Of all the draughts taken from the intoxicating cup of Babylon none is more widely accepted than "Sunday Observance." The question of Sunday observance has resulted in much discussion among theologians. However, on this vital point there should be no conflict of opinion, because the Sacred Bible and the Roman Catholic Church by their decided testimonies leave no room for doubt or conjecturing as to the introduction of the observance of the first day of the week among Christians. That the seventh-day Sabbath is ordained by the fourth commandment of the Decalogue, is not only supported by the word of God, but is generally admitted by professing Christians.
The true Sabbath-the seventh day-is a divine institution which the beneficent Creator has passed down to us from the Garden of Eden. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and an the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." (Genesis 2:1-3)
The inspired account of the institution of the Sabbath reveals the following: (1) that the creation was a completed or finished work. (2) That God rested, not as one weary or fatigued, but with perfect satisfaction in the completion of His handiwork. (3) That He put His blessing on the seventh day; and (4) that He sanctified-set apart for holy use-the seventh day. It still remains a holy day even to the present time. "For Thou blesses, O Lord, and it shall be blessed forever." (1 Chronicles 17:27) The divine benediction which made the seventh day, the Sabbath, a holy day has never been withdrawn. After resting upon the seventh day and placing His blessing on it, the Lord sanctified it, and set it apart as a holy rest day for man to observe. God designed that in the keeping of the Sabbath man should regard Him as the Creator and Sovereign of this earth. The Sabbath institution is, therefore, the memorial which God gave to remind man of the birth of this world. Those who recognize it as such will give the Lord His rightful place as ruler not only of the vast universe, but also of the human heart, because the Sabbath is a memorial, or sign, of redemption as well as of creation.
Adam and his posterity knew which day of the week was the Sabbath day. The Sabbath was never lost sight of down through the ages, for there were always those who remained true to the divine command and would rather die than violate God's holy precept. When His people were brought out of Egypt, the Lord gave them a constant reminder of the definite seventh day and of its sacredness by working a threefold miracle every week for forty years. This He did (1) by raining down a double quantity of manna on the sixth day of the week. (2) By preserving the food so it would keep over the Sabbath, which miraculous preservation never occurred on any other day of the week; and (3) by locking the heavens so that no manna fell on the seventh day. (Exodus 16:4,5,18-30) Therefore, the sacred obligation of the Sabbath institution was kept constantly before the people of God during their sojourn in the wilderness. On entering the promised land they brought with them the Sabbath, and thus the identical seventh day has been preserved to the present. "And [He] gave them the lands of the heathen: and they inherited the labor of the people; that they might observe His statutes, and keep His laws. Praise you the Lord." (Psalm 103:44,45)
It was during the wilderness experience that the Lord, escorted by a retinue of angels, came down upon Mount Sinai and declared by an audible voice the Ten Commandments, the center of which is the seventh-day Sabbath. (Exodus 20:8-11) The people who heard the peals of thunder, saw the lightning flash, felt the old earth tremble beneath their feet, and heard the voice of the Mighty One of heaven proclaiming His Sabbath, were not to forget this precept, nor lightly esteem its binding claims. They could be in no doubt as to which day of the week God recognized as His. "Thou came down also upon Mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right judgments, and true laws, 'good statutes and commandments: and made known unto them Thy holy Sabbath." (Nehemiah 9:13,14)
Jesus Christ, during the thirty-three and a half years of His life on this earth, observed the seventh day. Thus by precept and example He demonstrated its binding claims upon the life of His followers. "And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up: and, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read." (Luke 4:16)
It is by the observance of the true Sabbath-the seventh day that the Christian commemorates the creative and recreative power of God. "Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them. ... And hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God." (Ezekiel 20:12,20)
The footsteps of the Son of God lead to the keeping of the day which the commandment specifies. The unchangeableness and immutability of the law of God have been vindicated by Christ through His strict adherence to every one of its precepts, and also by His sacrifice on the cross. If Christ abolished God's law and abrogated the seventh-day Sabbath at the cross, as some claim, He thus would be giving license to people to break any or all of the Ten Commandments.
"The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness' sake; He will magnify the law, and make it honorable." (Isaiah 42:21) The greatest honor Christ could confer upon the law was His own conformity to every principle of the Ten Commandments. He, the greatest teacher who ever lived, made the Decalogue the embodiment of His teachings. In the Sermon on the Mount, the Ten Commandments are the burden of His message. "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Matthew 5:17,18) "And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." (Luke 16:17) Our Savior did not destroy the law, but by His death He established it, and our faith in His atoning blood will establish our confidence in its unalterable, and holy character. "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." (Romans 3:31)
Again, in the death of the Son of God we have the Sabbath of the fourth commandment brought vividly to light. Knowing what would be the results of the sacrifice which He was making, and being fully aware of its completion, the Savior cried, "It is finished." (John 19:30) Joseph's new tomb was ready, and the Son of God was laid peacefully to rest as the holy Sabbath approached. The One who indited the words "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished." (Genesis 2:1) At the close of creation week and commemorated the event by resting on the seventh day, is the One who, while on the cross, exclaimed: "It is finished," (John 19:30) thus recognizing the consummation and accomplishment of the work of redemption, or re-creation. The Sabbath of creation, the day on which Christ rested in the grave, was still to be observed to commemorate both creation and redemption.
