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 leading text which decided this question of Sabbath-keeping with me was, and is, Ex. 20:8, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” This is a plain injunction laid upon all men; for it comes from the Creator of all men. Every intelligent moral being comes within the purview of that commandment. It emanates from the highest authority known to man; and the wisest man thus wrote of it: “Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” Eccl. 12:13. And this duty is enforced in view of the final judgment: “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” Eccl. 12:14. The motive which should prompt to this obedience is love. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matt. 22:37-40. David says, “O how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day.” Ps. 119:97. And James thus exhorts us: “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” James 2:12. But how do we know that it is the seventh day of the week that is to be thus observed?—Answer: The fourth commandment is based upon the great facts of creation week, and thus defines its own duties, and limits its own time: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Ex. 20:11. This record does not pertain to that definite and specific seventh day which was then passed, the day which He had spent in rest, but the seventh day in a general and concrete sense, which was thus set apart in numerical order, for the use of man for all time to come. Thus the particular cycle of time called “the week” came into being. No other origin can be assigned for it. This cycle rests thus securely upon the fiat of the great Creator. And so long as the world continues by common consent to recognize the week, so long will the Sabbath stand as the memorial and monument of God’s creative work in the beginning. And when this baleful period of man’s sinful probation is closed, the Sabbath, which has served such a noble purpose in time, will be perpetuated in the new creation. “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord.” Isa. 66:22, 23. I did not need to become exercised very long over the Sabbath question to be convinced that the first day of the week was none other than an ordinary work-day, with no Bible sacredness attached to it whatever; whereas the day preceding, Inspiration had always marked as a day of rest and worship. For some time I indulged myself in thinking that the seventh-day Sabbath was only for the Jew, and settled down in my convictions to try to find it so in the commandment. After candid consideration I found that the commandment (Ex. 20:8–11) pointed to the fact of the Lord’s rest at creation, and hence it must have been for all His creatures, and not such a small part as the Jews, who did not exist till two millenniums later. The commandment further stated “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” “Is He the God of the Jews only? is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also.” Rom. 3:29. “Yes,” I said, “if the Lord is my God, why should not the seventh day be my Sabbath?” Christ said, “The Sabbath was made for man.” Mark 2:27. Seeing the Scriptures would not bear me out in calling the Sabbath “Jewish,” I even resorted to the dangerous position that Christ destroyed the law of morality, the Ten Commandments, in order to do away with the seventh-day Sabbath, the latter being in the very heart of that law written on stone by the finger of God. In my desperation I dared to say it, nevertheless my better convictions often severely rebuked me, especially in reading such plain statements as those found in Matt. 5:17, 18; Luke 16:17; Rom. 3:31. The arrow of God’s conviction had entered my heart, and to be honest with myself and God, this matter had to be settled. In my search for truth I read Isa. 66:22, 23, that the people of God would assemble to worship Him “from one Sabbath to another” in their redeemed state. I said why not begin to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” now? For if I ever get a place in that paradise, I will have to become a willing worshiper “from one Sabbath to another.” I said, “Lord, make me willing now.” With this a joy and peace entered my soul that eclipsed the vanity of anything earthly. “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Rom. 15:13.