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The Open and the Shut Door
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Sabbath, March 24, 1849, we had a sweet and very interesting
meeting with the brethren at Topsham, Maine. The Holy Ghost was
poured out upon us, and I was taken off in the Spirit to the city of
the living God. Then I was shown that the commandments of God
and the testimony of Jesus Christ relating to the shut door could not
be separated, and that the time for the commandments of God to
shine out with all their importance, and for God’s people to be tried
on the Sabbath truth, was when the door was opened in the most
holy place in the heavenly sanctuary, where the ark is, in which are
contained the ten commandments. This door was not opened until
the mediation of Jesus was finished in the holy place of the sanctuary
in 1844. Then Jesus rose up and shut the door of the holy place, and
opened the door into the most holy, and passed within the second
veil, where He now stands by the ark, and where the faith of Israel
now reaches.
I saw that Jesus had shut the door of the holy place, and no man
can open it; and that He had opened the door into the most holy,
and no man can shut it (
Revelation 3:7, 8
); [see page 86. See also
appendix.] and that since Jesus has opened the door into the most
holy place, which contains the ark, the commandments have been
shining out to God’s people, and they are being tested on the Sabbath
question.
I saw that the present test on the Sabbath could not come until
the mediation of Jesus in the holy place was finished and He had
passed within the second veil; therefore Christians who fell asleep
before the door was opened into the most holy, when the midnight
cry was finished, at the seventh month, 1844, and who had not kept
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the true Sabbath, now rest in hope; for they had not the light and the
test on the Sabbath which we now have since that door was opened.
I saw that Satan was tempting some of God’s people on this point.
Because so many good Christians have fallen asleep in the triumphs
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