The New Neighbors by L. Ervin Wright

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California, U. S. A. · Sep 9, 1930

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 57, No. 35.

The New Neighbors

By L. Ervin Wright

L. Ervin Wright

The story of how they turn a town upside down; and for the first time the town was right side up.

THE STORY THUS FAR

Mrs. Winters, her son, Dale, and daughter, Theresa, newcomers to Fairdale, start an active missionary campaign. They are the first Seventh-day Adventists ever to live in Fairdale. Dale holds several Bible studies in the home of Mrs. Helman. Theresa conceives the plan of starting a Sunday school. The club hall of the Chamber of Commerce is secured for the Sunday school and also where Dale can lecture. Pastor Dodson of the —— church begins an attack on the Adventists. He believes that all who do not keep Sunday as the Christian sabbath should be boycotted, and, as an extreme measure, all Sunday desecrators should be deemed guilty of treason,—which he asserts merits the death penalty. Dale Winters in his second Sunday night lecture explains the two-horned beast of Revelation 13:11 to be the symbol of the United States, with its civil and religious freedom.

The Mark of the Beast

When the prophet said that the two-horned power, or the United States, would eventually speak like a dragon, he must have meant that some decided change would come over this nation. But since the governing powers of our nation are derived from the people, the prophecy must mean that the people of the United States change their views on things.

“Now notice what this two-horned power does. Says the prophet, ‘He exerciseth all the authority of the first beast in his sight. And he maketh the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose death stroke was healed.’ Revelation 13:12, A. R. V.

“Since we are living in the very time when the death stroke to the papal phase of the first beast is rapidly healing, we are fast approaching the time when our government shall exercise all the authority of a church-state system, for that was exactly what the first beast was, and what it will be again when its deadly wound is healed.

DECEIVES WITH SIGNS

“In verses 14-17, A. R. V., the prophet states: ‘He deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by reason of the signs which it was given him to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast who hath the stroke of the sword and lived. And it was given unto him to give breath to it, even to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as should not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bond, that there be given them a mark on their right hand, or upon their forehead; and that no man should be able to buy or to sell, save he that hath the mark, even the name of the beast or the number of his name.’

“One of the points that I should like to call your attention to in these verses is the fact that this power is a republic. That is evident from the fact that this beast wears no crown, but more evident from the fact that the governing powers reside with the people, for the people are appealed to that they should make an image of the first beast. An image of anything is a counterpart of this other object. Since the first beast was a union of church and state, an image of this beast in the United States would mean that a union of church and state will be perfected in our nation. The thing that will give breath, or life, to this image is an amendment to the Federal Constitution to that effect. After the people have voted for that sort of thing, they will find out that they have given the image of the beast life, or power, to speak and to carry into effect various religious laws.

“In such movements as the National Reform Association, which I mentioned last Sunday evening, the Lord’s Day Alliance, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the International Reform Bureau, and so on, we see at work the forces that would get the people to make an image of the beast by enacting certain pieces of religious legislation. The men in these organizations are doubtless sincere and well-meaning men, but they are connected with un-American and unchristian movements, for these movements would compel and force the consciences of other men.

“As to what the mark of the beast is, I think that we may gain some valuable information from what Moses says concerning another sign or mark. The ancient Hebrew Passover, as you all know, was a yearly feast, or one of the Hebrew yearly sabbaths. God said to Moses about the Passover, ‘It shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes.’ Exodus 13:9. Now in what respect could the Passover be a sign upon the hand and upon the forehead? The forehead is but a figure for the seat of thought, the mind. The true observance of the Passover by the ancient Hebrew from the conscience and personal convictions constituted the worship of the true God from the mind. Thus the Passover could be said to be a sign upon the forehead. The symbol of the hand has long been deemed a figure of work, for it is with our hands that we do or direct our manual labors. Since the Passover requirement was that the Hebrew should cease from manual labor as he also did on the weekly Sabbath, by the cessation of labor by the hands on the Passover day, the ancient Hebrew could be said to have received a sign on his hand.

