Earlier text: General ArticlesCHRIST AND THE RICH YOUNG RULER.
By John H. Thomas
A WORD fitly spoken is like apples of gold in baskets of silver. A weight of wealth lies in the words of the divine Teacher; and as one digs for hidden treasures, so should we study them profoundly if we would possess all the lessons taught in them. Here one comes to the Lord with the great question of life, which all human wisdom has confessed to be unanswerable, Immortality, how can we assure ourselves of it? The inquirer is in dead earnest; he comes running, and in his eagerness, although he belongs to the ruling class, he kneels in the dust of the highway before the attending throng, to the Galilean Teacher whom Pharisees deride as untaught; he was a young man with all the ardor of youth; he was a worthy man, for our Lord beholding him loved him; he was a wealthy man and had great possessions. Everything seemed to join to claim the Saviour's attention. And he to whom the young ruler knelt, how shall we describe him? He, too, was a young man and a ruler. Though his sovereignty was veiled in humility, he was King of kings and Lord of lords. More than ten legions of angels, even then, though unseen, waited upon his bidding. He was rich, too; all the gold and the silver were his, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. But though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich. He had foregone all his wealth that the poor might have the gospel preached to them. "Good Master!" was the respectful salutation of the young ruler. What a strange reply he received from the Lord: "Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God." When an inquirer comes asking, What shall I do to be saved? how tenderly we receive him, how gladly and lovingly we instruct him! Why this strange rebuff from the lips of divine love? What is its meaning? It was to startle him into thought as to something that must come before the answer to his question. It means that to be blest in coming to Christ we must first settle in our minds what his character is. What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is he? Long before this Jesus had said, in proof of his character as the Messiah: "The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." If the proof was sufficient then, it had grown tenfold stronger now by repetition. The time had come for confessing him to be the Christ, even if rulers should cast the confessor out of the synagogue. If he is only a good master, as the Jews loved to call Gamaliel and Hillel and Shammai, then there is no answer to the inquirer but to refer him to the law. The dilemma our Lord would put the young man in is this: there is none good but One; all men are sinners, great teachers as well as others; either Jesus is not good, a sinner like the rest, or he is God. Whatever the young man understood, we must read our Lord's answer in the light of the cross, which was already casting its deep shadow athwart his pathway, that cross the crown of his life and climax of his work, which is explainable only in his bearing thereon the sin of the world. And reading his words in its light, Jesus claims absolute Godhead when he says, "There is none good but One, that is, God." If we come to him as such, the burden of sin will fall from our shoulders as the load fell from Christian when, hastening from the City of Destruction, he came in sight of the cross. Him to know aright is eternal life.501Notice now the divine wisdom shown in dealing with the young man. It may have been omniscience that revealed to our Lord the fact that the young man was very rich. Certainly it was divine knowledge that enabled him to discern his besetting sin, and, reading his heart, to probe it as the surgeon does the wound. How a word from Jesus or a look goes straight to the heart! Our Lord next discloses to us the self-righteous man. His question is, What good thing shall I do? Luther makes the comment, "Nicht von Thun und Lassen sondern von Werden," not doing and leaving undone but being. He wanted, perhaps, to use a part of his superfluous wealth to buy immortality. The Jews held one to be worthy of divine favor because "he loveth our nation and hath built us a synagogue." Perhaps he would become an Essene, in order by works of supererogation to establish a claim to eternal life, or he may have thought the Teacher who said he came to fulfill the law would have him devote his remaining years to the study of the Thorah. Jesus, when asked at another time, What shall we do that we might work the works of God, answered directly, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom he hath sent. This self-righteous man needs a different treatment. Jesus, reading his heart, sees he trusts to be saved by obedience. He must be shown