The Signs of the Times, vol. 13

December 22, 1887

“The Place of the Sabbath in the Third Angel’s Message” The Signs of the Times 13, 49, pp. 775, 776.

WE have before shown that the image of the beast—the union of Church and State in this Nation—is almost formed. But the pretensions of those who are carrying forward that wicked work will so closely resemble the work of the Third Angel’s Message, the counterfeit will so closely resemble the true, that those only who receive the love of the truth of God as given in the Third Angel’s Message, and whose eyes are anointed with the heavenly eyesalve, will be able to detect the deviltry in the thing. SITI December 22, 1887, page 775.1

Counterfeit number one. The word of God, spoken directly against the worship of the beast and his image, and intended to save men from that wicked worship, says, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” These, who are making here the image of the Papacy, pretending boundless faith in Jesus, propose to secure an amendment to the National Constitution, which will make the ten commandments the supreme law of the Nation, to be enforced upon all men as such. Here, then, are those who are set to warn the world against the worship of the beast and his image, urging all people to keep the commandments of God. On the other hand, here, also, are those who are making that image and who will enforce his worship even to the last extreme, and they propose to compel all men to keep the commandments of God. Now where lies the difference between these two classes? How is it that the first of these escape the wrath of God, and get the victory over the beast and over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, while the second actually make the image of the beast, and worship both the image and the beast, and drink the wine of the wrath of God? Remember that it is “evangelical” Protestantism that is making the image of the Papacy in the United States, by the proposed establishment of National Christianity, and that it is the Seventh-day Adventists that are opposing it with all their might by giving the Third Angel’s Message. Where, then, is the difference between “evangelical” Protestants and Seventh-day Adventists in regard to the ten commandments? Take the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” They all view it and teach its obligations exactly alike. It is so also with the second commandment, with the third, with the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth. Upon all these there is scarcely a shade of difference between the views of Seventh-day Adventists and the great body of Protestants. The only difference that there is between these two bodies is in their respective views of what day is the Sabbath. The Seventh-day Adventists hold to the fourth commandment as it is: “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do an work;” they endeavor to obey it strictly as God spoke it, as he wrote it, and as he interpreted it. On the other hand the whole body of Protestants hold that the seventh day is not the Sabbath, but that the first day is the Sabbath, and that to so keep the first day is the one great distinguishing badge of Christianity. This is the only difference between the two bodies so far as the ten commandments are concerned. And this is just the difference between the Third Angel’s Message and the movement to make an image of the Papacy, against which that message warns men. This is just the difference between the worship of him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the mountains of waters, and the worship of the beast and his image. Therefore, it is evident from the facts in the case as they exist to-day, as well as from the Scriptures, that the Sabbath question is the pivot upon which turns the Third Angel’s Message. SITI December 22, 1887, page 775.2

All this, however, is nothing new to us. We have known this and have been telling the world so these forty years. All these years we have been holding before the world the great principles of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, and calling the attention of the people to the truth that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, and the great sign which God has set by which it may be known who they are who worship him that made heaven and earth; and also that by this they should escape the worship of the beast and his image. We have known all these years, and have told the world so, that the Sabbath question would yet be the greatest question in the world. The greater part of this time we were counted fools, hoddy-riders, and all such like things, by the great body of Protestants. They said that the Sabbath question was the least of the great questions of our holy religion. They said that the great questions of how the gospel of Christ could be conveyed to the masses, at home and abroad, how infidelity and atheism could be checked,—that these were the great, the transcendent questions that must occupy the thoughts and efforts of the church, while as for the Sabbath question, that was one of the least and only incidental at that. SITI December 22, 1887, page 776.1

Thus it was in former years. But now how is it? What now is the leading topic in all the temperance and religious bodies in the land? It is, “How shall our American Christian civil Sunday sabbath be preserve?” Large conventions of ecclesiastics all over the land are held solely to discuss this question. The W.C.T.U. works it up all over the United States. Prohibition conventions put it in their platforms. The leading preachers and lecturers of the Nation discuss it from pulpit and platform. Legislatures, both State and National, from beginning to end of their sessions, are petitioned for the enactment of stringent laws in its behalf. The religious papers of the country lift up one united cry that it must and shall be preserved. Knights of Labor, and workingmen’s unions, and socialists, call loudly for laws enforcing its observance. Political conventions are “worked” and Legislatures are “lobbied” in the interests of the Christian Sunday. Saloon-keepers enforce laws for its observance. Now, instead of its being the least and most incidental of the questions of our holy religion, it is by their own confession the greatest and most urgent of all. Now, instead of the question of how to reach the masses with the gospel being the greater, that question must take a back seat, while there comes to the front the universal demand for stringent Sunday laws strictly enforced, that by this means the masses may be reached. Now, instead of the questions of infidelity and atheism taking the far greater precedence, it has come to this, that if you don’t favor Sunday laws you are an infidel, and if you oppose them you are an atheist. Now, instead of the questions of infidelity and atheism taking precedence, it has come to pass that the question of the Sunday sabbath is made the test of fidelity and theism. SITI December 22, 1887, page 776.2

What, then, does all this mean? Well, it means this one thing if nothing else, it means that we were telling the truth all these years when we told the world that the Sabbath question would yet be the greatest question in the world. How did we know it? We knew it by the truth of God, the love of which will save men. How could we see it when as yet there was not only none of it, but when those denied it who we said would preach it? We saw it by the light of the Third Angel’s Message, of which it is the pivot. And this further shows that the Third Angel’s Message is abroad in the world, and there is no use in denying it. SITI December 22, 1887, page 776.3

J.