The Sabbath for All by J. A. L. Derby

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 45.

The Sabbath for All.

By J. A. L. Derby

IN the very beginning of human history, the seventh day was set apart for a holy use. Mankind were so to regard it. Gen. 2:3; Mark 2:27. It was not, however, made obligatory on sinners; for the Word of God clearly says that "the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7. No such person could possibly keep the day holy, as the commandment requires. Ex. 20:8. It was and is intended only for the people of God—the righteous. Eze. 20:12; Heb. 4:9. Yet we have just said it was intended for mankind—all men. It was given to Adam as the head of the race, and Jesus expressly states that it was made for man. Mark 2:27.

The reconciliation of this paradox lies in the fact that God purposed the righteousness of all. 2 Peter 3:9; 1 Tim. 2:4.

A Cause of Astonishment.

But, in looking over the practise of mankind from Adam till to-day, we find only a limited portion of the race even pretending to regard the seventh day as sacred. This fact has forced itself in almost every person that has given the subject of the Sabbath a moment's thought. Furthermore it is a fact that ought to cause astonishment,—the Lord of the universe leaving with man a memorial of all that He is in Himself, as Creator, and of all He is to man as his Redeemer; and the recipient of the precious gift seeming to ignore it almost utterly! Strange expression of loyalty or love! Has mankind done this wilfully?

For what does the name "mother" stand? For all that wealth of sympathy, self-devotion, self-sacrifice, love; for days of care, nights of watching, gentleness, tenderness, prayers, counsel, and never-failing, anxious concern. Suppose now the world were without water, and some mother-power should give a ceaseless supply, saying, "Take this and use it as a token of myself." Who would intentionally labor to cause the world to forget so sacred a memory?

Yet God is to man infinitely more than mother, and has left him a sign of all that is implied in "the Lord thy God." For it is said, "Hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Eze. 20:20. But now we see most of the world—the part we call heathen—with no Sabbath at all; and all the remainder, save a small remnant, honoring false sabbaths—days He never gave as a token of anything He ever did: The Scriptures are witness.

Why the Ingratitude, the Dishonor?

Has man shown this monstrous ingratitude? To know mother, was to love her. To know God is to love Him. No one can stand against a vision of God. At sight of Him who is love, the heart melts. No spirit so stubborn, so rebellious, but it changes to joyous, enthusiastic devotion and loyalty the instant God, in all the fulness of His attributes, is seen. No argument of reason can withstand character. So indeed His people are witnesses, and not defenders.

Why, then, the universal dishonor to God's sign? "An enemy hath done this," for man could not; an enemy who would not that man should know God. From the beginning Satan has sought to deceive mankind regarding the character of God. And, alas, the record is, He "deceiveth the whole world." Rev. 12:9. What if the world had retained the Sabbath? Every seventh day would have brought to mind the memory of what God is to us—Creator, and Redeemer, with all this includes. Thus it would have kept alive in the earth the knowledge of God—whom to know aright is life eternal. O, that the sinning ones would determine to be deceived no longer? Only a perverted idea of God can keep one from loving Him. Shall it be said that we loved to be deceived—loved falsehood more than truth, darkness more than light? What a fearful arraignment of reason!

Satanic Methods.

Let us note some of the windings of the "old serpent's" path as he has led the race to ignore or dishonor God's holy memorial. Perhaps no clearer illustration can be given of the subtle power of "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2) to lead them captive at his will (2 Tim. 2:26). For it must be remembered that the great adversary has not set himself up in open and avowed opposition to what is right; that is, to the commandments of God. We do not, for example, find a moral code like the Decalogue, proclaimed by Satan as superior to the law of God. We do not find a religion published as the religion of the devil, with its churches, propaganda, sabbath, openly declared to be the rival of the service of God. Not at all. But instead of this we find all sorts of creeds, doctrines, and religions purporting to be the true worship of God. Nearly every false religion, without exception, is not an avowed rival of the worship of the true God, but is a perversion of such worship, claiming to be no perversion, but the true way.

HOW GOD'S SIGN HAS BEEN IGNORED By J. A. L. DERBY

Perversion is Satan's great method of deceiving mankind. But the important point is, that all this is wrought through man himself. Such is the power of the enemy of souls over the minds of men that his artful suggestions are made to appear reasonable and right. In modern phraseology, the person under Satan's control is morally hypnotized. So with God's great sign of His creative and redemptive power, little by little it was lost sight of, or displaced by some false day. To be without the Sabbath is heathenism; to observe a wrong day, apostasy; to keep the right day in the wrong spirit, covert rebellion and mockery. The heathen have no positive, that is, no arbitrary, institution significant of the true God. Even a child's curiosity will sooner or later be aroused to know the origin of the Fourth of July. Curiosity is the first step toward knowledge. But the heathen have nothing whatever to arouse even curiosity in a direction that can lead to a knowing of the true God—that is, to His sin-pardoning attribute. Nature testifies of power and divinity, but not of atonement.

Church Instead of God.

Now suppose we carry to such poor souls the first day of the week as their Sabbath. When they inquire its origin, what must be pointed out as their Saviour? A church; for every one acquainted with his Bible knows that the only authority for Sunday observance is a church. God never blessed, sanctified, hallowed, set apart, or rested, on Sunday. It lacks every element of the Sabbath.

It will be seen how peculiarly fitting it is that the institution which substituted Sunday for the Sabbath, places salvation in the church. The babe must be christened by the church; the child confirmed in the church; Sunday observance consists in attending church; marriage is no marriage if not solemnized by the church; the soul is safe if it receive the last rites of the church; and, finally, the graveyard must be owned by the church. This is church-salvation; not salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. Thus has Satan, by causing men to ignore the true sign of the source of redemption from sin, led them to place their hopes in that wherein is no salvation; for "neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts 4:12.

