It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law.
It is David's prayer for the Lord to act because men have set aside His law, to be prayed by all who fear God when opposition to truth grows and human help fails. To make the law void is to reject its holy precepts as the rule of life, treat them as of no effect, and cast off restraint into great wickedness. The plea asks God to vindicate the honor of His law and name, show that He is God, and restrain and bring wickedness to an end. His law remains holy, just, good, perfect and unchangeable as the transcript of His character, and it is made void especially by rejecting the seventh-day Sabbath and exalting a human institution in its place. The prayer belongs with special urgency to the last days of universal contempt and national apostasy, when the loyal love the commandments more dearly for their rejection and answer by upholding them, honoring the Sabbath, and proclaiming the warning message.
Prayer and Its Setting
It is David's plea for the Lord to work because men have made His law void, to be prayed by pastors and laypeople and by all who do right and fear God when opposition to law and truth grows and the time of peril comes. When false teaching spreads and disregard for the law increases, human power alone cannot help, and those who honor God's name repeat David's words crying out for Him to intervene. The same prayer belongs to nations as well as individuals, for God grants a period of probation with light and evidence, and when it is rejected judgment follows.
To make the law void is to reject its holy precepts and its ten precepts as the rule of life, to hold it in contempt as a dead letter of no effect, to cast off restraint and fall into great wickedness. The law is meant to be the rule of life, setting forth the principles of righteousness and defining right and wrong and truth and error, so that God's testimonies and Word guide and counsel above human advice. Those who possess God's Word yet refuse obedience, refusing to follow it in daily life and business, treat it as a dead letter, and disregard of the law is disregard of God's authority bringing condemnation.
The plea asks God to act to vindicate the honor of His law and name, to show that He is God and that He exists, and to restrain unrighteousness and bring wickedness to an end. It calls on Him to step in and uphold His honor, to vindicate His glory, to repress iniquity and put an end to unrighteousness when His law is trampled and treated with contempt. The majority's contempt does not make the law less worthy of honor and obedience, but makes it more precious to the loyal who uphold it.
David spoke it while seeing extraordinary wickedness and God's commands thrown aside with growing stubbornness and rebellion. He believed contempt had passed the bounds of divine forbearance and longsuffering, feared forbearance might end, and expected God to show righteous displeasure when lawlessness exceeded its bounds. There are limits to mercy and forbearance, for gracious mercy meant to soften and subdue hearts is perverted to encourage perversity and transgression when sentence against evil is not executed speedily, and men who presume upon mercy until it is exhausted and persist in impenitence under light come very near the line where forbearance is exhausted. He judged that people had gone beyond longsuffering by making the law void, even while professing to obey and receiving truth in unrighteousness to weaken respect for the commands and lead others into transgression.
The declaration belongs with loving His commandments above gold, yea above fine gold, esteeming all His precepts concerning all things to be right and hating every false way. It belongs with keeping His wonderful testimonies and receiving light and understanding for the simple through the entrance of His words, where the simple are those who do not count themselves of such exalted understanding that they think to improve the Scriptures beyond their present simplicity. As contempt grows the loyal do not join those who reject the law nor regard it lightly, but value and promote it all the more, seeing that transgression brings misery while obedience brings peace and happiness to people and families. Instead of being carried away by widespread unfaithfulness or cowardly holding back from defending the law because of scorn, loyalty holds firm and reverence grows stronger because others despise it.
How the Law Is Voided
The law is made void above all by casting aside the seventh-day Sabbath sanctified at creation and blessed as God's memorial and sign, and by exalting in its place a human institution, a false and spurious first-day sabbath. To treat the Sabbath commandment in this way is to treat God's law as emptied of authority, trampled underfoot, despised and made a dead letter, and such contempt does not lessen its worth but calls the loyal to prize, love, honor and defend it above gold, yea above fine gold, without being deterred by reproach. Love for the commandments therefore answers disloyalty by keeping the true Sabbath holy and by taking part in repairing the breach made by the man of sin's attack upon it. When arrogance and blasphemous denunciation accept the false sabbath and great disobedience ripens, lawlessness reaches its height, mercy's limits approach, and David's prayer from unfeigned lips becomes fitting now amid final conflict, persecution and apostasy.
