Wonders and Excuses by G. V. Kilgore

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 24, 1877

Wonders and Excuses.

By G. V. Kilgore

When duties are plainly presented to people, they are very apt to contrive some way of excusing themselves from performing those duties, especially if the work would be contrary to the popular customs. We have examples of this everywhere the claims of the fourth commandment are presented. The first thing people say, generally, is, “It is strange somebody else has not seen it before.” They “wonder why the Reformers did not see that God requires the observance of the seventh day.” Well, all the reason why they wonder at this is because they have never read what has been going on in the world for fifteen hundred years. They do not know, perhaps, that popes of Rome, before whom kings and emperors bowed in submission, ruled Christendom for a thousand years; and that it was the authority of these popes that changed the observance of God’s Sabbath into the keeping of Sunday. The

power of the pope was mighty indeed, when he held civil rulers under his directions.

Undismayed by the hostile attitude of empires and nations, he taught those who boasted of being the most profound thinkers of their day, that, “before him, the expounder of the eternal truth revealed by God to men, in order to teach them the way of salvation, they are as mere pupils who must follow the directions of an unerring master. Armed with the power of the Most High, he fulminated the thunders of his anathemas against all who dared dispute his decisions.”—Weninger’s Infallible Authority of the Pope, pp. 194, 195.

On the next page the same work declares that “all the prelates of the church, absent as well as present, were bound to submit, and did submit, to this authoritative decision; and every one who would have dared to resist, would have, ipso facto, become a heretic.” That these men, who “spake very great things,” would “think to change times and laws” of God, Daniel plainly foretold. Dan. 7:25. That they have changed, by decrees, the observance of God’s holy time, is proved by many things. Speaking of Sunday, St. Augustine says, “The holy doctors of the church have decreed that all the glory of the Jewish Sabbath is transferred to it.” It is easy to see how the Sabbath was changed. But the “wonder” is that the Reformers did not see the Bible argument on this subject. And people think strange that nobody saw this before the present time. Here, again, their surprise is on account of not having a knowledge of what was agitated in Luther’s day. Luther, to be sure, did not teach this doctrine. Neither did he teach that any should sacredly observe the first day of the week, and he acknowledges that the church appointed Sunday instead of the Sabbath. See his Smaller Catechism, p. 127,—in the Augsburg Confession.

But Carlstadt, a more learned man than Luther, as Luther himself acknowledged (V. Hist. Ref., book x., p. 315), did teach the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath. Here is what Mr. Luther said about Mr. Carlstadt: “Indeed, if Carlstadt were to write further about the Sabbath, Sunday would have to give way, and the Sabbath—that is to say, Saturday—must be kept holy.”—Life of Luther in Pictures, p. 147. So the idea that the Reformers did not notice the Sabbath arguments is a mistake. Dr. White, Lord Bishop of Ely, speaking of the observance of the seventh day, says it was “revived in Luther’s time by Carolstadius, Sternbergianus, and by some sectaries among the Anabaptists.”—Treatise on Sabbath, p. 8.

But the reason they had no more success than they had, was because the “time and times and the dividing of time” of papal power was not ended; they were bitterly opposed and hushed up by that power in whose hands were the laws of God. So far are Adventists from being the first to find the Sabbath truth that 330 years ago the conscientious and learned Carlstadt believed and taught it. And hundreds of those who were slain, and burned at the stake by the papal power, were observers of God’s holy Sabbath. When all these things are shown to the people, most all will acknowledge we are right, except some of those who have a church creed which they regard as of more value than the Bible.

These, willing to justify themselves, say, “Our fathers were good men, and God blessed them while they kept Sunday. If it was good enough for them, it is for us.” What a mistake! Salt Lake Mormons can reason the same way to establish polygamy: “The patriarchs had more than one wife each, and God blessed them. If polygamy was right for them, it is for us.” “Oh! well,” says one, “Christ magnified the law of God, and showed that polygamy was wrong.” That is true. When light on any truth has been shown to us it is wrong for us to disobey. “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” That is just the way it is with us in regard to the fourth commandment. We have a chance to hear what our fathers were forbidden to hear, by their leaders. What does Isaiah say? “O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.”

But when one excuse fails, another one is advanced. Thus: “If we are only honest and our hearts are right, God will not cast us off.” I think that is true. I also think that if our hearts are right, we will love God and do his will. “Well, but God is not so particular about the day, is he?” The day is just what he is particular about. It is the “day,” and not the adjective, seventh, that points out the day, that God made holy. The adjective is placed in the commandment to tell us which is the “holy day.” And God says, “In it thou shalt not do any work.” But some say, “If our hearts are right, any day will do.” Oh! if our hearts are right! Let us see. Is a man’s heart right if he will cheat? Will he exchange something bad for something good, and make no difference between the two? Well, the Lord calls the Sabbath, “My holy day.” Can a man’s heart be right if he wilfully gives the Lord a profane day in place of his own holy day?

The hearts of the three Hebrew children were right before the king of Babylon commanded them to bow down to an image. But they knew that would not suffice when the test came. They might have reasoned as the Catholics do: “We will give God supreme reverence. When we kneel we will pray to God.” Would that not have done? Their hearts were right. Would God have cast them off for simply getting down on their knees, when everybody else was doing the same? when the law of their country demanded them to do so? Oh! they knew that God’s law means just what it says. And the Lord blessed them for obeying him in preference to the law of the land. By obedience they proved their hearts to be right. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.”

G. V. Kilgore.