Apocalyptic thought is not the exclusive domain of Christianity. Judaism, Islam and even the Old Norse Religion likewise believed in the “end times”. Even Yeshua and his apostles were convinced that the End of the Age was coming. The last words of Yeshua recorded in the Christian Writings were: “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority.” Acts 1:7. As late as the second century C.E., the question of when the end of times was coming was addressed by the Second Letter attributed to St. Peter. He says: “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay”, but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.” 2 Peter 3: 9-10.

The idea that one could calculate the time of the coming of the End of the World is not knew either. Such great works as Daniel, Revelations, 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and 2nd Baruch each strive to calculate the time of the end.

The Second Awakening was period in American Christian history that was apocalyptic in character. The expectation of the swift arrival of the Lord was exacerbated by the teachings of William Miller.
Miller was a prosperous farmer, a Baptist layman and amateur student of the Bible, living in northern New York, in the region of that state which has come to be known as the Burned-over district. Beginning with a strictly literal reading of the ages of people mentioned in the first chapters of Genesis and the dating of other events mentioned in the Bible, Miller believed that precise calculations were possible, full of prophetic importance. Setting these calculations alongside the prophetic numbering systems that appear in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel and the Book of Revelation, by 1830, Miller became fully convinced that the dates of the birth of Jesus and the fall of the Temple of Jerusalem were foretold in prophecy, and that the date of the return of the Messiah could be known with precision. The following assumptions figured prominently in Miller's calculations:
1. In prophetic writings, a "day" always represents a year. See 2 Peter 3:8; Barnabas 15:4.
2. The 70 weeks of Daniel 9:24 and the 2300 days of Daniel 8:14 began at the same time.
3. Based on Bishop Ussher's chronology, the countdown starts at 457 B.C.
4. Daniel 8:14 speaks prophetically of Christ's return to earth, when it refers to the cleansing of the sanctuary.
Based on his calculations, the coming of Christ and the inauguration of the Millennial kingdom should be expected somewhere around 1843. After releasing his findings in print, he began disseminating the view on speaking tours. Later, he adjusted his calculations to conform to the "Jewish calendar", to finally arrive at the confidence that 1844 would be the last year of the present age and the beginning of the "seventh day of the creation". The date October 22, 1844, was the date commonly accepted throughout the Millerite movement as the exact date of the anticipated return of Jesus, although Miller himself was uncertain of the day. Perhaps more than 100,000 Millerites were awaiting this "Blessed Hope", some who abandoned their farms or sold their homes and left their employment, to propagate the gospel of the last days chronology.
When October 22, 1844 came and went and the world did not end, the Millerites had one of two things that they could do. Some said that Miller was wrong and doubted the Christian faith or at least the concept of the Second Coming. Others decided that Miller had miscalculated the exact date and set about explaining his failure. Sometimes with the help of visions and visitations by angels, or reformers whose message was identified with Bible prophecy, post-Disappointment Millerites arrived at various reinterpretations of the meaning of the Disappointment, often constructing alternative history, theology, politics and science, sometimes showing openness to rejected knowledge and conspiracy theories; and to the extent that these developed in a particular group, a concomitant tendency toward withdrawal also developed.
The Millerite movement originally had adherents across denominational lines, especially from Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist and Campbellite churches, forming distinct denominations only after the Great Disappointment. Some modern Millerite branches identify themselves as Evangelical Protestant Christians, although others teach that their latter-day church is the only faithful remnant, and the replacement of Protestantism, Catholicism, and Jewish Israel. Typical of the post-Disappointment Millerite perspective is the belief that genuine Christianity had been lost to the world through a Great Apostasy, but is restored in these last days by a new outpouring of prophecy or spiritual insight. Therefore, traditional teachings provide no reliable help, and it should be no surprise if a traditional doctrine such as the Trinity would be corrected by the spirit of prophecy. For this reason, Millerites have professed or have tolerated profession of some form of Unitarian belief, denying the Trinity. Seventh-day Adventists, although not trinitarian throughout the nineteenth century,became a trinitarian church around the turn of the century. A significant number of other Millerite branches are unitarian or non-trinitarian. Nearly all Millerites speak of "present truth" and "new light", by which the faithful are called out from the less enlightened or apostate traditions of Christianity. Some such groups place particularly strong emphasis on some element of lost truth, such as dietary laws, the conditional immortality of the soul (nonexistence of a disembodied soul), the seventh day sabbath, the historical method of interpreting biblical prophecy, etc. By no means are all of these distinctions typical of all post-Disappointment Millerites. The Millerites were a part of the restoration period of American religious history, and as such, sought to restore the earliest Christian church, complete with beliefs that had been lost or changed in some fashion.
The return of Christ is believed to signal the inauguration of the Millennium, rather than the conclusion of the Church age and the end of the world. The Second Great Awakening was generally productive of very optimistic ideas of progress and eschatology, expecting the kingdom of God to be realized through an historical process. In contrast to this optimism, Millerites anticipated that the coming of Christ would be cataclysmic, replacing the old order of things. Even among those Millerite groups which continue to believe that the Parousia actually occurred in some spiritual sense, in 1844 or at some later time, the present time is seen as full of impending wonder and imminent catastrophe prior to the full dawning of the new age, the final stage of which is the personal and visible return of Jesus. The Book of Revelation continues to have a prominent place in nearly all segments of the Millerite movement, and the differences between the sects often resolve to differences in the interpretation of passages which Christians generally would consider more obscure and therefore less important to understand.
