Have you ever believed in something so strongly that you
rearranged your whole life for it only to find out you were wrong?
That's exactly what happened in 1844 when thousands of people gave
up everything because they were convinced Jesus was coming back.
But when the day came, nothing happened.
Let's talk about what they went through and how that disappointment
ended up changing history.
In the early 18 hundreds, a quiet farmer from New York named William
Miller began studying Bible prophecy.
After years of personal prayer and study, especially in the books of Daniel and
Revelation, he came to a bold conclusion.
Jesus would return to Earth around 1843 or 1844.
At first, Miller was hesitant to share what he had found, but
eventually his message caught fire.
Soon the millwright movement was sweeping across the United States,
and it wasn't just the Millerites.
These were everyday people, farmers, shopkeepers, teachers, parents
who believed with all their hearts that Jesus was coming again.
Not just soon.
They believed he would return on a specific day, October 22nd, 1844.
It's hard to overstate how seriously people took this.
Some sold their homes and land, some gave away all their
possessions, some even left crops.
Unharvested in the fields.
convinced that they wouldn't need food anymore.
Children were pulled from school.
Businesses were shut down, families put on white robes and gathered on
hillsides of rooftops watching the sky.
It was a movement rooted in deep hope, hope that pain would end, that
death would be no more, that Jesus was coming to take his people home.
And then the day came on October 20.
October 22nd, arrived with excitement and prayer.
People gathered in fields, churches and homes, some fasted, some sang hymns.
They waited.
Morning passed, then afternoon, then the sun began to set.
Some still held onto hope.
Perhaps he would come at midnight, but when the clock struck 12, the sky stayed.
But when the clock struck 12, the sky stayed dark.
Jesus had not returned.
It was a moment that would come to be known as the great disappointment.
One man, Hiram.
Edson later wrote, we wept and wept till the day.
Dawn, I'm Mused in my own heart saying my advent experience has
been the richest and brightest of all of my Christian experience.
If this had proved a failure, what was the rest of my Christian experience worth?
It wasn't just a wrong date, it was heartbreak.
It was confusion, it was shame.
Many had told their family and friends that this was the truth.
Now they were mocked, ridiculed, and in many cases left with nothing.
Some walked away from faith entirely.
Others tried to set new dates, but those hopes also faded,
but not everyone gave up.
The very next day, Hiram Edson was walking through a cornfield when
he felt impressed with the thought.
What if they had misunderstood where Jesus was going?
Maybe he hadn't come to earth because his work in heaven wasn't finished.
That thought that Jesus had entered a new phase of ministry in the heavenly
sanctuary would go on to shape the.
The thought that that's thought that Jesus had entered a new phase of ministry
in the heavenly sanctuary would go on to shape the theology of a would go on
to shape the theology of a small group of believers who continued studying
together in the months that followed.
And out of that small, humble group, a new movement was born.
They came to be called Seventh Day Adventists.
People who still believed in Jesus's soon return.
But who now saw the 1844 date as a turning point in heaven?
Not the end of the story Today, that church is a global movement with
millions of members, but it started with a group of disappointed people who
chose to keep going, who kept searching the scriptures, who chose not to let
heartbreak be the end of their faith, but the beginning of something new.
The great disappointment reminds us that faith isn't always easy.
Sometimes we hope for something with all of our hearts, and it
doesn't happen the way we expect.
But that doesn't mean God isn't working.
Sometimes.
It just means that the story isn't over.
Episode three, the Day the Sky Didn't Fall.
Read by Megan Scheme.