It is also made void when human laws, traditions and inventions are put supreme above God's law, displacing the divine enactment, making it of little account and subject to change by human judgment. Those united in opposition trample it underfoot with exceptional contempt, control conscience by it, defy God, restrict religious liberty, and make human laws oppressive unless restrained, mingling churchcraft and statecraft. Professed Christians join in this course with the man of sin, while the world moves toward destruction as rebellion increases and guilt ripens to the limit of divine forbearance. To reduce the precepts to a dead letter refused in daily life and business dealings, including the exaltation of Sunday observance, is to disregard God's authority itself and to come under condemnation, strengthening wickedness until God must intervene to vindicate His honor.
Possessing God's Word yet refusing obedience makes the law void, for many treat its precepts as a dead letter and reject the law as the rule of life. The same spirit appears inside the church where wheat and tares are found, when those who have received light follow wrong principles, act contrary to its requirements, pervert its principles in the church's work, and thereby give Satan ground to accuse them. In all its bearings the law is made void when worldliness and covetousness, which is idolatry, lead people to forget God, forsake His instruction and disregard what He has commanded. So those who long had light to carry truth to new fields yet keep holding meetings in the same places instead of obeying make His law void by their disregard.
This voiding is led by unfaithful pastors and men in sacred office who set the law aside, prophesy smooth things, teach disregard of the Bible, and lead hearers to reject it and persecute those who would keep it holy. It is Satan's artful work through his special agents, who do not advance openly lest they be repulsed at once, but first gain sympathy and secure confidence as holy, self-sacrificing men of God professing to be messengers of light, and that delusion gives them power. They then draw souls from rectitude through heresy and licentiousness whose bewitching power deludes the mind so it cannot reason intelligently, blurs spiritual eyesight, and confuses even persons of hitherto untainted morals with delusive sophistry leading continually from purity by illusion. Those who choose to sin and labor to make void the holy law are children of disobedience belonging to the church over which Satan presides, the synagogue of Satan, for making void the law is his work of mingling evil with good and removing the distinction between good and evil, opposed to Christ's work of separating evil from good by refusing willingly to tolerate wrongdoing and expelling it from heart and life.
Law's Unchanging Authority
God as Ruler of the universe will never annul His own law, for it remains the standard by which the guilty are condemned and the obedient are justified, and to leave the world without it would be more inconsistent than for nations to abolish their statutes and let everyone do as he pleases. It stands holy, just, good, perfect and unchangeable as a transcript of His character, and Christ's sacrifice established rather than abolished it. Men make it void only by denying that it is binding.
The experiment tried in France when atheism became the controlling power proves what follows when its restraints are cast off, for the terrible scenes enacted there show that throwing off what God has imposed does not bring freedom but accepts the rule of the cruelest of tyrants. When the standard of righteousness is set aside, the way is opened for the prince of evil to establish his power in the earth and for evil to rule.
Transgression brings misery, while obedience brings peace and happiness to people and their families, so that well-being in all ages depends on keeping God's requirements. Disregard for the law is disregard for God's authority, and those who know the laws He established yet refuse to follow them in daily life and business dealings come under condemnation, treating its precepts as a dead letter. For this reason, when others disregard and despise the commandments, they become especially precious to those who fear and obey God, who esteem them above fine gold.
God's Time to Act
The time for the Lord to act arrives when disobedience, insolence and guilt ripen to fullness and pass beyond the bounds of divine forbearance and restraint. Nations and individuals alike are granted a period of probation with light and evidence, but persistent impenitence under that light brings them very near the line where forbearance is exhausted and mercy is presumed upon until it ends. Gracious mercy meant to soften and subdue hearts is then perverted to encourage perversity, resistance and transgression, especially when sentence against evil is not executed speedily. That condition applies to those who possess the Word yet refuse obedience and treat its precepts as a dead letter, to those who profess obedience while receiving truth in unrighteousness and weakening respect for the commands and leading others into transgression, and to a widespread rebellion that rejects divine law, makes human laws supreme, tramples the law underfoot in united opposition, and throws commands aside with growing stubbornness. Contempt that passes the limit calls for divine interference to uphold honor, prove that God is, vindicate His name, restrain growing unrighteousness, and visit indignation and punishment without mercy.
Delay in punishment does not mean indifference or approval. Forbearance remains great while light continues to be given to the obedient, warnings are sounded to transgressors, and the death penalty for lawbreakers is held back until they have opportunity to see the result of rebellion and recognize the error of their beliefs. Only when wrongdoing is nearly full and light has been wholly rejected does judgment fall.
