BE NOT TERRIFIED by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 11, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 31.

"BE NOT TERRIFIED."

By Editor

MR. H. F. CARPENTER, formerly of this coast, in a recent number of the World's Crisis, the majority of whose supporters it is safe to say do not regard Sunday as having any scriptural authority, tells his readers to "be not terrified" by the Third Angel's Message of Revelation 14, "held over them by seventh-day advocates, because they worship God on Sunday, claiming that by thus doing they take upon themselves the 'work [mark?] of the beast.'" To what does the pronoun "they," twice repeated, refer? And what seventh-day advocate ever found fault with any man for "worshiping God on Sunday"? It is duty to worship God at all times, under all circumstances, on Sundays as well as other days. The writer endeavors to show by a series of questions, which betray his own ignorance of the subject upon which he is talking, that he is anxious that his readers should be as ignorant of the "Third Angel's Message" as he himself. After setting before the world at various times the claim that Christ may come at any moment, the Crisis now declares, through Mr. Carpenter, that the Third Angel's Message is still future, and with it we have naught to do. Mr. Carpenter thus concludes:—

Jesus is "the author of eternal salvation to all that obey him." He has never commanded seventh-day keeping. He never has left a single warning against working on Saturday or worshiping on Sunday, notwithstanding he knew the greater part of his church would do both. He moved his apostle to say, "Let no man judge you in respect to the Sabbath" (Jewish.)

God gave birth to hope for our race by raising his Son from the dead on Sunday, and through Moses indicated that Sabbaths were to be counted from that day. He made Sunday such a day of rest and worship as has never been known before by pentecostal tongues of fire. He moved by the Holy Ghost David to speak of Christ's resurrection day as the day the Lord has made, and by the same spirit told us to be glad and rejoice in it. And in humble obedience we do, and the Christian church has and will "till he come." Any man or set of men who in view of these facts has a face brazen enough to hold over timid souls, the terrible threatening of the third angel's message, with which they have no business, for worshiping God on Sunday, need not be listened to. If they persist in hanging up their chart in your house send them to my office. Be not terrified by them.

And, after all this bad grammar and worse logic, Mr. Carpenter climaxes his soothing arraignment by still worse assumption of his own presence. "Send them to my office," he says. Did he suppose that the readers of the Crisis were limited to his local field? or is he ubiquitous? or does he expect those who may be afflicted by the visitation of a seventh-day advocate with charts to pay the expense of the visitors to his "office"? or that these visitors will take this journey at their own expense? How is it? We are "not terrified," but we are perplexed. However, we are willing, nay, anxious that Mr. Carpenter and all others should worship God on all days, all places. But to honor a day as the Sabbath of the Lord—well, "let God be true, but every man a liar." Christ has spoken in both Old and New Testaments. Christ commanded the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath. Christ confirmed it by his death on the cross. Christ gave the Third Angel's Message. Men may disregard his loving warnings, may misinterpret his prophets, may cry, "Peace and safety," in the time of danger; nevertheless, God's counsel standeth sure, and no word of his is void of power. He does not want men to be terrified by his message, but soothed, healed, strengthened, glorified. Let it not be despised; the message is God's.