Sunday as a Political Issue
By Editor
For more than half a century, the people who publish this paper have been teaching the world that the matter of Sunday would yet become much more than a mere religious question. We have affirmed that it would also become the center of a political issue around which some of the strongest controversies of the ages would rage. Our warrant for teaching this has been the prophecies of the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Revelation. These chapters, as set forth in the recent articles by A. R. Bell, without question forecast a sharp and strong religious controversy. The “beast” and his “image” are brought before us in the thirteenth chapter; and as announced in the fifteenth verse, they demand worship, and threaten the death penalty upon all who will not yield. Against this worship which is demanded under penalty in this way, the strong messages of the fourteenth chapter are sent. These messages which give their warning against this beast and image worship, as announced in the twelfth verse, develop a class of people who have “the patience of the saints,” and also they “keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” This shows very clearly that the commandments of God are the great issue in the controversy; and these commandment keepers who are developed under the message are Christians, for they have “the patience of the saints” as shown in “the faith of Jesus.” THE QUESTION IS SIMPLE ENOUGH
There is no reason why any one should get into the dark over this question. The commandments of God and what they teach is one of the plainest things presented in the Bible. No other portion of Scripture was given in such a strong, majestic manner as were the commandments. All the rest of the Bible was presented by inspiration when the prophet was alone with God, wrapped in holy vision. But not so with the Ten Commandments. God in person came down upon Mount Sinai and delivered them, with the most sublime and awful majesty and grandeur, into the hand of Moses. Those commandments, therefore, stand out as the clearest, the strongest, the most striking part of the sacred Word. And the message of the fourteenth of Revelation, which warns the world against the great apostasy of the “beast” and his “image,” gives as a distinguishing characteristic of those who accept it that they have “patience,” they “keep the commandments of God,” and have “the faith of Jesus.” SUNDAY IN PLACE OF THE SABBATH
Sunday, by many well meaning people, is thought to take the place of the Sabbath commandment, which requires in the plainest and the most specific language the observance of the seventh day of the week. And we believe and have taught that Sunday, which has been cast upon the world as a rival of God’s Sabbath, will form the very center of the worship demanded by those who will pronounce the death penalty upon all who refuse obedience. Thus the issue is squarely joined. Will we take what God plainly commands in His word, or will we yield to what churchmen have wanted, regardless of any command from Jehovah? We are living in a time of great intellectual light. The present age is marked by the spirit of religious freedom for which earnest men have so strongly contended in Germany, in England, in Switzerland, in Holland, and elsewhere in Europe, as well as in the great liberty-loving United States. The spirit of freedom is so clearly marked in this time that men have thought that our interpretation of this prophecy of Revelation 13 and 14 could not be correct. But many of the theories of men are being reversed in these days. For instance, those who told us, three years ago, that this world would never have another great war, have had their theories shattered all to pieces by the roaring cannons, bursting bombs, and spitting machine guns of Europe. And out of this controversy in Europe is coming up a condition in the world the like of which has never been faced in all its past history. A religious despotism that will reach every part of our globe is sure to be developed as the only thing in the minds of men that can successfully grapple with the fearful situation. Now, wise men and women, instead of looking to this religious despotism for relief, will stand in the light of the clear prophecies of the Word which have predicted it, and will see with unmistakable vision what is coming, and stand with God in these momentous and thrilling times. POINTING TO RELIGIOUS DESPOTISM
If we were asked for definite things that are pointing in the direction of the development of this usurpation of religious power, we have only to point to Protestantism, which is so strongly decaying that it no longer protests, and in that very thing is opening the way for the fulfilling of the prophecy which announces the world supremacy of the papal hierarchy just before the close of time. And this decaying Protestantism not only opens the way for religious despotic power again to reign supreme through the papacy, but it in itself becomes an active agency. Thoughtful men are distressed over the fact that our Protestant federations are not seeking so much for the power of the Holy Ghost as a great working force in the hearts of men, but they are seeking for political power to compel politicians to obey their behests. And everywhere do we find the question of Sunday as a rival of the Sabbath coming to the front. On another page of this issue, Elder Horton tells of the Sunday bills that have already been placed before Congress, and also calls attention to the efforts that are being made to restrict freedom of speech through the enactment of law that will not allow a person to criticize a religion to which he is opposed. These are certainly very significant tendencies. No Congress has convened within the last twenty-five or thirty years but that it has been persistently urged to pass some kind of Sunday legislation. And what is true of the federal Congress is quite as true of the legislatures in the several states, some of them having as many as twenty-five or thirty various kinds of Sunday laws urged upon them during a single session.