his sinfulness so as to lead him to abandon this ground of hope, and our Lord, taking him on his own ground, refers him to the commandments, and says, in substance, This do and thou shalt live. The young ruler is a self-deceived man. The calm assurance of his answer takes away our breath. "All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?" The apostle Paul wished for perfection, aimed at it, but in his old age, after years of effort and growth, counted not himself to have apprehended it. This young man has attained it. And like all professing perfection, is sadly self-deceived. He had not attended to the divine exposition of the law in the Sermon on the Mount. He had not learned how exceeding broad it is; that to say to our brother, Thou fool! is to break the sixth commandment; that to look upon a woman with desire is to break the seventh commandment; that the law requires us to be perfect, as God in Heaven is perfect. And yet, the mass of men trust now to be saved by their own merits. The common saying is, I guess if I do about as well as I can, I'll get through. Ah! how sin blinds the eyes of the judgment! In our Lord's reply this self-complacency is ruthlessly torn away: One thing thou lackest: If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come take up the cross and follow me. Jesus had quoted the commandments; did he mean to add an eleventh? After obeying the law, is renunciation of wealth necessary to obtain eternal life? Is voluntary poverty necessary to perfection? No; such a meaning would contradict all other scriptures. We may notice that our Lord, in dealing with the young man, only quoted the second table of the law. Why? Because self-righteous men wholly ignore the first table—never give a thought to the Lord's sovereignty and his claims upon them for obedience, worship, service. They think of perfection only in their relation to men. In enjoining poverty upon him our Lord did not give a new commandment; but he discovered his failure to keep the first commandment of all, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." His possessions occupied a place before God in the young man's heart. Even now, with his danger revealed to him, he cannot give up mammon as his God. He had come earnest, ardent, eager, with his great question. He goes away grieved and sad with the divine answer. How solemn the apothegm of the evangelist Luke upon the scene: "He was very sorrowful, for he was very rich"! We are told no more of the rich young ruler with his question. The natural curiosity to learn whether our Lord's faithful dealing with his soul bore fruit unto eternal life, we must lay aside, with much else, to await the wider knowledge of a better life. The purpose of revelation is not to give a full biography of men, but a full answer to the young ruler's question; not to satisfy our curiosity, but to teach us how to be saved from the consequences of sin. Of unspeakable importance to sinful man are the lessons our Lord would teach here. And they are these: That by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified; that Christ, the divine Teacher, claims divine authority, demands divine reverence. Once more, the law is a school-master to teach the necessity of salvation through grace alone and to bring us to Christ.—Rev. John H. Thomas, in Interior. PARLEYING WITH TEMPTATION.
By Uriah Smith
We are in a world of temptations. We cannot escape them. Fortunately the temptations themselves are not sins. The sin lies in yielding; and the yielding is almost invariably preceded by a parley. Parleying with temptation is the grand avenue to all the sins which the tempter would have us commit. If we can close up this, we fortify ourselves against many dangers. What is meant by parleying with temptation is most strikingly illustrated in the history of Balaam. When the messengers of the king of Moab came to him with splendid offers, if he would come and curse Israel, the Lord expressly told him not to go with them. A second deputation arrived with richer bribes and more imposing honors. Under an affectation of piety he said, "Tarry ye also here this night, that I may know what the Lord will say unto me more." God had once expressly forbidden him. Of that he was well aware. But the offers were tempting. The prize was worth securing. And now could not he, notwithstanding God's prohibition, some way secure the reward consistently with duty? He gave his mind up to the unlawful study of how to reconcile these two things. And because he loved the ways of unrighteousness more than his duty to God, God gave him up to follow his own ways; and the sad results are known to all. The human mind reasons now just as it did then; and thousands are substantially following the steps of Balaam. There are four principal ways in which we give the tempter access to us, and even solicit his assaults. 