[Believing it would be of interest to our readers, the editor of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES has asked Sabbath-keeping ministers and evangelical workers to tell in a few words the scripture or scriptures, the truths and principles, which constrained them to accept the unpopular truth of the seventh-day Sabbath. These testimonies must not exceed 500 words. Let us hear from all.]
LXI.
I was born a Seventh-day Baptist, in which denomination my father, Elder Simeon Babcock, was an ordained minister in active service many years. Both my parents held the Sabbath of the Lord in holy reverence, and, according to the light they had, strove to hallow the seventh day of each week in the home, in strict obedience to the Word and command of God. At the age of seventeen years I went to college, and thence into the world. Certain doctrines taught I could not accept, nor a god with like attributes. Yet I was taught that to reject these teachings would be to reject God and the Bible. For years the Bible and the Sabbath, and all idea of the Sabbath, were laid aside. But the true God held me in His holy hand, while the fervent prayers of a loving, Christian mother followed me. Meanwhile I searched for that “which was lost,” in ancient and modern lodge and lore, from order to order, and book to book of man, in the last degree taken and the last book read, to end with the goal not in sight, and the lost not found! However, some theorems touching cause and effect, exact, as, that the square of the longest side of a right-angled triangle equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides, led me to that Being who “spake and it was; who commanded and it stood fast.” Off came the dust from the blessed Book, my parents gave me in boyhood, and a search in it from lid to lid found not a trace of those doctrines of devils taught by man out of it and that had turned me so early from it. But is the Bible really inspired? Here God met me with a study of the prophecies, with direct reference to Daniel and the Revelation, furnishing final proof, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the Bible is God’s inspired Word. No creature of himself knows a moment of the future! I must accept the Bible as the Word of God, knowing that no prophecy ever came by the will of man; but “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Accepting the one true God and His Word, the Sabbath presents its claims. This He says is the Sabbath of the Lord, the “Lord’s day” made for man, expressed the seventh day of each week from the rest of God Himself. He has no other! Neither have I! I will not worship God in vain, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. M. S. Babcock.
LXII.
While a member of the Baptist Church I became convinced of the nature of man. Regarding the Sabbath question, I knew, with most men, that Sunday was not the seventh day, but saw nothing more in the Sabbath than the seventh day of the week. In the fall of 1893 I attended a series of meetings held in Jersey City by Pastor E. E. Frank, and drank in the beautiful unfolding of the Sabbath. I accepted the message as from the Lord, and before the meetings closed was a tithe-payer and Sabbath-keeper. I saw Christ as Creator. John 1: 1-3, 14; Col. 1: 14-18. I saw the Sabbath as the memorial of creation. Ps. 111: 2-4; Ex. 20: 8-11. I saw in redemption and sanctification the creative power of Christ (Eph. 2: 10; 2 Cor. 5: 17), and in the Sabbath the sign to us of His power to perform that work (Eze. 20: 12). I saw the keeping of the Sabbath—our resting from physical labor—as an outward sign of our ceasing from sin,—our own works. Heb. 4: 10. I saw that Christ made holy the Sabbath by His own presence; that His presence was rest (Ex. 33: 14; 1 Cor. 10: 4; Matt. 11: 28), and that the keeping of the Sabbath was the evidence of the presence of Christ. I saw that Sabbath-keeping was the test of loyalty to the God of heaven just before the Lord comes (Rev. 14: 6-12, 14-16), and by the grace of God I was led to more fully acknowledge Him and His power to save and keep; to take my foot from off His Sabbath, and know the blessing of Isa. 58: 13, 14.
