READER, imagine that you are present in a conference meeting when a number of notable persons are assembled. A testimony meeting is held. The theme is the Sabbath question. Each is called upon to bear a short testimony.
1. Moses.—“The Lord gave me a view of the wonderful work of the creation of the heavens, earth, and sea, and all things therein; and by His Spirit I wrote it out for mankind. It was revealed to me that the Lord made all things in six days, rested on the seventh day, and then hallowed and sanctified the seventh day for all time to come, to be ever remembered and kept holy, as a memorial of the Creator and all His wonderful works. (Gen. 2:2, 3.)
“The Lord called me at one time to lead His people out of bondage and apostasy. He wrought many wonderful miracles in their deliverance; and He performed a three-fold miracle every week for forty years, to impress upon all the particular day of the Sabbath and its sacredness. (Exodus 16.) And once in our journey the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai in terrible majesty, and spoke His immutable and eternal law of Ten Commandments with a voice that shook the earth. It was an event never to be forgotten. He then placed the holy Sabbath commandment in the bosom of the divine law, where it must forever remain.” (Ex. 20:1-17.)
2. David.—“The Lord hath made His wonderful works to be remembered. The works of His hands are verity and judgment. All His commandments are sure, they stand fast forever and ever. Great peace have they that love that law, and nothing shall offend them. My delight is in the law of the Lord. O how I love it! It is my meditation day and night.” (Ps. 111: 6-8; 119: 165, 97.)
3. Isaiah.—“I am in perfect accord with my dear brethren who have just spoken. It has been revealed to me by the Holy Spirit, that blessed is the man that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, that turneth away his foot from the Sabbath, from doing his own pleasure on the Lord’s holy day. If any call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, then they will delight themselves in the Lord, and He will highly exalt them by and by.” (Isa. 56: 1-7; 58: 12, 13.)
4. Matthew.—“I am one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, and I wrote a history of His life. I remember that Jesus told us that Jerusalem would meet with a fearful destruction, even in our day. He told us how we might know when it was at hand, and then we must all flee to the mountains for safety; and He requested us to pray that our flight might not come on the Sabbath day. And thus we prayed, till the signs appeared, and we did not have to flee on the Sabbath day. You see from this, that Jesus had a sacred regard for the Sabbath, and expected it to continue in the years to come.” (Matt. 24: 20.)
5. Mark.—“I also wrote a life of Jesus, and I well remember His high regard for the Sabbath day. Once He said He was Lord of the Sabbath, and that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2: 27, 28.)
6. Luke.—“It was my blessed privilege to write a life of Jesus; and I well remember that after He was crucified on a Friday, He rested in the sepulcher over the Sabbath day. Some of our sisters prepared spices to anoint His body; but by the time they were ready, it was sundown on the preparation day, so we all rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” (Luke 23: 56.)
7. John.—“I was inspired to write a life of Jesus also; and it was revealed to me that Jesus made all things, and that without Him there was not anything made that was made. Thus we may see what Jesus meant, as Brother Mark tells us Jesus said He was Lord of the Sabbath. As Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, then the Sabbath must be the Lord’s day. Once when I was on the Isle of Patmos, I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” (Rev. 1: 10.)
8. Paul.—“I carried the pure Gospel of Christ to the world, to the dispersed among the Gentiles. It was my manner to attend divine worship on the Sabbath day, as did Jesus, and to reason with the people out of the Scriptures. I was in Corinth a year and six months, teaching the Word of God among them; and I reasoned in the synagog every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. Thus, for seventy-eight Sabbaths in succession I taught the people in Corinth, and worked at my trade in the meantime. In my day, Moses was read in the synagogs every Sabbath day; and we all know well on what day the synagogs were opened for worship. At that time there were no Sabbaths other than those the Jews observed.” (Acts 15: 21; 18: 1-11.)
9. Neander.—“I am a church historian of the nineteenth century. From a careful examination of the subject of the Sunday festival and the Sabbath, I am persuaded that the6festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance; and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect—far from them, and the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday.”
10. Sir Wm. Domville.—“Centuries of the Christian era passed away before Sunday was observed as a Sabbath.”
11. Archdeacon Farrar.—“The Sabbath is Saturday, the seventh day of the week.”
12. Dr. Lyman Abbott.—“The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day of the week for the seventh day, is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament.”
