Publisher's Synopsis
Basically, all the churches accept that Jesus will come the second time. But, distinctively from the church creeds (the wine of Babylon), the proclamation of the soon return of Jesus was for William Miller and his fellow workers a proclamation of time. This is the true platform of the original advent message, and this is what separated the Adventists from the other churches, making them a peculiar people. Although this book was written after the disappointment of 1844 and no additional light on the issue of time came immediately after that year, it is quite obvious that its author was writing from the same platform as those who preached the message in the beginning. He doesn't present any future prophetic period to be fulfilled, and he does not touch the biblical chronology, but he presents the signs of the times, thus showing that the Second Advent is very near. Especially his insight into the deception of spiritual manifestations which started with the rappings in the house of the Fox sisters is truly amazing. Though he may have expected the culmination of these miraculous signs and wonders to consume in his lifetime, he was not wrong at all in identifying them as a sign of the end. One fruit of these manifestations is the Revised version of the Bible (RV) and the critical text in Greek of the New Testament, both published in the year of James White's death (1881). Because both Westcott and Hort were involved in this phenomenon, where people were receiving information from the other realm. What kind of information regarding the Bible was passed from these deceiving spirits is revealed plainly in this book. Those who adopted these perversions of the Word of God not only stepped out from the platform of the true advent message, they also forsook its very foundational Rock.
