The American Sentinel 12
February 18, 1897
“Editorial” American Sentinel 12, 7, pp. 97, 98.
THE Sabbath is a sign which the Lord has established: and “the seventh day is the Sabbath.” AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.1
God has established this sign between Himself and the believer in Him, that the believer may know that He is the Lord the true God. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.2
Therefore it is written: “Hallow my Sabbaths, and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.” Ezekiel 20:20. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.3
The first of all things that God is to any other person or thing, is Creator. Unless He creates, there can be no existence of any person or thing but Himself. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.4
As the Sabbath is the sign by which the believer may know that the Lord is God, it must first of all be a sign by which He may be known as the Creator of all things. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.5
Therefore it is written: “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” Exodus 31:17. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.6
Thus the “seventh day,” by being made the Sabbath, has been established by the Lord of heaven and earth as the sign by which it may be known that He is the Lord, the true God. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.7
As the seventh day has been established by the Lord, as the sign by which it may be known that He is the Lord; it follows, in the nature of the case, that the Lord has connected with the seventh day that which is suggestive of what He is to the man who believes Him. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.8
Yet all that God is to men, He is in Christ. All that men can know of God is through Christ. For it is written, “No man knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.9
Then as the seventh day is the sign by which it may be known that the Lord is God: and as God can be known only through the revelation of Christ, it follows that the seventh day is the sign by which it may be known what Christ is, and what God in Christ is, to men. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.10
And as the seventh day is the sign which God has established by which men may know what Christ is, what God in Christ is, to men, it certainly follows that the Lord has connected with the seventh day, that which is suggestive of what Christ is to all who believe in Him. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.11
We have seen already that it is a sign of the creative power and acts of the Lord—“It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.” And now since men have sinned, the believer is “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.12
Thus the seventh day being the sign, the memorial, of the creative power and act of the Lord, is as truly the sign, the memorial, of that creative power and act in making the individual Christian as it is in the making of the worlds. Creative power being the same wherever manifested, the sign of that power is also the same in all places and at all times that that power is manifested. In other words, the sign of the power is, it must be, as continuous as is the manifestation of the power of which it is the sign. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.13
Therefore as creative power is continually manifested in the individual Christian, and as the seventh day is the sign of the manifestation of that power, it is certain that this sign must be worn by every one who would show true respect and allegiance to the power that has created him. This is why it is that the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day, is given by Him as the sign to be worn by every one who recognizes and receives in his own life the working of that power which creates him new in Christ Jesus, that power that makes him a new creature, or rather, a new creation. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.14
But the significance and appropriateness of this sign does not stop here. The Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day, is a sign, it bears about itself that which is suggestive, of all that Christ is to those who believe in Him. AMS February 18, 1897, page 97.15
When He had created the worlds, then “He rested the seventh day seventh day.” “The seventh day is the rest of the Lord thy God.” And to every person in the world He says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.” “He is thy rest.” Thus the seventh day is the sign of the rest that the believer finds in Christ, as the consequence of the creative act, just as certainly as it is the creative act itself. The two things are inseparable, therefore the sign of the two things is the same thing. “It is a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God,” thy Creator and thy rest. AMS February 18, 1897, page 98.1
Yet not only did He rest the seventh day as the consequence of the creative act, but “He blessed the seventh day.” The blessing of the Lord is upon the seventh day. The word says so. In this also it is a sign of what Christ is to the person who believes in Him: For it is written: “God having raised up His Son, Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.” And “He hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ.” AMS February 18, 1897, page 98.2
He hallowed the seventh day also: He made it holy. And so He calls it “my holy day,” and calls upon all people to remember it “to keep it holy.” In this also the seventh day is a sign of what Christ the Lord is to the believer in Him. For He says, “Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God.” And it is His presence with the believer that alone can make him holy. It was His presence at the burning bush that made that place holy. So it is alone His presence with the believer that makes him holy. It was His presence that made the seventh day holy; it is His presence that makes the believer holy: and the seventh day is the sign of His presence which makes holy the place where it dwells, whether it be the heart of the believer now, or the Sabbath day at the close of creation week. AMS February 18, 1897, page 98.3
And He sanctified the seventh day. In this also the seventh day is a sign of what He is to the believer. For the believer is “sanctified by faith that is in Jesus.” And “I am the Lord that doth santify you.” And these two things He himself puts together in such a way that there is no escaping it. “I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify them.” AMS February 18, 1897, page 98.4
Thus the Lord has connected with the seventh day the suggestion of all that He is to those who believe in Him. He has done this, in order that the believer, by the observance of the Sabbath, may ever be growing in the knowledge of the Creator, the Lord and Saviour. To understand these suggestions, to see in the Sabbath the reflection of Jesus Christ, to receive these spiritual impressions—this, and this alone, is Sabbath observance. AMS February 18, 1897, page 98.5
The seventh day, then, having been established by the Lord, and plainly declared over and over in His written word, to be the sign of Himself, the sign of what He is in all things to mankind, the sign by which men may know that He is the Lord God—and that He is what He is, bearing always the suggestion of what He is to the one that believeth—what an enormous fraud has been committed in setting it aside and exalting Sunday in its place! AMS February 18, 1897, page 98.6
Sunday is not, and cannot be, in any sense a rest of the Lord, nor or anything in connection with Him. He did not rest on the first day; He did not bless the first day; He did not make holy the first day; He did not sanctify the first day.—There is therefore absolutely nothing about the Sunday that is suggestive of what the Lord is to the believer in Him nor to anybody else who lacks everything that could possibly make it such. It is therefore the most gigantic fraud and imposture that has ever appeared in the world. AMS February 18, 1897, page 98.7
And when the churches that have committed and fostered this fraud and imposture, dragged the Congress of the United States into the support of it, and of ... it, there was committed the greatest piece of governmental sacrilege since the night of Belshazzar’s feast, as far as it would be possible to do such a thing, that which God himself established—the day on which He rested, which He blessed, hallowed, and sanctified, and deliberately set aside, and an absolute fraud and imposture was erected in its place. And now the same gymnastics that dragged Congress into the doing of that sacrilege, are working with might and main to get Congress to enact a law compelling people to wear this fraudulent thing, instead of leaving them free with the Lord to keep His own established sign, upon their own free choice. How could impiety go further? AMS February 18, 1897, page 98.8
“A Sunday Dilemma” American Sentinel 12, 7, pp. 99, 99.
