FEARING THE LORD AND SERVING IDOLS.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
A READER of the Signs asks an answer to the following questions:— "If a person hears 'present truth,' and, feeling anxious about it, goes to the Lord for guidance, and receives the answer in a dream that he is to keep both days [i. e. Sabbath and Sunday], is it sure to be from God?" "Would it be keeping the commandments of God to keep both days?" To both the above questions we can say emphatically, No. For what reason? This:— 1. The Lord has plainly declared that "the seventh day is the Sabbath." That is his "holy day." Six days of the week he has given to man in which to work, but the seventh day he demands shall be devoted to his service. Now when the Lord has declared one thing in his word, he will not reveal something directly contrary by means of a dream. But if it be urged that if the answer by dream is that both days shall be kept, that is not in opposition to the word of God, we answer. 2. To do what God has not required, is to do directly contrary to his word. The truth of this will appear when we consider that in his word God has required everything that is right, everything that is duty. There is not a thing which man ought to do, that is not commanded in the Bible. Then if a person does something which the Bible does not require, he evidently must be doing something that is not right, or that is wrong. We repeat: if the Bible requires everything that is right, there can be nothing right which is not required in the Bible; but everything that is not right is wrong; therefore everything that is not required in the Bible is wrong. The same truth may be stated thus: The fact that a certain thing is required as a duty, shows that something entirely different, and opposed, is not a duty. If God is so careful lest we should do wrong, that he tells us just what he wants us to do, it is evident that if there is something that he does not tell us to do, it is because he does not want us to do it; and to do what the Lord does not want us to do, is just as surely a sin as it is to fail to do what he wants us to do. The man to whom the Lord should sternly ask, "Who hath required this at your hand?" would be as much at a loss for an answer as the one to whom he should say, "Why hast thou not done this?" Now just as surely as the Lord does require the observance of the seventh day of the week, he does not require the observance of the first day of the week. The commandment says, "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work." While it is doubtless true that this is not an imperative order that every man must work during the whole of the six days, it is a permission to work on any part or the whole of the six days. The six days are given to man; they are termed "the six working days" (Eze. 46:1), in distinction from the Sabbath, which is a rest day. God has laid no more claim to Sunday than he has to Monday or Wednesday; and to do service which the Lord has not commanded, is to follow the commandments of men, "which things have in deed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; and not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh." Col. 2:23. More than this, the Sabbath is the great sign by which we are to indicate our allegiance to the true God. Sunday, "the wild solar holiday of all pagan times," has been adopted by the Roman Catholic Church as the badge of its power, and as the sign by which men may indicate their allegiance to the Papacy. As a Catholic writer says, in keeping Sunday Protestants do homage, in spite of themselves, to the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore if a man observes both Sabbath and Sunday, he thereby professes allegiance both to God and to the Pope. But Christ says, "No man can serve two masters." God requires undivided service. Such worship as was rendered by the Assyrians who were placed in Samaria, is not acceptable to God. They "feared the Lord and served their graven images." Such ones need an Elijah to say to them as he did to the Jews who were running after Baal, the sun-god: "If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." 1 Kings 18:21. A few words about going to the Lord for "guidance" in regard to the commandments. We cannot regard it as anything else than an insult to the Lord. When God has plainly revealed his will, it is certainly, to speak plainly, impudent to turn right around and ask him if he means what he says, and if he will not make an exception in the case of the petitioner. Balaam tried that once. The Lord told him not to do a certain thing; but Balaam went to the Lord again and again until at last he actually received permission to go. The end, however, to which Balaam came should serve as a warning to others who feel inclined to ask the Lord to give up his way for theirs. When God has spoken, let man hold his peace. W.