1. The first is when we re-open for debate a question which has once been decided. Our first judgments are the best. They spring from the intuitive perceptions of conscience before it is biased by after thoughts. Subsequent considerations are too often but the pleadings of selfishness or dishonesty to escape from the convictions of conscience. If Balaam, once expressly informed by God of his duty, and decided in that direction, had adhered to that decision, he would have been safe. But he re-opened the question for further discussion. Perhaps the question was not fully settled after all. Perhaps it could be decided in some way which would allow him to receive the reward which he so much coveted. Here was his first great stride toward his fearful fall. And so it is with us. Therefore, when a question has once passed the tribunal of conscience, and been decided in accordance with clear perceptions of right, take your stand immovably upon that decision. Let the enemy understand that that is not a debatable question. This will save much after trouble. 2. The second way in which we weaken ourselves in the face of the enemy is when we do not at once subjugate the inward inclination which leads to the outward act. All things spring from within. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Every act can be traced to some inward motive. If these motives are right and pure, such will also be the actions which follow; if they are evil and impure, the actions will bear the same character. These hidden springs, therefore, need to be carefully watched. And when an inclination enters the heart which will lead to evil, subjugate it, suppress it, nip it in the bud, don't let it mature. This is the easiest, quickest, surest way to avoid the evils which will follow if this is not accomplished. The secret inclination in Balaam's heart, which eventually matured into such bitter results, was the love of honor and gain. Could he not in some way secure these? This was the object of his parley; and this was the great cause of his fall; for the apostle mentions as his chief characteristic, that he "loved the wages of unrighteousness." These secret inclinations being allowed to prevail, soon gain the understanding by special pleas addressed to it, and finally the will is drawn in, and the guilty deed is at once executed. Lay the ax at the root, suppress the inward inclination. The strength of the temptation is then gone. 3. The third way of parleying with temptation is to throw ourselves into circumstances of trial relying upon our own strength. The Christian's strength is wholly in God. The Bible seeks to inculcate a true conviction of human weakness and guilt as the basis of all acceptable action. And the Christian's sense of weakness is his strength; for it leads him to rely upon an unfailing arm. And it operates also in another direction; for feeling his weakness, he shuns temptation; and temptation shunned is powerless. The serpent cannot charm when we turn from him. These considerations teach us, first of all, to fly from temptation; but when we are thrust out where we are obliged to grapple face to face with the foe, then rely on God for help and strength. With every temptation he is able to make a way of escape. 4. The last and fatal stage is reached when conscience becomes a party in the conspiracy with evil, and sin is made to look consistent with duty. So long as a person will acknowledge right principles, there is hope of him, however reckless he may appear. There is some ground upon which a reform may be based. But when the conscience is brought into that place where it will bear a false testimony, and the distinction between right and wrong is broken down, then the person is wholly given up to evil. Here is the great danger. Conscience may be perverted; it may be seared; it may become evil. Alas for the victim, when he reaches that stage in self-deception! Hence the necessity of guarding well the conscience. Hence the value of a Christian education. Welcome, anything which will enlighten the mind, and restrain from sin. Welcome, anything which, though it may not entirely restrain from sin, will render it uncomfortable. Something is gained even then. Failing to secure the enjoyment falsely promised, the transgressor may turn to seek what reward there is to virtue. "Every man," says the apostle, "is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." Such is the insidious entrance of evil; such is its awful result. We have spoken of some of the more usual avenues of its approach. If these can all be guarded we have but little to fear; and it is all summed up in one sentence: Don't parley with temptation. U. SMITH. GUARD THE TONGUE.
