Royalty and Ruin

God’s Call to Modern Apostates

Through long centuries the record of Elijah’s lifework has brought inspiration and courage to those who have been called to stand for the right in the midst of apostasy. For us it has special significance. History is being repeated. Our age is one of idolatry as truly as was the one in which Elijah lived. No outward shrine may be visible, yet thousands are following after the gods of this world—riches, fame, pleasure, and the fables that permit people to follow the inclinations of the unrenewed heart. Multitudes have a wrong concept of God and are as truly serving a false god as were the worshipers of Baal. Even among those who claim to be Christians, many have allied themselves with influences that are firmly opposed to God and His truth. RR 63.1

The prevailing spirit of our time is one of unbelief and apostasy. People exalt human theories and place them where God and His law should be. Satan tempts men and women with the promise that in disobedience they will find freedom that will make them as gods. We see a spirit that exalts human wisdom like an idol above divine revelation. People seem to have lost all power to tell the difference between light and darkness, truth and error. They believe that the opinions of a few philosophers, so-called, are more trustworthy than the truths of the Bible. They think that faith such as actuated Paul, Peter, and John is old-fashioned and unworthy of the intelligence of modern thinkers. RR 63.2

In the beginning, God gave His law to humanity as a means of their attaining happiness and eternal life. Satan’s hope is to lead men and women to disobey this law. He constantly tries to misrepresent it and belittle its importance. His master stroke has been to attempt to change the law itself, so as to lead people to violate its instructions while they profess to obey it. One writer has compared the attempt to change God’s law to an ancient mischievous practice of taking a signpost where two roads met and turning it in a wrong direction. This often caused great perplexity and hardship. RR 63.3

God set up a signpost for those journeying through this world. One arm pointed out willing obedience to the Creator as the road to life, while the other indicated disobedience as the path to death. But in an evil hour for our race, the great enemy of all good turned the signpost around, and many people have mistakenly taken the wrong way. RR 63.4

Through Moses the Lord instructed the Israelites, “Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.” “It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.” Exodus 31:13, 17. RR 64.1

The Lord clearly defined obedience as the way to the City of God, but the “man of sin” has changed the signpost. He has set up a false sabbath and has caused men and women to think that by resting on it they are obeying the command of the Creator. When “the heavens and the earth ... were finished,” God exalted the seventh-day Sabbath as a memorial of His creative work. “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” Genesis 2:1, 3. RR 64.2

At the time of the Exodus God brought the Sabbath prominently before His people. In Egypt their taskmasters had tried to force them to labor on the Sabbath by increasing the amount of work required each week. But God delivered the Israelites from slavery and brought them to a place where they could freely observe all the instructions of the Lord. At Sinai God spoke the law and delivered a copy of it to Moses on two tables of stone, “written with the finger of God.” Exodus 31:18. And through forty years of wandering the Israelites were constantly reminded of God’s appointed rest day because every seventh day the manna did not fall, but the double portion that fell on the preparation day was miraculously preserved. RR 64.3

The Lord intended that by observing the Sabbath command, Israel would be reminded of Him continually as their Creator and Redeemer. While they kept the Sabbath in the proper spirit, idol worship could not exist; but if Israel set aside the claims of this divine instruction, they would soon forget the Creator. Yet “they rejected My ordinances and did not observe My statutes, and profaned My Sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols.” Ezekiel 20:16, NRSV. RR 64.4

In calling the attention of Judah to the sins that finally brought the Babylonian Captivity on them, the Lord declared: “You have ... profaned My Sabbaths.” “Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads.” Ezekiel 22:8, 31. RR 64.5

When Jerusalem was restored in the days of Nehemiah, he challenged the people’s Sabbathbreaking by asking them, “Did not your fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.” Nehemiah 13:18. RR 64.6