JUDGE RITCHIE, of Ohio, in opening the Court of Common Pleas, of Putnam County, in that State, recently charged the grand jury that they “should disabuse their minds of the idea that Sunday has any connection with the Christian Sabbath.” He proceeded to shoe how “Sunday was first adopted by Constantine, A. D. 321, who “took it from paganism rather than from Christianity;” and declared that Sunday observance is but a police regulation, and not a matter of moral obligation at all. AMS February 18, 1897, page 99.1
This moved a believer in Sunday sacredness, who heard the judge’s charge, to reply at length to the judge in the local paper, endeavoring to refute the idea that Sunday is not a sacred day. AMS February 18, 1897, page 99.2
The judge doubtless delivered his charge with a view to the enforcement of the Sunday law, believing that the law could not be enforced if construed as applying to a sacred institution. To put it on an enforceable basis in the minds of the grand jury and of the people, he was obliged to divest it in their minds of all claim to any higher nature than that of a police regulation. It can well be imagined what the preachers and church people of the country would think of having the judges in general make such statements about Sunday as a regular part of the proceedings of opening court. AMS February 18, 1897, page 99.3
The only logical way out of the dilemma in which Sunday is thus placed, lies in an open confession that Sunday laws are to enforce a religious institution. That is the real ground on which they are demanded by the preachers; and to this basis they will have to come in the public view. On that basis, and not as a matter of police regulation, the public must accept or reject them. AMS February 18, 1897, page 99.1
“Note” American Sentinel 12, 7, p. 101.
A WRITER in a late number of the Missionary Review of the World deems it necessary to defend the cause of missions against the charge that “converts are only from the low-caste people in countries like India.” AMS February 18, 1897, page 101.1
It is certain that Christianity needs no defense against such a charge as that. If “the cause of missions” needs it, it can be only because “the cause of missions” is lacking in some of the elements of Christianity. AMS February 18, 1897, page 101.2
It if should prove true that not a single high-caste person in such countries as India or any other country, and ever accepted Christianity, this would weigh absolutely nothing against the truth, the power, or the merit, of Christianity. It would simply show that all such people had made the greatest mistake that it is possible for any human being to make. AMS February 18, 1897, page 101.3
Yet there are thousands of people who propose to measure the merit of Christianity by just such a test as is here suggested. They support that if Christianity were to make many “converts” among the “high classes,” this would be evidence that it was a pretty good religion. And if only it were to make all its “converts” among the “high classes,” this would be evidence that it was a perfect religion—completely adapted to all the needs of mankind. Whereas if it made only a few converts from the “high classes,” this would be evidence that it is rather an inferior religion. And if it should make no converts at all form such “class,” this would be sufficient evidence that it is a religion worthy of no consideration at all by such altogether wise and proper people as “we” are. AMS February 18, 1897, page 101.4
Such views as this, however, are altogether vanity. Such people as these would have rejected Christ when He was on earth, just as did the other Pharisees. Such is precisely the argument made then by the “higher classes;” “Art thou also His disciple? Have nay of the rulers or the Pharisees believed on Him? But this people that knoweth not the law”—these unlearned, low class, common folks, who believe on Him—“are cursed.” “He goeth in with publicans and sinners, and eateth with them.” In fact, not a single one of the “higher classes” there was known to be a believer in Him till after He was dead; then two of them, who had been disciples, “but secretly,” stepped out publicly and let be known that they were such. AMS February 18, 1897, page 101.5
If Christianity in Christ’s day on earth had been dependent on the “high classes” for a place in the world, it would have had no place at all in the world. In fact, in that case it could not have even entered the world; for the only ones in all that land to whom the angels could announce the glad tidings were the lowly shepherds who were watching their flocks and longing for the coming of the promised One. AMS February 18, 1897, page 101.6
Christianity knows no higher classes nor lower classes, nor classes of any other kind. It knows only that all men are so low as to be overwhelming lost in sin, and need to be saved. It knows that men of low degree are nothing, and that men of high degree are worse than nothing. It knows that all are lost alike, and all must be saved alike. And there is no respect of persons with God. Christianity therefore goes to all alike, offering everlasting life and eternal glory. And wherever it is true that there are any classes so “high” that they cannot be converted by it, that is only the more shame to them, and shows that they are really so low as not to be able to discern the value of the highest gift the universe can afford. AMS February 18, 1897, page 101.7
Caiaphas was so “high” that he could despise the Lord Jesus and persecute Him to death, and because of it he will sink to eternal perdition. But when the Lord was crucified with the two thieves, one of them was so “low” that he could believe on Him, and because of it he will rise to the heaven height of eternal glory. AMS February 18, 1897, page 101.8
Oh! in the presence of Christianity as it really is, for men to talk of “higher classes” and “lower classes,” “high caste” and “low-caste,” betrays such a lack of comprehension of it as to be painful to every Christian. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Why will any man in the wide world hold himself so high as to despise such a gift? AMS February 18, 1897, page 101.9