The Signs of the Times, vol. 10

November 6, 1884

“Reaping What They Have Sown” The Signs of the Times 10, 42, p. 658.

FOR forty years the Third Angel’s Message has been being given to the world. For forty years the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus, have been held up before the people. All these years the truth that “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord,” has been declared with zeal, with energy, and with power. Opposition from many sources it has had to meet, but chiefly from the ministers of all the different denominations. These have never wearied in telling, by tongue and by pen, in public and in private, that “the Sabbath was a Jewish institution, and is abrogated;” that “the Sabbath, with all the other commandments, was the law of Moses; that these were all ceremonial, and were all abolished,” etc., etc. Now, when they try to impress upon their hearers the duty and the importance of keeping Sunday as Sabbath, they are met with the same arguments that they have used against the obligation of the Sabbath of the Lord. SITI November 6, 1884, page 658.1

In a paper read before the Ministerial Union of Philadelphia, Sept. 29, 1884, Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, D.D., complains of this in the following words: “The sanctity of the Lord’s day is but a remnant, if not a relic of the past; and if this process goes on, within the present century Sabbath sanctification will be among the curiosities of archeology and paleology! Christians apologize for this, on the ground that the ‘Sabbath is a Jewish institution’ and is abrogated, making no distinction between the ceremonial and the moral law.... Other disciples do away with the consecrated seventh of time as with the consecrated tenth of money, on the ground that all time and property are holy unto the Lord, and so the practical effect is that they consecrate nothing.” SITI November 6, 1884, page 658.2

This is the sober truth, but the people are not to blame. These very apologies, in these very words, have been put into their mouths by the ministers, by the very ones who now complain against them. Little did these men think all these years that in thus opposing the Sabbath of the Lord they were brandishing a sword that would cut both ways; little did they think that they were hatching cockatrice’ eggs that would break out into vipers to sting themselves, little did they think that in loosening the restraints of the law of God, they were thus sowing dragon’s teeth; little did they realize that in making these objections, and in appealing to popularity, and worldly interest, against the Sabbath, they were destroying respect for the whole law of God, and implanting a disposition to break any command in so far as it conflicts with these interests. SITI November 6, 1884, page 658.3

The word of the Lord says: “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.” James 2:10, 11. The same consideration, or the same disposition that would lead a man to kill, would likewise lead him to commit adultery, or to steal, or to bear false witness, or to break the Sabbath, or to violate any or all of the commandments of God that come in his way. All will agree with that. Now turn it the other way, and it is equally true, whether all agree with it or not. The same consideration or disposition that will lead a man to break the Sabbath, will lead him under like circumstances to break any other of the commandments of God; because it is not out of fear of God nor respect for his law that he keeps so much of it as he does, but because otherwise public opinion would condemn him; but only let public opinion change so that it would wink at, or palliate, or justify what it now condemns, and he is ready to break any commandment that in any way conflicts with his worldly interests. So when the ministers play into the hands of the people, as they are doing, by inveighing against the Sabbath of the Lord, and, by appealing to public opinion or selfish interests, loosen those just and wholesome restraints which are placed upon human nature by the law of God, they are doing more than all else combined to bring to the full those perilous times which the Scriptures portray, when men shall be “lovers of their own selves,” “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.” 2 Timothy 3:1-13. “But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.” Jeremiah 23:22. SITI November 6, 1884, page 658.4

The ministers have taught the people to say: “If everybody else will keep Sabbath, I will.” Now, when they call upon these for a stricter observance of Sunday, their teaching comes back to them in the words, “If everybody else will keep Sunday, I will.” And so to satisfy the demand which they themselves have created, they are obliged to work up civil enactments under a constitutional amendment by which everybody shall be compelled to keep Sunday. For example: In his report to the Christian Statesman (Sept. 25, 1884), from Newton, Iowa, Rev. M. A. Gault, says:— SITI November 6, 1884, page 658.5

