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Chapter 52


The Shaking Time–
And What Lies Beyond



      The road that leads from Jerusalem to Emmaus is not an easy road. The hills are steep and the valley floor is narrow. Many curves are required to achieve a gradual descent. The road upon which the two disciples of Christ made their way home on the Sunday after the crucifixion, as recorded in Luke 24, must have been even worse than the present road.
      If we had been positioned on a hillside from which we could watch these disciples, we would have noticed their downcast faces, their sagging shoulders, and their halting steps as they made their sorrowful way to the little cottage near the bottom of the canyon. Yet, a short while later the cottage door bursts open and the two disciples emerge and start back up the hill as if they were jet-propelled. In their haste they over-run some of the corners in the road and have to retrace their steps.
      No matter. Nothing can stop them now until they enter the upper room in Jerusalem where the apostles are in mourning. There they shatter the silent gloom with their excited proclamation, “He is alive! Jesus is alive! We have seen Him!”
      The mourners snap to attention and stare in disbelief. For more than forty-eight hours they have been in the depths of despair. They had seen Jesus die. To them, this was the end of happiness and the death of hope. They saw themselves facing an awful emptiness.
      But why? Had these men - Jesus’ closest friends - been given no advance warning about the crucifixion?
      Actually, Jesus had told them about, it several times.
      Had He not told them He would rise again the third day?
      He had clearly foretold His death and resurrection, but they weren’t listening. They had refused to hear what they did not want to hear, that He would be crucified. And so the glorious concept of the resurrection just didn’t get through to them. If it had, they would have been watching at the grave site on that early morning, instead of weeping in the upper

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room. Think how their testimony to the world regarding the resurrection would have been strengthened by an eye witness acount.
      Moral: Don’t stop listening to God’s message when the subject becomes unpleasant. This may cause us to miss the brighter picture that follows.
      God’s special messenger to the remnant church has written many pages of counsel to us about taking the gospel to all the world. This involves going, growing, publishing, and building to a phenomenal extent. We read these pages with pleasure.
      But the same messenger has also written about something called the shaking, and there is danger that we, like the apostles, may stop listening at this point because the subject matter is so unpleasant.
      At this period in our church’s history all Seventhday Adventists will do well to study carefully the advance information that we have been given about the shaking time, and the brighter picture that follows. A failure to do this might cause us to become bewildered and discouraged, and perhaps even be shaken out.
      As Jeanne and I travel back and forth across the country presenting seminars, we are often asked,

      Do you think the time will come when we will have to leave the Seventh-day Adventist church?

      Our answer is always uniformly and firmly No.
      It cannot be denied that on various occasions in the history of God’s people the problem of apostasy has been resolved by a “calling out” or a “coming out.” In this situation the faithful leave the organization to form a new structure, while the unfaithful stay with the existing organization (church). Witness the experience of the first Christians leaving the Jewish church, the Protestants leaving the Catholic church, the Adventists leaving the Protestant churches, and so on. If we had nothing but history to guide us, we might be justified in concluding that should apostasy become rampant in the Seventh-day Adventist church, the problem will be solved by yet another “calling out” or “coming out.”
      But we are not restricted to conclusions based on previous experience, history. We have the testimony of God’s special messenger that this time the problem is to be solved by a “shaking out.” The descriptions make it clear that in this case the faithful will remain in the church, and the unfaithful will be shaken out. Observe:

      You will take the passages in the testimonies that speak of the close of probation, of the shaking among God’s people, and you will talk of a coming out from this people of a purer, holier people that will arise. Now all this pleases the enemy. 1SM 179

      Note that there will be a shaking among God’s people, but the faithful

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will not be called out of the church. This thought is reinforced by the wording of other passages. The picture is uniformly “they will leave us,” “the chaff will blow,” etc., while the wheat remains. Yet there is no downplaying of the enormity and the seriousness of the shaking time. And do not overlook the fact that even heresies among us will make their contribution to the shaking.

      God will arouse His people; if other means fail, heresies will come in among them, separating the chaff from the wheat. 5T 707

      Many will stand in our pulpits with the torch of false prophecy in their hands, kindled from the hellish torch of Satan. TM 409-10

      There are several chapters in Ellen White’s writings which deal with the subject of the shaking and should be studied in their entirety. They would include:

      Testimonies, Volume 5, pages 62-84, “The Testimonies Slighted.”
      Testimonies, Volume 8, pages 41-47, “A View of the Conflict.”
      Testimonies to Ministers, pages 404-415, “God’s Messengers.”

