The Mark of the Beast and the Seal of the Living God
By GEORGE I. BUTLER
IN our last article it was clearly shown four times by the Word of the Lord that the seal or sign of God's law is the seventh-day Sabbath. The work of restoring to the law its seal by calling the attention of mankind to the requirements of the fourth commandment, has been in progress ever since the proclamation of the third angel's message. This message is being proclaimed practically to all the nations under heaven to-day. Over one hundred thousand believers have already embraced it. Never did it make such rapid progress as now. The fourth command of the decalogue has been practically trampled under foot for ages, and another sabbath, nowhere taught in the Bible, has been substituted for the true by the papal beast, and blindly held as sacred by the majority of the Protestant world. The effort of some to make the people believe that the fourth commandment furnishes authority for the observance of Sunday is too transparently wrong to deceive9honest people. Hence, the effort of opponents of the true Sabbath is to teach largely that the decalogue has been abolished, and with it the Sabbath of the Lord our God. The Roman Catholic Church, the largest professed Christian church in the world, comes out boldly and declares that she is responsible for the change of the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day of the week. And there can be no question but that she is correct in this statement. If it be an honor to change God's law, then the papacy is entitled to that honor. But if it is an act of highest rebellion against the Sovereign of the universe to boldly claim the right to change the law of the Highest, then it is responsible for this great crime. We firmly believe that responsibility falls on that church. What do the Scriptures say about this matter? In Dan. 7: 25, we read: “And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and the law [American Revised], and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.” Verses 25, 26. There is general agreement among many commentators of the Protestant world that the power referred to here is the papacy. There can be no reasonable doubt of this. The Roman beast is the fourth of this series. The little horn speaks great words against God by claiming to be his vicegerent in this world. His followers call him “Lord God upon earth.” He claims power to forgive sins, and assumes to grant indulgences, as he did in Luther's time. He wears out the saints of the Most High. He has, through his votaries, put to death fifty millions of those whom he calls heretics—the very salt of the earth. He shall “think to change . . . the law.” Whose law?—The law of the Most High, the very power whose saints he put to death, and whose name he appropriated. And lo! he himself comes right up and declares, in his catechisms and in other printed documents, that he “substituted” Sunday for Saturday, and claims he had the right to do it. Any intelligent person knows that this claim of changing the Sabbath is put forth by all prominent Catholics. Cardinal Gibbons himself claims it, and their leading men glory in this power of changing the law of God. Yea, they bring up this claim as one of the highest they have put forth, inasmuch as the Protestant world acknowledges it by keeping the substituted Sunday instead of the Sabbath of God's holy law. The prophet says, “All the world wondered after the beast.” In no one particular has the papal beast's power been more manifest than in this matter of his claim of changing the law of God and substituting Sunday in place of the Sabbath of Jehovah, and the general acceptance of this papal claim. To be sure, Protestants will not admit it; but the facts demonstrate that the change was made by the Roman Catholic Church as one of the results of the great apostasy. The change was gradual. There is nothing plainer than that there is no Scriptural authority for Sunday-keeping. Paul, in speaking of the papacy in 2 Thessalonians 2 uses the following words: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” How would it be possible for the papacy to exalt itself above God. It could not get up into heaven and take from God his power to rule the universe, and rule it instead of God. There is but one way in which this power could exalt itself above God. That is by undertaking to change the law of God, and seeming to succeed in it. As Daniel says, he should “think” to change God's law, and it should seem to be given into his hand for the long period of twelve hundred sixty years, or a time, times, and dividing of time. The papists point to this change, and to its acceptance by almost the whole religious world, as an evidence of their power and their right to rule. What wonderful facts we have here! God points to the facts of creation, his work of six days and his rest on the seventh, as his authority and right to rule. The true Sabbath is his memorial of this mighty work, and hence we all ought to keep it. But up rises the papacy, the man of sin, who exalts himself above the God of heaven by claiming to have changed God's law, substituting a secular day, the great heathen holiday, Sunday, in the place of the Sabbath of the Lord God, and points to the fact that the religionists of all denominations are following the papacy in honoring and keeping Sunday as the Sabbath of the Lord. Here we see the two signs, seals, or marks contrasted: God's day, the creation Sabbath, God claims as his sign, seal, or mark; the papacy points to the almost universal practise of keeping Sunday as its mark, seal, or sign. And the question before this generation is, Which power shall we acknowledge? which institution shall we keep? This is one of the great issues now confronting us. The mighty struggle is on. God insists on a great reform, a returning of his true people to the Sabbath of the Lord before the Lord shall come in his glory. So he sends out the third angel's message, with the most solemn threatening to be found in all the Bible. Whoever shall receive the mark of the beast in head or hand shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God in awful torment and fearful woe. Christ is coming. This great message must be brought before the world with a loud cry, reaching throughout Christendom. It is now going to the ends of the world, and will constantly increase in volume, till the earth shall be lightened with its glory. The servants of God are said to be sealed in their foreheads. The followers of the papal beast receive the mark in their foreheads or in their right hands. The forehead is the seat of the intelligence. If the Lord's Sabbath is ever truly kept, it will be because of an intelligent acceptance of the Bible testimony in behalf of the true Sabbath. His people believe what the Bible says about it. In the crisis before us the acceptance of the Sunday sabbath in the place of the Sabbath of the Lord will constitute the mark of the beast. At just what time in the experience of each individual this mark will be received the Lord himself must determine. Do Seventh-day Adventists believe that everybody who keeps Sunday will be lost?—Certainly not. Multitudes of honest, noble Christians are yet keeping Sunday. They have never had the privilege of having the light of God concerning the Bible Sabbath brought forcibly before their minds. From their youth they have been taught to observe Sunday, and supposed the Bible taught it. The mark is received by individuals when they have been shown the light and have refused to accept it. Christ says, “Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.” In the great crisis before us, when the image to the beast is fully formed and persecution arises, the mark will be received by the multitudes. But as stated above, it is for God, not man, to judge in these matters; only God knows when an individual has rejected sufficient light to prove his condemnation. It is for us to kindly and plainly present the truth, and then leave the question with each soul and his Maker, without passing judgment upon any one. Dear reader, this question of the seal of God and the mark of the papal beast is a very solemn one. It is a live question upon which great issues hang. Eternal life, or eternal death in the lake of fire, is set before us. We shall choose one or the other. We must do it. Who will stand on the Lord's side? “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Rev. 22: 14.