How They Became Convinced
[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.] The texts and principles which weighed most in constraining me to keep the Sabbath of the Lord I gladly give, hoping that some other soul may see in them the clear, strong light that I did, and experience the same peace and joy in submission. Christ, in answering the tempter, said, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Matt. 4:4. And God spake all these words: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20:1, 8, 10. “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.” Ps. 89:34. “But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matt. 15:9. “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Rev. 22:14. These, among many other texts presented by H. W. Decker, in our first interview on the Sabbath question at my home in Wisconsin, twenty-eight years ago, seemed to linger, and blend, and brighten in my mind, until all opposing voices were silenced, and I made haste and delayed not to keep His commandment. Ps. 119:59, 60. CHAS. A. SMITH. It was in the spring of 1860, while living in Daviess County, Mo., a preacher came down from Iowa, and presented the subject of the perpetuity of the law and Sabbath to us, which a number of us accepted without delay. The scriptures impressing me most and decidedly were Luke 23:54-56 and Matt. 24:20. Here I saw at once the recognized continuation of the Sabbath for Christians this side of the cross, and when I read Mark 2:27, 28, all the argument for a Sunday Lord’s Day vanished like mist before the rising sun. I was brought up in the belief of the soon-coming of Christ, heard the preaching in 1843-4, in the State of Indiana. My father was an early settler in that part of the State, and an active worker in the Disciple Church, and would talk these truths of the advent faith and the soon-coming kingdom. As time rolled on the light of the Sanctuary and the Third Angel’s Message unfolded to us, lighting up the way more and more till the present time. Yankton, S. Dakota. J. H. ROGERS.