REPAIR THE BREACH by J. M. Gallemore

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 17, 1877

REPAIR THE BREACH.

By J. M. Gallemore

The heads or leaders of the people of God are spoken of in the Bible as “principals of the flock,” “watchmen,” “prophets,” etc. Against a very large class of these there is a terrible threatening in the word of God. It is against that class who “are at ease in Zion,” who “cry peace when there is no peace,” who “prophesy out of their own hearts,” and not from God’s word, who “follow their own spirit,” and not the teachings of God’s word, and who “have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord,” that this threatening comes.

This class of teachers are unable to see that God’s people, to be able to stand in the last day, must be free from error, free from sin, and that the “hedge” for “the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord” must be made up. They “have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge.” And because they have not done these things, the hand of the Lord is to be upon them, and they are not to be in the assembly of God’s people. Now, are there those who would like to know of this neglected work; of this “hedge” to be made up, in order that the people of God may stand in the last day? If so we will tell them. This “hedge,” the defense of God’s people, is the Law of God. The “breach” to be repaired is in God’s law. The Lord says, repair the “breach,” “build up the waste places,” etc.

God’s professed people have not gone up into the gaps to repair this breach. The wall has been daubed, but the mortar is “untempered” and we have God’s word that it shall not stand. God’s law is broken, the fourth commandment is disregarded, and the breach is filled up with Sunday, an invention of the “Man of Sin,” who presumes to change God’s law. But God does not ask for substitutes; he asks for his own—his own hallowed Sabbath day, not that which is the invention of man. This way of repairing the breach he does not approve of; he wants no such work; it will not do for the people of God to stand in at the day of the Lord—that “wall” is not a defense. The Lord says he will accomplish his work upon it, and upon them that have “daubed” it.

Here is a work for the people of God. The “breach” they must repair. The Lord calls upon them to do it. They have a great work to do, and have no time to spare. The great day that shall try every man’s work is nigh. As it was in the days of Noah, so it is now. God has a message going forth to the world prior to its destruction. Connected with this message is this great work of repairing the breach.

Says the prophet, addressing himself to the people of this time, “Cry aloud, spare not, show my people their transgression.” The transgression that is here referred to is the violation of God’s law in disregarding the fourth commandment, which enjoins the keeping of God’s Sabbath—not the Sabbath of the “Man of Sin.” The people of God must now choose whom they will serve, God or Belial. True it is that good men have died in the observance of this substitute Sabbath, but it will not do in this enlightened day and age; that “wall” will not do to stand by in the day of the Lord; it will not do now when the “salvation of the Lord is near to be revealed,” and his “righteousness to be established.” “The times of this ignorance God winked at, but now he commandeth all men to repent.” Repent of what? The transgression of his law, which is sin.

Every transgression of his law is sin, either wilful or ignorant. This is a part of God’s law: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” “The Seventh day is the Sabbath.” God has no other Sabbath. The Bible knows no other. Boastful Protestants, you who profess to take the Bible as your guide, where do you stand? Are you keeping the commandments of God, or are you following the traditions of men? What think you about the “breach” which the Lord says must be repaired?

J. M. GALLEMORE.