WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 30, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 38.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

By Editor

The Christian Statesman, of July 7, says on the strike question:—

"The violence connected with the railroad strike owes its origin to the education the railroads have given their employes in sabbath [Sunday] desecration. They have compelled men to disregard God's law until they have come to set all law at defiance. We believe the time is not far distant when those who teach men to set the law of God at defiance will reap the fruit of their own sowing, and it will be so manifest that they cannot mistake it. It is just as inevitable as destiny that the nation that will not obey God's law shall perish. Patriotism as well as piety demands a return to a strict compliance with the fourth commandment as well as all other divine requirements affecting the nation. 'Be not deceived; God is not mocked.'"

Let the reader consider the above carefully. It is worthy of consideration. "Patriotism as well as piety demands a return to a strict compliance with the fourth commandment." Now the fourth commandment reads as follows:—

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day [the day of the rest, the seventh], and hallowed it." Ex. 20: 8-11.

Now certainly that language is plain that the fourth commandment requires the observance of the seventh day, and a "return to a strict compliance" with it would demand the observance of that day. But this is not what the Statesman means; it means that the first day shall be kept. But he who would read the law of God as he would that of any other book of law, would declare that by no means could a strict compliance with the fourth commandment result in the observance of the first day of the week.

From this we can draw but one conclusion, that those who are demanding the observance of a day which God never enjoined in the place of one which he has enjoined, are teaching men to transgress God's law; and we may well say, in almost the language of the Statesman quoted above: "They [those who teach first-day observance by a seventh-day commandment] have taught men to disregard God's law until they have come to set all law at defiance. We believe the time is not far distant when those who teach men to pervert God's law will reap the fruit of their own sowing." We appeal to Christian brethren of all denominations whether "a return to a strict compliance with the fourth commandment" of God's law does not demand the observance of the seventh day? Does not loyalty to God demand obedience to his law, not to men's perversion of his law? Who are responsible—those who have taught that God does not mean what he says, or those who have simply demonstrated the logic of such teaching in their daily life?. "God is not mocked;" and those who, under cloak of Christianity, pervert his word will so learn it by and by. God desires them to learn it now. Will you do it, reader?