That working is a rising in righteous displeasure to repress iniquity for His own honor, vindicate glory and authority, maintain power, and show that He is God. He permits calamities by sea and land when the four winds are loosed, brings confusion and perplexity, want and famine, earthquakes and floods, plagues as revealed in Revelation, withdraws restraint, shakes earth and heaven, and wraps the earth in consuming fire. Fire and flood already destroy lives and property selfishly accumulated by oppressing the poor, terrible outrages are committed as passion rules instead of reason, and inhabitants fast become as corrupt as Sodom and Gomorrah. He will soon cut short His work and put an end to sin when iniquity has reached its fullness and piety is disregarded.
Judgments in the land are signs of His speaking to those who reject the law, warning that wrath unmixed with mercy follows when transgression reaches its appointed limit and forbearance ends as nations unite to make the law void. That setting recalls the Flood and the destruction of Sodom at a time of increasing sin and approaching judgment. Those who trained themselves to disregard the law and chose false theories instead of truth, holiness and righteousness will at the judgment see the inconsistency of joining the loyal in honoring it, and will be found unfit to enter the city, without passport and unable then to change settled sentiments of life.
When unfaithful pastors and false watchmen make the law void by prophesying smooth things, leading hearers to set it aside, and stirring persecution of those who would keep it holy, exposure brings a violent reversal. The deceived see their delusion, accuse one another of leading to destruction, and unite in bitter condemnation of the ministers, while the teachers in despair confess their work of deception. Multitudes filled with fury turn upon those they once admired, pronounce curses upon them and raise hands for their destruction, so that swords meant to slay the faithful are turned to destroy their enemies and everywhere there is strife and bloodshed.
Last-Day Apostasy Foretold
David's cry gains special urgency in the last days, when the law of the kingdom is trampled by unholy feet, thrown off with religious restraint, rejected as unworthy of attention and treated with more than common contempt by the whole world and even by church members in fearful depravity, confusion and moral corruption. That time is one of peril when determined wickedness and human schemes set aside divine authority and work against the Word, with rebellion, obstinacy, violence and crime passing the boundary line and reaching unto heaven, as in the days before the Flood. The present hour therefore calls for walking more carefully in the path of righteousness and praying more earnestly than ever before, even more than in David's day, with the same prejudice against the commandments that existed when Christ was on earth still exciting the malice of Satan against commandment keepers. At this time people must know the truth, be sanctified by it and hold fast to it despite opposition, refusing false claims to holiness and sinlessness from those who are not doers of the Word and are deceived by workers of iniquity. While contempt is poured on the law, setting it aside brings perplexity, want and famine, earthquakes and floods, terrible outrages with passion ruling instead of reason, and fire and flood already destroying thousands of lives and property selfishly accumulated by oppressing the poor, showing inhabitants fast becoming as corrupt as Sodom and Gomorrah.
That setting aside makes it time for the Lord to act, for God soon comes to repress iniquity for His own honor's sake, permitting calamities by sea and land and punishing transgressors when the four winds are loosed, to vindicate the honor of His law, and He will soon cut short His work and put an end to sin. His working in these last days when His law is made void is also to manifest His great grace unto His chosen ones more fully than ever before, while His professing people should be deeply impressed by the iniquities practiced. The United States stands in this warning as a greatly favored nation that has received great light and mercy, choice blessings, refuge for the oppressed and the pure Christian faith, yet has repaid them with ingratitude and forgetfulness of God. Its crime of making void the law fills up the measure of national iniquity, for guilt is proportioned to light rejected and stands as a fearful record in heaven until God's reckoning comes.
The final crisis is a future national apostasy in which Protestant governments and rulers protect Roman Catholic principles, restore the power of the man of sin, unite church and state, and make laws against Bible truth until Bible truth is no longer tolerated. The law is then made void when the religious world requires worship of the beast and its image, with efforts to change God's law and compel conscience, making human laws oppressive and enforcing Sunday observance. At that crisis persecution comes upon those who keep God's law, with oppression of commandment keepers through the coming hour of testing and even death, yet they are assured of Christ's protection and the reward promised to those who overcome. When the world and church unite against the law and evil becomes prevalent, the faithful are not to be intimidated or carried away, and seeing the contrast with transgression makes the commandments more precious to them, above gold, as they work perseveringly to make the law known, resist its enemies, and declare without wavering their confidence in the commandments and the faith of Jesus.
