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Advent Movement Illustrated
235
I was shown the disappointment of the disciples as they came
to the sepulcher and found not the body of Jesus. Mary said, “They
have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid
Him.” Angels told the sorrowing disciples that their Lord had risen,
and would go before them into Galilee.
In like manner I saw that Jesus regarded with the deepest com-
passion the disappointed ones who had waited for His coming; and
He sent His angels to direct their minds that they might follow Him
where He was. He showed them that this earth is not the sanctuary,
but that He must enter the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary
to make an atonement for His people and to receive the kingdom
from His Father, and that He would then return to the earth and take
them to dwell with Him forever. The disappointment of the first
disciples well represents the disappointment of those who expected
their Lord in 1844.
I was carried back to the time when Christ rode triumphantly
into Jerusalem. The joyful disciples believed that He was then to
take the kingdom and reign a temporal prince. They followed their
King with high hopes. They cut down the beautiful palm branches,
and took off their outer garments, and with enthusiastic zeal spread
them in the way; and some went before, and others followed, crying,
“Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is He that cometh in the
name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.” The excitement disturbed
the Pharisees, and they wished Jesus to rebuke His disciples. But
He said unto them, “If these should hold their peace, the stones
would immediately cry out.” The prophecy of
Zechariah 9:9
must be
fulfilled; yet the disciples were doomed to a bitter disappointment. In
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a few days they followed Jesus to Calvary, and beheld Him bleeding
and mangled upon the cruel cross. They witnessed His agonizing
death and laid Him in the tomb. Their hearts sank with grief; their
expectations were not realized in a single particular, and their hopes
died with Jesus. But as He arose from the dead and appeared to His
sorrowing disciples, their hopes revived. They had found Him again.
I saw that the disappointment of those who believed in the com-
ing of the Lord in 1844 was not equal to the disappointment of the
first disciples. Prophecy was fulfilled in the first and second angels’
messages. They were given at the right time and accomplished the
work which God designed to accomplish by them.