From Splendor to Shadow

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Chapter 14—God's Call to Modern Apostates

Through long centuries the record of Elijah's life-work 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. The present age is one of idolatry, as verily as was that 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 man to follow the inclinations of the unregenerate heart. Multitudes have a wrong conception of God and are as truly serving a false god as were the worshipers of Baal. Many even of those who claim to be Christians have allied themselves with influences that are unalterably opposed to God and His truth. SS 94.1

The prevailing spirit of our time is one of infidelity and apostasy. Human theories are exalted and placed 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. There is seen a spirit of idolatrous exaltation of human wisdom above divine revelation. Men seem to have lost all power to discriminate between light and darkness, truth and error. They hold the opinions of a few philosophers, so-called, to be more trustworthy than the truths of the Bible. A faith such as actuated Paul, Peter, and John they regard as old-fashioned and unworthy of the intelligence of modern thinkers. SS 94.2

In the beginning, God gave His law to mankind as a means of attaining happiness and eternal life. Satan's hope is to lead men and women to disobey this law; his constant effort is to misrepresent it and belittle its importance. His master stroke has been an attempt to change the law itself, so as to lead men to violate its precepts while professing to obey it. One writer has likened the attempt to change the law of God to an ancient mischievous practice of turning in a wrong direction a signpost where two roads met. The perplexity and hardship which this often caused was great. SS 94.3

A signpost was erected by God 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 multitudes have mistaken the way. SS 95.1

Through Moses the Lord instructed the Israelites: “Verily My Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.” “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 31:13, 17. SS 95.2

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 were 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. SS 95.3

At the time of the Exodus the Sabbath was brought prominently before the people of God. While in Egypt their taskmasters had attempted to force them to labor on the Sabbath by increasing the amount of work required each week. But the Israelites were delivered from bondage and brought to a place where they might observe unmolested all the precepts of the Lord. At Sinai the law was spoken, and a copy of it, on two tables of stone, “written with the finger of God,” was delivered to Moses. Exodus 31:18. And through forty years of wandering the Israelites were constantly reminded of God's appointed rest day by the withholding of the manna every seventh day and the miraculous preservation of the double portion that fell on the preparation day. SS 95.4

The Lord designed that by observance of the Sabbath command, Israel should continually be reminded of Him as their Creator and Redeemer. While they should keep the Sabbath in the proper spirit, idolatry could not exist; but should the claims of this precept be set aside, the Creator would be forgotten. Yet “they rejected My ordinances and did not walk in My statutes, and profaned My Sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols.” Ezekiel 20:16, RSV. SS 96.1

In calling the attention of Judah to the sins that finally brought upon them the Babylonian Captivity, the Lord declared: “Thou hast profaned My Sabbaths.” “Therefore have I poured out Mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads.” Ezekiel 22:8, 31. SS 96.2

At the restoration of Jerusalem, in the days of Nehemiah, Sabbathbreaking was met with the inquiry, “Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath.” Nehemiah 13:18. SS 96.3