Rebellion ripens to its full measure among the nations and reaches its height when Satan, disguised as an angel of light and appearing as Christ, deceives men into exalting and worshiping him in God's place. God then intervenes and pronounces judgment against the apostate churches that unite in that exaltation, acting on behalf of His people and manifesting His power for His church when defiance of His law is nearly universal. That intervention answers the prayers of God's faithful people and vindicates the martyrs whose witness for God's word and the testimony of Jesus has been silenced. In that last-day emergency of universal contempt seen in Revelation 14, God's commandment-keeping people sing this declaration with heart and voice, their fidelity and loyalty growing with the emergency while contempt only makes their love for the law more decided and increased. By so singing they proclaim the third angel's message, loving His commandments above gold, esteeming all His precepts concerning all things to be right, hating every false way, keeping His wonderful testimonies, receiving light and understanding from His words, longing for His commandments, seeking mercy, asking for ordering of steps in His word with freedom from dominion of iniquity and from oppression of man, and weeping with rivers of waters because others do not keep His law.
Loyalty of God's People
Widespread contempt does not make the law less worthy of honor or obedience, and when the majority disregard it the loyal are to pray for the Lord to act. As the law is more openly disregarded in the coming conflict its sacredness and value become clearer to God's people, and their love and reverence grow rather than weaken. Their contempt makes the law more precious to those who obey God and fear Him, strengthening confidence in it and love for its commandments above gold. The faithful do not grow ashamed of it when it is scorned and transgressed, but the contrast with transgression endears it still more to them. That appeal is raised when Bible truth is no longer tolerated and civil power is used to enforce laws opposed to God's law, and it points to His coming intervention in judgment when transgression reaches its limit.
Those who love God are to stand against transgression and uphold His commandments rather than be swept along with contempt for them, refusing to be carried away by widespread unfaithfulness. They are not to be intimidated or cowardly hold back from defending the law because of scorn, nor weaken loyalty when loyalty to God can bring Him glory. When the law is most despised and many forsake truth, God's people show loyalty through warm zeal, courage and firmness, standing for truth and righteousness even when they are few. Their witness is positive and unflinching yet not defiant, honoring God with steadfast obedience and faithful witness despite opposition, reproach and contempt directed at them and His law. David's loyalty held firm because others despised the law, for he feared God's forbearance might end amid growing stubborn rebellion and refusal of restraint, and he asked God to vindicate the honor of His law, prove He is God, and bring wickedness to an end before mercy was exhausted.
The unbelieving world is making God's law void, so God's servants must use diligence and faith to proclaim its binding claims while calling on Him in faith for divine help. Pastors and laypeople make this prayer in time of crisis and disregard, trusting He can restrain hostile forces, overrule the designs of opposers, and preserve His people while the warning is given to the world and those who heed it are prepared for Christ's coming. With the end and the great day of the Lord near, those who know the claims of the law must warn others and spread the light of truth so souls may be saved, asking what they can do for others' salvation rather than what is convenient or agreeable. They uphold, defend and proclaim the law as holy, just, good and unchanged, honoring the Sabbath, repairing the breach, and letting their light shine as depositaries of truth with greater obligation than ancient worthies. God will act to vindicate His honor and restrain unrighteousness, while giving warning and opportunity to recognize error.
Praying for the Lord to work is not enough, for workers must overcome indifference and selfishness and act as His helping hand. Those who pray the cry must act their part as reapers in the harvest that is white already, arousing from indifference and selfishness to reveal a desire to be used as the Lord's helping hand. In this time of fearful depravity when the whole world has thrown off religious restraint, every energy must be bent to the proclamation of the message of warning instead of spending means for display and expensive buildings.
Making the law void means following wrong principles and acting contrary to its requirements, and those who do so, especially leaders who have received light, give Satan grounds to accuse them, so wrongdoing in sacred work calls for reform. The leadership of unconverted men directing sacred work must end and the situation must change speedily, for warnings have been ignored while such men remain in positions of management and direction. Those who have long had light to enter new fields make the law void when they disregard instruction and keep holding meetings in the same places instead of obeying that light. Even then those who love and obey the commandments are not meant to be weak or powerless or deterred, for the Lord works through human vessels to honor the truth despite Satan's efforts to keep it from people, and He will manifest great grace to His chosen, magnify His law and make it honorable. The call therefore includes abandoning self-sufficiency to confess sin and plead for God to spare His people, honoring the Sabbath in worship and business, carrying light to new fields, and enduring sifting and fiery trials.