By Mrs. A. W. Heald
Among the good gifts with which our heavenly Father has endowed man above the brute creation, perhaps there is not one more potent than the faculty of speech. God intends this power to be exerted for his praise and glory and for the salvation of men, and yet the small organ of human speech may be so perverted as to become an instrument of the greatest harm. The apostle says, "So is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, . . . and it is set on fire of hell." James 3:6. What a fearful disclosure is here presented! Satan can render the tongue "an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." How artfully he deceives, and how often he has prevailed over us! Satan would not have us suppose that he is the instigator of the false tongue. He would suggest to us that we have by nature an impetuous temper, which is easily provoked and beyond control, and that we are not responsible for words spoken in anger. He persuades us that our trials are peculiar, that we are naturally nervous and irritable, and cannot help the impatient word whereby we may "offend" Christ's "little ones," and endanger our own souls. Thus harshness is often indulged in the bosom of the family, provoking to anger and hatred those who should be joined by holiest bonds of love. Even the thoughtless word has produced unkind judgments and lifelong estrangements, while lying lips and the swearing tongue continue to incite the just wrath of a holy God. And yet one who would perfect a Christian character must obtain command of the tongue; without this, all efforts toward holiness will be fruitless. Hear the words of James: "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." Chap. 1: 26. "And the Saviour said: "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of Judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Matt. 12:36, 37. In the required task of bridling the tongue let us remember, although no man can do this work unaided, "with God all things are possible." Through him we may overcome evil with good. If we are earnestly seeking to serve God with undivided purpose, he will teach us to "cease from anger, and forsake wrath," and to "fret not . . . in any wise to do evil." "By him [Jesus] therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name." Heb. 13:15. THE WORLD IS ROUND.
By Editor
We do not design to make an argument to prove this statement, for we think that there are so few who would deny it that we can safely take it for granted. And yet we are occasionally led to believe that there are some people to whom the statement is news. We have but recently received a letter from a gentleman in Iowa, who seems to have but just heard that the world is round, and who has not yet fully waked up to a realizing sense of all that that implies. As his letter is a very fair sample of the trouble in which many people find themselves when the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is brought to their attention, we publish it in full:— DEAR EDITOR: I am an occasional reader of your paper. I indorse your position against the worldliness of professing Christians, and temperance reform. I also believe in the near approach of the second coming of Christ. But as yet I cannot accept your views on the fourth commandment. Thus far some physical facts stand in the way of my believing that the seventh day of the week instead of the seventh part of time is intended by that command. As you kindly answer all reasonable questions, giving light to those who sit in darkness, I take the liberty to address you. As the Master did, I will form a parable and state the case, and you will have the goodness to help me out of the difficulty you think I am in. There are three brothers who live in the same town, Peter, James, and John; they are good Adventists, and keep the seventh day as their Sabbath. Peter and James desire to see the world, so they start out to circumnavigate the globe, while John remains at home. Peter starts east and James west. Each keeps his course, counts his weeks, and observes strictly his seventh-day Sabbath till he gets back to his native town. The three brothers meet and talk over the fourth commandment. They discover to their sorrow and astonishment that each is keeping a different day. Each one accuses his brethren of changing the day. Peter, who sailed east and carried his time carefully and correctly, is keeping the first day of our week, or Sunday; James, who sailed west and carried his time carefully and correctly, is keeping the sixth day of our week, or Friday; while John alone is keeping the day they all observed before they parted. Now which one is keeping the right day? If we say John, then why haven't Peter and James, who observed correctly each succeeding seventh-day Sabbath on shipboard, as much right to their days as John, who observed his on land? If your Sabbath views are correct, these physical facts can be shown to harmonize with them, for all natural truth is in harmony with revealed truth, because all truth is God's truth. If this harmony cannot be shown, I shall still feel that my first-day Sabbath is as good as yours. Yours for the truth, We cannot think that we mistake when we judge that this brother has but recently heard that the world is round, for although he speaks in the beginning of his letter of the seventh part of time, the closing sentence shows that the seventh part of time which he observes always comes on the first day of the week. We take it, therefore, that he is a professed Christian and a conscientious observer of Sunday. And yet until he read in the Signs of the Times that the fourth commandment requires the observance of the seventh day of the week, or Saturday, he never imagined that the rotundity of the earth would interfere in any way whatever with the keeping of the first day of the week. How is it that people will keep Sunday all their lives, and will send missionaries