Backwards Toward Egypt by W. H. Edwards

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 9, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 22.

Backwards Toward Egypt

By W. H. Edwards

Relaxing Our Diligence — Is Religious Freedom Endangered?

W. H. EDWARDS

"Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him." Ex. 32: 1, last part.

After a sojourn in the land of Egypt for more than two hundred years, much of the time under the most distressing servitude and slavery, the Hebrew nation were miraculously brought out into a condition of liberty. With free provision for temporal sustenance, inside of a year they demand that they make their way back to Egypt and slavery in preference to the unrestrained liberty they were enjoying. And this, too, with the Angel of the sanctuary hovering over them day and night to protect them.

Not an Optimistic Destiny

This favored United States of America is facing a destiny not at all optimistic nor one to be coveted. She has risen to the most exalted eminence as a haven of toleration for the oppressed of all nations. In this she has differed in spirit and operation from anything before known in the political combinations and policies of men. She has had "a state without a king, and a church without a pope." She has been a land where there has been freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, but she now is, perceptibly developing the reactionary principle, and is making fast progress backward toward the Dark Ages.

The Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence, enunciating the divine and humane principles of civil and religious liberty, are coming to be discounted. Unrelenting efforts have for years, as all know, been waged to tamper with the Constitution, and so change it as to admit the evil principle that would be the undoing of American independence and personal liberty.

Some See the Danger

For many years, this paper has sent out the warning cry, Hands off the religious liberty portions of the Constitution, voicing the noble Grant, "Keep the church and the state forever separate." What the Signs preached decades ago in regard to the overthrow of religious freedom, the patriotic people of the nation now see, and are organizing against the power that would turn this nation Romeward. "The watchman waketh but in vain."

Nineteen hundred years ago, the prophet John, on the isle of Patmos, foretold this time, and declared that this favored nation, in which God has worked out such divine principles, described by the prophet as lamb-like, would in the end speak as a dragon. As the prophecy can not be negated, it will surely come to pass. As a nation, the United States is doomed, according to the prophecy of God's word; but the throne of God is available, and the ear of the Lord is open to the cry of all who wish His help.

When nations in the past have become God-defying, and have filled up the cup of their iniquity, they have gone down in ruin. The same fate awaits this nation; but when her punishment is due, the whole world will be involved, and destruction from the Lord will be universal, for it will be the end of the age. It will be the time when the Lord will settle His controversy with the nations that have refused His proffered aid and have chosen death rather than life.

"Blow the Trumpet in Zion"

In six years, the tercentenary of the landing of the Christian Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, Massachusetts, will occur. Three hundred years only of benign influence! And after giving liberty a trial, like the children of Israel, the people have relinquished their vigilance, and are in danger of losing it. Yet many do not believe there is anything startling in the situation that confronts us.

You are alarmists, say they. If they would say "alarmers," we would admit the impeachment. "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand." Joel 2: 1.

The failure on the part of the people to hold to their liberties, and to protest stoutly and continue protesting against the encroachments

of the enemy to civil and religious liberty, — liberty of speech and of the press, — and a vicious proscription of the study of the Bible, and inveighing against the public school, is a sign of the times, — a sign of the last days, when Satan is about to take captive all the unwary, and those who are ignorant of what the Scriptures describe so clearly as about to burst upon the unprepared world.

In the world, might is right, and numbers, money, and votes are power. The Christian can not stay the advancement of wicked power, nor powerful wickedness; but he can be patient until the coming of the Lord (James 5: 7, 8), when he will be popular and on the right side, and all the wicked will be in confusion.

In view of the situation, should not every one who is acquainted with God, and who knows the loveliness of our Lord Jesus Christ, labor to bring souls to Christ while opportunity still remains?

"Careless seems the great Avenger. History's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt false systems and the Word. Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne; Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own."