p. 29 | Truth by Raymond F. Cottrell

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 24, 1878

Truth.

By Raymond F. Cottrell

TRUTH is better than error; and the Bible is full of it. The word of God is truth. "Thy word is truth." John 17:17. The truth as it is revealed in the Bible is more valuable than all the creeds in Christendom. Those who take the Bible as it is, have the best creed. And there is no compromise between truth and error. Those who worship God acceptably must worship him in spirit and in truth. To claim to worship him in spirit, while the truth is disregarded, is false and vain.

The truth is something to be done. Actions speak louder than words. We read: "And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God." John 3:19-21.

Now what is the truth to be done? Is it the law of God. "They that keep his commandments do the truth. Read again. "Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth." Ps. 119:142. The righteousness of God is everlasting. It never changes. That which was right in respect to moral law in ancient time is right now. The law which was in David's day is the truth now. That law was his commandments. In verse 151 we read: "Thou art near, O Lord; and all thy commandments are truth." To which code of commandments does this refer? To that which God spoke in person—the ten commandments. Again we read: "Thou camest down also on Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, [Heb. laws of truth,] good statutes and commandments; and madest known unto them the holy Sabbath. And commandest them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant." Neh. 9:13, 14.

The commandments spoken by the voice of God are the truth. The truth of the Lord endureth forever. These are right judgments. Thy word is true from the beginning; and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever. To abolish these commandments then, would be to abolish the truth. Is this what they desire who teach that they have been abolished? To change them would be to change the truth; and what will the truth become when changed? Let an apostle answer. Speaking of those who broke the first command by worshiping created things instead of the Creator, Paul says: "Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator." Rom. 1:25.

Each of the ten commandments embodies an everlasting truth; and when we keep them as they are, we testify by our acts to the truth—we do the truth. If we have no other God but Jehovah, we testify to the truth that there is but one living and true God. If we speak not his name, but with reverence, we testify to the truth that reverence is due to God. If we regard the life, property, and good name of our neighbor, we testify that his rights are equal to our own. And so of all the rest.

The fourth commandment is the truth as well as the rest; and when we keep it as it is, laboring on the six working days and resting on the seventh, we bear testimony by our actions to the truth that God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. But many Christians think that the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh day of the week to the first; and accordingly they labor on the seventh day and rest on the first. But that which made the seventh day the Sabbath of the Lord, is the truth that he rested on that day. He did not rest on either of the other six; how then can either of them become his Sabbath day, that is, his rest day.

Suppose we read the commandment according to the present practice. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the first day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the first day. But that which made the Sabbath of the Lord is the truth that he rested on that day. But that is not the truth. To what then do you testify, when you keep the first day as the rest day of the Lord? Is it not possible that men have made this change which contradicts the word of God; and that you have unwittingly been bearing testimony to a falsehood, instead of the truth? If so, your deeds are reproved by the light; and your only remedy is to turn and walk in the light that your deeds may be manifest that they are wrought in God.

All his commandments are truth. Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness and thy law is the truth. By what authority then has the law of God been changed? Of the Son of God, it was prophesied that he should magnify the law and make it honorable. Isa. 42:21. And the testimony of Jesus is: "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law." Matt. 5:18. The law of God was not changed in a single letter or the smallest point. But we were foretold in prophecy that an anti-Christian power should arise, and its rise was still future in the days of Christ and the apostles, that should think to change the times and laws of God. Dan. 7:25. The Roman church profess to have this power. It claims to be the author of the change in question—the change from the seventh to the first day of the week. It says to its disciples: "How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days?" The answer is: "By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday." Again, this church testifies of herself: "Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her—she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."

On the authority for the change then Christ and anti-Christ agree. Shall we not believe their united testimonies? Christ repudiates even the intention to make any change whatever; the Roman church claims that it made the change without any Scriptural authority. This prophecy of the law changing power of Dan. 7:25, is parallel with that of chapter 8:12, where it is said of this same Roman power, that "it cast down the truth to the ground." Thy law is the truth.

But still the truth shall judge us in the last day. "He cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth; he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth." Psa. 96:13. "As many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law, . . . in the day that God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." Rom. 2:12, 16. "Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in." Isa. 26:2. "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Rev. 22:14.

God's law is everlasting truth. It is ever the same. It is impossible that it should change. But in contradistinction from this, there have been, from time to time, truths which have been true only at a particular time. As an example: In Noah's time it was true that a flood of waters was about to overflow the earth. That is not the truth now. The truth for the time is what an apostle has called, "present truth." 2 Pet. 1:12. Present truth is that which is being done at the time present, in carrying out the plan and purpose of God. There is a present truth at the present time. In the progressive fulfillment of the plan of God as foretold in prophecy, we have come to the fulfillment of the last promised message of warning to the world, before the second coming of Christ. Rev. 14:9-12. This warning has been rising for more than a quarter of a century. It is a needed warning against following the Roman papacy, the power that should think to change times and laws, and it calls the attention of the people to the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. It is a present truth that, in obedience to this divine call, there are people in almost every enlightened Christian nation in the world, that have lately embraced and are keeping the ancient Sabbath, the only weekly Sabbath of the Bible. The truth, long downtrodden by the beast, is being restored to the true hearted of every denomination and nationality. Reader, will you obey the heavenly call, and unite with us in the work of restoration? Will you take your feet off the Sabbath, and call it a delight, the holy of the Lord and honorable, no longer stigmatizing it with the dishonorable title of Jewish? "Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it, that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil." See Isa. chapters 56 and 58. Who will accept the blessing? Who will do the truth? Who will serve God by keeping his commandments? It will soon be known who are on the side of God and truth.

R. F. COTTRELL.