13. James Cardinal Gibbons.—“Read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.”
14. Jesus.—“I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love. It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one jot or tittle of the law to fail. I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil. Which of you convinceth Me of sin? (Sin is the transgression of the law.) It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath days. Blessed are they that do My Father’s commandments, for they shall have right to the Tree of Life, and enter in through the gates into the city. Why do you transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? In vain ye do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. The law of My Father is in My heart, and I delight to do His will. If you will obey My Gospel, you will have My Father’s holy law written in your hearts, and then you will delight to do your heavenly Father’s will, and abide in His love.”
Benediction: “Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are. Amen.”—Jesus.
H. A. ST. JOHN.
The Sabbath Through the Ages
By Charles L. Taylor
X. The Sabbath and the Apostles
By Charles L. Taylor
JESUS died and rose again. As He came forth from the tomb triumphant and glorified, He discovered Himself to His disciples “by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” Acts 1:3. During this time He opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45),—the Scriptures from Moses’ time onward (Luke 24:27), and gave them the great commission to go and teach all nations, “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Matt. 28:19, 20.
Then came the day of Pentecostal blessing, when the mantle of His power and grace and wisdom in the gift of the Holy Spirit fell upon those apostolic shoulders, “and they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the Word with signs following.” Mark 16:20.
Jesus Christ had promised to be with them always, even unto the end of the world (Matt. 28:20); and we may find that without question they had accepted this promise and the responsibility of witnessing for Him. They stood in His place (2 Cor. 5:20), allowed Him to dwell in their lives (Col. 1:27); and so fully were they in harmony with Him that even their bitterest enemies took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13.
In view of this relationship which certainly existed between them and their Master, we are safe in assuming that their life and teaching are of great importance to us, and that their experiences are in great measure examples for us. Question: What was the custom of the apostles with reference to the Sabbath of the Lord? What day did they keep?
Naturally, one would conclude that as followers of the Lord Jesus they would carry out to the very letter all the instruction He had given them. And knowing that the life of Jesus was in perfect harmony with His own teaching, it would follow that they would live as He lived. In other words, if Jesus was with them as they claimed, then their life and their teaching would be identical with His life and teaching which had gone before. Or, to put it another way, if Jesus Christ dwelt in them, then He would do in and through them the same that He Himself had done while yet on earth.
But Jesus kept the seventh day, the day commanded in His Father’s law, the day observed by His people, the day that was made for mankind and given to the race in the beginning. It was His custom to do so. Luke 4:16; Mark 2:27, 28. Moreover, He had taught His disciples and many others that the true observance of the Sabbath was “lawful”—according to the law (Matt. 12:12); and that the law in its every and least particular should continue as long as heaven and earth should stand. Matt. 5:17, 18. Throughout His ministry, by both example and precept, the Son of God taught the sacredness and the perpetual obligation of the Sabbath. Did the apostles do thus?
If the reader has taken time to study the life and teaching of the great apostle to the Gentiles, he will probably have seen that that worker certainly followed the example of his Lord. Paul kept the Sabbath of Jehovah with all the enthusiasm of his surrendered life. During all his arduous labors and throughout all his long journeyings, the keeping of the holy day was one duty and privilege never neglected. See Acts 13:14; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4, and other passages.
It is very evident also that the apostle led his converts to the Gospel of Christ to do the same; for one record is (Acts 13:42, 44), “When the Jews were gone out of the synagog, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. . . . And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the Word of God.” Gentiles as well as Jews, when they had accepted Christ, began the observance of the Sabbath.
Turning to the teaching of the apostle, we find it in perfect accord with what he lived. Perhaps no other New Testament writer has set forth the binding claims of God’s holy law so strongly as he. He declared the commandments to be “holy,” “just,” “good,” “spiritual.” Rom. 7:12, 14. He made it plain that if there were no law there could be no sin (Rom. 5:13), and that only by the law could he know himself to be a sinner. Rom. 7:7. It was he who showed the tremendous importance of the Ten Commandments by declaring that the death of Christ was for the purpose of bringing the righteousness of the law into our lives. Rom. 8:3, 4. Yes, it was Paul who taught that faith in Jesus Christ establishes the law (Rom. 3:31), and that it will continue as the great rule of conduct until the coming of Christ at the end of the world. Gal. 3:19.