It is David's prayer for the Lord to act because men have set aside His law, to be prayed by all who fear God when opposition to truth grows and human help fails. To make the law void is to reject its holy precepts as the rule of life, treat them as of no effect, and cast off restraint into great wickedness. The plea asks God to vindicate the honor of His law and name, show that He is God, and restrain and bring wickedness to an end. His law remains holy, just, good, perfect and unchangeable as the transcript of His character, and it is made void especially by rejecting the seventh-day Sabbath and exalting a human institution in its place. The prayer belongs with special urgency to the last days of universal contempt and national apostasy, when the loyal love the commandments more dearly for their rejection and answer by upholding them, honoring the Sabbath, and proclaiming the warning message.
Prayer and Its Setting
It is David's plea for the Lord to work because men have made His law void, to be prayed by pastors and laypeople and by all who do right and fear God when opposition to law and truth grows and the time of peril comes. When false teaching spreads and disregard for the law increases, human power alone cannot help, and those who honor God's name repeat David's words crying out for Him to intervene. The same prayer belongs to nations as well as individuals, for God grants a period of probation with light and evidence, and when it is rejected judgment follows.
To make the law void is to reject its holy precepts and its ten precepts as the rule of life, to hold it in contempt as a dead letter of no effect, to cast off restraint and fall into great wickedness. The law is meant to be the rule of life, setting forth the principles of righteousness and defining right and wrong and truth and error, so that God's testimonies and Word guide and counsel above human advice. Those who possess God's Word yet refuse obedience, refusing to follow it in daily life and business, treat it as a dead letter, and disregard of the law is disregard of God's authority bringing condemnation.
The plea asks God to act to vindicate the honor of His law and name, to show that He is God and that He exists, and to restrain unrighteousness and bring wickedness to an end. It calls on Him to step in and uphold His honor, to vindicate His glory, to repress iniquity and put an end to unrighteousness when His law is trampled and treated with contempt. The majority's contempt does not make the law less worthy of honor and obedience, but makes it more precious to the loyal who uphold it.
David spoke it while seeing extraordinary wickedness and God's commands thrown aside with growing stubbornness and rebellion. He believed contempt had passed the bounds of divine forbearance and longsuffering, feared forbearance might end, and expected God to show righteous displeasure when lawlessness exceeded its bounds. There are limits to mercy and forbearance, for gracious mercy meant to soften and subdue hearts is perverted to encourage perversity and transgression when sentence against evil is not executed speedily, and men who presume upon mercy until it is exhausted and persist in impenitence under light come very near the line where forbearance is exhausted. He judged that people had gone beyond longsuffering by making the law void, even while professing to obey and receiving truth in unrighteousness to weaken respect for the commands and lead others into transgression.
The declaration belongs with loving His commandments above gold, yea above fine gold, esteeming all His precepts concerning all things to be right and hating every false way. It belongs with keeping His wonderful testimonies and receiving light and understanding for the simple through the entrance of His words, where the simple are those who do not count themselves of such exalted understanding that they think to improve the Scriptures beyond their present simplicity. As contempt grows the loyal do not join those who reject the law nor regard it lightly, but value and promote it all the more, seeing that transgression brings misery while obedience brings peace and happiness to people and families. Instead of being carried away by widespread unfaithfulness or cowardly holding back from defending the law because of scorn, loyalty holds firm and reverence grows stronger because others despise it.
How the Law Is Voided
The law is made void above all by casting aside the seventh-day Sabbath sanctified at creation and blessed as God's memorial and sign, and by exalting in its place a human institution, a false and spurious first-day sabbath. To treat the Sabbath commandment in this way is to treat God's law as emptied of authority, trampled underfoot, despised and made a dead letter, and such contempt does not lessen its worth but calls the loyal to prize, love, honor and defend it above gold, yea above fine gold, without being deterred by reproach. Love for the commandments therefore answers disloyalty by keeping the true Sabbath holy and by taking part in repairing the breach made by the man of sin's attack upon it. When arrogance and blasphemous denunciation accept the false sabbath and great disobedience ripens, lawlessness reaches its height, mercy's limits approach, and David's prayer from unfeigned lips becomes fitting now amid final conflict, persecution and apostasy.
