Not Because of, but Notwithstanding
Not Because of, but Notwithstanding.—Many say with reference to the observance of Sunday, “I have been blessed in keeping the day, and so has the church; has not God by his blessing sanctioned the day and its observance?” To many the fact that God has blessed and prospered is sufficient evidence for the truth of a theory or practise in religion; but in other things they would repudiate such a principle. Many men have built up a prosperous business, giving employment to faithful and honest laborers, upon the foundation of fraud and oppression. Does the prosperity prove the genuineness and beneficence of the foundation? Many have prospered while drinking intoxicating liquors and in the ownership of slaves. Does the prosperity prove that the drinking of intoxicating liquors and slavery are good things? Many good men have unwittingly passed counterfeit bills to other good men, who in turn have passed them to others, and during all the time, have enjoyed the blessing of God. Did the blessing or the acts of the good men make the counterfeit bill genuine? Of course, every one knows to the contrary. God’s blessing and prospering hand came to all these men not because of their sins, mistakes, or errors, but notwithstanding them. “No lie is of the truth.” Darkness never becomes light. Sin never can become righteousness. A counterfeit can never become genuine. Which Will You Choose?—The Sunday is the counterfeit of God’s Sabbath. It will never become the true. It has not God’s superscription and image. It does not bear the marks of his authority. It is not of his planting, and will therefore be rooted up. (See Matt. 15:9.) Ought it therefore to be kept by Christians any longer? In the wilderness, in the darkness of midnight, it is easy for the feet to stray into wrong paths. It is easy to gather stones for gems, and shining metal for gold. The gray mists of morning do not wholly reveal the deceptions to the eyes of weary traveler and laborer. So in the wilderness of the Dark Ages of pago-papal error it is not strange that the weary, persecuted, benighted church stepped into wrong paths, and gathered stones for gems, and shining brass for gold. It is not strange that in the slowly clearing mists of the subsequent ages, with the myriad voices of error calling, she should yet cling to a few errors, and heed the erring voices? Some of the old counterfeit bills look well worn, as tho they had done good service, but should we retain them? But the true light now shineth. God’s word is ringing out loudly, clearly, as never before, illuminating the way and calling men to hear the voice of God. Will they hear? Will they cast away the base counterfeit, the Sunday-sabbath? It is but temporal. Will they accept the eternal genuine? It is not a matter between sects or men, but between each individual soul and God. The decisions we make and the motives that actuate us will be determined in God’s judgment, where the sophistries of error or the counterfeit of truth do not pass current, but where his unperverted law bears sway. Reader, how and for whom will you decide the Sabbath question?