"This man [Joseph of Arimathaea] went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulcher that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid. And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. And the women also, which came with Him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how His body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment." (Luke 23:52-56)
If Christ had intimated that the Sabbath was transferred to the first day of the week, the Christian women mentioned in Holy Scripture as attending His burial knew nothing about it, for "they rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment," and would not anoint the body of their Lord on the seventh day. However, on the first day of the week, when they wended their way to the sepulcher to perform that which they would not do on the Sabbath, they found their Lord had risen. He, too, had rested on the seventh day, and did not break the portals of the tomb until the sacred hours of the Sabbath had passed. "And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun." (Mark 16:1,2)
Christ's coming forth from the dead on the first day of the week does not make it a sacred day any more than His dying on Friday made the sixth day holy. If the Sabbath instituted at creation, and kept by our Lord and His followers, had been repealed by a command of Christ, it certainly would have been recorded in the Holy Scriptures. If the change of the Sabbath was to be one of "the things which must shortly come to pass," (Revelation 1:1) John would have mentioned it in the Book of Revelation. But one may search the New Testament from Matthew to Jude and not find any command to keep the first day instead of the seventh. The Book of Revelation, which closes the inspired canon, is strangely silent on the matter. If Christ had intended that the Sabbath of creation should be set aside, He never would have commanded His disciples to pray for nearly forty years that their flight from Jerusalem should not be on the Sabbath day. This shows that the Sabbath was to be kept by Christians from the time this precept was given until AD. 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army.
Is it not strange that Sunday is almost universally observed when the Sacred Writings do not indorse it? Satan, the great counterfeiter, worked through the "mystery of iniquity" (Matthew 24:20) to introduce a counterfeit Sabbath to take the place of the true Sabbath of Jehovah. Sunday stands side by side with Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Holy (or Maundy) Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Whitsunday, Corpus Christi, Assumption Day, All Souls' Day, Christmas Day, and a host of other ecclesiastical feast days too numerous to mention. This array of Roman Catholic feasts and fast days are all man made. None of them bears the divine credentials of the Author of the Inspired Word.
There is nothing more reassuring to the earnest seeker for truth than to find described in the "sure word of prophecy" (2 Peter 1:19) the power which would be guilty of attempting to change God's holy law. "And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." (Daniel 7:25) This prophecy applies with overwhelming force to a religious system which would "speak great words against the Most High." (Daniel 7:25) The Holy Bible, world history, and theologians themselves, make it so evident who is referred to by the prophecy, that anyone can readily see what power it foretold. The "man of sin," about whom Paul, wrote, (2 Thessalonians 2:3-7) had been mentioned over five hundred years before by the prophet Daniel. The apostle foretold something of the blasphemous claims of the one who would exalt himself above God, who would not blush in declaring himself to be the "Vicar of Christ," and would assume nearly every name and title that have been attributed to the Godhead. Says one papal prelate:
"All the names which in the Scriptures are applied to Christ, by virtue of which it is established that He is over the church, an the same names are applied to the pope."[1]
He would "wear out the saints of the Most High." During the Dark Ages God's people suffered under the scrutiny of the eyes of this religious, persecuting power. Intrigues, plots, and schemes designed to vex and harass the poor "heretic" were used to exterminate those who opposed the doctrines propounded by the apostate church. The rack, the fagot, and the other tortures used by the Inquisition took their toll. Historians number these slain by religious persecution as 'being between 50,000,000 and 75,000,000. Some say the total was more. Roman Catholic leaders admit this:
"During the 2,000years the [Roman] Church has been on this earth, she has warred with nearly every government in this world. The world is full of their ruins. Their thrones have toppled over and fallen, their dynasties have come to dust. And the governments of the world today will meet the same fate if they challenge the hostility of the church of God. She remains; she is today what she was 2,000years ago; she is today what she was in the days of Justinian the Great. She is today what she was in the days of Barbarossa; she is today what she was during the Middle Ages; she is today what she was during the times of Protestant persecution, during and since the sixteenth century; she is the invincible church of God. God help the state that attacks her; God help the king that provokes her hostility."[2]
A papal periodical has said with boasting:
"The [Roman] Church has persecuted. Only a tyro in church history will deny that. The apologists in the days of Roman imperial domination inveighed against persecution, and with Tertullian declared that it was no part of religion to persecute religion. But after the days of Constantine, and under the reign of that first Christian emperor, the attitude of Christians underwent a change, and persecution of pagans took place in many places in the empire. One hundred fifty years after Constantine the Donatists were persecuted, and sometimes put to death. Against this extreme measure St. Augustine raised his voice; but he was willing that-they should be despoiled of their churches and of their goods. Protestants were persecuted in France and Spain with the full approval of the [Roman] Church authorities. We have always defended the persecution of the Huguenots, and the Spanish inquisition. Wherever and whenever there is honest [Roman] Catholicity, there will be a clear distinction drawn between truth and error, and [Roman] Catholicity and all forms of heresy. When she thinks it good to use physical force, she will use it. But will the [Roman] Catholic Church give bond that she will not persecute at all? Will she guarantee absolute freedom and equality of all churches and all faiths? The [Roman] Catholic Church 'gives no bonds for her good behavior. ... She has countenanced violence when more humane measures would have been of more avail. Her children and her clergy have often been carried away by popular passion. But she gives no bonds that such things shall not occur again."[3]