No wonder, then, that the great missionary of apostolic days honored the Sabbath of the Lord.
“But,” says one, “did not Paul write to the church at Colosse that Christ had blotted out ‘the handwriting of ordinances that was against us,’ and that we, therefore, should allow no one to judge us regarding ‘the Sabbath days’?” Col. 2:14, 16. Yes, it is true that he thus wrote; but it were indeed very foolish to conclude that he was arguing and writing against his own teaching and practise. Note the fact that the sabbaths of which he there writes are “a shadow of things to come” (Col. 2:17), and are associated with meats, drinks, holy days, and new moons. Col. 2:16. There were many such shadowy, typical, ceremonial feasts and days connected with the Jewish service, all of which pointed forward in some measure to the Christ who was to die. But when Calvary7was reached, all those types met their antitype and so passed away.
Not so, however, with the Sabbath of the commandment, which was given before sin came, before the typical services for sin had an existence. It is a part of the immutable moral Decalogue, which is the very essence of righteousness, and which continues into eternity.
It is a striking fact that the word “Sabbath” is found sixty times in the New Testament, and in every case except Col. 2:16 reference is made to the seventh day, the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, the day blessed and sanctified in the Garden of Eden. The Sabbath of the apostles was none other than that commanded of God and kept by the Lord Jesus Christ. As already seen, “the Sabbath according to the commandment,” the seventh day of the week, was the day observed by the disciples while Jesus lay in the tomb (Luke 23:54, 56); and what was done then was done ever afterward.
Apostolic times furnish us no other testimony. All taught the perpetual claims of the Sinaitic law, and all certainly lived what they taught. “The Lord’s day,” the Sabbath (Rev. 1:10; Isa. 58:13), was kept by John, the beloved, on the Isle of Patmos. The writer to the Hebrews shows that “the seventh day” given at “the foundation of the world,” is still the pledge of the rest that remains to the people of God. Heb. 4:3-9. And James, who writes to the church of God, says, “If ye fulfil the royal law, . . . ye do well. . . . So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” James 2:8, 12.
Shall we heed the admonition? If faith establishes the law (Rom. 3:31), and puts it in the heart as a new covenant experience (Heb. 8:10), is it not true that the Sabbath should be a delight to us, even as it was to Jesus? Ps. 40:7, 8. Has not God pronounced a special blessing upon the Gentile “stranger” who will honor the Sabbath? Isa. 56:6, 7; 58:13, 14. And to the apostle John was it not said, “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the city”? Rev. 22:14.
Dear reader, let us truly love Him, and in all the earnestness of our hearts gladly “remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy.”
Jesus the Way
We can construct trains which in a day will bear us from winter’s frost to summer’s clime — none will be constructed by wizard hand which will take us past the gates of death. We navigate the imponderable air — bridgeless for human hand is the chasm of death. Our philosophers have thought concerning God, but their combined wisdom leaves the heart disconsolate when it aches and breaks.
Jesus is the revelation of God. All light which is not a reflection of the Light of the World, leaves the soul in darkness. Jesus is not the product of evolution, nor the resultant of merely earthly factors and forces. He is God incarnate; He is the gift of the heavenly Father; He is man’s Sin-bearer and Redeemer.—Lutheran Observer.
Affliction and Virtue
AFFLICTION is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed.—Hannah More.
Afraid to Believe
DISBELIEF does not alter facts, tho we try our best to make it do so. It is a fact that sin brings an assured and terrible penalty; few of us like to believe this, and so we say that we do not believe it—as we let ourselves indulge in this or that variation from the highest standard. Evangelist Biederwolf struck home with many a listener when he asserted, “What a man is most afraid of he says he doesn’t believe in.”
A thoughtful man once said to a friend with vehemence, “If I had to believe in everlasting punishment, I could not believe in God.” Some time later he said to that same friend, “If you ever know of my being so sick that I am sure to die, I hope you will tell me that I can not recover, so that I may have a chance to make my peace with God before I go.” He did believe in future punishment; it was the thing that he was most afraid of; therefore, he tried to make himself think that he did not believe in it. But he was ready to minimize the possible danger by an eleventh-hour peacemaking with God, if he got the chance.