It is also made void when human laws, traditions and inventions are put supreme above God's law, displacing the divine enactment, making it of little account and subject to change by human judgment. Those united in opposition trample it underfoot with exceptional contempt, control conscience by it, defy God, restrict religious liberty, and make human laws oppressive unless restrained, mingling churchcraft and statecraft. Professed Christians join in this course with the man of sin, while the world moves toward destruction as rebellion increases and guilt ripens to the limit of divine forbearance. To reduce the precepts to a dead letter refused in daily life and business dealings, including the exaltation of Sunday observance, is to disregard God's authority itself and to come under condemnation, strengthening wickedness until God must intervene to vindicate His honor.
Possessing God's Word yet refusing obedience makes the law void, for many treat its precepts as a dead letter and reject the law as the rule of life. The same spirit appears inside the church where wheat and tares are found, when those who have received light follow wrong principles, act contrary to its requirements, pervert its principles in the church's work, and thereby give Satan ground to accuse them. In all its bearings the law is made void when worldliness and covetousness, which is idolatry, lead people to forget God, forsake His instruction and disregard what He has commanded. So those who long had light to carry truth to new fields yet keep holding meetings in the same places instead of obeying make His law void by their disregard.
This voiding is led by unfaithful pastors and men in sacred office who set the law aside, prophesy smooth things, teach disregard of the Bible, and lead hearers to reject it and persecute those who would keep it holy. It is Satan's artful work through his special agents, who do not advance openly lest they be repulsed at once, but first gain sympathy and secure confidence as holy, self-sacrificing men of God professing to be messengers of light, and that delusion gives them power. They then draw souls from rectitude through heresy and licentiousness whose bewitching power deludes the mind so it cannot reason intelligently, blurs spiritual eyesight, and confuses even persons of hitherto untainted morals with delusive sophistry leading continually from purity by illusion. Those who choose to sin and labor to make void the holy law are children of disobedience belonging to the church over which Satan presides, the synagogue of Satan, for making void the law is his work of mingling evil with good and removing the distinction between good and evil, opposed to Christ's work of separating evil from good by refusing willingly to tolerate wrongdoing and expelling it from heart and life.
Law's Unchanging Authority
God as Ruler of the universe will never annul His own law, for it remains the standard by which the guilty are condemned and the obedient are justified, and to leave the world without it would be more inconsistent than for nations to abolish their statutes and let everyone do as he pleases. It stands holy, just, good, perfect and unchangeable as a transcript of His character, and Christ's sacrifice established rather than abolished it. Men make it void only by denying that it is binding.
The experiment tried in France when atheism became the controlling power proves what follows when its restraints are cast off, for the terrible scenes enacted there show that throwing off what God has imposed does not bring freedom but accepts the rule of the cruelest of tyrants. When the standard of righteousness is set aside, the way is opened for the prince of evil to establish his power in the earth and for evil to rule.
Transgression brings misery, while obedience brings peace and happiness to people and their families, so that well-being in all ages depends on keeping God's requirements. Disregard for the law is disregard for God's authority, and those who know the laws He established yet refuse to follow them in daily life and business dealings come under condemnation, treating its precepts as a dead letter. For this reason, when others disregard and despise the commandments, they become especially precious to those who fear and obey God, who esteem them above fine gold.
God's Time to Act
The time for the Lord to act arrives when disobedience, insolence and guilt ripen to fullness and pass beyond the bounds of divine forbearance and restraint. Nations and individuals alike are granted a period of probation with light and evidence, but persistent impenitence under that light brings them very near the line where forbearance is exhausted and mercy is presumed upon until it ends. Gracious mercy meant to soften and subdue hearts is then perverted to encourage perversity, resistance and transgression, especially when sentence against evil is not executed speedily. That condition applies to those who possess the Word yet refuse obedience and treat its precepts as a dead letter, to those who profess obedience while receiving truth in unrighteousness and weakening respect for the commands and leading others into transgression, and to a widespread rebellion that rejects divine law, makes human laws supreme, tramples the law underfoot in united opposition, and throws commands aside with growing stubbornness. Contempt that passes the limit calls for divine interference to uphold honor, prove that God is, vindicate His name, restrain growing unrighteousness, and visit indignation and punishment without mercy.
Delay in punishment does not mean indifference or approval. Forbearance remains great while light continues to be given to the obedient, warnings are sounded to transgressors, and the death penalty for lawbreakers is held back until they have opportunity to see the result of rebellion and recognize the error of their beliefs. Only when wrongdoing is nearly full and light has been wholly rejected does judgment fall.
