Facts of Faith

Satan’s Hatred of the Sabbath

The Lord gave His Sabbath to man as a weekly reminder of Christ’s sanctifying and keeping power, because man needed this reminder. (Ezekiel 20:12) But Satan has always tried to blot out all memory of the true God from the earth, and to draw man’s allegiance and worship to himself through idolatry. (1 Corinthians 10:20) He has therefore made relentless efforts to pull down God’s Sabbatic flag, and to trample it in the mire. We have seen that for a long time after the descendants of Noah had dispersed over the earth they retained the knowledge of the Sabbath. This was true even after they went into idolatry. Egypt was the first among the heathen nations to attempt to suppress the seventh-day Sabbath, and influenced other nations to regard the first day as the weekly holiday of their sun-god. Truels Lund gives us the following information on this important and interesting subject of the week in Egypt, in his extensive work: FAFA 76.2

“According to the Assyrian-Babylonian conception, the particular stress lay necessarily upon the number seven.... The whole week pointed prominently towards the seventh day, the feast day, the rest day, in this day it collected, in this it also consummated. ‘Sabbath’ is derived from both ‘rest’ and ‘seven.’ With the Egyptians it was the reverse.... For them on the contrary the sun-god was the beginning and origin of all things. The day of the Sun, Sunday, therefore, became necessarily for them the feast day.... The holiday was transferred from the last to the first day of the week.” — “Daglige Liv i Norden,” Vol. XIII, pp. 54, 55. FAFA 77.1

“The seven planetary names of the days were at the close of the second century A. D., prevailing everywhere in the Roman Empire.... This astrology originated in Egypt, where Alexandria now so loudly proclaimed it to all.... ‘The day of the Sun’ was the Lord’s day, the chiefest and first of the week. The evil and fatal Saturn’s day was the last of the week, on which none could celebrate a feast.... FAFA 77.2

“From Rome, through the Roman legionaries, the seven planetary days pressed farther north to Gaul, Britain, and Germany. Everywhere ... people yielded respectfully to the astrology in its popular form: the doctrine concerning the Sun-day with its fortune, the Moon-day with its alternative play, and the filthy, unlucky Saturday.... As a concentrated troop the planetary appellations and names of heathen deities stood on guard, when later Christianity reached Europe, and attempted to displace them.... FAFA 77.3

“For the Christians the lot was cast by the reception of the ... day of the sun. Not till they themselves had later gained power were they awakened to doubt.... And the heathen names of the days seemed at variance with Christian faith.” — Id., pp. 91, 92, 110. FAFA 78.1

The London Anglican rector, T. H. Morer, says of Sunday: FAFA 78.2

“It is not to be denied but we borrow the name of this day from the ancient Greeks and Romans, and we allow that the old Egyptians worshipped the sun, and as a standing memorial of their veneration, dedicated this day to him. And we find by the influence of their example, other nations, and among them the Jews themselves, doing him homage. “Six Dialogues on the Lord’s Day,” p. 22. London: 1701.

Thus we see how Satan, through heathenism, tried to stigmatize the Sabbath of Jehovah and to elevate Sunday as a joyful day. The Egyptians worshipped their sun-god under the name of Osiris, and the Apis bull (the golden calf made at Horeb) was a representation of him. This worship was conducted by turning to the rising sun. (Ezekiel 8:16.) Therefore the Lord ordered the tabernacle always to be pitched with the front toward the east, so that the people, worshipping before it, had to turn their backs upon sun worship. (Numbers 3:23. See also Exodus 26:22; 36:27, 32 in American Revised Version, and Jeremiah 32:33) Talbot W. Chambers, D. D., says that sun worship was “the oldest, the most widespread, and the most enduring of all forms of idolatry known to man!’ FAFA 78.3

“The universality of this form of idolatry is something remarkable. It seems to have prevailed every-where. The chief object of worship among the Syrians was Baal - the sun ... In Egypt the sun was the kernel of the state religion.” — “The Old Testament Student,” pp. 193,194. January, 1886. FAFA 78.4

In Babylon the sun-god was called Bel, in Phoenicia and Palestine, Baal, and Sun-day was “the wild solar holiday of all pagan times.” — “North British Review,” Vol. XVIII, P. 409. FAFA 79.1

Rev. W. H. Poole says: FAFA 79.2

“The first and principal idol was the sun - the glorious luminary of the day ... Baal was the great sun-god of all the East. With our Israelitish ancestors the sun-god came west. His day is our Sunday. Every time you name our Sabbath-day Sunday you are reminded of our great, great, great grandfathers’ principal deity.” — “Anglo-Israel in Nine Lectures,” pp. 389, 890. Detroit, Mich.: 1889.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says of the worship of Baal: FAFA 79.3

“As the sun-god he is conceived in the male principle of life and reproduction in nature, and thus in some forms of his worship is the patron of the grossest sensuality, and even of systematic prostitution. An example of this is found in the worship of Baal-Peor (Numbers 25).” — Vol. III, (New American ed., Werner Co.), art. “Baal,” p. 175.

This sun worship was the greatest of all abominations to God (Ezekiel 8:13-16), and the warnings to Israel have great significance to us today: “I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat Me, saith the Lord.” Hosea 2:13. (See also 1 Corinthians 10: ll.) FAFA 79.4

When we remember that it was Christ who took Israel out of Egypt (Hebrews 11:26, 27; 1 Corinthians 10:4), and who labored so earnestly to turn them away from sun worship and Sunday keeping, and that it was Satan who always led them into this idolatry, we ask with all candor: Could any one suppose that Christ, in the New Testament, has exchanged places with Satan, so that He is now leading people to keep Sunday, while the devil is leading them to keep the Sabbath of Jehovah? Every thoughtful person must say with the Apostle Paul: “God forbid.” Romans 3:31. FAFA 79.5