The manlier way is to face the facts and live by them in surrender to God. When God is our accepted master, there are no facts that we fear.—Sunday School Times.
A Perpetual Miracle
By Delaven Leonard Pierson
THE miracle of Saul’s conversion is not unique in history. Exact details of his experience have not been repeated, but the same result has been brought about times without number. This is the perpetual evidence of the truth of Christianity. No other religion is marked by this repeated miracle of conversion. Buddhists, Confucianists, and Moslems are born into their faiths and are educated into their religion. Only in rare instances are outsiders converted to their creeds, and among themselves conversion is practically an unknown phenomenon.
The Christian religion is different; discipleship is a matter of personal surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. This way, by which Paul entered, is the one open to all ages and classes, young and old, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile.
Conversion is always a miracle, for it is always wrought by the power of God; but it is not always brought about by external supernatural agencies. The great essential is that the purpose and direction of life be changed if they have previously been contrary to the plans and character of God. This change is most marked when the life has been most antagonistic to God. Paul was transformed from a persecutor of Christ to one who was ready to suffer many things for His name’s sake. Jerry McAuley, of Water Street Mission, New York, was transformed, by as real a miracle, from a thief and a drunkard to a rescuer of thieves and drunkards. For many years John Jaeger, another converted drunkard, preached the Gospel in a saloon which he had converted into the Living Waters Mission. Kayarnak, a degraded Eskimo, became a missionary to his own people. Africaner, the Hottentot terror, became a Christian king; Nloko, the persecutor of Congo Christians, became Paul the apostle of Banza Manteke. These miracles are taking place in every city mission, in mining camps, and foreign fields.—Delaven Leonard Pierson.
Righteousness and Sin
1. In whom does all righteousness find its source?
“Their righteousness is of Me, saith the Lord.” Isa. 54:17.
2. In what is God’s righteousness expressed?
“Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law.” Isa. 51:7.
3. How enduring and unchangeable is this righteousness?
“My righteousness shall not be abolished.” Isa. 51:6. “All His commandments are sure. They stand fast forever and ever.” Ps. 111: 7, 8. “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.” Luke 16:17.
4. What is transgression of this law called?
“Sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4.
5. Is there sin apart from transgression of God’s law?
“Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:15.
7. How may we become rid of sin?
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9.
The Hidden Love of God
By Charles Wesley
[Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes’s favorite hymn, written by Charles Wesley.]
Thou hidden Love of God, whose height,
Whose depth unfathomed, no man knows,
I see from far Thy beauteous light,
Inly I sigh for Thy repose;
My heart is pained, nor can it be
At rest, till it finds rest in Thee.
Is there a thing beneath the sun,
That strives with Thee my heart to share?
Ah, tear it thence, and reign alone,
The Lord of every motion there;
Then shall my heart from earth be free,
When it hath found repose in Thee.
O, hide this self from me, that I
No more, but Christ in me, may live;
My vile affections crucify,
Nor let one darling lust survive.
In all things nothing may I see,
Nothing desire or seek, but Thee.
O Love, Thy sovereign aid impart,
To save me from low-thoughted care;
Chase this self-will through all my heart,
Through all its latent mazes there;
Make me Thy duteous child, that I
Ceaseless may, “Abba, Father,” cry.
Each moment draw from earth away
My heart, that lowly waits Thy call;
Speak to my inmost soul, and say,
“I am thy Love, thy God, thy All.”
To feel Thy power, to hear Thy voice,
To taste Thy love, be all my choice.
Planting Thorns
By Anon.
“He that plants thorns should never go barefooted,” is an old saying. Of course you know what that means. The planted thorns are quite sure to come up, and in the path of the one who planted them; so that if he goes barefooted, he will feel their sharp pricks himself.
There is another way of putting it: Those who carelessly or purposely make trouble for others find trouble for themselves. Isn’t that true?— Anon.
The Christian’s Field
THE Christian truth is not, “America for Americans,” nor “England for the English,” but, “The field is the world.” John Wesley, we think it was, said, “The world is my parish.” To all the world is the Christian sent forth, “debtor both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise,” by virtue of the great fact that Christ has purchased all men with His own life. He who acknowledges Christ’s ownership and leadership, will count himself, as9did Paul, “debtor” to all; and he will count all men the purchase of Christ’s blood. He will hate their sins, but he will love and endeavor to save their souls.