to the opposite side of the globe to teach the heathen that they must keep Sunday, but as soon as the Sabbath of the Lord is broached they declare that it cannot be kept because the world is round? Is the world round only when a person tries to keep the Sabbath, and flat at all other times? Is it not just as round for the first-day missionary who goes to China, India, or Africa, as it is for the seventh-day keeper who goes around the world? The simple fact that people do keep the first day of the week in every part of the world, should be a sufficient answer to the objection that people cannot keep the Sabbath on the round world. Indeed, it should prevent such an objection from ever being made. But since our brother has used a parable, we feel like adopting it and improving upon it a little. The three brothers of whom he speaks were all born on the same day. With this correction we will adopt the parable as he has given it. Peter has come home from his journey eastward around the world, and having gained one day is one day older than his brother John, who stayed at home. James, who has just returned from his journey westward around the world, has lost a day and is keeping Friday, and so he is one day younger than his brother John, who stayed at home, and two days younger than Peter, who went around the world the other way. Now if our friend will accept this conclusion of the parable, we shall conclude that he is more puzzled over the fact that the world is round than any person whom we ever saw. But we believe that he will say that it is impossible that Peter should have gained a day on his brother John, and James should have lost one, and that their relative ages must be the same as before they started. But if this is so, his supposition concerning the Sabbath must be abandoned. As a matter of fact, there is no trouble whatever in circumnavigating the globe in any direction. To say that one cannot keep Saturday if he goes to the other side of the globe, is equivalent to saying that they do not have the days of the week over there. But we have evidence from history that people on the other side of the world knew something of the days of the week even before America was discovered. It is true that it is not a given part of the day at the same moment all over the world, just as it is true that no man can be all over the world at the same instant. But as the man can only be in one place at a time, all he has to do is to keep the Sabbath when it comes to him, wherever he is. If anybody should start out to travel, with the idea that when it is noon in his native town, it is noon at the same instant all over the world, or, in other words, that the sun rises and sets at that same instant all around the globe, he would find out his mistake before he had traveled a thousand miles. He would find that he would have to set his watch ahead a little every day if he were going east, or back if he were going west. The day is formed by the revolution of the earth. So far as the formation of days is concerned, the sun is fixed; but as a given portion of the earth in its revolution from west to east comes into the light of the sun, the sun is said to rise at that place, and when it comes into the shadow, the sun is said to set. Now if the person is traveling westward, he is going with the sun, and so he will see it above the horizon each day longer than if he remained in one place; while the one who goes east, goes with the motion of the earth, and so passes into the shade quicker and has less of the sunshine in the day, than if he remained at home. Therefore the one who goes west must set his watch back a few minutes each day, and the one who goes east must set his forward, so that he will be in harmony with the local time wherever he may be. And when both return home, having kept their time accurately, they find themselves perfectly in harmony with those who have remained there. Each one has kept his Sabbath when he came to it, from sunset till sunset; and this is all that is required. If the commandment required the seventh part of time, this would not meet the demand, for when a man is traveling westward, it is longer from sunset to sunset than when he is traveling eastward. In short, all that the commandment requires is to keep the seventh day of the week wherever a man may be. This can be done in China as well as in America, and it can be done in any intermediate place between America and China, whether we go east or west. If this were an age in which a trip of fifty miles from home would be a great wonder, the objection which our brother has made might seem plausible, but when a trip around the world is a thing so common as not to attract any attention, and is accomplished every year by thousands and tens of thousands of people, and yet no individual has found his reckoning out of harmony with the reckoning of those whom he meets in any part of the world, the objection is simply absurd. To conclude: The Lord made the earth and therefore we cannot doubt that he knew that it is round. He also made man, as the apostle says, "to dwell on all the face of the earth." Acts 17:26. He also instituted the Sabbath, declaring it to be a fixed, definite day, and commanded man to observe it. Christ says that the Sabbath was made for man (Mark 2:27), meaning all mankind. Therefore we must conclude that God designed the Sabbath to be kept by men on every part of the round world. If God gave mankind such a commandment, knowing all the time that the world was round, it is nothing else but charging God with folly to say that man cannot keep the Sabbath of the Lord on the Lord's earth. We trust that our friend will cling to his statement that all truth is God's truth, and that since the God who made the world also made the Sabbath, there can be no physical facts to interfere with the keeping of the day. W. THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. NO. 1.