That working is a rising in righteous displeasure to repress iniquity for His own honor, vindicate glory and authority, maintain power, and show that He is God. He permits calamities by sea and land when the four winds are loosed, brings confusion and perplexity, want and famine, earthquakes and floods, plagues as revealed in Revelation, withdraws restraint, shakes earth and heaven, and wraps the earth in consuming fire. Fire and flood already destroy lives and property selfishly accumulated by oppressing the poor, terrible outrages are committed as passion rules instead of reason, and inhabitants fast become as corrupt as Sodom and Gomorrah. He will soon cut short His work and put an end to sin when iniquity has reached its fullness and piety is disregarded.
Judgments in the land are signs of His speaking to those who reject the law, warning that wrath unmixed with mercy follows when transgression reaches its appointed limit and forbearance ends as nations unite to make the law void. That setting recalls the Flood and the destruction of Sodom at a time of increasing sin and approaching judgment. Those who trained themselves to disregard the law and chose false theories instead of truth, holiness and righteousness will at the judgment see the inconsistency of joining the loyal in honoring it, and will be found unfit to enter the city, without passport and unable then to change settled sentiments of life.
When unfaithful pastors and false watchmen make the law void by prophesying smooth things, leading hearers to set it aside, and stirring persecution of those who would keep it holy, exposure brings a violent reversal. The deceived see their delusion, accuse one another of leading to destruction, and unite in bitter condemnation of the ministers, while the teachers in despair confess their work of deception. Multitudes filled with fury turn upon those they once admired, pronounce curses upon them and raise hands for their destruction, so that swords meant to slay the faithful are turned to destroy their enemies and everywhere there is strife and bloodshed.
Last-Day Apostasy Foretold
David's cry gains special urgency in the last days, when the law of the kingdom is trampled by unholy feet, thrown off with religious restraint, rejected as unworthy of attention and treated with more than common contempt by the whole world and even by church members in fearful depravity, confusion and moral corruption. That time is one of peril when determined wickedness and human schemes set aside divine authority and work against the Word, with rebellion, obstinacy, violence and crime passing the boundary line and reaching unto heaven, as in the days before the Flood. The present hour therefore calls for walking more carefully in the path of righteousness and praying more earnestly than ever before, even more than in David's day, with the same prejudice against the commandments that existed when Christ was on earth still exciting the malice of Satan against commandment keepers. At this time people must know the truth, be sanctified by it and hold fast to it despite opposition, refusing false claims to holiness and sinlessness from those who are not doers of the Word and are deceived by workers of iniquity. While contempt is poured on the law, setting it aside brings perplexity, want and famine, earthquakes and floods, terrible outrages with passion ruling instead of reason, and fire and flood already destroying thousands of lives and property selfishly accumulated by oppressing the poor, showing inhabitants fast becoming as corrupt as Sodom and Gomorrah.
That setting aside makes it time for the Lord to act, for God soon comes to repress iniquity for His own honor's sake, permitting calamities by sea and land and punishing transgressors when the four winds are loosed, to vindicate the honor of His law, and He will soon cut short His work and put an end to sin. His working in these last days when His law is made void is also to manifest His great grace unto His chosen ones more fully than ever before, while His professing people should be deeply impressed by the iniquities practiced. The United States stands in this warning as a greatly favored nation that has received great light and mercy, choice blessings, refuge for the oppressed and the pure Christian faith, yet has repaid them with ingratitude and forgetfulness of God. Its crime of making void the law fills up the measure of national iniquity, for guilt is proportioned to light rejected and stands as a fearful record in heaven until God's reckoning comes.
The final crisis is a future national apostasy in which Protestant governments and rulers protect Roman Catholic principles, restore the power of the man of sin, unite church and state, and make laws against Bible truth until Bible truth is no longer tolerated. The law is then made void when the religious world requires worship of the beast and its image, with efforts to change God's law and compel conscience, making human laws oppressive and enforcing Sunday observance. At that crisis persecution comes upon those who keep God's law, with oppression of commandment keepers through the coming hour of testing and even death, yet they are assured of Christ's protection and the reward promised to those who overcome. When the world and church unite against the law and evil becomes prevalent, the faithful are not to be intimidated or carried away, and seeing the contrast with transgression makes the commandments more precious to them, above gold, as they work perseveringly to make the law known, resist its enemies, and declare without wavering their confidence in the commandments and the faith of Jesus.
