Strange, is it not, there are to-day thousands of professed Christians, who say that we are under no obligation to keep the Ten Commandments? Now the law expresses what may be done and what may not be done, and is our rule of conduct prescribed by the great Jehovah Himself. And if no such rule is given, or known, there can be no crime or sin in the world to-day.
However, we know that such a law was given; but all will not acknowledge that it is sin to violate its holy precepts. If I should ask, Is it sin to worship any other gods besides the Creator? men will acknowledge that it would be sin. Is it sin to worship graven images?—“Yes,” they reply. Is it sin to take the name of God in vain?—“Yes,” again. Is it sin not to honor father or mother?—Again the solemn reply, “Yes.” Is it sin to kill, steal, or bear false witness against thy neighbor?—“Yes, of course,” they reply. Is it sin to be covetous?—“Yes, indeed; any child might know that it would be sin to violate the commandments you have referred to.” Is it sin not to keep holy the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord thy God? “Well,” is the reply this time, “I don’t know that it makes any difference which day we keep, just so we keep one day in the week.” But it does not make any difference what men think. That is not the question with any true Christian. The question is, What has the Lord said? Listen, “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” Deut. 4:2. “Well,” one may say, “that is found in the Old Testament. Christ destroyed or nullified all that when He came.” Did He? Listen! “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Matt. 5:17, 18. First try to pull down the stars of heaven, or switch the earth off from its orbit. For this, Jesus says, would be a less undertaking than to change one jot or tittle of the law of God.
Then He continues: “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.” And this means not to get there at all; for Christ told the scribes and the Pharisees that they worshiped God in vain, “teaching for doctrine the commandments of men;” and when any other man or class of men substitute man-made creeds for Bible truth, or “commandments6of men,” for God’s commandments, their worship will also be in vain.
Many say it is only a small thing to change the Sabbath; that it matters not which day we keep; that one day is as good as the other. But let us remember that God spoke what He meant, and meant what He spoke, and when He says that “sin is the transgression of the law,” and that “the wages of sin is death,” He meant what He said. “God speaks to us in blessings bestowed, but if they are rejected He speaks to us in blessings removed.” We should always be satisfied to know what He commands, without asking why; and keep this always in mind that God never made His work for man to mend. However small a sin may seem to us we should not refuse to amend our ways, when we see that we are in the wrong. If we do refuse, we are on the downward path that leads to eternal destruction.
It was apparently a small thing that caused our first parents to lose their Eden home, and filled the world with wo and sorrow. Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, thought it was a small thing that they should use common fire in place of holy fire; but God destroyed them. Lev. 20:1, 2. Saul spared the best of his sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord, which was contrary to His command; and so God rejected him. Samuel asked Saul if he thought the Lord had as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” See 1 Samuel 15.
God is now choosing His subjects, who will be obedient in the very least. God knows that whosoever “is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.” Satan is cunning and full well knows that God will reject all who are disobedient in the least; and so he has in all ages sought to get the people of God to mix some error with truth. He would be at once rejected if he came in any other garb than an angel of light. He is a deceiver, and the real character of his deceitful plans must be so skilfully hidden that his snare will not be detected until his victims are hopelessly entangled in his net. Satan has always tried to thwart the plans of man’s salvation. Some he has deceived one way and some another. But his crowning effort is “the mystery of iniquity.” In this masterpiece of deceit he has attempted to change the law of God, not by openly working against it, but by causing a breach to be made in the law, by putting man’s word in place of God’s word and by substituting the human for the divine, and has “caused many to stumble at the law.”
Remember “He” (the man of sin) should think himself able (that is efficient or powerful enough) to change times and laws. Of course, he has not really changed God’s law, for that, Jesus says, can not be done. Matt. 5:17, 18. He has, however, succeeded in making many professed followers of Christ think a change has been made, and that they are now justified in keeping a rest day which He never instituted. But of that living company upon which God stamps His approval, at the second coming of Christ it is said: “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12. It will then be found that it was a fearfully serious thing to have broken and taught others to break the law of God. ALBERT ANDERSON.
How They Became Convinced
[Believing it would be of interest to our readers, the editor of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES has asked Sabbath-keeping ministers and evangelical workers to tell in a few words the scripture or scriptures, the truths and principles, which constrained them to accept the unpopular truth of the seventh-day Sabbath. These testimonies must not exceed 500 words. Let us hear from all.]
CXIX.