Rival Camps and Centers
THE great religious question of the day, possessing not only a national but international interest, is the Sabbath question. It is not only of interest in religious circles, but in the councils of legislators and the halls of governments. Sabbath legislation is being demanded and opposed everywhere. But the keen observer will notice that those who are asking state aid for a religious institution are invariably those who rally around the standard of the Sunday, while those who are opposed to all state interference in religious dogmas are those who hold to the Sabbath, of which the foundation was laid by the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the divine Son of God.
Why is this?—Simply that the latter is supported by God’s eternal Word, and its adherents believe that He is better able to care for His own than any set of men can be; and that Sunday has no support as a holy day in the Word of God, hence no basis of faith or of confidence in the power of God to support it. Hence the seeking of aid from worldly power. But that system which substitutes the power or works of man for the power and righteousness of God, is “the mystery of iniquity.”
In its manifestation in these last days the center and rallying point will be the Sunday, the pseudo sabbath, enforced by law. On the other hand will be the manifestation, the preaching, of the righteousness of Christ, “the mystery of God,” by power of the Spirit of God; and the center and rallying point of this will be the Sabbath of the Lord, at once a memorial of Christ’s power in creation and re-creation, and a sign of the redemption which is in Him. Reader, in which party do you, will you, stand?
Christian Science and Common Sense
IT must not be supposed, now, that Christian Scientists, in their denial of matter, thereby deny what they call the reality of things. Such denial would be a denial of their own reality. They have seen this possibility and think they have avoided it.
There has been some misapprehension here on the part of their opponents. Christian Science teaches that the true realities are spiritual; the material aspect only is the myth and illusion.
For example, I have a pamphlet, written by one of their teachers. It has been published by them in an authoritative way. In this the author says: “It has been asked, Do you mean to say that this wonderful piece of mechanism, called the body, is an illusion, and that all the beautiful things in nature are but myths? We answer, Such is not the teaching of Christian Science.”
From this the author goes on to speak of these things as existing in the spiritual sense, and says that the material aspect of these things is the illusion. In other words, the things themselves are not denied, but their material aspect is denied.
The Christian Scientist does not deny the body, if you mean the spiritual body, whatever that may be. But if you mean a material body, he will tell you that “there is no physical science” (p. 127), the optical focus of the eye is an illusion (p. 122), the mind supposed to exist beneath a skull-bone is a myth (p. 281), man has a sensation body (p. 280), the material body is a sensuous, human concept (p. 177), heredity is not a law (p. 178), and dyspepsia is a random thought (p. 175).
Now there it is; all is mind; if anything seems to dispute the fact, you are not to give it credence; it has no reality; it is an illusion. Surely this is an easy philosophy to follow, and it is enticing; it cuts out sin, misery, and even death, all in one statement.
But the apostle Paul pointed us forward to the resurrection as the time when victory over death is to be given to the child of God. “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up of victory.” Then the last enemy, death, will be destroyed. Then the glorified saints will cry enraptured, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
But Christian Scientists have found a short cut that, they say, avoids the grave. They have a “through limited” that does not cross the dark river. Theologians have long mistakenly taught the idea that the spirit will be released at death. Mrs. Eddy puts the time for the release of spirit this side the grave; she does it by denying the material body. But the fact of the case is that the spiritual and glorified body, the body of power and permanence, according to the fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians, is not to be given until the saints are resurrected. We certainly ought to wait God’s time.
But why should we be asked to doubt the validity of our senses as to the reality of matter? If a man must doubt the existence of matter with which he is constantly in contact, what can he believe?—Christian Science?—Well, I suppose he must, for that is all he will have left to believe.
But candidly, is everything mind? When I ask my own personality, and push the question home upon my own consciousness, what is the answer that comes back to me? If I can believe the evidence of my own senses, I am a separate individual from all that is about me, I am something quite different from what is outside of me, and this world is a real world.
When a person gets to the place where he discredits the evidence of his own bodily senses and the testimony of his own consciousness, there is no place for argument, reason, or even thought concerning it. One tramples upon his own mind and pushes his reason under foot. He promises to think only along the groove marked out to him by another no higher than himself. He thus enslaves even his own consciousness and defies that quality we call common sense.