Rebellion ripens to its full measure among the nations and reaches its height when Satan, disguised as an angel of light and appearing as Christ, deceives men into exalting and worshiping him in God's place. God then intervenes and pronounces judgment against the apostate churches that unite in that exaltation, acting on behalf of His people and manifesting His power for His church when defiance of His law is nearly universal. That intervention answers the prayers of God's faithful people and vindicates the martyrs whose witness for God's word and the testimony of Jesus has been silenced. In that last-day emergency of universal contempt seen in Revelation 14, God's commandment-keeping people sing this declaration with heart and voice, their fidelity and loyalty growing with the emergency while contempt only makes their love for the law more decided and increased. By so singing they proclaim the third angel's message, loving His commandments above gold, esteeming all His precepts concerning all things to be right, hating every false way, keeping His wonderful testimonies, receiving light and understanding from His words, longing for His commandments, seeking mercy, asking for ordering of steps in His word with freedom from dominion of iniquity and from oppression of man, and weeping with rivers of waters because others do not keep His law.
Loyalty of God's People
Widespread contempt does not make the law less worthy of honor or obedience, and when the majority disregard it the loyal are to pray for the Lord to act. As the law is more openly disregarded in the coming conflict its sacredness and value become clearer to God's people, and their love and reverence grow rather than weaken. Their contempt makes the law more precious to those who obey God and fear Him, strengthening confidence in it and love for its commandments above gold. The faithful do not grow ashamed of it when it is scorned and transgressed, but the contrast with transgression endears it still more to them. That appeal is raised when Bible truth is no longer tolerated and civil power is used to enforce laws opposed to God's law, and it points to His coming intervention in judgment when transgression reaches its limit.
Those who love God are to stand against transgression and uphold His commandments rather than be swept along with contempt for them, refusing to be carried away by widespread unfaithfulness. They are not to be intimidated or cowardly hold back from defending the law because of scorn, nor weaken loyalty when loyalty to God can bring Him glory. When the law is most despised and many forsake truth, God's people show loyalty through warm zeal, courage and firmness, standing for truth and righteousness even when they are few. Their witness is positive and unflinching yet not defiant, honoring God with steadfast obedience and faithful witness despite opposition, reproach and contempt directed at them and His law. David's loyalty held firm because others despised the law, for he feared God's forbearance might end amid growing stubborn rebellion and refusal of restraint, and he asked God to vindicate the honor of His law, prove He is God, and bring wickedness to an end before mercy was exhausted.
The unbelieving world is making God's law void, so God's servants must use diligence and faith to proclaim its binding claims while calling on Him in faith for divine help. Pastors and laypeople make this prayer in time of crisis and disregard, trusting He can restrain hostile forces, overrule the designs of opposers, and preserve His people while the warning is given to the world and those who heed it are prepared for Christ's coming. With the end and the great day of the Lord near, those who know the claims of the law must warn others and spread the light of truth so souls may be saved, asking what they can do for others' salvation rather than what is convenient or agreeable. They uphold, defend and proclaim the law as holy, just, good and unchanged, honoring the Sabbath, repairing the breach, and letting their light shine as depositaries of truth with greater obligation than ancient worthies. God will act to vindicate His honor and restrain unrighteousness, while giving warning and opportunity to recognize error.
Praying for the Lord to work is not enough, for workers must overcome indifference and selfishness and act as His helping hand. Those who pray the cry must act their part as reapers in the harvest that is white already, arousing from indifference and selfishness to reveal a desire to be used as the Lord's helping hand. In this time of fearful depravity when the whole world has thrown off religious restraint, every energy must be bent to the proclamation of the message of warning instead of spending means for display and expensive buildings.
Making the law void means following wrong principles and acting contrary to its requirements, and those who do so, especially leaders who have received light, give Satan grounds to accuse them, so wrongdoing in sacred work calls for reform. The leadership of unconverted men directing sacred work must end and the situation must change speedily, for warnings have been ignored while such men remain in positions of management and direction. Those who have long had light to enter new fields make the law void when they disregard instruction and keep holding meetings in the same places instead of obeying that light. Even then those who love and obey the commandments are not meant to be weak or powerless or deterred, for the Lord works through human vessels to honor the truth despite Satan's efforts to keep it from people, and He will manifest great grace to His chosen, magnify His law and make it honorable. The call therefore includes abandoning self-sufficiency to confess sin and plead for God to spare His people, honoring the Sabbath in worship and business, carrying light to new fields, and enduring sifting and fiery trials.