In 1855 I joined the United Brethren Church in Lisbon, Iowa. I then promised the Lord that whatever His Word taught that I would do. I had been taught that the Lord’s Sabbath was changed, and took it for the truth without questioning. The winter of 1857-58 Brethren Hart and Sperry came to Iowa preaching the Sabbath. While listening to the first discourse, showing that the law could not be made void or changed (Matt. 5:17, 18; Rom. 3:3, 4), the question was settled forever with me. Christ obeyed the law, showing us that it could be kept. He set us an example to walk and do as He did while here on earth. Can any who rests on the first day say, I have kept the Sabbath Jesus kept while on earth? The commandment reads the same to-day as it read when the blessed Saviour was on the earth—“the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord.” The judgment day will come, and the unchangeable law will read, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” I love Thy law, O Lord.
D. T. SHIREMAN.
CXX.
When I was converted I felt called to preach the Gospel, and at once set about preparing for the Methodist ministry. In 1892 I accompanied Bishop J. M. Thoburn to India, and took work in Singapore, Malaysia. There I met and labored with Brother R. W. Munson, then presiding elder at Singapore, but now a Seventh-day Adventist missionary at Padang, Sumatra. It was he who examined me in the required studies and in the Malay language. Milton’s “Paradise Lost” gave me the true standpoint of Bible study. A book on the Catacombs, by Benjamin Scott, gave me an insight into the influence of papal compromise; and I was further convinced of this by my own observation of Catholic methods among the heathen. On account of illness in my family, I returned to America.
After wide reading I despaired of finding a clear and comprehensive system of interpreting Scripture symbolism, and I drifted doctrinally farther from every one, as I thought. But I always felt sure the Holy Spirit placed these things in the Book to be understood. Convinced of immersion, I repudiated the sprinkling of my childhood as a papal perversion, but I could not get the Baptists to immerse me unless I joined them. From the Russellites I got the truth of the annihilation of the wicked.
Finally I took to independent preaching on the street corners. At this time my wife essayed on several occasions to unite with some sect, but some inward check withheld her. Meanwhile an Adventist prayer-meeting was held with an invalid who lived by us, and I expostulated with the elder, telling him this unconverted woman could not be pulled two ways by Methodists and Adventists; that it made no difference which day was the Sabbath, and that there was no mark of the beast on me. Whereupon they all quietly withdrew, and I suppose they all prayed for me.
A short time afterward, in a mixed spirit of curiosity and fun, I passed before a tent where Brethren Ballenger and Simpson were preaching. I tackled them on the obligation of the law, the change of the Sabbath, the mark of the beast, and kindred themes. Little did I dream of what a landslide of God’s truth I was invoking, or what heavy artillery I was unmasking on my devoted head. Suffice it to say that before I left I was well stocked with a judicious selection of reading matter.
As I see more and more the looming outlines of the divine plan and the great controversy, I find all Scripture texts like disciplined troops fall into ranks, companies, regiments, brigades, divisions, and corps, like Israel camped about the sanctuary. Surely God has piloted me around the shoals of error and through the fogs of prejudice by a way I knew not, and to Him be all the glory forevermore. Amen.
WILLIAM T. STAGG.
How They Became Convinced
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT.
Another year is nearing its close, a new one is about to begin. So men count time, tho every day ought to be a fresh and better beginning.
Many persons will look back over the year past with regret, sadness, disappointment. “Its flowers are faded, its wine is spilled,” and its fruit is Dead Sea apples, bitter as gall, and ashes to the touch.
Others look back with a great degree of satisfaction because of financial prosperity. Business has gone swimmingly, profits are large, and assets have greatly increased. Surely it is a time to be glad. And yet the joy will ever prove brief and unsatisfactory if it be based only on worldly profit.
There are books to be balanced which involve more than mere profit and loss in money matters. Character is more important than gold and stocks; righteousness is greater than real estate. The importance of the harvest in the moral field outweighs infinitely the material harvests of earth. The latter are but temporal; the former is eternal. The only way to measure the gains of the past year is by the standard of eternal righteousness. All gain not founded in that will prove as evanescent as a fading flower.
Judged by this standard, all over the past, in the white light of righteousness, the human sees written the one word, “Failure,”—failure in principle, motive, method. Many will look back upon the year of failure, and, as all through the year, others have done, settle down to despair, or take their own lives, and pass out into the great unknown. This is cowardly and wrong. “While there is life, there is hope.” Reform, build anew; let this be the unswerving purpose.