“J. B. Carnes raised the practical question why the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad could run large excursion trains on the ‘sabbath’ from Davenport to Colfax Springs, putting the fare so low as to tempt thousands to violate both the laws of the State and the law of God, by desecrating the sabbath. This railroad has been running excursion trains from Des Moines to Colfax Springs on the sabbath, for some time, and ministers complain that their members go on these excursions.... It is not difficult to persuade them that the National Reform movement presents the only effectual means of saving the sabbath. We need a sabbath law that will bind the Government and the corporation, as well as the individual.” (By “sabbath” he means Sunday always.) SITI November 6, 1884, page 658.6

Again in the same paper is a selection from Rev. R. W. Clark, in which he says:— SITI November 6, 1884, page 658.7

“The Sunday press has been established in defiance of Almighty God. God says, Keep the Sabbath holy. The Sunday newspaper says, Thou shalt not keep it holy.... The public mind shall be filled with the current news and the latest transactions in the stock markets; the taste shall be so vitiated with fascinating tales, racy gossip, and scandal in high life and low, that there shall be no desire for things holy and spiritual.... The Sunday press says there shall be no rest for even God’s people, except what is found in secular and frivolous reading and Sunday recreations.... The Puritan sabbath is obsolete. The times are changed, that is a truth; and if the sabbath in America is shattered, they will change more. For God says: ‘The nation that will not serve me shall perish, yea that nation shall be wasted.” SITI November 6, 1884, page 658.8

Just so. As long as there are excursion trains on Sunday, the church members will go on excursions. As long as there are Sunday newspapers, the church members will read “fascinating tales, racy gossip, and scandal in high life and low.” Those things that should not be read at all, they will read on Sundays. Therefore the Sunday trains must be stopped, and the Sunday papers suppressed. Because they have no enough of the grace of God, nor the love of right, to do right, they insist that the Government shall take away the opportunity to do wrong. Say they: We will have the “National Reform movement” take away all opportunity for us to do wrong, then we will all do right. And they will call that serving the Lord!! The devil himself could serve the Lord that way. And he would still be the devil. Then to cap the climax, they will quote that scripture, “The nation that will not serve me shall perish,” being always careful to emphasize the word “nation.” But we should like to ask: If the nation that will not serve the Lord shall perish, then how about the church members who will not serve him? And, If the church members will not keep Sunday till the nation takes away from them all opportunity to violate it, how can it be expected that the nation will keep Sunday without a like office being performed for it? Oh, “the National Reform movement presents the only effectual means of saving the sabbath.” The National Reform movement will effectually guard the nation against all anti-Sunday influences or tendencies. Yes, great is National Reform. It alone can save the sabbath. It alone can save the nation. It alone can save the church. It is the summum bonum, the ultimate thule, the ne plus ultra. SITI November 6, 1884, page 658.9

Yet the National Reform movement has a more difficult task to accomplish than that of stopping Sunday trains, and suppressing Sunday newspapers; that is, to stop the progress of the Third Angel’s Message. That message began in the United States, before the National Reform movement. It has developed a people here called Seventh-day Adventists. They keep with the rest of the commandments of God that one which says, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work.” They are going to remain here as long as this is a nation; they are not going to keep Sunday, and they are going to use every fair means, by voice and pen, in public and in private, by prayer and faithful endeavor, to constrain all others to keep the seventh day, and oppose the keeping of Sunday. And how will the National Reform movement save the Sunday, and the nation, from these anti-Sunday influences? We shall see. SITI November 6, 1884, page 658.10

ALONZO T. JONES.

“Notes on the International Lesson. Proverbs 1:1-16” The Signs of the Times 10, 42, pp. 662, 663.

NOVEMBER 23—Proverbs 1:1-16

SOLOMON was a very voluminous writer. He spoke three thousand proverbs, and a thousand and five songs. He spoke of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that springs out of the wall. From all his writings, however, we have preserved to us only the present book of Proverbs, containing about four hundred, one song of which seems to have been the chiefest of all (Song of Solomon 1:1), and the short book of Ecclesiastes. It seems that from all the three thousand proverbs these were selected as being the best, “excluding all that were local, personal, or simply humorous,” and retaining those only which fell in with the great moral and religious purpose of God in handing down his will to men. Here the child is taken, and, as it were, introduced to Wisdom herself in all her beauty, who, if he will allow her, takes him by the hand and leads him through the treacherous paths of youth to manhood, and to an old age which is itself a crown of glory because found in the way of righteousness. Chap. 16:31. Here is instruction not only for the child and the youth, but for husband and wife, for father and mother, for the farmer, the merchant, the rich, the poor, the high, and the low. It is Wisdom’s grand summary of instruction to the children of men. SITI November 6, 1884, page 662.1

