There are at least three or four very important answers to that and I don’t know how to prioritize the importance. Jesus illustrates the end from the beginning. The Millerite understanding of the daily is that it represented paganism and it was the work of pagan Rome to place the papacy upon the throne of the earth in 538. The power at the end of the world that places the papacy upon the throne of the earth is the United States. Perhaps the most important symbol of paganism in the book of Daniel is the daily. Paganism, or pagan Rome, is a type of the United States. Pagan Rome places the papacy on the throne of the earth at the beginning; the United States places the Papacy on the throne of the earth at the end. Jesus illustrates the end of the beginning. So, if you misunderstand what the daily is, you destroy your ability to identify the work that the United States is doing in the world today in terms of placing the Papacy on the throne of the earth.
A secondary reason is that we teach in Adventism today that the daily represents Christ’s sanctuary ministry. We teach that the daily in the book of Daniel is a godly power; that it is Christ’s sanctuary ministry. The pioneers taught it was paganism, a satanic power. So, another issue about the daily that is important is the Spirit of Prophecy. When we look at Early Writings, 74 it says: “Then I saw in relation to the ‘daily’ that the word ‘sacrifice’ was supplied by man’s wisdom, and does not belong to the text, and that the Lord gave the correct view of it to those who gave the judgment hour cry.” There was not another view in Adventism on the daily until 1901. In 1901 there was a new view of the daily introduced by a leader in Germany, Louis Conradi, one of the famous apostates in Adventist history. He reintroduced the old Protestant view, that the daily represented Christ’s sanctuary ministry, into Adventism. Sister White commented on that understanding of the daily. She says it came “from angels that were expelled from heaven.” The pioneer understanding, that the daily was paganism, is the correct view according to Sister White. The view that came from Conradi, identifying Christ’s sanctuary ministry, came “from angels that were expelled from heaven.” The daily is not only important because it has prophetic importance; it also places a decision concerning the Spirit of Prophecy into the play of things. But this is too large of a subject to take up in a short interview.
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