By J.
"REMEMBER the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it." Ex. 20:8-11. This commandment enjoins the holy observance of a day which it calls the Sabbath-day. And as Sabbath means rest, it enjoins the holy observance of the rest-day. The commandment distinctly designates the day which is to be thus observed—"The seventh day is the Sabbath." That is to say, the commandment gives a term—"the Sabbath"—and then gives a distinct and plain definition of that term—"The seventh day is the Sabbath." Or, in other words, if translated, Remember the rest-day. The seventh day is the rest-day. But whose Sabbath-day, whose rest-day, is it? Is it your own rest that you are to remember? Does this commandment say to man, even in substance, Remember that you are tired, or will get tired, and you need a day of rest, and you must not fail to set apart one day in seven for your physical recuperation; therefore remember a rest-day? Is that the meaning of the commandment? Not by any manner of means. Yet that is the very idea that is now most widely prevalent, as to the meaning and purpose of this commandment. But it is difficult to conceive how it would be possible to get further from the truth without denying that the commandment has any meaning or purpose at all. It is not denied of course that man's physical rest and his physical good are involved in the commandment; but these are entirely incidental. In the commandment there is no reference to any such consideration. A mere glance at the commandment will show that it relates to man's duty to God and not to himself. The seventh day is the Sabbath, the rest, not of man, but of "the Lord thy God." It is the Sabbath-day, the rest-day of the Lord, and not of man, that is to be remembered. Man is to work six days and rest the seventh day, not because that is best for him physically, but because the Lord worked six days and rested the seventh day. It is not denied that this proportion of work to rest is the best, but it is not commanded because it is best, it is best because it is commanded. It is best, as everything else in the line of obedience to God is best, because it is in obedience to the commandment of God. Man is to keep503 the rest-day holy, not because it is best for society that all should agree upon one certain day, but because God made the day holy. All this is borne on the very face of the commandment itself. Notice, first, "Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates." This is that part of the commandment which enjoins man's duty. Now what is the reason for all this? Why is it that man must remember the Sabbath-day; to work six days; and to do no work on the seventh day? The commandment gives just one answer, and that is full and explicit. And here it is: "For [because] in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore [for which reason] the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it." These are the fundamental and genuine reasons which underlie the obligations that rest upon man by the fourth commandment. And thus it is not only in the commandment but throughout the whole Bible in treating of this subject. It is the honor of God that is in view in the commandment, and not the good of man, only as the highest and best good of man is always bound up in his supremely honoring God. This is clearly revealed in another important text: "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." Isa. 58:13, 14. In view of the commandment, and of this text and a number of others that might be given, it is hard to understand how that man can be, as he too often is, made the prime object in the meaning of the commandment, unless it be that in the minds of such people man occupies a larger place than does the Creator of all things. This however is to be expected now, for in these last days the leading characteristic is that "men shall be lovers of their own selves," and of their selfish "pleasures, more than lovers of God." It is true that "The Sabbath was made for man," for so said the Saviour. But it was not made for man in the sense which is made most prominent in these days. It was made for him expressly that by it he might ever keep in memory the Creator of heaven and earth and all that in them is, and that man might honor him as such; that man might know the Lord of all and honor him whom he should know. This is plainly stated: "Hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Eze. 20:20. But by what means does it become a sign of the true God? Thus: "It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for [because] in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed." Ex. 31:17. The Sabbath therefore is the sign of God's creative power, and if remembered to be kept holy it will ever keep the Creator of all things in the memory of whosoever remembers it to so keep it. And if all men had ever so remembered to keep it, even after the fall, there would never have been in all the world a false god nor an idolater. To bear in mind the fact that it is the Lord's rest, and the Lord's rest-day, and not man's, that are to be remembered; in short, to bear in mind the words of the commandment, at once relieves the Sabbath question of all obscurity. But to misread the commandment, or