Here is a classic example of why it is that cultic religions find it necessary to conceal their old publications from the scrutiny of the membership.
This example is from 7 th Day Adventism, but I assure all readers it is a classic and well worth the reading. Still, it is necessary to lay out a little background to the speech I will be quoting from before proceeding.
The 7 th day Adventists had an expectation of Christs return revolving around the end point of 1844. Nothing happened. And so a retrospective understanding that pure worship practises needed to be restored after 1844 came to be. In fact, 1844 came to be understood as a wake up call to the spiritually minded. A last chance to be saved. I have demonstrated before (using Mormonism as an example) that revelations pertaining to ‘restoring’ pure worship practises (lost since apostolic times) follow on inevitably from prophetic failures. The Adventist understanding of post 1844 pure worship revelations revolves around what are called the “3 Angels messages”. These are found in scripture at Revelation 17 and 18. It came to be seen that the First angels cry pertained to William Miller and his 1844 prediction, a wake up call so to speak. The 2nd angel cried out for all Christlike ones to leave Spiritual Babylon and abandon false worship. And the 3 rd Angel was Ellen G White herself and her message to ‘restore’ the pure practise of the Sabbath.
It is pertaining to the “Second Angels message”, that call to “get out of Babylon” and form a separate (pure) church that I will be quoting in this thread.
A reader of Adventist publications will see that the prophecy of the “second angel’ was begun of fulfilment in a sermon preached by one Charles Fitch, an Adventist illuminari, in 1843. The speech was called
“GET OUT OF HER MY PEOPLE.”
And it was the first public call for Adventist believers to exit the churches they attended and form their own sect.
But a reading of the actual speech delivered by Fitch reveals something little known, something rather unusual. Here are some quotes from the speech conveying the ghist of what Fitch actually said:
“What is Babylon? It is Antichrist. What then is Antichrist?… 1 John 4 says: ‘Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God.’…. 2 John 7: ‘For many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an Antichrist”.
So Fitch declares that any church that does not preach the LITERAL Physical return of Christ is an Antichrist Church. He continues:
“Now as surely as the birth of Christ was personal and not spiritual, his life, his death, his ascension literal, so surely his coming must be. We have therefore only to inquire who is opposed to the personal reign of Christ on King Davids throne in order to ascertain who is Antichrist and who is in Babylon’... ‘When the papacy came into power they concluded to have Christ return not visibly, but spiritually, and thus the Pope entered into the stead of Christ and undertook to rule the world for Him”.
Not only the Catholics are ‘Babylon’, but all the Protestant sects deny his visible return too. As he says, they have their reasons for not desiring to visibly see Christ come:
“Each one of these sects is willing to rule the world for Christ but no one of them is willing to have Christ come to earth and reign for Himself …Inasmuch as these multiplied sects are opposed to the plain Bible truth of Christs visible reign on earth they are Babylon”
In fact ALL the churches, except Advent believers preach an invisible return. And so, are Babylon. In righteous indignation Fitch calls for the Advent believers to exit their churches and form their own sect:
“And now away forever with your miserable transcendental philosophy that would make the throne a spiritual throne, and the coming of Christ an invisible one, and hid reign spiritual. No, no. Jesus has been raised in David flesh immortalized. And he shall come in that flesh glorified ”.
Regrettably this speech is not much read these days by Adventists. And little wonder, for, a mere 3 YEARS after this speech, condemning “Babylon” for making Christs return invisible, The Adventist themselves spiritualized the fulfillment of their 1844 expectation by declaring that Christ entered the sanctuary in heaven rather than the earthly sanctuary. The 1844 prediction was declared fullfilled Invisibly, Unseen by human eyes.