Personally, I do believe the rejection of the IJ from the evangelical world has caused them to lose their way in Biblical prophecies.
Almost all those Protestant churches believed in the Papacy being the anti-Christ up to the 20th century. But, not any more. They continually grow closer to Rome year by year.
Yes, Protestants held the historicist method of prophetic interpretation in the 1800's, they also held to the protest against the papal anti-Christ.
And yes, that has all changed.
As I think about WHY it changed, it becomes clearer that rejecting the sanctuary doctrine played a key role in this.
Let me share a little fuller:
During the Reformation it was God leading people out of Rome. God used men like Luther to break through the spiritual darkness and discover the light of salvation in Christ!
When the reformers died there was a lull in which Satan worked hard to try to destroy Protestantism, but God was also working to prepare a people.
The great religious awakening in the early 1800's amongst Protestants brought about Bible Societies and evangelistic movements with large numbers joining the protestant churches. God was working -- preparing the world for something.
Interest in the prophecies blossomed.
The Protestants at this time interpreted prophecy by the "historicist" method. That is -- they viewed the prophecies as covering time from the prophet's time to the end. (Which is still the official SDA method) Protestant Bible students used the day for a year principle. In other words -- the method used by Seventh-day Adventists to interpret prophecy was used by all the protestants back then.
This historicist method of interpretation points the finger at Papal Rome as the subversive power ruling the western world during the 1260 years. It points the finger at the papacy as the antichrist.
I'm sure you've heard all this in much greater clarity on Walter Veith's talks.
The historicist method also pointed to 1844 as the time the "sanctuary will be cleansed". Miller was not the only one who noticed this. The historicist method even outlines the rise of the Advent movement in Rev. 10, as those who "eat" the prophetic book, ingest the prophecies which are sweet in the mouth but are bitter in the stomach.
Things came to a huge climax in 1844.
" Had Adventists, (that is the whole group that believed Miller's message) after the great disappointment in 1844, held fast their faith and followed on unitedly in the opening providence of God, receiving the message of the third angel and in the power of the Holy Spirit proclaiming it to the world, they would have seen the salvation of God, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts, the work would have been completed, and Christ would have come ere this."
Had all those people stepped out on the platform of truth concerning the sanctuary, they would have understood the three angel's messages and pointed out the work of salvation for the last days to the rest of the world.
But most wanted nothing to do with it. They turned their backs. They would not move forward, but went backward.
Next they rejected the historicist method of interpreting scripture and in its place accepting futuristic or preterist interpretations, abandoning the historicist position almost completely including the day for year principle.
Even the Baptists who were once very strong in upholding the protestant prophetic method of interpretation have largely abandoned it.
These methods of interpretation were first pushed by Jesuits as both methods totally ignore what prophecy says concerning the papacy. Preterism and futurism are anti-Reformation- anti=Protestant inventions. These were later taken up by Protestants, and changed somewhat, but never-the-less destroyed the confidence of most of the Christian world in the historicist method.
Now they have only Epiphanies and some future dictator as their prophetic anti-christs -- the prophetic books, especially the book of Daniel is christless in their view.
By dissolving (in their minds at least) all the Biblical backing that identify the antichrist people have no more foundation to understand the three angel's message to "come out of her".
Thus we see a big diversity of thought on what that message could mean --
Now the cry is "unity" -- with the papacy -- and point to John 17, and the call is "let's all join" together, forgetting and forgotten is the old Protestant prophetic picture.
