p. 5 | A Solid Foundation by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 9, 1902

A Solid Foundation

By L. A. S.

SPEAKING with reference to those people who belong to the class described by the apostle Paul as being “children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive,” the Pittsburg Christian Advocate (Methodist) says:—

We have need of good, solid, faithful teaching of the doctrines of our church; for we are persuaded that they are in harmony with the Word of God. Pastor, Sunday-school superintendent, and teachers, and Epworth League leaders should make it a point to instruct the church members, especially the young, so that they may be rooted and grounded in the faith.

With those who practice “cunning craftiness,” and “lie in wait to deceive” the unstable members of the flock, the Advocate classes people who teach that the seventh day is the Sabbath. Of these it says that they “go about persistently teaching that the Lord’s day is not the Sabbath, and that all who persist in keeping it instead of Saturday, are in deadly sin. They claim to have a mission to restore the sanctity of the seventh day, and seem to know more about it than any of the apostles did. . . . They are doing, either intentionally or ignorantly, all they can to break down any Sabbath. Many innocent souls without sufficient knowledge to detect the sophistry and shallowness of their so-called arguments, are led away from their churches by these devil’s agents.”

What, then, is the “solid, faithful teaching” which the young and others need who have set out in the Christian pathway? Is it the teaching of tradition? or is it the teaching of the Word of God? From the discourse of Christ on the mount, we learn that he whose house is built upon a rock is he who conforms his life to the words of Christ. This only is the solid foundation upon which the Christian should rest his hopes with reference to a future life. And if, in order that his hopes may rest on this foundation, the Christian should find it necessary to sever his connection with the church which the Advocate represents, he would, from a Christian standpoint, be perfectly justified in doing so. In that way many persons have been and are being “led away from their churches,” but in it are only being led back to the Word of God.

The Advocate’s anxiety is that the people should be taught “the doctrines of our church,” and should not be “led away from their churches.” But the church and its doctrines are not the foundation of Christianity at all. There are many separate churches and many divergent doctrines; but there is only one foundation upon which the Christian can stand, and that is the words

of Christ. The Scriptures (all Scripture is the word of Christ, I Peter 1: 10, 11) are not to be made supplemental to the doctrines of the church. The Scriptures come first, and to them the seeker after truth must come first, and to nothing else. If a “babe” in Christ, he must begin with “the sincere milk of the Word,” and as he grows up, he can take stronger food; but always it must be the Word of God, and that only. To instruct a person in the “doctrines of the church” as the beginning of his religious knowledge, using the Bible only in a supplemental way to confirm the doctrines, is a papal proceeding purely. To do this is to put the doctrines of the church first—the word of man above the Word of God.

The Word of God declares that the seventh day is the Sabbath. The seventh day is designated as “the Sabbath of the Lord” (Ex. 20: 8-11), “my holy day” (Isa. 58: 13, 14), and the day of which Christ is Lord. Mark 2: 27, 28. It is, as these texts show, the Lord’s day. It is the day which Christ observed. Luke 4: 16. The first day of the week, on the other hand, is a day which supplanted the Sabbath under the reign of the papal church, a fact which Roman Catholics openly acknowledge in their books of doctrine, and to which they point as being a sign of that church’s authority. And in making this change from the seventh day to the first, that church fulfilled a plain prophecy of God’s Word (Dan. 7: 25), which states that this religious power should “think to change the times and the law.” Who, with these plain facts before him, can have any doubt as to which day, the seventh or the first, stands for “good, solid, faithful teaching” of Christian truth?

L. A. S.