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ut your trust in the Lord your God and you will be established. Put your trust in His prophets and succeed” (2 Chron. 20:20, NASB).1 The Bible teaches that God leads His people through the prophetic gift. Seventh-day Adventists believe that God led in establishing the first major ministries of the church through the visions and dreams of Ellen G. White.
convince Adventists of the importance of the seventh-day Sabbath in light of the soon coming of Jesus. In 1850 it was replaced by the Second Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, which continues to this day as the Adventist Review and its sister publication Adventist World. The extensive publishing work of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is owing in large part to the prophetic visions of Ellen White.
The Publishing Ministry
Health Ministry
The year 1848 was an exciting time of gathering for Advent believers through evangelistic Sabbath conferences. For the first time Sabbathkeeping Adventists were coming together to understand the end-time importance of the Sabbath in connection with the sealing of God’s people. They were struggling to understand this connection at a study conference at the home of Otis Nichols in Dorchester, Massachusetts, November 17 and 18, 1848. This conference was a follow-up to an October meeting that had been held in Topsham, Maine, where they had studied the sealing of Revelation 7 in the context of the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14. They were trying to understand how God would have them share the Sabbath as part of the everlasting gospel. At this meeting Ellen White had a vision. After coming out of vision she turned to her husband, James, and said, “I have a message for you. You must begin to print a little paper and send it out to the people. Let it be small at first; but as the people read, they will send you means with which to print, and it will be a success from the first.” She then gave a startling prediction: “From this small beginning it was shown me to be like streams of light that went clear round the world.”2 This and subsequent visions led James White to begin publishing Present Truth in July 1849. This paper served to
During the 1850s and 1860s Seventh-day Adventists faced a particular challenge. Like Americans in general, many suffered from communicable diseases and lifestyle disorders. Tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, pneumonia,
Gift of p rop h e t i c Guidance The
By Merlin D. Burt
Visions and dreams establish major ministries
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Adventist World | May 2013
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