to ignore its plain statements, is only to create obscurity and confusion. Thus, men nowadays read the first sentence of the commandment, "Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy;" and then say that Sunday, the first day of the week, is the Sabbath, and wholly ignore all the rest of the commandment. Yet the word "ignore" does not half express the fact in the case. The truth is that to call Sunday the Sabbath is to flatly contradict the commandment of God; and to make the commandment teach the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath is to make it teach open falsehood. For— 1. Everybody knows that Sunday is the first day of the week, and the commandment of God says that "The seventh day is the Sabbath." Therefore to call Sunday the Sabbath is to contradict the commandment of God. 2. The word "Sabbath" means rest. The phrase, "the Sabbath of the Lord," means, the rest of the Lord. And the command to remember the Sabbath-day of the Lord, is only the command to remember the rest-day of the Lord. But to call the first day of the week the Sabbath-day of the Lord, is to call it the rest-day of the Lord, while it is not, and never was, and never can be, the rest-day of the Lord. The word of God says that he "rested the seventh day;" therefore to call the first day of the week the Sabbath-day—the rest-day—is to contradict the word of God. 3. Because God had rested the seventh day, therefore he blessed (put honor upon) the Sabbath—the rest—day and hallowed it—made it holy. It was thus that he made it the holy Sabbath-day. Now to call Sunday a holy day or the holy Sabbath-day, is to say that God rested the first day, that he blessed the first day, and that he hallowed the first day; whereas the word of God says that he rested the seventh day, that he blessed the seventh day and hallowed it. Therefore to call Sunday the Sabbath-day, the holy Sabbath-day, or the Lord's day, is to contradict the word of God. And to make the commandment of God teach any such thing as that of the first day of the week is to make it teach falsehood. God did not rest the first day; therefore it is not, and cannot truthfully be called, the rest or Sabbath-day. God did not bless (put honor upon) the first day; then it is not, and cannot truthfully be called, "honorable." God did not hallow the first day; therefore it is not, and cannot truthfully be called, "holy," nor can it possibly be kept holy. But all these God did with the seventh day. He rested the seventh day; therefore he says "the seventh day is the Sabbath." He blessed the seventh day; therefore he calls it, and commands men to call it, "honorable." He hallowed (made holy) the seventh day; therefore he calls it "holy," and commands men to call it "holy" and remember it to keep it holy. And it is one of the strangest things imaginable how it can be that right in the face of the plain, positive statement of the word of God, men will try to pass off upon themselves and others, as the Sabbath, that which is not, and cannot by any possibility be, the Sabbath. We know, of course, that there are thousands of people keeping Sunday who have never looked into the subject attentively, and who are not intentionally breaking the commandment of God, and who, when they see what the word of God really says about the Sabbath, will readily conform to the truth of God, in the fear of the Lord. The discussion of this question is now, however, becoming so prominent and so widespread, that no one can much longer escape a decision for or against the keeping of the Sabbath of the Lord. The seventh day is the only day that can be kept holy, because it is the only day of the week that the Lord ever made holy. As therefore it is impossible for man to keep holy what has never been made holy, and the first day of the week never having been made holy, it is impossible for any man, or even for all men together with one unanimous consent, to keep holy the Sunday. While, on the other hand, the Lord having made the seventh day holy and honorable, it is holy and honorable whether men keep it so, or regard it so, or not. If not a man on earth should keep the seventh day yet that day would be just as holy as though there was not a man who did not keep it. God made the day holy at the creation of the world, and holy it will ever remain, whatever man may do. Therefore the fourth commandment says, "Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy," and to not do so is to sin and make ourselves unholy. Our keeping or not keeping the Sabbath holy, does not in the least affect the character of the day; but it does most decidedly affect our own character and standing in the sight of the Holy One who made the day holy, and who commands all men to remember it to keep it holy. "Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. . . The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work; . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it." And "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." Will you call the Sabbath of the Lord what he commands you to call it? Will you do as he here tells you to do? Will you "honor him" thus? Remember, thus saith the Lord, "Them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed."