p. 117 | The Closing Messages by R. F. COTRELL

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 29, 1870

The Closing Messages

By R. F. COTRELL

The Closing Messages.—No. 26.

WE come to consider the worship and mark of the beast. That power is worshiped to which we give the supremacy, and which we honor by our obedience. If the Papacy has changed the commandments of God, and corrupted the ordinances of the gospel, willingly and knowingly to accept its substitutes instead of what God requires in his word, is to make the beast supreme, acknowledging in our practice his right to exalt himself “above all that is called God.” If that blasphemous power has virtually expunged the second commandment from the decalogue, to admit of bowing down to images, changed the Sabbath of the fourth, divided the tenth into two, one of which, thus separated, would be but a repetition of the seventh, taken away the Lord’s supper, and put in its place the mummeries of the so-called “sacrifice of the mass,” and substituting sprinkling for baptism, and unconscious babes as the subjects, instead of believers in Christ, to follow it in all or any of these, willingly and knowingly, is to bow to the power of apostasy and worship the anti-christian beast, instead of the living and true God.

The worship and mark of the beast are contrasted, in the message, with the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. This shows that they are directly opposed to each other, and thus gives us the clue to the interpretation. Those who really keep the commandments and the faith, will not worship the beast nor have his mark. To follow the beast in any of his corruptions of the law or the gospel, constitutes a part of his worship; but the mark of the beast, as we will show, is something opposed to the Father’s law.

Mark, sign, and seal, signify the same thing, and are used interchangeably in the Scriptures. In Rom. 4:11, circumcision is called both a sign and a seal; and in the Old Testament it is called a token of the covenant. Rev. 7:2, 3, where the servants of God are said to be sealed with the seal of God in their foreheads, has been rendered by some translators, signed with the sign of God; and in Rev. 9, where the same, or a similar, work is done for the people of God, a mark is said to be marked upon their foreheads, and this is the token which saves them from the great slaughter that follows.

The great day of wrath immediately follows the close of probation; and just before that day of wrath two classes, the servants of God and the servants of the beast, are represented, in symbolic language, as being marked or sealed. In Rev. 7, the sealing of the servants of God is described. It is one of the events to transpire under the opening of the sixth seal, introduced in chap. 6:12. This seal covers a period of time beginning with the signs of the second advent, and reaching to the time when it shall be said, “The great day of his wrath is come.” But before the day of mercy closes and the day of wrath comes, the winds of war and strife are held, that the servants of God may be sealed. The closing work of their probation is the sealing, signing, or marking of the 144,000, and the consequence is, they are shielded from the wrath of God, and delivered from the persecuting power of the image of the beast, and stand with the Lamb upon Mount Zion, having “his Father’s name written in their foreheads.” See Rev. 13:15–18; 14:1–5. Now it is at this very time, namely, while the wrath of God is pending, that the last message of probation warns all not to receive the mark of the beast. Rev. 14:9–12. They cannot have both marks; for they are opposites. They must choose which mark they will

have. Consequently the third angel’s is the sealing message, and contains in it the seal of God. And since the seal of God writes the Lamb’s FATHER’S name in the forehead, the seal must be found in the commandments of the Father, and not in the faith of the Son. The mark of the beast is directly opposed to something contained in the commandments of God.

The mark, sign, or seal, of God, is his name written in the forehead; chap. 14:1; and the mark of the beast also is the “mark of his name.” Verse 11. Name, by a figure, signifies authority; as, in the name of a king, means, by the king’s authority. Authority is represented by law. And as the authority of God is represented by his law, so the authority of the beast must be represented by his law; and since, as we have shown, the beast has thought himself able to change the law of God, we shall find the mark of his power and authority in his revised edition of that law.

What portion of the law of God is the sign of his power and authority? What is there in the law of ten commandment which proves the right of their Author to make laws for men and demand their obedience? What is there here to distinguish the one living and true God from all false gods—“the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth”? Nothing whatever, except what we find in the fourth commandment, the Sabbath law. Read them all carefully and you will find that this is so.

This commandment alone vindicates his authority and right as a supreme lawgiver. He is the MAKER of all things; therefore, he has a right to challenge our obedience. The Sabbath is the given memorial that he made the heavens and the earth; therefore, it is the sign, mark, seal, or token, of his power and authority, and of his right to demand obedience of the entire universe which he created.

This, all must see, is reasonable; but this is not all; we have the word of God in attestation of its truth: “Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep; it is a SIGN between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD that doth sanctify you.” “It is a SIGN between me and the children of Israel forever; for IN SIX DAYS THE LORD MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” Ex. 31:13, 17. “Moreover, also I gave them my Sabbaths, TO BE A SIGN between me and them, THAT THEY MIGHT KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD that sanctify them.” “And hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a SIGN between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God.” Eze. 20:12, 20. In these texts it is four times asserted that the Sabbath is a sign between God and his people—a sign that he is the true God, the creator of all things, and that they know him and are sanctified by him. Now if the Sabbath has not been abolished, as antinomians declare, nor changed, as the Man of Sin holds, it still remains a sign, mark, or seal, to distinguish the true God, and also the people that know him and keep his commandments. Viewing it thus, and knowing that the changer of times and laws has perverted the way of God, rending the seal from his law, and thus leaving the people that would serve him, exposed to fall in the great “hour of temptation” that lies before them, for the want of this sign of the living God, we can see the propriety and importance of strong angels’ being commissioned to hold the winds and restrain the angry nations, till the prophetic commands shall be fulfilled. “Bind up the testimony; seal the law among my disciples.” Isa. 8:16. It is no wonder, viewed in the light of prophecy, that the Sabbath question is now being specially agitated. God has commanded his servants to be sealed before the hour of temptation and time of trouble, and has provided a special message to accomplish the work.

Having now found the seal of God in his commandments, it would be reasonable to infer, that the mark of the beast is something directly opposed to it—a rival Sabbath to supplant the Sabbath of the Lord. But since we have presented the testimony of the Lord himself concerning what he has given as the sign of his power and authority, we will permit the beast, who thinks himself able to change God’s law, to testify to his mark or sign of power and authority, on which thus far he bases his claim to make laws for men and demand their obedience. The “Douay Catechism,” a standard Roman Catholic work, speaks to this point as follows:

“Question. How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days? “Answer. By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and, therefore, they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church. “Q. How prove you that? “A. Because by keeping Sunday they acknowledge the church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin.”

The following is from the “Doctrinal Catechism,” another Catholic work:

“Q. Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept? “A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her—she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no scriptural authority.”

Here is a claim of the very highest authority and power, a claim of the ability and right to set aside what God has commanded, and to create moral obligation, making that a duty which God has not commanded, and that a sin which he has not prohibited. And of this power the Sunday-sabbath, the rival of Jehovah’s Sabbath, is offered as the sign.

We have now plainly before us, God the creator, with his Sabbath as his sign, or mark, of power; and the beast, as a rival power, “sitting in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God,” with his rival, or counterfeit, Sabbath as the sign of his power. Which will we have? Whose seal will we accept?

R. F. COTRELL.

This foregoing article should have appeared in REVIEW, No. 11, but was overlooked.—Ed.