Several branches believe that a world-wide conflict is approaching, when the antichrist will appear or has appeared, in order to lead the world and the world's religions into a great deception, an era marked by disastrous wars and calamity. The Civil War, the two great World Wars, the Great Depression and New Deal, and modern events in the Middle East, are commonly interpreted in this light. Only those who discern the true prophetic message from among many counterfeits that will multiply in the latter-days, will survive deception and final ruin. According to the diversity of teachings, Millerite sects have different ideas of what the distinguishing marks are, of the true message for the true church of the last days. The majority of Adventists believe that the seventh-day Sabbath is a key to understanding and faithfulness, and that worship on Sunday is idolatry and the Mark of the Beast, warned of by the third angel of the Apocalypse, in Revelation 14:9–12. Some place central importance on conscientious use of the divine name.
These churches and groups generally claim to adhere to a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible, with distinctively strong interest in the present fulfillment of prophecy, sometimes with emphasis on sciences, health practices and philanthropic ventures based on the Bible. Their non-traditional beliefs and practices typically motivate particularly strong commitment to the separation of church and state. The prophecies of Scripture are generally regarded as having historical, as well as future significance; and some regard themselves specifically as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. In addition some teach that special, miraculous visions or divine insight are needed in order to understand the present significance of the Bible. The largest Millerite group at the present time is the Seventh Day Adventist General Conference (the Seventh-day Adventist Church), with approximately 11 million members, world-wide.
Many Millerites were affiliated with the 19th-century Restoration movement. Many leaders of Millerism had also been leaders in the New England Christian Connexion. The anti-organizational tendencies of Restorationism resulted in the hesitancy of Millerite groups to organize into a denomination, and when Christ did not return in 1844, contributed to the many sects. Most of the descendants of Adventism are generally regarded as Evangelical in nature.
Similarly, dispensational Premillennialism is a trans- denominational movement, that is sometimes mistakenly connected directly with the Millerites. Dispensationalism arose during the final third of the 19th century, and unlike the Millerites interprets prophecy in a primarily futurist fashion. This movement developed independently, borrowing heavily but indirectly from earlier Millerites, with radical re-interpretation, so that dispensationalists rarely if ever display unitarian tendencies. Sabbatarianism is excluded, along with British Israelism, and in general end times Dispensationalism is considered protestant and mainstream evangelical, being a very common belief among Christian fundamentalists. Some dispensationalist groups, upon venturing to calculate the date of Christ's return or interpreting the signs of the times, take on many of the apocalyptic characteristics of Millerite pioneers, but strictly speaking none of them are part of the Millerite Adventist movement.
A small number of Millerites believed that their calculations were correct, but that their understanding of the sanctuary being cleansed was wrong, and they began to teach that something else happened in 1844. Their Bible study led them to the conviction that in that year Jesus had entered into the "Most Holy Place" of the heavenly sanctuary, and began an "investigative judgment" of the world: a process through which there is an examination of the heavenly records to "determine who, through repentance of sin and faith in Christ, are entitled to the benefits of atonement" after which Jesus will return to earth. According to the church's teaching, the return of Christ may occur very soon, though they are determined to never set dates for His coming in accordance with the book of Matthew which says, "no one knows the day or the hour" (24:36).
At about the same time that the followers of the movement were studying the sanctuary, the question of the biblical day of rest and worship was raised. The foremost proponent of Sabbath-keeping among early Adventists was retired sea captain Joseph Bates. Bates was introduced to the Sabbath doctrine by a tract written by a Millerite preacher named Thomas M. Preble who in turn had been influenced by a young Seventh Day Baptist lady by the name of Rachel Oakes Preston.
This message was gradually accepted and formed the topic of the first edition of the church publication, The Present Truth which appeared in July 1849. While initially it was believed that the "sabbath" started at 6 pm, by 1855 it was generally accepted that the "sabbath" begins at sunset.
For about 20 years, the Adventist movement consisted of a loosely knit group of people who adhered to this message. Among its greatest supporters were James White, Ellen G. White and Joseph Bates. After intense discussions a formally organized church called the Seventh-day Adventist Church was established in Battle Creek, Michigan, in May 1863, with a membership of 3,500. Through the evangelistic efforts of its ministers and laity and the guidance of Ellen G. White, the church quickly grew and established a presence beyond North America during the late 1800s.

The spirituality of apocalypticism is radical and fanatic. It requires a complete rededication of the person to the eventual appearance of the Messiah. It requires a tenacious commitment to the specific requirements of each apocalyptic organization. The life of the person is put on hold. They are centered rather on the idea that they have only so long to get things done before the coming and that they will be found wanting unless they are careful to follow the tenets of their religion. It tends to make the congregation a support center for the believer, but also provides extreme condemnation to those who rebel against congregational ideas. Apocalypticism tends to be overly dogmatic and it tends to be dictatorial and prone to enslaving the believer. It remains clear that a person who adopts apocalyptic ideas must do so knowing the results to their lives for doing so. Perhaps a warning sign should be set on the church door: “Beware. Entrance here may have a large control on your life until the Christ comes.”