SUNDAY AN INSTITUTION TO BE DESTROYED.
By W. B. Hill
“For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” 1 John 3:8. Here we are informed that the works of the devil are to be destroyed, and if the Sunday institution is one of his works, which we think can be clearly shown, it must pass away. There are two institutions before the Christian world, the Sunday and the seventh day, each claiming to be the Sabbath of the Lord. Let us briefly glance at their origin. Speaking of the seventh day, Jesus says, “The Sabbath was made for man.” Mark 2:27. Consulting Gen. 2:1–3, we learn that God made it, and Moses told the children of Israel, “See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath.” And again, God proclaimed the Sabbath with his own voice amid the grand and awful scenes that attended the giving of the law at Sinai, and he wrote it on the tables of the law. Thus it is clearly seen that God is the author of the seventh-day Sabbath, and, consequently, it must be a good institution; “for a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.” We will now examine the origin of Sunday. To do so we must search for it outside the Bible; for that blessed book contains no account of the institution whatever. In the absence of Bible evidence, we will do the next best thing we can. We will call upon witnesses that our first-day friends acknowledge to be reliable. Webster says, “Sunday, so called because this day was anciently dedicated to the sun, or to its worship.” The next witness will be Worcester, who says in his large dictionary, “Sunday, so named because anciently dedicated to the sun, or to its worship.” Here we see that Sunday had its origin among the sun worshipers, a people so blinded and deceived that they had turned away from the living and true God to worship the host of heaven. We now inquire, Who thus blinded and deceived them? We read in 1 Cor. 4:4: “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not,” etc. Who is the god of this world? Rev. 12:9 will tell us: “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.” We have found him. It is the devil and Satan. He is the one that has done this work. Here we have it clearly expressed. The devil deceived the people, and led them to worship the sun. Sunday-keeping was a part of this worship. Here we plainly see the origin of the two days. The Sabbath comes from God, the Sunday from Satan. And let us inquire again, Is it reasonable to suppose that Christ trampled his Father’s holy Sabbath into the dust, and exalted the devil’s institution to be the Lord’s day? Let us be careful, and look again into this matter. Satan deceiveth the whole world. Perhaps he has deceived us. “To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isa. 8:20. In conclusion, we claim that, as the Sunday institution is a work of Satan, it will be destroyed. The time is brought to view in Isa. 24:1–6. We call attention especially to the 5th and 6th verses: “The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.” When these transgressors are burned up, and none left but those who have not transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, or broken the everlasting covenant, Sunday-keeping will be no more. But not so with the Sabbath. Amid the glory and beauty of the new earth, God’s people will keep the holy Sabbath. Isa. 66:22, 23.