268
The Great Controversy 1888
upon his people; and then he calls them to inherit the kingdom, of
which they have hitherto been only heirs.
These and other scriptures clearly proved to Miller’s mind, that the
events which were generally expected to take place before the coming
of Christ, such as the universal reign of peace, and the setting up of the
kingdom of God upon the earth, were to be subsequent to the second
advent. Furthermore, all the signs of the times and the condition of the
world corresponded to the prophetic description of the last days. He
was forced to the conclusion, from the study of Scripture alone, that
the period allotted for the continuance of the earth in its present state
was about to close.
“Another evidence that vitally affected my mind,” he says, “was the
chronology of the Scriptures. I found that predicted events, which had
been fulfilled in the past, often occurred within a given time. The one
hundred and twenty years to the flood,
Genesis 6:3
; the seven days that
were to precede it, with forty days of predicted rain,
Genesis 7:4
; the
four hundred years of the sojourn of Abraham’s seed,
Genesis 15:13
;
the three days of the butler’s and baker’s dreams,
Genesis 40:12-20
;
the seven years of Pharaoh’s,
Genesis 41:28-54
; the forty years in the
wilderness,
Numbers 14:34
; the three and a half years of famine,
1
Kings 17:1
; [See
Luke 4:25
.] the seventy years’ captivity,
Jeremiah
25:11
; Nebuchadnezzar’s seven times,
Daniel 4:13-16
; and the seven
weeks, threescore and two weeks, and the one week, making seventy
weeks, determined upon the Jews,
Daniel 9:24-27
; the events limited
by these times were all once only a matter of prophecy, and were
fulfilled in accordance with the predictions.”
When, therefore, he found in his study of the Bible, various chrono-
logical periods that, according to his understanding of them, extended
to the second coming of Christ, he could not but regard them as the
“times before appointed,” which God had revealed unto his servants.
“The secret things,” says Moses, “belong unto the Lord our God; but
[324]
those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children
forever,” [
Deuteronomy 29:29
.] and the Lord declares by the prophet
Amos, that he “will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets.” [
Amos 3:7
.] The students of God’s Word may
then confidently expect to find the most stupendous event to take place
in human history clearly pointed out in the Scriptures of truth.