Restoration of the Sabbath
By Roderick S. Owen
Bind up the testimony, seal the law among My disciples. Isa. 8:16. THIS text not only teaches that God's law, like every other, has a seal, but that it has been robbed of it among His disciples. As we have found, the seal of the living God is the Sabbath, the sign of creative power, the memorial of the Creator's name. Turning to the twentieth chapter of Exodus, and reading the law as spoken by Jehovah, we find, in all translations, that the seventh day is still set forth as the Sabbath of the Lord. Hence the law has not been really robbed of its seal. But the great mass of His disciples, or followers, are keeping another day, the first day of the week, instead of the seventh; and the apostate power foretold in Dan. 7:25, in the falling away, has fulfilled that prophecy, which states that he would think to change the times and laws. This he has done by teaching men to disregard the true Sabbath, and observe his substitute. But God has not allowed presumptuous hands to be laid upon His law to alter it; and having preserved it for us in its purity, He calls upon us to seal His law among His disciples by restoring in our practise the Sabbath of the Lord, and discarding the sign and substitute of the apostate power. This makes the proclamation of the seventh-day Sabbath present truth, and its observance a test of our loyalty to God. Hence the remnant of God's people in the close of time are described as keeping the commandments of God. See Rev. 12:17 and Rev. 14:12. In Isaiah 11 the work of Christ as the branch out of the roots of David is described. In speaking of Him as being lifted up for an ensign for both Jews and Gentiles, even for all nations, the thought is expressed that God's people will be so united that all envy shall depart, and they shall not vex one another, but shall stand united to oppose their enemies. But in connection with this, God will set His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. The remnant here referred to is shown to be composed of both Jews and Gentiles, even of all who will recognize Christ as God's ensign; for this ensign is to be set up for the nations, and to it are the Gentiles to seek, as well as the dispersed of Judah and the outcasts of Israel. In this the prophet foretold the gathering of the last of God's people from all over the then known world, even including the islands of the sea. Verse 15 shows that the deliverance will be as marvelous as was that of the children of Israel from Egypt. Since this is to take place all over the earth, the destruction of a tongue of the Egyptian sea, and the smiting of the river of Egypt, would, but little affect this deliverance; hence, we conclude that these are used in a figurative sense. Egypt stands for darkness and atheism. Thus in the deliverance of the last of His people, God will flood the earth with His glory, and smiting all the streams of darkness, will open up a pathway of light before the remnant, and they shall pass through the floods of error dry-shod; and God will give such manifestation of His power that atheism will stop her mouth, and not one soul in all this world will question His existence. In verse 16 He tells us that there shall be a highway there, as it was to Israel when he came up out of the land of Egypt. In Isa. 35:8 we are told that in the final deliverance, the highway will be the way of holiness, and the unclean shall not walk therein. But the text says there shall also be a way, and a highway. Christ is the way; and no man can walk in the highway of holiness except he walk in Christ; and this means to walk in the way in which He walked, for "he that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked," and that was in the way of His Father's commandments. But this way is to be like the way He required Israel to walk in the day He brought them up out of the land of Egypt. In Ex. 16:4 we read, "Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or no." Thus we see that the way He required them to walk in was His law; and that there might be no mistaking it, He spoke it to them in thunder tones from the top of Mount Sinai, and wrote it for them upon two tables of stone. We also find that the especial point of test at that time was the Sabbath; and so it will be at the last. To this end the Sabbath question is fast crowded upon the attention of all people; and in a short time all earthly powers will combine on the one side to enforce Sunday observance, while on the other side will be the plain Word of God enjoining the seventh day, or Sabbath of Jehovah. The question fraught with eternal destinies will then be forced upon each man, and he will be compelled to choose whom he will serve and recognize, the Creator or the creature; whether he will walk in God's way of holiness, or in the path dictated by man. In Eze. 13:1-9 we find that certain teachers or prophets of Israel will be declaring certain things as coming from the Lord, when the Lord has not spoken, and by their fox-like cunning they will lead others to hope that they will confirm the word. This class God says shall not be found in the writing of the house of Israel—the Lamb's Book of Life—nor have part in the inheritance. He states that there is a breach in the defense, so that the people can not stand in the battle of the day of the Lord; and these false teachers will not properly close the gap, or breach. In Rev. 12:17 and 14:12, the remnant of God's people, who are to stand in the final conflict, are brought to view, and that which enables them to stand is the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. When we compare the law of God with the teachings of many of the leaders of Christendom, we find that they have made a breach in the law by taking out the seventh-day Sabbath and trying to make a substitute stand in its stead. At the same time, they are representing that when all will receive this law as changed by them, and make it the supreme law of all lands, the millennium will burst upon us with all its peace and glory. In harmony with this, the tenth verse and onward tells us that these false teachers have seduced God's people, "saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar." The Catholic Church claims the right to change the law of God, and boldly asserts that they have done so by substituting Sunday, the first day of the week, for Saturday, the seventh day. Dan. 7:25 states that a power would think to change times and laws. The Papacy has thought to do this by teaching contrary to it, and many Protestants are thinking to make it stand by daubing it with untempered mortar, which is arguments founded upon the word of man instead of God's Word. But the Scripture says, "Say unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall: . . . and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof." Thus the fact is clearly stated that in the battle of the day of the Lord, the false wall, the ones who built it, and those who have daubed it, will all fall together.6 Restoration of the Sabbath
That the Sabbath is at least one of the breaches in this wall of defense, is clearly shown by Eze. 22:25-31, where the same subject is again dealt with; and in verse 26 we find these words: "Her priests have violated My law, and have profaned Mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them." But the Scriptures clearly teach that God will find some who will repair the breach, who will restore the seal to the law, and who will stand in the battle of the day of the Lord; for we read in Isa. 58:10-14 as follows: "And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Also through the prophet Jeremiah God admonishes us, saying: "Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they say, We will not walk therein." Jer. 6:16. When God shall have found the last one who will repair the breach, who will turn away his foot from trampling upon the Sabbath, who will walk in the good old way, the path marked by the feet of prophets and apostles, even the way of His commandments, in which the Saviour trod; when the remnant shall be made up who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,—then Christ will come. Then the saints will be gathered from all nations, and caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. O, wondrous deliverance! For them the desert shall blossom like the rose, and be glad; and a highway shall be there, the way of holiness; and they shall walk therein. For "from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord."