p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 5. (1/30/1896)

May We Know the Day?—Why not?

Adam knew it when God appointed it to his use. Gen. 2:1-3. He could make no mistake. Toward three millenniums later the people of God knew it again. They heard God's voice proclaim the law of the Sabbath from heaven amid such grandeur as earth has never known. Ex. 20:8-11. They had in the fall of the miraculous manna, a manifest threefold weekly demonstration that but one day of the week was the Sabbath, namely, the seventh. See Ex. 16:23-30. This threefold weekly miracle demonstrated the true Sabbath day for forty years. Surely Israel knew the day. Verse 35. When our Lord Jesus Christ came, the power of God, and the wisdom of God, he who made the Sabbath, he knew the day and observed the day. Luke 4:18; Mark 2:27, 28. And Inspiration tells us that the Sabbath day was the day just before “the first day of the week.” Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 2; Luke 23:56; 24:1. Since that time there has been no mistake made in the reckoning of the days of the week. Commerce, astronomy, history, and religion identify the week then and now as the same. The seventh day now is the Sabbath of the Lord.

Omitted Departments: Missions, Outlook, and Question Corner

IT has been found necessary in this number to omit three departments, Missions, Outlook, and Question Corner.

The Sabbath: General Subject of This Issue

By Editor

THE general subject of this issue of our paper is the Sabbath, but the reader will find much more than this which will be both interesting and profitable.

This Issue—Its Price

By Editor

This Issue—Its Price.—Those who desire extra copies of this issue may obtain them at the rate of $2.00 per 100. We can not afford them for less. But in proportion to the price of tracts the paper is wonderfully cheap for two cents. Address SIGNS OF THE TIMES, Oakland, Cal.

This Symposium: Substitute Articles on the Sabbath

By Editor

This Symposium.— Two of the expected articles for this symposium did not reach us, and we have substituted as best we could. The articles, “The Sabbath and the Law,” and a “Reform on the Sabbath” are taken in whole or in part from the pamphlet “The Lord’s Day, the Test of the Ages.” We regret that valuable matter was crowded out, but it will all appear later, and help to enrich some other number.

A Correspondence School

A Correspondence School.—Under the auspices of the college faculty of Walla Walla, Wash., a school of correspondence has been organized in General Conference District No. 6 for ministers, Bible workers, canvassers, etc. The course will consist of Bible study, history, language, physiology, and hygiene. It is designed to make this as comprehensive as possible, and at a reasonable rate to the student. All interested ones should apply for particulars to Prof. E. A. Sutherland, Walla Walla, Wash.

The Day God Has Made Holy

The Day.—We can desecrate that day alone which God has made sacred. We can profane that day alone which God has made holy. We can dishonor only that day which he has honored. On the other hand, we can hallow only that day which God has sanctified. We can keep holy only that day which God has made holy. He has hallowed or made holy but one day, namely, the seventh day of the seven. It is but will worship to do or attempt to do what he has not commanded. Well may he say, “Who has required this at your hands?”

Not a Question of Days.

The Sabbath question is not a mere question of days. Behind the Sabbath is God, the great Creator and Redeemer through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the memorial of his creation, the sign of his redeeming, sanctifying, upholding, keeping power. Behind the Sunday—hidden tho they be by sacred memories and hallowed traditions of honest hearts—are a hoary pagan sun-worship and an apostate ecclesiasticism, the Papacy, which claims it as its mark or badge of authority. Honest men have passed the base, well-worn counterfeit in the past, but now the true light from God’s word shines upon it and reveals the imposture. Will they cherish it longer?

The Rest of the Sabbath.

The rest of the holy Sabbath is not mere cessation from physical labor. “God is Spirit.” His “law is spiritual.” His rest was spiritual rest, refreshing and delightful. Ex. 31:17. He sanctifies and blesses by placing within the thing sanctified his own presence. 2 Cor. 3:16, 17. So the hallowed bread—the showbread—was literally the bread of the presence. Christ was the angel of God’s presence, because God was in him. So the Sabbath is “the holy of the Lord” (Isa. 58:13), “holy to the Lord” (Ex. 31:15). The rest of the Sabbath is, therefore, spiritual rest, the rest of Christ’s presence in the Sabbath, which faith alone appropriates. Men came in contact with Christ, but saw and knew only the man Jesus. But faith saw in him the Lord of life, and drew from him life-giving virtue. Many come in contact with the Sabbath; they see in it but a day as other days, or a day of casual rest, but faith sees in it the sign of the ever-living Creator and Redeemer, finds in it the presence of Christ, and appropriates the blessing God has promised. This is the rest of the holy Sabbath to the Lord. Then indeed is it “a delight.”

Healers of the Breach.

Once God’s people held his holy law in its integrity. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and all the prophets, even to Jesus Christ and his apostles, loved God’s law and observed his Sabbath. They did not even question it; they ever affirmed its authority. But in the Christian age a change has come. “The foundations of many generations” have been, in the church of God, broken up; waste places have been made in the moral hedge; a breach has been opened in the Decalogue, and the sign of the Creator has been obscured by a day which the apostasy claims as the mark of its power. And yet God’s law is the same, and is to be restored in his remnant church. Noble souls will seek out the truth, will turn from the errors of pagan apostasy, will “ask for the old paths, where is the good way” (Jer. 6:16), and will hold up to the world once more the banner of God’s truth. Of this remnant, those who will break from every form of unholy tradition, the Lord says: “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.” And a prime condition is, “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.” Isa. 58:12, 13. In Rev. 12:17 it is said of this remnant people that they “keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Here also is predicted the persecution of those who observe the Sabbath of the Lord. It is said that “the dragon [the devil] was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God.” The beginning of that wrath has been manifest the last few years in Maryland, Tennessee, and elsewhere.

Round World

Sometimes we are told that we can not keep the Sabbath on the round world. But the persons who bring the objection are generally observers of Sunday. They have no trouble on that day, nor on any other, from any point of view. The world seems to be flat for six days, and round the seventh. What would be thought of a man who was obligated to work for a day for his neighbor, yet who would refuse on the ground that he could not meet his obligation on a “round world”? The simple fact is that men are only required to keep the day as it comes to them, and then in only one place at one time. There has been no trouble on the part of Jew or Christian in the past when the heart was right; neither will there ever be. The difficulty lies in the heart. See Rom. 8:7. But the objection comes against God. Read the following: “The Sabbath was made for man.” Mark 2:27. “God that made the world . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” Acts 17:24-26.