THE purpose of the proverbs is stated in verses 1-4. “To know [give] wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; to give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.” “To give subtilty”—acuteness, nicety of distinction, i.e., the ability to distinguish the true from the false, to know the good, and to detect the bad; to see the right, and to discover any lurking tendency toward wrong. SITI November 6, 1884, page 662.2

“TO the simple.”—On this we give the following from Dr. Clarke: “The word simple, from simplex, compounded of sine, without, and plica, a fold, signifies properly, plain and honest, one who has no bye-ends in view; who is what he appears to be; ... but because honesty and plain dealing are so rare in the world, and none but the truly religious man will practice them, farther than the fear of the law obliges him, hence simple has sunk into a state of progressive deterioration. First it signified, as above, without fold, unmixed, uncompounded; this was its radical meaning. Secondly, as applied to men, it signified innocent, harmless, without disguise. Thirdly, such persons were rather an unfashionable sort of people, it sunk in its meaning to homely, homespun, mean, ordinary. And fourthly, as worldly men, ... supposed that wisdom, wit, and understanding, were given to men that they might make the best of them in reference to the things of this life, the word sunk still lower in its meaning, and signified silly, foolish; and there, to the dishonor of our language and morals, it stands.... And simplicity, that meant at first openness, plain dealing, downright honesty, is now degraded to weakness, silliness, foolishness. And they will continue thus degraded till downright honesty and plain dealing get again into vogue.” “To give subtlety to the simple” therefore signifies, to give, acuteness, tact, and nicety of distinction to the honest-hearted, the upright, the sincere. SITI November 6, 1884, page 663.1

“A WISE man will hear and will increase learning.” Solomon has himself given us the meaning of wise as here used, “The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright.” Proverbs 15:2. The right use of that which we have already learned not only creates a desire to learn more, but it imparts the ability to properly acquire and appreciate more. Such a man will indeed “increase learning;” he cannot help it; and every increase of such learning is an increase and strengthening of his wisdom. Wisdom therefore is not shown in the amount that we know, but in the right use of that which we know, however little it may be. “There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city.... Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength. Wisdom is better than weapons of war.” SITI November 6, 1884, page 663.2

“AND ... shall attain unto wise counsels.” Literally, shall make himself a pilot. The cognate word is used thus in Ezekiel 27:8. That is he may gain “the power to steer his course rightly on the dangerous sea of life.” SITI November 6, 1884, page 663.3

“THE fear of the Lord.”—Not the slavish fear arising from dread of punishment. But that filial “fear” which springs from respectful reverence, and a fear to offend lest we cause pain to the one whom we have in view; that fears to do contrary to the wish of the one whom we serve, lest we disappoint his expectations of us and forfeit his confidence. SITI November 6, 1884, page 663.4

“IS the beginning of knowledge.” The man who fears the Lord has entered upon a course of knowledge and wisdom, which is limited only by eternity. However little he may have acquired of knowledge, as the world goes, if he have the fear of the Lord, he has eternity before him, in which to increase knowledge. And though he have all the knowledge of all men of all the world, and have not the fear of the Lord, his little life is soon “rounded by a sleep,” and all has ceased, all his knowledge is ended. For when he arises from the dead, it is to woeful destruction, and all that he was is brought to naught. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. SITI November 6, 1884, page 663.5

“IF sinners entice thee consent thou not.”—Or, as Dr. Clarke gives it, “will thou not,” that is have a “will not” for all forms of evil enticement. There is nothing that will strengthen and confirm us in our determination to do right, and at the same time weaken the seducer to wrong, like a firm, decided, “I will not.” If one would entice you to take strong drink, meet it with, I will not. If they would entice you to chew or smoke tobacco, or to run with them in ‘ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,’ give them a plain, I will not. They may sneer at, and make fun of you, yet in their hearts they will respect and honor you. The Lord says, “Them that honor me I will honor.” “If sinners entice thee, will thou not.” SITI November 6, 1884, page 663.6

ALONZO T. JONES.