If this teaching of Christian Science is true, who is responsible for putting man into this hideous condition of persisting that dreams are realities? Who or what doomed him to live in the awful thralldom of being forever fooled? It could not have been the devil, for Christian Science denies the devil. It could not have been the angels, for angels are merely beautiful thoughts.
For ages the human race has gone on in the delusion of taking nothing to be something, only to learn its folly in this the twentieth century through the word of a woman, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. She says that “all is Mind” (p. 257). And so no matter what things seem to be, we are to go against the evidence because she says so. We are to doubt our senses and our consciousness and our common sense, and believe her.
One Safe Example
WHAT a blessed thing to know in these days of peril that we have one safe Example to follow, one safe Teacher upon whom we may rely! He is not affected by the Higher Criticism, nor the lower criticism, nor Theosophy, nor Christian Science, nor Modern Spiritualism, nor New Thought, nor a hundred and one religio-political theories; but He brings to us the truth of God fresh from the ever-living Source every day.
His teachings, His Word, is the fountain of life bursting forth for the thirsty. He presents no strange way for us to follow, for the way is His, marked every step with His own blessed footprints. He brings no complex, vague, uncertain system of truth; it is so simple and clear that the little child may accept and rejoice in it, yet so vast and deep that the most profound philosopher can never sound its depths. He asks us to lead no strange life; for the life is His; He has lived it before us and will live it in us.
More than this: Our Teacher, our Example, is Himself—the Way, the Truth, the Life, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and all days to come.
Traveler in this world of uncertainties, follow Him. Lost wanderer in the wilds of sin’s night, listen to His voice, follow the light which streams from His wounded side. Yea, to all the sin-sick, restless, heart-hungry, lost souls of earth He speaks: “Come unto Me, . . . and I will give you rest.” They that trust in Him “shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.”
Not from That Source, but from God
A Striking Parallel
OUR correspondents often meet the statement from Roman Catholics that Protestants received the Bible from them. In the words of a Catholic editor,—
“They can not prove the Bible by the Bible. They got it from the church. Its authority is the authority of the church. Without the church there could have been no Bible, and when people give up the church it is but a short time until they give up the Bible also. The so-called orthodox and the so-called unorthodox are alike, inconsistent and illogical. If they only used the minds which God gave them, they would soon see that there is only one reasonable form of Christianity on earth, and that is the Catholic Church.”
The argument of this editor is like that of the Jews of old: “We have Abraham for our father;” “we are the seed of Abraham, and we have never been slaves to any man.” (All Scripture quotations are from the Catholic Douay Version.) But the answer of both John and our blessed Lord forever showed that a long line of tribal or priestly succession was no evidence of a title to the church of God. Said the former, “God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” Matt. 3:9. And Jesus said, “Whosoever committeth sin [“sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4] is the servant of sin.” “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.” John 8:39. The Pharisees of that day could also have said, “We are the teachers. The Scriptures are with us; we brought them to you,” as indeed they did. Yet they had made the Scriptures and law of God void through their tradition. The Sabbath had been buried under a heap of rabbinical superstition, and the fifth commandment had, in one particular at least, been made of no effect. Luke 13:11-17; Mark 7:1-13.
So also the great apostate church since Christ, while depositaries of the written Word, have through priestly and pagan tradition made void in some particulars the second commandment, and in all particulars, so far as her influence extends, the Sabbath commandment.
God’s Word contains the proof of itself in itself to him who has faith. The words of Christ are as true to-day as when uttered, “If any man will do the will of Him, he shall know of the doctrine.” John 7:17.
But what if the Roman Catholic Church had never existed?—Well, we would probably have had far more of earlier copies of the Word of God in the original tongues than we have to-day. God has preserved His Book, as He has His Sabbath, despite apostasy, not because of it; and He would have done so had every king been an Ahab or a Manasseh, and every pope a Sixtus IV or an Alexander VI. There were faithful men of God in the darkest days of the Jewish apostasy, not because of the apostasy, but by the grace of God despite the apostasy. There have been and are faithful Christians in the Roman Catholic Church, but not because of the doctrines or teaching or grace of that church, but by the grace of God despite the corrupt system.
The test of Jesus Christ is, “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doth the will of My Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matt. 7:21.