Lines like these will be observed:

      But the days of purification of the church are hastening on apace. God will have a people pure and true. In the mighty sifting soon to take place, we shall be better able to measure the strength of Israel. The signs reveal that the time is near when the Lord will manifest that His fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor.
      The days are fast approaching when there will be great perplexity and confusion. Satan, clothed in angel robes, will deceive, if possible, the very elect. There will be gods many and lords many. Every wind of doctrine will be blowing. Those who have rendered supreme homage to “science falsely so-called,” will not be the leaders then. Those who have trusted to intellect, genius, or talent, will not then stand at the head of rank and file. They did not keep pace with the light. Those who have proved themselves unfaithful will not then be entrusted with the flock. In the last solemn work few great men will be engaged. They are self-sufficient, independent of God, and He cannot use them. The Lord has faithful servants, who in the shaking, testing time will be disclosed to view. Testimonies, Volume V, page 80.

      In this time, the gold will be separated from the dross in the church. True godliness will be clearly distinguished from the appearance and tinsel of it. Many a star that we have admired for its brilliancy, will then go out in darkness. Chaff like a cloud will be borne away on the wind, even from places where we see only floors of rich wheat. Testimonies, Volume V, p. 81.

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      In vision I saw two armies in terrible conflict. One army was led by banners bearing the world’s insignia; the other was led by the blood-stained banner of Prince Emmanuel. Standard after standard was left to trail in the dust, as company after company from the Lord’s army joined the foe, and tribe after tribe from the ranks of the enemy united with the commandment-keeping people of God. Testimonies, Volume VIII, page 41.

      To these sobering statements might be added the unmistakeably clear prediction in Selected Messages, Volume 2, page 36, that before the end of time there will be worship with a bedlam of noise - “shouting, with drums, music, and dancing. . . “ and that it would even “be brought into our camp meetings.” Can it be possible?
      Let us remember the experience of the apostles, who stopped listening when the subject matter became too unpleasant for them. These predictions are just as certainly a part of God’s counsel of love to us as are the exhortations to carry the gospel to all the world - to go, to grow, to educate, to heal, to publish, and to build. If we do not give attention to these predictions of the shaking time, there is danger that we may be taken by surprise and become so discouraged and disheartened as to think that God is no longer with this Advent Movement. God has given us foreknowledge in order that we may be forewarned.
      We need to translate these predictions into terms of personal experience and ask ourselves the questions:
When I go to church on Sabbath morning and find only fifty worshippers, where there are usually five hundred or more, what will I do? Will I remember that we were warned that companies will leave us?
      When I hear a Seventh-day Adventist pastor earnestly presenting as truth the devil’s great lie, that Christians cannot stop sinning;
      When I go to camp meeting and find blaring, raucous music and dancing going on in the youth tent, or perhaps even in the main pavilion;
      When that special “brilliant star,” the minister whose sermons, books, and tapes I have valued so highly, leaves us and starts mocking and ridiculing Seventh-day Adventists;
      What will I do? How can I cope with such disappointments?
      Will I give way to feelings of discouragement and despair, as did the disciples, or will I see in these events an assuring evidence that the counsels of God are true? Will I

      . . . gather warmth from the coldness of others, courage from their cowardice, and loyalty from their treason? Testimonies, Volume V, page 136.

      The apostles might have remembered that in the advance knowledge that Jesus gave to them there had been light as well as shadow, and so

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may we. The statement in Testimonies, Volume VIII, page 41, that “companies’’ will leave us is more than balanced by the assurance that “tribes” will take their place. In the midst of the warnings in Testimonies, Volume V, page 80, we find these comforting words:

      God has promised that where the shepherds are not true He will take charge of the flock Himself.

      And on page 753 of the same volume:

      The world is not without a Ruler. The program of coming events is in the hands of the Lord. The Majesty of Heaven has the destiny of nations, as well as the concerns of His church, in His own charge.

      Compare this with Selected Messages, Volume II, page 108:

      Not one cloud has fallen upon the church that God has not prepared for. . . .

      The great Advent Movement, of which we are privileged to be a part, is not to fail or to be replaced by another.

      The third angel of Revelation fourteen is represented as flying swiftly through the midst of heaven crying, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Here is shown the nature of the work of the people of God. They have a message of so great importance that they are represented as flying in the presentation of it to the world, They are holding in their hands the bread of life for a famishing world. The love of Christ constraineth them. This is the last message. There are no more to follow; no more invitations of mercy to be given after this message shall have done its work. Testimonies, Volume V, pages 206-7.

      But there is going to be a shaking time, a purification of the church, and it is after that purification has been accomplished that the “Gideon’s Band” which has remained true and faithful, strengthened and augmented by a replenishment of its ranks, will play its role in the grand, climactic events that will bring earth’s history to its close. Let us hold this reality firmly in our minds. The greatest hours of the Advent Movement are after the shaking time.
      Let us determine that by the grace of God we will let the chaff blow, let the brilliant stars go, let company after company join the foe. Nevertheless, we will “stand for the right though the heavens fall.” Education, page 57.

Amen.





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