Whom Will Ye Serve?

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 30, 1883

Whom Will Ye Serve?

In our article on the compromise of diverse interests by which the image to the beast will be made, we spoke of the two methods revealed in the prophecy of Rev. 13, in which the mark or sign of the beast will be received by two classes of people. One class receive it in the forehead, that is, intellectually, as an article of religious faith and duty. The other, in the hand, or in obedience to the civil authority, as the hand is always used as an emblem or symbol of power. The terrible curse threatened in Rev. 14:9-12, is to fall upon both classes, and we are not willing to be numbered with either. There is a way to escape that awful "wrath of God;" it is found in keeping "the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Now we do not know how a person can break the fourth commandment and yet claim to keep the commandments of God, with any more reason and propriety than one can break the third or the eighth commandment and still claim to be a commandment-keeper. We present a few thoughts on this subject in the following paragraph to which we call especial attention.

It is conceded that the Sabbath is a very important institution; the Lord himself declared its great importance by giving it as a sign whereby we may know that he is God. Ex. 31:13, 17; Eze. 20:12, 20. Of course the fourth commandment, which guards the institution and enforces its observance, is an important part of the law of God. But the Sabbath can be a sign of God as the Creator of the heavens and the earth only in its character of a commemorative institution. Now it must be confessed that its value as a memorial depends upon the identity of the day to be celebrated. The Lord carefully guarded this point by blessing and sanctifying the day on which he rested from all his work which he created and made. The commandment for its observance was placed in the very heart of the decalogue, and to preclude all possibility of doubt or mistake, he withheld manna on that day for the space of forty years, and wrought constantly recurring miracles for the same length of time, to guard the day from any necessity of being desecrated, and to teach his people the high esteem in which he held the day—the holy day—of his rest. But, to change the day is to destroy its commemorative character; to turn it aside from the use for which Jehovah gave it. This also must be conceded. Practically it is always acknowledged; for, when another day is chosen as a substitute for the Lord's rest, or Sabbath, it is always spoken of as commemorating another event, to which the commandment has no reference. That other day is not a sign whereby we may know Jehovah, the Creator of the heavens and the earth.

We stand upon a great moral principle, from which we cannot afford to be removed. We plead for the integrity of the word of God. When we ask for authority for changing or destroying the memorial of Jehovah, the Creator of all, we are referred to "the Fathers," to "the history of the early church," or are met with inferences and reasonings of which the authors would be ashamed were it not that the object for which they reason is popular. They confess that they have no explicit warrant, no law, for their practice. We might readily fill this page with confessions to this effect from representative men of various denominations. But if they have no law for its observance, they are not keeping the commandment of God in its observance. Can this be denied? Richard Baxter once asked, "Is that obedience to God for which there is no commandment?" We repeat the question, and call upon Sunday-keepers to answer.

We believe we are in the last days; the message of Rev. 14:9-12 is going to the ends of the earth; all nations, and kindreds, and tongues, and peoples, are fast receiving the warning. We cannot turn away from it; we must keep the commandment of God. Let those make void the commandment through their traditions who dare to; we dare not.

But it is continually pressed upon us by those who are laboring to procure a religious amendment to the Constitution of the United States in order to the universal enforcement of Sunday, that it will at most be an inconvenience to those who keep the seventh day, but it will work no hardship religiously, as they will not interfere with our keeping the seventh day; they only ask us to keep Sunday also. Very kind, indeed, of them! Suppose they were in China and there encountered a local law, which compelled every resident of the district to go to the temple and do homage to their particular Joss. They would, of course, say that was contrary to their religion, as the Bible commanded them to worship Jehovah. But the intelligent official politely informs them that this law does not interfere with their religion; it left them at perfect liberty to worship Jehovah, or any other God they saw fit; but this was a "law of the land"—a "police regulation"—merely requiring them to do homage to that Joss, and they must comply. It was not intended at all to interfere with their worship, but they must obey the law of the land or return to their own country. Would they be convinced? Would they think it any interference with their religion?