Saturday-Keeping or Sabbath-Keeping
SATURDAY-KEEPING has no advantage over Sunday-keeping except in regard to the day. The traditional seventh-day-keeping of the Jews in the time of Jesus is paralleled by the traditional Sunday-keeping of the present except in the matter of the day. Saturday-keeping is a mere using of the day for physical rest, finding very much of the pleasures of the flesh and speaking its words. It is doing service to man, not to God.
But Sabbath-keeping, the true rest in Christ Jesus, the delight in God’s ways and works and words and pleasure, is an altogether different thing. It is not only right as respects the day, the seventh day, the crowning day of the week, the day for which the week exists, but it drinks in the spirit of that day and “remembers the Sabbath day to keep it holy” all through the week. The Sabbath of the Lord is a day, a definite, particular day, but it is more; it is a blessed continual rest in Christ Jesus, doubly blessed on the twice-blessed day of the Sabbath.
The Little Things
SOMETIMES a mountain spring pours out its wealth of waters upon a ridge which divides two great diverse valleys. A very little channel, a small obstruction, would turn the flow either way.
Such times come into the spiritual life of every human being. Conviction is not strong and clear. Some temptation, against which the Spirit of God has warned us, is yielded to, and the soul begins its downward course. The sin of itself is what would be called small, but it is great in its results. It is the stifling of a conviction of duty; it is the hardening of conscience; it is the beginning of the downward path of sin which ends in eternal death. Beware, therefore, of the little sins, the little lapses from duty, the stiflings of conscience. Seek God continually for a knowledge of His Word, for the anointing of the divine eyesalve, for an infinitely tender conscience, for a heart and will ever to choose for God and right. This is the way of loyalty and truth; it is the only safe way.
Representing God Through Our Lives
God has placed us here, not to represent ourselves nor others, but to represent Him. People will judge of God’s goodness by His followers.
LIVE within your income.
No Christian Nations
The religion of man has many different forms, all manifesting his unregenerate nature and passions; and the religion of the Turk, for instance, is one of them. This religion has always united itself with the power of the state, man’s government; and the world has been cursed by the unnatural union and its monstrous progeny of persecution and bloodshed. Mormonism is another of the same class.
Christianity, the life and power of God in Christ Jesus and His Gospel, comes down to the world possessing a power above, distinct, and apart from all these. There are no “Christian nations” or Christian governments as such. As soon as men attempt to crystallize Christianity into law, they get but a dead form; the life has fled. It can not be bound and confined by the creeds of councils or the laws of men.
A curse of the world to-day, a weighty incubus upon our foreign missions, is the idea that these missionaries and missions represent Christian nations,—that England, with her oppression of India, her rum in Africa, her opium in China, is “Christian;” that America, with her law-enthroned plutocracy, her exports of rum and tobacco to heathen lands, her teemingly corrupt governments, national, state, and municipal, is “Christian.”
And for all these crimes our missionaries and missionary journals apologize and mourn. In the name of the blessed Christ, why do they not say the living truth: America is not “Christian” except in name; nor England, nor Greece, nor Spain is “Christian,” however they may call themselves such. Christianity is a matter of individual life and relationship in Jesus Christ to every soul that believes. Let the church and her children preach that, and leave the political problems to God and the world, instead of using the Babylonian plan of force to execute God’s decree, and reaping the sure reward of death from her own poison wine.
The Beauty of Humility
By R.
THE sunflower can be seen a great way off; it is large and showy and pretentious. But if I wished to adorn a table, or possibly wear a button-hole bouquet, I would much prefer the violet. The sunflower may do for the back fence, but when it comes right down to personal associations, we want something less pretentious, more beautiful with the beauty of humility, and fragrant as the breezes from the land of Beulah. This is nature’s lesson to us on heart adorning, where the perfume of the life and not its pretentions, is admirable, yea, priceless. R.
Unselfishness and the Christlike Life
By R.
To BE like Christ is to be really unselfish. Try your motives. Are you working for name or place or recognition in this world? If so, you are seeking for earthly reward. To be like Christ is to disregard self with all its interests. To be like Christ is to give our lives unselfishly for others. And in so doing our reward is sure, but we will not do it merely for reward. To live in Christ is to be like Christ, and that of itself is the correction of all wrong motives. R.