But how? is the important question. It will not be by resolution or by promises, or by mere regret or sorrow or remorse, if we go right on in the old way. All these are right in themselves and in their place, but of themselves will effect nothing. No resolve that man may repeat will affect him, unless he possess power to enact it into deed. Sorrow and regret over the past are good, but they are emotional and will not last unless there is a living principle of righteousness back of the sorrow. Theirs is “the sorrow of the world,” which mourns over disaster and discovery and lack of fruit, but such sorrow works death, and the sorrow itself needs to be repented of. But godly sorrow worketh repentance, not to be repented of; it works a re-formation. It utterly repudiates the sin, the selfishness, and takes hold upon the living principles of righteousness in Christ Jesus.
True sorrow according to God does not stay to grieve over the tomb of departed hopes. It may look into the empty sepulcher to see that the Master of Life has gone, but it turns from the vacant tomb and follows Him. He will cover all the defects, the mistakes, the sins, the failures of the past if we will let them be past, with His own perfect righteousness. He will invest us with His own mighty power over sin. He will give us authority over all the powers of darkness. Undreamed-of things will He do for us if we will disconnect from the selfishness and sin, from the dead past of human failure, and enlist under His glorious banner of righteousness, freedom, right, and progress.
He may not lead you in a smooth flower-bordered path, through a lovely valley of delightful arbors inviting to slumbrous ease. We know He will not do this. He calls you to the church militant, in which when you pray for victory you will be willing to wage warfare in His strength to win it. But He will give the victory. Your road will lie over rough and rugged mountain steeps, in which the feet will be often bruised and weary; but the blood-stained marks of His footprints may be seen before us all the way, and by our side He still walks holding our hand that our footsteps slip not. The way winds through deserts dry and drear and barren, but ever as we need we may find the water of life flowing free from the great welling depths of God’s life, and we may drink and be refreshed.
Then, dear hearts, be encouraged. Let neither the failures of the past nor fears of the future mar your present enjoyment and companionship with Christ Jesus in His service.
“What saith the past to thee?—‘Weep!
Truth is departed;
Beauty hath died like the dream of a sleep,
Love is faint-hearted.’
Trifles of sense, the profoundly unreal,
Scare from our spirits God’s holy ideal,
So as a funeral bell, slowly and deep,
So tolls the past to thee. ‘Weep!’”
“How speaks the Present Hour? ‘Act!
Walk, upward glancing,
So shall thy footsteps in glory be traced,
Slow, but advancing.
Scorn not the smallness of daily endeavor,
Let the great meaning ennoble it ever;
Droop not o’er efforts expended in vain:
Work as believing that labor is gain.’”
“What doth the Future say? ‘Hope!
Turn thy face sunward!
Look where light fringes the far-rising slope,
Day cometh onward.
Watch! tho so long be the twilight delaying,
Let the first sunbeam arise on the praying:
Fear not, for greater is God by thy side,
Than armies of Satan against thee allied.’”
The Key to Christian Success.
By S.
That key is found in surrender—not partial, but complete; not of that which we have, but of all that we have and are.
The example is set for us in the gift and life of the Son of God. Emptied of all that He had save the love that bound Him to the Father and the human race, relinquishing all that He was save only His Sonship in the house of the Father, He gave Himself to and for the salvation of this prodigal world. Because he had no other ambition than to save man and man’s forfeited home, the tempter had no hold on Him—“found nothing” in Him, and the greatest work of the ages was successfully done. The undertaking was a success because everything else was given up for its accomplishment.
Man has been left an example, that he “should walk even as He walked.” Christ walked in that way which led to success. It is not to be supposed that man can take any other way and find success in carrying on the work which Christ commissioned men to do. Success does not lie in opposite directions when carrying on the same work. What was necessary to success in His case is necessary to success in our case. That was surrender.
Why is surrender necessary?—“Because the mind of flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.” Rom. 8:7. God and man can not work together for the accomplishment of God’s purpose while man is at enmity with his Maker. There must be unity of desire and purpose, and the one who is to carry the message must be submissive to the will of the One who has the message to be given. The one who is to use the power must use it in harmony with the will of the One who has the power to bestow, or that power can not be entrusted to him. The one who would follow Christ must not set up standards of his own. Christ has established but one way, and it leads straight to the kingdom of God. Outside of that way is only the great “mystic maze” planned to bewilder and delude and lead to destruction; and yet how many are allowing their feet to be guided into these delusive ways whose end is hid in darkness, where ruin waits.
We must be in the channel of God’s working or we can not succeed in His work. Outside of that channel we have only our own feeble efforts. The canal barge will not travel overland. Outside of the canal it is stranded. Just so with us. When we have not surrendered our ways to God’s way we are as helpless as the stranded canal barge so far as efforts at winning heaven are concerned. The tower of Babel was such an effort; but it stopped a long way short of heaven. Smitten of God, it has crumbled back to its earth again; and yet just as impotent efforts are seen to-day on every hand in the attempts of men to gain heaven by ways of their own devising7It can not be done. All such must be surrendered or heaven is lost to us.
Paul, living in a generation of philosophers, and educated to the height of scholarship, determined to know nothing in his evangelistic labors but “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” He had a way; but he surrendered it when he found it was not God’s way. There are many ways of our own that look pleasing to us. Hew them to the line of God’s counsel, and you will find the process has left nothing of them that is of real advantage to the cause of God. “Can two walk together except they be agreed?” That question is pertinent to this thought. God’s way is the right way; that way which is opposed to His way must necessarily be a wrong way. There is no agreement between these ways; and, as there is not, there can be no harmonious action between those who are taking these opposing ways. We can accomplish nothing for God, and therefore can not be a successful Christian, while opposing Him by refusing to yield to His way.
Thus we see that there can be no success for us in the Christian way unless we surrender ourselves to Him without reservation. Whatever we retain to ourselves for our own ends stands in the way of our success in His cause. Paradoxical tho it may seem, in surrendering all, we win all; we capitulate and that makes us victors. Hoarding ourselves and our all to ourselves, we lose all; refusing to surrender, we take our own places among the vanquished. In the complete surrender of self, the complete adoption of God’s ways in place of our own, and the consecration of our all to His cause, lies the key to Christian success. S.
The Immensity of Ignorance
By Lord Palmerston
A MAN ought to know a great deal to acquire a knowledge of the immensity of his ignorance. —Lord Palmerston.
THE DOCTRINE OF HELL FIRE.
VIII. The Everlasting Fire.
One of the expressions used to prove eternal torment is that of “everlasting” or “eternal” fire. Here are the strongest texts in which the term occurs:—
1. “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Matt. 25:41.
2. “Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” Jude 7.
We need not dwell long upon these texts, for their meaning is readily made plain.
1. The word “everlasting” (“eternal” is the same in the original) does not always or generally mean without end. A more literal rendering of the original (aiōnios) would be “age-lasting.” The Greek word aiōn, even as the Hebrew word olam, means a time not limited; that is, its end or beginning, or both, are concealed from us. So the priesthood of Aaron is said to be an “everlasting priesthood,” tho’ we know it ended when Jesus died upon the cross. The original word, in Hebrew, is olam, in the Septuagint Greek, aiōnia. The term “forever,” it may be well in passing to remark, comes from the same originals.
2. The extent of the meaning of the word is therefore dependent upon the nature of the thing to which it is joined. Applied to God it covers absolutely time without end, unending duration. Applied to that which is temporal the term simply indicates that the end is hidden from us, be the time longer or shorter. It is not in the nature of fire to burn on without ceasing unless continually fed. God’s fire of judgment is kindled for a purpose, and when the purpose is accomplished, the fire will cease.
3. That this fire will accomplish its work and then go out is clearly evident from a number of scriptures of which we mention two: (a) In the punishment of the devil, once the “anointed cherub,” by God’s throne, it is said of his end: “I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. . . . Thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.” Eze. 28:18, 19. When the fire shall have met its everlasting purpose upon Satan, it will no longer burn. (b) Take the second text above quoted, Jude 7. Place by the side of it God’s own interpretation of the work of the eternal fire upon those wicked cities of old: “Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly.” 2 Peter 2:6. The “eternal fire” burns up that which it preys upon, and thus fulfills another prophecy: “Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root [Satan] nor branch [the soul identified with him].” Mal. 4:1. We know not how utter destruction could be more clearly or more strongly exposed than in the above scripture. The “everlasting fire” is absolutely eternal in its effects. The wicked have abused the life God has given, and God in His justice, yea, and mercy, has taken it away forever.
Our next study will be, “The Undying Worm and Unquenchable Fire.”
TRUST AND FEAR NOT.
By G.
Even in this “enlightened age,” people become alarmed because of some unusual phenomenon. It may be that a comet is approaching the earth, or there are large spots on the sun, or the planets are coming into a relative position not occupied for a long time. Therefore something terrible may happen on the earth, and there is a dread of the pestilence, or the stormy time, or the earthquakes, that these phenomena are supposed to indicate. But the Lord says to His people that they shall not allow these things to trouble them. “Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.” Jer. 10:2.
In olden times, and among uncivilized tribes today, the people were and are dismayed at the occurrence of an eclipse, or at the prediction of catastrophe by some astrologer, or “scientist.” But the Lord’s people are not to follow the example of the heathen in anything; “for the customs of the people [heathen] are vain.” When dismayed at the signs of heaven, they begin extraordinary efforts to set up idols for protection (Verses 3-5), in whom there is no power for evil or for good.
