p. 7 | HOW THEY MEET IT

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 10, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 50.

HOW THEY MEET IT.

ONCE the evangelical, Christian world, almost to a man, held to the eternity, the perpetuity, the immutability, of the moral law of God, summarily comprehended in the Decalogue. It was taught by creed and council, by pulpit and press. True, they transgressed the Fourth Commandment every week, but ignorantly. They supposed they kept it in observing Sunday. In some not clearly definable way, on the part of the majority, they supposed that the commandment had been perpetuated, tho the weekly Sabbath had been changed. They really observed in spirit the Sabbath of the Lord, and the Lord did not condemn them. See John 15:22.

When the fulness of time came—in these days— God sent forth to the world the great reform message found in Rev. 14:6-14; Isa. 58:1-12, and other scriptures. That message calls attention to the one acceptable service and worship of God, to the departure from truth on the part of His people, and restores again “the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” among His people. Of course, in this question was involved that of the Sabbath. It was shown that it had been ignorantly trampled under foot, that its place had been usurped by an institution falsely called Christian; and that the observance of the law, the following in the footsteps of Jesus, demanded the keeping of the seventh day. For a time many still tried to hold to the law, and argue for a change of day. But this has grown more and more manifestly untenable. It is not hard to see that, if God’s law demands any duty, it as truly demands the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath.

In this plight but two ways were open before the Sunday-observer: He could accept the obvious truth that still “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord,” as the eternal law declares and Jesus affirmed in teaching and life, or he could fall back on the theory that God’s law is abolished, made null and void,—a theory which leaves the universe without a law, and with a God who is “altogether such an one” as mortal, changeable man.

Not a few have accepted the truth to the peace and joy of their own souls. Many, led by trusted religious teachers, have accepted the latter. Passages which speak of laws and commandments which were necessarily limited, typical, ceremonial, or civil, have been confounded with other passages which refer to the immutable Decalogue; and people have been made to believe that all is abolished because certain laws have expired by limitation. Reader, believe it not. God is King. His unchangeable law still abides. He has not abdicated His throne, nor subjected His holy law to the legislative fancies of imaginative moral world-builders. The death of Christ was not in vain. It is true that He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity (lawlessness, law-breaking), and purify unto Himself a people “zealous of good works.” He takes the law under which the sinner stood condemned, and writes it in the believer’s heart, a strength, a joy, forever.

Do you wish to learn all about the different systems of law noticed in the Word of God?—Then read E. J. Hibbard’s “Two Laws,” just out by this publishing house. It will, if you are satisfied with Scripture evidence, settle the question forever.