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Verse:Then I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter. —Revelation 10:10
The Millerites eagerly expected Jesus to come on October 22, 1844, but their sweetest expectations gave way to the bitterest disappointment.
Hiram Edson described his own experience as follows, “Our expectations were raised high, and thus we looked for our coming Lord until the clock tolled twelve at midnight. The day had then passed, and our disappointment had become a certainty. Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept, and wept, till the day dawn.” On the morning of October 23, 1844, after breakfast, Edson invited a friend (identified by J. N. Loughborough as O. R. L. Crosier) to accompany him and encourage some disappointed Millerite neighbors. In his own words, “We started, and while passing through a large field, I was stopped about midway of the field. Heaven seemed open to my view, and I saw distinctly and clearly that instead of our High Priest coming out of the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary to this earth on the tenth day of the seventh month, at the end of the 2300 days, He, for the first time, entered on that day the second apartment of that sanctuary; and that He had a work to perform in the most holy place before coming to the earth.” Critical historians have traditionally alluded to the 1844 disappointment in very negative terms.
But more recent Adventist scholars have recognized its positive dimension. In reality, disappointments tend to lead people to break away from tradition and search for a new beginning. Restudying Scripture, the forefathers of Sabbath-keeping Adventism found biblical answers not only to the disappointment (see Revelation 10) but also to several other questions they hadn’t even asked.
Out of the 1844 disappointment, God brought about the now worldwide Adventist movement to restore biblical truth in an end-time setting.
Likewise, He can bring us out of our personal disappointments into a life of full victory. Let’s trust His providential leadings today and always!