well we could defend these claims with historical evidence if we were asked to show proof that we are indeed the preachers of time-honored prophetic beliefs, that we are in the spiritual succession of a long line of men who have preached the advent from the scrolls of the prophets.
I willingly Confess that my knowledge of the historical background of our prophetic preaching has not been too clear. In fact, it has been rather hazy —that is, until I had the privilege during the past year of reading the manuscript copies of the L. E. Froom volumes that trace the history of prophetic interpretation from about 300 B.C. down to the middle of the nineteenth century. I did not find the matter easy reading, which is the most encouraging statement that could be made. For I am not much interested in easy, casual sketches of weighty subjects. But I did find the material of vast interest. It gave me the sweep of the subject through the centuries, and enabled me to see something of God's unfolding revelation of Himself and His plans, as He gave to men an increasingly clearer understanding of the prophecies, when the time drew near for the last advent message to be sounded.
Adventism—Climax of Prophetic Study
I was particularly impressed by this third volume of the impressive four-volume work entitled The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers. This volume deals with the colonial American and nineteenth-century Old World advent awakening. It is this volume that brings us to one of the great climaxes of prophetic study—the mighty advent movement of the early 1840's, out of which grew Seventh-day Adventism.
It is this third volume that shows us the true setting in which William Miller, Joseph Bates, James White, and others proclaimed the prophecies. We see these men, not as the creators of new, strange prophetic fantasies, but as the restorers and pro-claimers of beliefs that had been held and expounded by devout and learned theologians through former times. This illuminating volume proves false all the disparaging declarations of Seventh-day Adventist critics, who would dismiss our preaching as simply the echo of the views of an ignorant farmer named William Miller.
I find a thrill in reading books that strengthen my faith. Such books make me more zealous to promote my beliefs. The four-volume set, Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, will be that kind of work. As stated elsewhere in this issue, these books are to be published serially, the third volume coming out for the 1946 Ministerial Reading Course.
No Seventh-day Adventist minister should have any other plan than to sit down with this third volume, red or blue pencil in hand, to read and underline. This is a book the like of which you have not read before, for such a book has not been prepared heretofore. As you read, you will find that as the nineteenth century opened, one prophetic student after another began to turn his eyes to the 2300-day prophecy, each one coming to the conclusion that this prophecy was due for early fulfillment. This section alone is worth the price of the whole volume. It forever refutes the false charges of our enemies who claimed the Seventh-day Adventist position that the 2300-day prophecy ended in the early nineteenth century is a lone view, unsupported by any good prophetic expositors.
Here is a work that gives new meaning to the phiase, "a more sure word of prophecy."
