WHAT I write is with a view to glorifying the dear Lord, and strengthening in the truth some who may be weak. The truth is spreading rapidly all through this province. It has reached even to the northern extremity, and some evangelists have already taken their stand for the truth so far as they know it.
Some three weeks ago we received an invitation from the foreign pastors to attend their general meeting, and publicly discuss our doctrines. We received the invitation only a week before the time appointed, but decided to go, and I asked my two evangelists to go with me. We have been helping all we could in the building of the mission homes, so there was not much time for preparation, but as I told my two Chinese brethren, we have all the truth on our side and need fear nothing.
You can imagine with what a feeling of absolute dependence upon God we met the seven foreign pastors, and some one hundred Chinese pastors, evangelists, and workers besides hundreds of others who filled the large church. What power11there is in God and his blessed truth! We three were cool and calm throughout the debate, presenting the truth without fear or favor, confident that the Lord was on our side. They soon became excited, and called names, and used methods that were very improper. We gave them the positive truth from the first, and did not spend much time in refuting their unfounded statements.
They began by taking the position that there was only one law, and that that was abolished. They had never taken such a position before, but here as everywhere, when unwilling to acknowledge that they keep a wrong day, they are driven to madness in their attempt to get some show of Scriptural proof for their unbiblical position.
We showed them plainly that the Bible speaks of the ceremonial law and the moral law, and then we produced one of their own tracts, written by one of their own pastors in Peking and printed by their own press, a tract they are continually selling, which states plainly that there are two laws, and that while the ceremonial law was done away in Christ, the moral law expresses the very character of God and cannot be changed, but abides forever.
The tract goes on to show that while the moral law cannot be changed, the seventh-day Sabbath was moved over to the resurrection day about 200 A. D., as the church Fathers told them.
After that we produced a chart of the ten commandments which they scatter among their own people, and asked them: "If the commandments are done away, why do you have this chart of the commandments, and why do your ministers use it continually in preaching? And you also refer to Heb. 8:10, saying that the law is written in the heart of the believer. When we come to the real point, your position and ours in regard to the law are the same. We believe that by faith in Jesus Christ we are forgiven, cleansed, purified; and a forgiven man must have the law written in the heart, and not sin, for sin is the transgression of the law. You believe exactly the same. The only place where we differ is in regard to the fourth commandment, which you say has been changed, and we say has not been and cannot be changed. Therefore, produce your evidence for that change."
They then brought forth a long chart of Gamble's theory, in which he tries to prove that Jesus did not keep the same day every year, but that one year he kept the seventh day, another year Sunday, and the third year Monday.
I answered: "Gamble bases his whole argument on the Passover sabbath, which of course was movable, as it came on a certain date. He confuses the weekly Sabbaths of the Lord with the feast sabbaths. Leviticus 23. Every child can count seven, and knows plainly which day of the week is the seventh day, and Jesus certainly knew as much. It took Gamble eighteen years to work out his very intricate, complicated, movable theory, and it will take these Chinese brethren that many years more to understand his theory. Thank God, the Sabbath truth is so plain and simple that a little child can understand it at once. Feasts and dates may change, but that does not affect the seventh day. The Jews keep it today all over the world, the same day that Jesus kept; and all the calendars of the world show that the seventh day precedes Sunday."
Then as a last resort they cited John 20:26-31 (the only Bible proof they attempted to bring forward) and the church Fathers, saying that the Sabbath had been gradually changed from the seventh to the first day of the week. We replied we could not confidently base our eternal interest on the church Fathers. We want a "Thus saith the Lord" for everything we believe. When I went to the Episcopal Theological Seminary, we carefully studied all the writings of the church Fathers, that we might know for ourselves how they contradicted one another and how they held many theories contrary to the Bible, so that whenever we met Roman Catholics (who base a great deal of their teaching on the church Fathers) we might be able to show their errors; but these ministers were now producing those writings as a foundation for the Sunday sabbath. We agreed with them that the change was brought about gradually. Paul, in 2 Thess. 2:7, says: "The mystery of iniquity doth already work" (the Chinese Bible says: "The lawless business doth already work"), and in Rom. 14:5 we see that there was some confusion then. Thus this lawlessness began in the days of Paul, and in the days of Constantine it had proceeded so far that he issued a command trying to compel all Christians to keep the sun's day. In 364 A. D., he and the church passed laws that were to punish and curse every one that kept the Sabbath instead of Sunday.
SCHOOL AT SIGUATEPEQUE, HONDURAS, CONDUCTED BY KARL J. SNOW AND WIFE
One of our evangelists presented Dan. 7:25, showing that God had plainly told us that the Roman power would attempt to change the Sabbath; he showed that this prophecy has been fulfilled, and then he read from a Roman Catholic catechism their own declaration that they had changed it.
What a blessing it is to have the straight Bible truth! These Sunday-keepers, unwilling to acknowledge their mistake, are thoroughly confused and do not know what straw of evidence to cling to. When we see their confusion, we learn to value the truth more than ever. We expect to see a blessed result from this debate.
