A MARVELOUS MONUMENT

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 19, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 20.

A MARVELOUS MONUMENT.

Coeval with the most ancient nations mentioned in the very beginnings of history, do we find the name of Abraham. Abraham was the father of a great nation. And while the Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Carthagenians, and Romans, have disappeared, the Jewish nation—the literal descendants of Abraham—is still among us, as a distinct and separate people. The records of history are the only evidences left us of those mighty nations. But the Jew has watched each one as it declined and fell; he has seen all those peoples as distinct and separate nations become lost or buried in the heterogeneous mass of mankind.

Where are the Egyptians, Greeks, or Romans that have mingled among all the various nations of earth and still refused to intermarry or in any way to obliterate their national characteristics? When men of any nationality aside from the Jews, whether as individuals or in colonies, have moved away from their native country, it has only taken a few generations to destroy all traces of the nativity of their fathers. Not so with the Jew. Through all the changes of the old dispensation, there the Hebrew race and nation stood as a distinct people. Their characteristics had such a strong hold upon them that whether they were backslidden into the grossest idolatry, or were under Babylonian, Persian, or Grecian servitude, they nevertheless clung to their national customs and kept themselves a distinct people.

Neither has their history in this respect changed during the Christian era. Driven from their native land, persecuted, outlawed, and despised in the early centuries; hunted out and killed by different nations and at different times during the Middle Ages, and still the object of execration and contempt in later times, nevertheless, wherever you may find him, he strictly preserves his Jewish nationality. In short, we find in the Jew the striking peculiarity of being able to mingle, for thousands of years, among all nations, in every clime, and still preserve

in sharp, clear distinctness the peculiarities that identify his race.

This fact that the Jews so tenaciously preserve their nationality is one of the greatest marvels of the world. And it seems clear that any one who is in doubt as to which day of the week is the true seventh day or Bible Sabbath, could have his difficulties completely removed by just reflecting for a few moments on this marvelous tenacity of Jewish national life.

The Jews have been scattered to every corner of the globe. And no more striking is the fact that they have preserved their peculiar nationality, than that they are absolutely and entirely united in regarding the seventh day, commonly called Saturday, as the sole and only Sabbath of the Bible, whether they observe it or not. Such a complete and overwhelming testimony as to which day of the week is the true seventh day, and consequently the only Bible Sabbath, can not be lightly set aside. God has made it perfectly plain in His Word that He has instituted but one abiding weekly Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, and has also preserved among us a nation whose tenacity for their national peculiarities is simply marvelous. They have clung to the seventh-day Sabbath as tenaciously as to any of the rest of their distinctive national features. And while they have rejected their Saviour, and their religion has degenerated into a lifeless formality, nevertheless it must be acknowledged that they point with unerring accuracy to the day which marks the weekly rest of Jehovah. And if there was no other evidence, there is sufficient in this alone to completely and conclusively show which is God’s holy Sabbath day.

God bore long with the Jewish race; but finally He had to turn away from them because they refused entirely to follow in the path so clearly marked out by divine love. And what God gave to the Jews, and designed through them to give to all the world, He now presents to you and me, regardless of the failure of this great race to carry out the plans of the Father in heaven. And, anticipating that the enemy of all truth would make an effort to cover up His great Sabbath day of rest, our Lord has preserved a great monument—even the whole Jewish nation—to witness with one accord to the exact day that is the Sabbath. Are you honestly seeking to know the truth of this great Sabbath question? If so, turn to Ex. 20:8–11 and read the Sabbath commandment. Observe that the command plainly reads that the seventh day is the Sabbath. This command has never been changed, as any one who is familiar with his Bible knows very well. If you are in honest doubt as to which is the true seventh day, just consider all this Jewish nation, as in every part of the world they stand, pointing to the correct seventh day. You should make no mistake; you can not if you are honest with yourself before God.