The Sabbath Through the Ages
By Charles L. Taylor
XI. The Change of the Sabbath As Indicated in Prophecy
According to the inspired record of the blessed Bible, and by the unimpeachable substantiating testimony of profane history, certain great facts regarding the Sabbath of Jehovah have been made known. Briefly stated those facts are,— 2. That practically all the great nations of antiquity, as well as those of to-day, bear witness to the fact that the order of the days of the week is the same now as from the very beginning; that our seventh day—the Sabbath—is identical with the seventh day which was originally set apart for man. 3. That time has never been lost, nor its reckoning brought into confusion. 4. That the Edenic Sabbath was kept by the patriarchs in their faithfulness to God's commandments. Gen. 26:5. 5. That it was the test of deliverance from Egyptian bondage. Ex. 5:4, 5. 6. That by three distinct miracles each week during the forty years of the falling manna, the seventh day was specifically and absolutely pointed out as God's holy day. Ex. 16:4-31, 35. 7. That the Sabbath, as God's memorial of creation, was the one part of the law given at Sinai to be specially explained, revealed, “made known” to the people. Ex. 20:8-11; Neh. 9:13, 14. 9. That it was habitually kept by the Son of God. Luke 4:16. 10. That the day observed by the Lord Jesus was the same day that was kept by the Jewish people—the seventh day. 11. That Jesus clearly showed Himself to be Lord of the Sabbath day first given to man, the day which He Himself sacredly observed. Mark 2:27, 28. 13. That the Sabbath of the fourth commandment was kept by Jesus' followers after the crucifixion, showing that it had not been abrogated or changed by His death. Luke 23:54-56. These and other like facts stand forth prominently, and by all the force of their wonderful logic prove the sacred, unchangeable, and eternal claims of the seventh day. Absolutely, without any doubt whatever, the Sabbath given to man in the garden is the Sabbath of A.D. 1909. Why, then, is not the seventh day observed? A “Reason” Not Sufficient
To him who has not carefully and candidly studied the Word of God this question may seem unanswerable. To the great majority of people, the fact that the first day of the week is almost universally recognized as holy, is sufficient reason for believing it to be holy. But the lover of truth is not satisfied with such argument; and when he comes to investigate, he finds that the Bible long ago actually foretold the rise of a power which should attack the law of Jehovah, and specifically and definitely set aside the Sabbath in favor of another day, and that this change would be recognized throughout Christendom. Turning, therefore, to the Scriptures, let the reader first note carefully the prophetic announcements of the apostle Paul. Just before taking his final departure from among the churches which by his own labors had been brought to Christ, the great missionary called together the elders, and to them gave this solemn warning: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” Acts 20:29, 30. Here is brought to view an apostasy among the ministry, and a consequent turning away of the people from the truth. How completely this was fulfilled may be learned from the sad story of the church after the apostles had passed away. This history will receive attention later. Suffice it now to say that when such true shepherds as Paul and John had been removed by death, there came into the church many whose hearts had never been touched by divine grace, men who were Christians only in name, and whose religion was nothing more than pagan philosophy and “science falsely so called.” Col. 2:8; 1 Tim. 6:20. By these men, who had drunk deep from the fountains of worldly knowledge, the Bible was mischievously set aside, and all manner of speculations, superstitions, and unconsecrated customs and practices were introduced. This transformation, which had already begun its work in Paul's day (2 Thess. 2:7), went rapidly forward until, within the comparatively short space of little more than a century, the fabric of the church and its teachings and life had been almost entirely changed. Worldliness, pride, and officialism among the ministry, and ignorance and corruption among the membership, stamped the world mark upon the church as a whole and paved the way to that final apostasy, when the so-called people of God joined hands with the Roman Empire and effected that combination of church and state, the persecuting Papacy. Without question, it was to the Papacy and its long train of baptized worldliness, corruption, and persecution, that the apostle looked forward. The picture he drew was complete. That power did oppose itself to God, it did exalt itself above God. And, as we shall see, this opposition and exaltation had to do with the law of God's government. Before turning to another prophecy which shows the truth of what has been said, read the following excellent comment regarding this matter of opposing God and exalting self above Him, taken from “The Lord's Day, the Test of the Ages,” a pamphlet written by the editor of the Signs: “The great Head of the church is the Lord Jesus Christ; and the law of the church is the law of God, which came through Christ. Now the only way that a power can oppose God is to enact laws contrary to God's law, and demand obedience thereto. The only way in which it can exalt itself above God is to demand that its law shall be obeyed in preference to God's law.” Both these things the Papacy did. “He Shall Think to Change”
Speaking of this same Papacy, the prophet Daniel declared (Dan. 7:25): “He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hands until a time and times and the dividing of time.” The Douay Bible gives the rendering, “He shall think himself able” to change. And one other very excellent translation gives it, “Shall presume to change the appointed times and the law,” evidently referring to the moral law of the Most High. It is a power which wages war against the name of the Most High, the saints of the Most High, and the law of the Most High. Ask yourself, dear friend, Did the Papacy5ever speak blasphemies, and wear out the saints of God? To find answer, you have only to go to history and trace the records of its blasphemous assumptions and titles, and of the horrible and relentless persecutions which sent millions down into martyrs' graves. Ask again, Did it really attack the law of the Most High? Why, dear reader, it is one of the fundamental teachings of the Roman Church that the pope, in the plenitude of his power, and speaking for the church, has the right to set aside the Word of God and put in its place the commands of the church. And that church has given us living illustrations of what she means. Has she not generally in her catechisms taken the second commandment entirely out of the law? Has she not divided the tenth? Turn to her own published doctrinal works, and you find this to be so. But, further than this, it was she who changed the fourth commandment, and who now openly and proudly points to her record of the change, and challenges the world to show that her claim is not well founded. To the very letter that church answers to the prophetic description, “shall think himself able” to change the law. Compare two statements which have come officially from Baltimore, the home of Cardinal Gibbons, the head of the American Catholic Church under the Papacy. First: “You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday.”—Gibbons' “Faith of Our Fathers.” Second: “The Catholic Church changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.”—Catholic Mirror. This is a flat claim to be able to change the Sabbath of the law of God, and therefore is from the very wrong-doer himself a straightforward (the unwitting) confession that he is the one described by the prophecy. Now the Word says that this power which changes the law (described in Revelation as “the beast,” Rev. 13:1-8) would one day be acknowledged by the entire world in this very matter of changing the law. And so far has this already come to pass, that the Roman Church, without fear of successful contradiction, declares, “The Christian Sabbath [meaning Sunday] is therefore to this day the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant world.” Why should not such statements cause us to ponder? Are we still Protestants? If so, then what must be our personal relation to this mighty question? Shall we follow the multitude, or shall we still stand faithfully for what God has bidden? The church may succeed in leading the great masses to follow tradition instead of the Scriptures, even as was done in the days of Christ (Matt. 15:9); but it still remains that God's eternal law is our rule of life (Eccl. 12:13, 14; James 2:12), and that only those who are true to its claims will finally enter the city of God. Matt. 7:21; Rev. 22:14. Again I ask, Are we Protestants?