QUESTIONS FOR BRO. LOUGHBOROUGH.
By W. W. Giles
QUESTION 2. Does Babylon's non-recognition of the first angel's message constitute her fall?" ANSWER. The testimony of Rev. xiv, 8, which speaks of the fall of Babylon, says it is fallen "because she hath made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." This wine refers to the unscriptural doctrines of Babylon. She causes the nations to drink by enforcing these doctrines upon their minds, and calling upon them to enforce them by law upon the people. The first angel's message gave Babylon a chance to be healed—to throw away her mystical principle of interpreting the Scriptures, and adopt the literal principle, which would expose her mystical doctrines; but in rejecting that message she refused to be healed, and her fall was complete. For further light on the subject of Babylon and the first angel's message, I would refer you to the pamphlet entitled, "The Three Messages of Rev. xiv, 6-12," published at the Review Office. QUES. 3. What is to be understood by Matt. xxiv, 34, taken in connection with the balance of the chapter? ANS. The text reads, "Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." The generation that is not to pass till Christ comes, is the one that can learn the parable of the fig tree. Those who can learn this parable are those who can look into the past and see the fulfillment of these signs down to the falling of the stars, and what follows shows the condition of the two classes that are to form the generation that will witness Christ's second coming. For a full exposition of this matter, see "Exposition of Matt. xxiv," published at the Review Office. QUES. 4. Should we commence to keep the Sabbath at evening, or morning? ANS. For an answer to this question I would refer you to the testimony on this subject found in Bro. Andrews' late History of the Sabbath, pp. 107, 108. QUES. 5. If we keep the Sabbath, and inhabitants on the other side of the globe do too, then do we both keep the time abstractly? If not, what is the use in being so exact in regard to the seventh-day time? ANS. I understand you to ask whether we keep the same minutes which our antipodes keep. We do not, and if we kept the same moments they were keeping we should keep the light part of the sixth day and the night or evening of the seventh, for their seventh day begins twelve hours before it begins here. But you say if this is so, "what is the use in being so exact in regard to the seventh-day time?" The use in being exact in regard to the time, is, that that is the time God has told us to keep. Because the seventh day actually commences twelve hours later here than in some parts of the eastern continent, is no reason why we should neglect it when it gets here. God tells us to keep the seventh day, and we cannot keep it until it comes to us. If it comes to other nations twelve hours before it gets here, then they must keep it when it comes to them. God told Israel anciently that they must offer to him a lamb without blemish. They might have argued with equal propriety that their neighbor nations had no such lambs, therefore they might as well offer a goat. God is exact in his requirements, and means what he says. If he says "lamb," he means so. If he says "seventh day," he does not mean any day we please to choose. People generally argue from your proposition above that it shows that we cannot tell when the seventh day is, but it is not so. We are sure we have the reckoning of time correctly from the time of the institution of the Sabbath to the present, with the exception that it commences a few hours later than where instituted; nevertheless it is the seventh day, and what we are commanded to keep. The Sabbath was instituted in Eden. The movement of time as we now have it has been westward. The emigration from country to country that has resulted in our being placed on this continent, has been westward, so that we can easily trace our emigration back to Eden, and also our time, and be sure that we have the seventh day which God there sanctified.