IS CONCERNED WITH A REST DAY

“It is thus apparent in the light of these remarks that the mark of the beast must concern a rest day of some sort. It cannot mean the seventh-day Sabbath, for that is God’s mark, or sign. According to such texts as Ezekiel 20:20 and Exodus 31:13, the seventh-day Sabbath is God’s sign between Him and His people.

“There is, however, another rest day not acknowledged in the Bible as belonging to God or to Christ, which man would have us accept in the place of the Sabbath of the Bible.

“From the Catholic Press of Sydney, Australia, August 25, 1900, I read: ‘Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. . . . From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first.’

“From the Catholic work, ‘An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine,’ by the Rev. Henry Tuberville, D. D., page 58, I read:

“‘Ques.—How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days?

“‘Ans.—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.’”

“Replying to an inquiry as to whether the Catholic Church claims to have changed the Sabbath, Mr. H. F. Thomas, chancellor to the late Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, in a

letter written in November, 1895, said: ‘Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act, . . . and the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things.’

GOOD SUNDAY LAWS DESIRED

“From the ranks of the Sunday law advocates come such sentiments as are expressed by the Rev. S. V. Leech, D. D., in the Homiletic Review of November, 1892: ‘Give us good Sunday laws, well enforced by men in local authority, and our churches will be full of worshipers, and our young men and women will be attracted to the divine services. A mighty combination of the churches of the United States could win from Congress, the State legislatures, and municipal councils all legislation essential to this splendid result.’

“The Rev. W. F. Ireland of Los Angeles, California, has stated: ‘We purpose to organize a Sunday Rest League and erect a guillotine in the United States, in view of which every politician will recognize the fact that he is destined to political beheadal if he does not give us the legislation we demand.’

“Thus we see that there are prominent men in the United States who are working to unite church and state and enforce the observance of the Catholic Sunday, the mark of apostasy.

“Many will be deceived and give assent to Sunday observance with their minds, thus receiving the mark in their foreheads; others, either because they are forced or are indifferent, give their consent by refraining from Sunday labor, thus receiving the mark in their hand.

“That the Sunday law advocates recognize the twofold aspect of Sunday is evident from the statement of the late Rev. W. F. Crafts, in Sunday Union Convention, Wichita, Kansas, September 20, 1889: ‘We, the Sabbath Union, W. C. T. U., all the churches, and the Y. M. C. A., are laboring with all our might to carry the religious sabbath with our right arm, and the civil sabbath with our left. Hundreds of thousands will receive it as a religious institution, and all the rest will receive it as a civil institution, and thus we will sweep in the whole nation.’

“Of course, there will be some who will not yield to this mark, but the Sunday law advocates have it all planned out how to bring these dissenters to time.

“The Rev. Bascom Robins, in a sermon preached in Burlington, Kansas, Sunday, January 31, 1904, stated: ‘In the Christian

decalogue the first day was made the sabbath by divine appointment. But there is a class of people who will not keep the Christian sabbath unless they are forced to do so. But that can be easily done. We have twenty millions of men, besides women and children, in this country, who want this country to keep the Christian sabbath. If we would say we will not sell anything to them, we will not buy anything from them, we will not work for them, or hire them to work for us, the thing could be wiped out, and all the world would keep the Christian sabbath.’

“I ask you candidly if this does not sound like the seventeenth verse of Revelation 13, which reads: ‘That no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.’

A SIGNIFICANT PROPHECY

“The prophecy that the United States would make the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast is very significant. The word translated ‘worship’ really means homage. Now the very highest form of homage, or worship, is obedience, as seen from 1 Samuel 15:22. In view of this, the following statement by Monsignor Segur, a Roman Catholic writer, in his book, ‘Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today,’ page 213, is rather striking: ‘The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church.’

“But how, you may ask, can the earth be said to render homage? You doubtless recall that the punishment for the sins of the ancient Hebrews at one time was seventy years’ captivity in Babylonia. During this time the land, or earth, of Palestine lay desolate, or idle. This was done, we read in 2 Chronicles 36:21, ‘to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfill threescore and ten years.’

“A Sunday law that prohibits Sunday labor in agricultural lines will surely make the earth itself pay homage to the beast. Thus we see how completely and exacting the beast will receive homage.”

(To be continued)