An Everlasting Foundation
THERE is one thing about a fact that many people never take into consideration in dealing with the Sabbath question, and that is that it can never cease to be a fact. The word is from the Latin facio, meaning to do, or to make, and is simply a shortened form of the perfect participle, so that a fact is a thing done or made. Now the characteristic of a fact, a thing done, which is so often lost sight of, is this, that although a thing done or made may be destroyed, the fact that it was once done or made can never be changed. Take some illustrations: A man builds a house; that house may be destroyed by fire or storm; yet it will always remain a fact that it was once built. A person goes to a certain place, and immediately returns; yet his returning does not do away with the fact that he went. One may tell us something, and then deny it; but the denial does not wipe out the fact that the thing was said. We have all sinned; our sins may be blotted out, so that they will have no existence any more, yet to all eternity the fact that we have sinned will remain. Our very songs of rejoicing over our redemption will emphasize this. In like manner it must always remain a fact that “the seventh day is the Sabbath.” How did it come to be so? “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Though the earth should be destroyed, so completely that no trace of it could ever be found, that would not undo the fact that it had once been made. To all eternity it must remain a fact that God created the heaven and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. God himself cannot abolish that fact. Even if he were to say that he did not do it, that would not abolish the fact. But he cannot say so, for he cannot lie; “he cannot deny himself.” The word “Sabbath” is the Hebrew word “rest.” It is a pure Hebrew word adopted into our language without translation. So instead of saying “Sabbath,” we may say “rest,” if we please, and the meaning is the same. Thus: “The seventh day is the rest of the Lord thy God.” God did rest on the seventh day; therefore it still remains, and must remain a truth to all eternity, that the seventh day is God’s rest day—God’s Sabbath day. The fact never can be altered or abolished. God himself cannot change it, any more than he can deny that he lives and is God. The only way to prove that the seventh day is not the Sabbath, is to show that God never rested on it from the work of creation,—that is, to deny the Bible from the beginning. But that is not all: To deny that God rested from creation, would be to deny that he created. So then, whoever says that the seventh day is not the Sabbath denies that God ever created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them; and the man’s own existence shows the folly of his assertion. It is evident, therefore, that all talk about the Sabbath being changed or abolished is the veriest nonsense. It is utter foolishness, and can be indulged in only through a disregard of the first principles of truth. It is no irreverence—no disparagement of God—to say that God himself cannot change the Sabbath day; on the contrary, it is a tribute to his unchangeability,—a recognition of the sure and solid foundation that is given us to build upon. If a fact could cease to be a fact, we should be living in a chance world; so if the Sabbath could be changed, there would not be one thing on which we could depend with any certainty. Let us, then, never hear any talk about the change of the Sabbath. It is a fact that men have departed from God’s rest day, and that they have adopted a rest day of their own in its stead, thus trying to make themselves God; but God’s rest endures undisturbed throughout eternity. Are you not glad of it? Think of it seriously, and say if you do not rejoice to know that God’s rest abides forever, and that you have the privilege of sharing it.—Present Truth.