The Towers and Bulwarks of Zion by AMMY W. WELSH

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 7, 1915

“The Towers and Bulwarks of Zion”

By AMMY W. WELSH

AMMY W. WELSH

The heading of this article is the subject of a sermon by French E. Oliver, D. D. (Presbyterian), in the Christian Herald of April 14, 1915. The following extract from it contains truth that will be especially appreciated by the readers of the REVIEW. His text is Ps. 48:12-14. After naming Zion’s towers as being Divine Revelation, Saving Faith, Righteousness, and Personal Service, he says:—

“The towers of Zion are guarded and protected by impregnable bulwarks. The first bulwark for our consideration is that mighty fortress called Creation. Upon it we read, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ There is scientific and philosophic security in hiding behind that bulwark. I pity the man who is larger than the rampart behind which he tries to hide. I am sorry for the little professors who are trying to hide behind a ‘protoplastic monad,’ or ‘spontaneous generation,’ or any other paper fort of atheistic evolution.

“The people of the earth who are hunting for a satisfactory explanation of creation can find it in the Bible: ‘Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.’ The fallacy of denying God in creation is easily proved. All creation pulsates with life; and it is stupendous folly to claim that life is produced by a pulseless, lifeless, inanimate nonentity.

“The second bulwark which I behold in Zion is God’s law. Law or lust rules every life in the world. You are servant to whom you yield yourself servant to

obey. The man who hates and breaks the ten commandments is not fit to be trusted ten seconds.

“Law is necessary to every worthy enterprise. There must be order and system in our thinking and living, or else disorder, chaos, and mental degeneracy will prevail.

“Had God not preached the ten commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai, Jesus would never have preached the beatitudes on the mount to the assembled multitudes.

“The man who pretends to love the Sermon on the Mount, and who hates the commandments, which are called the law of God, is not the man to trust. Christ came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. . . .

“The third bulwark in Zion is God’s love. . . . Every child of God can say with Isaiah, ‘Thou hast loved my soul from the pit of corruption.’ . . .

“When we have the knowledge of his presence and blessing, we can see the wisdom of obeying the next exhortation of the text: ‘Tell it to the generation following.’”

It seems a great pity that one holding such sound views on creation and the ten commandments, and who sees so clearly that they, with God’s love, are the great bulwarks of Zion, should not also see and teach the relation of the Sabbath to all three, and its important significance. The Sabbath was made for and given to man at creation, as its great memorial by which he should know God as creator. Gen. 2:1-3. It became, as such, the seal of his power or authority as lawgiver; and so we find it as the fourth commandment of his great moral law given from Mt. Sinai. Ex. 20:8-11. And now that man had sinned, it became the sign or pledge of God’s power and love to redeem or save him; for only the Creator and Lawgiver can save, or recreate, man unto obedience to God. Ex. 31:13, 17.

When we know that God ‘created all things by Jesus Christ’ (Eph. 3:19); that ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself’ (2 Cor. 5:17); and that he ‘so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son’ to bear the penalty of man’s transgression and become his righteousness (John 3:16), we see clearly that God’s great seal of authority and sign of salvation is also Christ’s; and that he is indeed ‘Lord also of the Sabbath day’ (Mark 2:27, 28). When we consider its great importance as the sign between God and his people, that they may know him who only can save, and he them as his peculiar people whom he is sanctifying unto himself (Ex. 31:13, 17; Eze. 20:12, 20), we understand why Satan strove to make man forget it in the Old Testament times, and substituted the counterfeit, papal, Sunday sabbath in the New Testament age.

As the closing gospel message of reform on the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus (Rev. 14:6-16) tests this generation, we find that the cross of Christ in “the time of the end” is in this Sabbath question: so we need not be surprised that Satan opposes it so bitterly. Like every other great reform-message of the Bible, when the time comes for its proclamation, it becomes a ‘savor of life’ or of ‘death,’ according to the way we relate ourselves to it. Shall not we who have experienced some of the promised blessings in its acceptance (Isa. 58:13, 14; 56), ‘tell it’ to ‘every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people?’

Let us take heed lest, like the Jews of old who rested in the outward sign of circumcision, though lacking the righteousness it signified, we be found doing likewise in Sabbath observance at this time when our King is examining the guests for the marriage supper of his Son. Surely we must not be found lacking the furnished wedding garment of Christ’s righteousness. Matt. 22:1-14; Rev. 19:7-9. Our own, however it may seem to us, is but ‘filthy rags.’ Isa. 64:6.

Boulder, Colo.