[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.]
XLIV.
When a child, at the request of my grandmother, a member of the Baptist Church, I committed to memory the Ten Commandments. My parents were not Christians. By precept from grandmother, and my own mother’s example of rest on Sunday, I was taught to believe that day to be the Sabbath. At the age of eighteen my teacher, a Methodist, called my attention to the fact that Sunday was the first day of the week, and not the seventh. Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, the almanacs, calendars, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and a Presbyterian minister, all certified to the same fact. Thinking all might be mistaken, I said, Surely Jesus Christ kept Sunday. And then, like a flash, came the thought: No, Jesus Christ kept the seventh day; He said He was Lord of the Sabbath day, and it is my duty to follow in His steps.
Thus, with the language of the Sabbath commandment, and the example of the Lord of the Sabbath, my Saviour, I decided that Sunday, the first day of the week, could not be the Sabbath of the Bible.
I was told that all Christians keep Sunday to commemorate the resurrection of Christ; but on reading through the New Testament I found not the least hint that such a change was made by Christ; but, to the contrary, I found many plain texts, teaching that the apostles observed and taught the Sabbath after Christ’s resurrection.
Shortly after this I received a copy of this paper, and sent for some of the tracts on the Sabbath question which were advertised in it. These tracts and that number of this paper proved indeed a great blessing to me; for up to this time I had never heard of a Christian people who kept the Sabbath. While I was thus reaching for the truth, John 7:17 and 8:32 were most precious promises. Soon after, from a Seventh-day Adventist woman, I learned other glorious truths connected with the Sabbath, and also learned how and by whom the change was wrought in the church from Sabbath-keeping to Sunday-keeping.
I took my stand for these glorious truths some twelve years ago, under much opposition. And it has ever been a precious truth to me, and is growing brighter and more blessed as the days go by. And I purpose to ever be faithful, and at last join with the family of the redeemed, as they come up from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, to worship the Lord of the Sabbath in the earth made new. Isa. 66:23. W. L. Sims.
Redding, Cal.
XLV.
I was brought up in the Freewill Baptist faith. At the age of twenty-three I united with the Christian Church. At one of our meetings a few years later I heard a minister say, “I suppose you all think you have a command in the Bible for Sunday-keeping; but there is not a text in the whole Bible that teaches you to observe Sunday.” Going home from that meeting I decided to study the Bible, and know for myself what the Lord’s commands were. After carefully studying the following texts, Rom. 3:19, 20; 7:7, 12; 1 John 1:9; Rom. 8:16, 17; John 14:23; I was pretty thoroughly convinced I had been wrong, but had not decided to obey, until one Sunday I opened my Bible, and the first text I saw was Heb. 10:26, 27. “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins; but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” I decided then and there to obey the Lord, and keep all His commandments, and have endeavored to do so ever since. And now I am in my eightieth year. Ridgeland, Miss. I. SANBORN.
