p. 728 | Untitled article by George A. Snyder

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 24, 1894

By George A. Snyder

BY ELDER GEO. A. SNYDER.

"WALK while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you; for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth."

The Saviour here couples the admonition to "walk in the light" with the warning against its rejection. Neglecting to walk in light always leaves one in darkness; and that darkness is all the more dreadful because it so beclouds the moral sensibilities of those who walk therein that they know not where they are going.

The operation of this principle is forcibly illustrated by the Jews. As a nation they rejected Christ, the true Light, and as a result they are walking in darkness to this day, and know not where they are going. After they had rejected the Messiah their minds were so darkened that they could even combine with Pagan Rome to put him to death, and still not know what they were doing, as is attested by that sublime utterance on the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Many of those who accepted Christ back there did not continue to walk in the light, but apostatized from the truth, combining again with the Roman power to enforce their man-made dogmas, until the whole world was brought under the withering influence of popery. And what was the result of that rejection of light?—The Dark Ages, during which time the church, aided by the civil power, perpetrated the grossest barbarities known to history. The blood of over fifty million martyrs has written an indelible testimony to the awful fact that the rejection of light brings that moral darkness which causes men to persecute their brethren, and think that such work is doing service to him who said, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

No matter how deep the darkness may be, God always sends corresponding light, which, if accepted, will scatter the gloom. So when the apostasy had reached its darkest hue, the beacon light of the Reformation began to gleam, and through the heaven-born zeal and courage of Luther and his associates popery received a deadly wound; but, instead of walking in each advancing ray of divine light, and presenting a solid front against a common foe, we find Protestantism to-day divided against itself. Realizing their weakness, so-called Protestants are combining with each other and the civil power to enforce the observance of such dogmas as are held by them in common. But it happens that the only dogma on which they have thus far united is wholly a Catholic institution, borrowed from Paganism, viz., Sunday observance. See tract "Rome's Challenge; or, Why Do Protestants Keep Sunday?" Thus by the legal enforcement of Sunday observance Protestants are playing back into the hands of Rome. While in theory protesting against popery, in practice they are unwittingly healing the deadly wound which their forefathers so valiantly inflicted on the Papacy.

While so-called Protestants are thus clamoring for the carnal weapons of civil power with which to compel the observance of a counterfeit sabbath, the Lord of the true Sabbath is letting the light shine in clear, distinct rays on the institution of his own founding, hallowed in Eden, thundered on Sinai, kept by Christ and his apostles and some of his followers from that day to this. But the churches of to-day are rejecting the light on the Sabbath just as the Jews rejected the Lord of the Sabbath. Men making high professions of godliness are trying to blot out the true Sabbath by fining and imprisoning those who dare to observe it. And they no doubt think they are doing God's service, just as the Pharisees thought that they were when they cried, "Crucify him."

Human nature is ever the same. The Jews, while deploring the fact that their fathers had rejected the light sent them through the prophets, themselves rejected the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. The fact that the Jews crucified the Saviour is being deplored to-day by men who are crucifying him afresh, and putting him to an open shame by persecuting his followers for keeping the Sabbath as a memorial of his creative power, which has created us new creatures in Christ Jesus. The rejection of light has again darkened the minds of men until they know not where they are going or what they are doing. "Father, forgive them."