There is a principle set forth in the Scriptures, aside from the plain reading of the fourth commandment, which forbids our listening to their proposals that we keep the Sunday with the permission to keep the Sabbath also. In the first place we do not ask permission of any power on earth to keep the seventh day. We are commanded from Heaven to keep it. Nor do we ask permission to work on the first day. The Lord of Heaven has also given us that. To the claim that it will not injure us to rest on Sunday also, we reply that it is no physical injury to a person to rest on any day of the week, provided he does not rest too much, so as to neglect his labor or injure his health. Nor will it ordinarily injure a person spiritually to cease from rest on any day of the week. So far, apparently, our friends are correct. But when we are told that we must rest on Sunday because it is 'the Christian Sabbath', and that it is established as a substitute for the seventh day, the day which is placed in God's commandment, then "we are not careful to answer" in the matter; we will not keep Sunday for any such reasons. We deny the statement that it is the Christian's Sabbath. We know it is substituted for the Lord's day, but it is of human origin—a human institution—doing violence to the commandment of God; and we must refuse to do homage to the power which gave it its Sabbatic character.

Paul has distinctly laid down this principle for us. He gave the brethren liberty to eat what was set before them, asking no questions. But if it was distinctly said that it was an offering to idols of which they were invited to partake, then they should not touch it. Now we know that the Sunday first derived its character as a rest-day from the respect paid to Apollo, the sun-god, a heathen deity, while its professedly Christian character was given to it by "the man of sin." Presented to us as a religious institution, as a substitute for the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord God, we refuse to accept it, or to have anything to do with it. To recognize it in that character is an insult to the God of the Sabbath. It is setting aside his own memorial and exalting a religious innovation above it. We cannot, we dare not, unite even "with a multitude" to do such a thing. We must respect the authority of God, and keep his commandments, and reject everything which comes in conflict with them.

Again, our Saviour says, "Ye cannot serve two masters." We cannot obey the law of God and obey a law which stands in direct opposition to his law. We know that worldly powers will accept such obedience as that, as the beast will be content if we receive his mark in the hand. A nominal observance of Sunday, such observance as an atheist can render, will answer the demands of these "National Reformers." But not so with God. He will not accept a division of worship. He must be worshiped "in spirit and in truth." He will not be mocked with professed obedience to his commandment while we change its terms to suit our convenience, or add something which neutralizes it. It would be well for the people of this generation if they would remember his words: "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God;" and "My glory will I not give to another."

Now it appears to us that if the Sunday-enforcement advocates had proper regard for just reasoning, for the principles of Protestantism, and for the plain reading of the word of God, they would at once concede the reasonableness of our position, and the injustice of trying by law to compel us to a course of action which we so firmly believe will be doing homage to the image of the beast, against which the Lord has denounced such terrible wrath.

Above all is their inconsistency—we might say their effrontery—shown in their denouncing us as siding with infidels because we will not aid them in enforcing their Sunday-Sabbath laws. Is it possible that they think we can be guilty of such hypocrisy, such treachery to the cause of God, as to believe that the seventh day is the Sabbath, and the only Sabbath of the Lord, and yet join them in exalting a human institution, an opposition Sabbath, above it? We read in the Scriptures of those who "feared the Lord and served their own gods," but we have no intention to be counted with them. But perhaps we ought not greatly to wonder that they ask us to act contrary to our profession, for they who profess so great esteem for the commandment of God while they practically make it void by their tradition, doing that which the commandment forbids and trampling upon that which the commandment requires, cannot be expected to appreciate consistency of faith and practice in others.

God's service is a work of faith. Many have said that our position appears plausible and may be right, but they will wait and see if these things take place as we think the prophecy teaches. If they do come as predicted, then they will believe. But there will then be no call for belief. Paul says faith comes by the word of God, and is the evidence of things not seen. Rom. 10:17; Heb. 11:1. The people in Noah's time no longer doubted the truthfulness of his preaching when the flood came; but they had not faith. They saw; they knew; but knowledge thus gained could not benefit them. "Without faith it is impossible to please God." "What saith the Scriptures?" We beseech you, reader, not to turn away from the "sure word of prophecy" until it is too late. We shall speak again of the danger of putting away faith, and waiting to see before daring to trust the word of God. And we shall soon have something to say of the coming compromise in Europe.