A Masterpiece of Satanic Ingenuity.

The study of the historical aspect of Sabbath perversion is the study of a masterpiece of Satanic ingenuity. The substitution of Sunday for the Sabbath was the sign of the finished work of apostasy in the early Christian church, as the Sabbath was the sign of the finished work of creation. It was Satan's proclamation that the mysterious workings of his iniquitous purposes to abolish the knowledge of

the character of God, and the true way of salvation, had been crowned with success. Every principle of real Christianity had been perverted to construct a counterfeit having the form of godliness, but whose power is self.

Thus the world came to have as complete an illustration of the character of Satan as can be made from human material. And to this system of Satanic self-exaltation and self-salvation by use of church forms, he must come who looks for the significance of the Sunday sabbath. This is the philosophy of that historical development known as the church of Rome, whose history is summarized in the second chapter of 2 Thessalonians. Let the honest inquirer turn and read it there.

Three ways were open by which the enemy of God and man might obscure the meaning of the Sabbath;—to abolish the day altogether, as we find in heathenism generally; to substitute another day, as was done by the apostate early church; to retain the day, but make it a saving ordinance, as do Jews and some other seventh-day observers. That the tradition concerning the Sabbath was preserved even among some practically heathen nations until long after the founding of Babylon is proved by ancient Chaldean tablets dug up in recent years. But even the tradition died out in most of the world, centuries before Christ. Only the comparatively small nation of Israel retained the day. But even among them it came to be so much disregarded that special admonitions had to be sent them through the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. See Isa. 58:13, 14; 56:2-7; Jer. 17:21-27; Eze. 20:12, 20. Finally, as forewarned by Jeremiah (chapter 17:27), they were carried away into captivity to Babylon. 2 Chron. 36:21.

Over-Observance.

After the return from this captivity, remembering what had been the reason of their exile, a rigid observance of the law of God was determined on. Neh. 8:1-12; 10:31. The enemy of that law, finding he could no longer cause its neglect, devised a new plan—he pushed them on in their strictness until it resulted in fanatical over-observance. The rabbis loaded it with fanciful opinions of its import, which had little or no reference to the true one, and with oppressive ceremonial restrictions, as that it was unlawful for one to catch a flea on the Sabbath, unless it was actually biting him, or to eat an egg that had been laid on that day by a hen kept for its eggs only. Geikie compares this mass of senseless prohibitions to a mountain suspended by a thread. No wonder that when Jesus came as the very embodiment of the true Sabbath idea, He was persecuted. Matt. 12:1-13; John 5:10, and kindred texts. "He was in the world, and the world knew Him not." Thus was this great symbol again ignored. Then came the apostasy in the church, which we have mentioned, as Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, had foretold.

A Final Perversion

remained to be accomplished through this falling away, not this time the abandonment of the Sabbath, nor its Pharisaic observance, but the putting in its place of another day. This had been seen in prophetic vision, even as far back as the time of Daniel. The Sabbath is a part of the law of God. None can change that law except its Author. There is not one word of Scripture indicating such a change in the Ten Commandments. It follows that any power capable of really changing God's law must be greater than He. To displace the Almighty was the original aspiration of Lucifer. Isa. 14:12-14; Eze. 28:14, 15. For this fallen cherub to show his superiority to God, he must change His law, or lead men to think he had done so. This is what Daniel the prophet foretold. Dan. 7:25. It was not, however, to occur in his day, but when Rome, the fourth great kingdom mentioned in this chapter, should be divided. Verse 20.

The simple facts of history confirm the prophecy. But Rome at that time was literally the capital of the world; its power and influence filled the world. It is readily seen, therefore, why this was the capital city of the prince of darkness, the god of this world. 2 Cor. 4:4. Rev. 2:13. It was here Satan built up his spiritual kingdom on earth. There is no reason to believe that his seat has ever been moved from Rome. It is still, so far as we know, the center of his authority. But since it was this very authority that thought "to change the times and the law" (Dan. 7:25 R. V.), by substituting Sunday for the Sabbath, it follows that the former day was intended by him to be a sign of his power, as the Sabbath was a sign of the power of God. Thus we see to what a travesty on true worship the great deceiver has led the children of this world.

For What His Plot Has Been Laid.

"Thus your fine logic makes us all devil-worshipers," objects the keeper of the first day of the week. In form, even so, being deceived; in spirit, only so by persistence in the error after the deception is unmasked. But it is for this final denouement that the enemy's whole plot has been laid. Having got Christendom to accept a falsehood, he fortifies it with prejudice and passion, with financial interests, social and legal obligations, and with intimate worldly considerations of all sorts, so that when the grand issue, distinctly pointed out in the prophecies, does come, as he knows it will, he hopes to hold the world in a state of actual, conscious loyalty to himself. Dear reader, if to you the scheme has been laid bare, for you this is the hour of test. Only an inculcating love of truth can avail you now.

Remember the word: "Then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming; . . . whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 2 Thess. 2:8-12.

And the conflict deepens even now, for the old dragon is gone forth with great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time;—gone forth "to make war with the remnant of her [the church's] seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." Rev. 12:17. "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads." Rev. 13:16. The right hand is the symbol of labor; the forehead, the sign of belief. The present agitation for Sunday laws is, in the light of prophecy, nothing but the adversary's effort to enforce his sign. To whom, O reader, will you prove loyal?