The Word of God gives many warnings of calamities and judgments that should come upon the earth and its people, but it always enjoins a trust in Him under all circumstances, and gives promises of protection to those who do trust Him implicitly. “The Lord is the true God, He is the living God, and an everlasting King; at His wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide His indignation.” Verse 10. In the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the Revelation, we are told of the “seven last plagues” that shall be poured out upon the earth at the close of probation, and in one of these the sun is a prominent factor. But from all these our God will be a refuge for those who trust in him. “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” Ps. 91:5-10. G.
Caste
Caste.—In those countries where the caste custom predominates, we are frequently told that as Christianity gains foothold, the spirit of caste gives way. But in the United States the spirit of caste is notoriously coming to the front. This is largely because of the tendency on the part of the wealthier classes to worship and cater to the so-called nobility of the Old World. But it is also because of the apparent desire of other classes to rise above their fellows, to be in some way deemed superior—if not in fact, at least in some manner of form. The latest effort to establish a line of caste that we have noticed is mentioned in a press despatch dated St. Joseph, Mo., November 27, and reads as follows: “The Building Trades Council announced to-day that in the future all houses built by union labor would be labeled with aluminum tags, and union men will hereafter refuse to rent houses which do not bear the labels.” Now if it be true, and it surely ought to be, that the spirit of Christianity tends to nullify the spirit of caste, what is the logical conclusion where the caste spirit is so evidently on the rise? Does it not indicate a growing disregard of the commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”?
Who is that “man of sin”? Is it the pope or the Czar of Russia? D. W. J.
Neither. It does not refer to an individual, only as that individual represents a system. It here stands for that mystery of iniquity which came into the church as the counterfeit of the mystery of God, the Gospel. That system presents a scheme of self-righteousness, salvation by works, and so sets aside righteousness and salvation by faith, as the free gifts of God. It places God far away with many human intermediaries, and substitutes a changed law for the law of God. Its chief exponent is the Papacy, but it includes in principle, and will include in fact, under its banner, everything that wars against God under the mask of Christianity. Its first application as an organized form is the Papacy.
1455. When the Kingdom Is Set Up.
Did Peter set up the Kingdom the day of Pentecost, or are we to look for the Kingdom when Christ comes again? W. K.
There is no Scripture whatever so far as we know from which a just inference can be gathered that the kingdom was set up on the day of Pentecost. During the passing of the ages there have been from time to time fuller manifestations of the Gospel work, of the kingdom of grace among men. Pentecost was but one of those glorious manifestations. But the everlasting kingdom of Christ will be established at “His appearing.” “When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory.” Matt. 25:31. See also Luke 19:11, 12; Dan. 7:13, 14; 2 Tim. 4:1; Rev. 11:15. Christ will not take His kingdom till His second coming, when His royal priesthood ends. Rev. 3:21.
1456. The Ministration of Death.
What was the ministration of death written and engraven in stones, 2 Cor. 3:7-9? And were the stones spoken of the tables of the law? W. K.
The law to the sinner. See Bible Students’ Library, No. 149, “From Glory to Glory,” price 2 cents. It will give you much more information than the explanation of the above.
Please explain Isa. 4:1. Who are the seven women who would eat their own bread, and wear their own apparel, and who is the “One Man,” whose name these women wished to take? G. W. R.
“And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, We will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by Thy name, to take away our reproach.”
Thus reads the text. From the context (chapters 2-5) it will be seen that the general subject is the setting forth of the false and true among God’s people, the true church, and the apostate church, in the last days. The text in question seems to us clearly to refer to the apostate churches. They prefer their own food to the bread of God’s Word; they prefer their own gaudy robes of spiritual harlotry to the robes of Christ’s righteousness; yet they would be called by His name, not to be invested with His righteousness, but to have their shame taken away. The “man” referred to is “the Man Christ Jesus.”
No more than they would the resurrection of Lazarus, the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain, and the Shunammite widow’s son. Note: (1) The emphasis in Acts 26:23 is “How that He first by the resurrection of the dead should proclaim light both to the people and the Gentiles.” He demonstrated in Himself the power over death. (2) The terms “firstfruits” and “firstborn” do not always denote priority of time (save in God’s purpose), but pre-eminence. So Israel and Ephraim are called the firstborn. Christ is the One through whom all are raised, and in God’s purpose was before all, even the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He it was who called Moses back to life.