Another writer tells the story succinctly in these words, which give significant statistics on the various persecutions endured by the followers of Christ:
"From the birth of popery in 606, to the present time, it is estimated by careful and credible historians, that more than 50,000,000 of the human family, have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy by popish persecutors, an average of more than 40,000 religious murders for every year of the existence of popery. Of course the average number of victims yearly, was vastly greater, during the gloomy ages when popery was in her glory and reigned Despot of the World. And it has been much less since the power of the popes has diminished to tyrannize over the nations, and to compel the princes of the earth, by the terrors of excommunication, interdiction, and deposition, to butcher their heretical subjects."[4]
"An 100,000 Albigenses fell, it is said, in one day: and their bodies were heaped together and burned. Detachments of soldiery were, for three months, despatched in every direction to demolish houses, destroy vineyards, and ruin the hopes of the husbandman. The females were defiled. The march of the holy warriors was marked by the flames of burning houses, the screams of violated women, and the groans of murdered men. The war, with all its sanguinary accompaniments, lasted 20 years, and the Albigenses, during this time, were not the only sufferers. Three hundred thousand crusaders fell on the plains of Languedoc, and fattened the soil with their blood.
"All this barbarity was perpetrated in the name of religion. The carnage was celebrated as the triumph of the church, the honor of the papacy, and the glory of [Roman] Catholicism. The pope proclaimed the holy war in the name of the Lord. The army of the cross exulted in the massacre of Lavaur, and the clergy sung a hymn to the, Creator for the glorious victory. The assassins thanked the God of mercy for the work of destruction and bloodshed. The soldiery, in the morning, attended high mass, and then proceeded, during the day, to waste the country and murder its population. The assassination of 60,000 citizens of Beziers was accounted, says Mariana, 'the visible judgment of heaven.' According to Benedict, 'the heresy of Albigensianism drew down the wrath of God on the country of Languedoc."[5]
The Roman Catholic Church admits that she put numbers to death who refused to bow to her mandates. The blood of countless martyrs has been crying to God for justice down through the stream of time, and it may seem to an incredulous world that He has forgotten the crimes of Babylon. But Jesus has said: "And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them?" (Luke 18:7) The poet well says:
"Careless seems the great Avenger;
History's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Stands God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own."[6]
"He shall think to change the times and the law." (Daniel 7:25, American Standard Version) Has Rome thought to change the law of God? Let her own works testify to the indictment:
"You may 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."[7]
"Q. Have you any other way of proving that the [Roman] Church has power to institute festivals of precept? A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her. She could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."[8]
"The [Roman] Catholic Church for over 1,000 years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday. ... The Christian Sabbath is therefore to this day the acknowledged offspring of the [Roman] Catholic Church, as spouse of the Holy Ghost, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant world."[9]
"Q. Which is the Sabbath day? A. Saturday is the Sabbath day. Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the [Roman] Catholic Church, in the Council of, Laodicea (A. D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."[10]
"Some of the truths that have been handed down to us by tradition and are not recorded in the Sacred Scripture, are the following: That there are just seven sacraments. That there is a purgatory. That, in the new law, Sunday should be kept holy instead of the Sabbath. That infants should be baptized, and that there are precisely seventy-two books in the Bible."[11]
"Q. When Protestants do profane work upon Saturday, or the seventh day of the week, do they follow the Scripture as their only rule of faith, do they find this permission clearly laid down in the Sacred Volume? A. On the contrary, they have only the authority of tradition for this practice. In profaning Saturday, they violate one of God's commandments, which He has never clearly abrogated, 'Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day.' Q. Is the observance of Sunday, as the day of rest, a matter clearly laid down in Scripture? A. It certainly is not; and yet all Protestants consider the observance of this particular day as essentially necessary to salvation. To say, we observe the Sunday, because Christ rose from the dead on that day, is to say we act without warrant of Scripture. And we might as well say that we should rest on Thursday because Christ ascended to heaven on that day, and rested in reality from the work of redemption."[12]
"Q. What do we conclude from all this? A. That Protestants have no Scripture for the measure of their day of rest, that they abolish the observance of Saturday without warrant of Scripture, that they substitute Sunday in its place without Scriptural authority, consequently, that for all this, they have only traditional authority. Yet Protestants would look upon a man who would do profane work after five o'clock on Sunday, or keep the Saturday and profane the first day, as a victim of perdition. Hence we must conclude, that the Scripture, which does not teach these things clearly, does not contain all necessary truths, and, consequently, cannot be the only rule of faith."[12]
"It was the [Roman] Catholic Church which, by the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest to the Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Roman] Church."[13]
"We [Roman] Catholics, then, have precisely the same authority for keeping Sunday holy instead of Saturday as we have for every other article of our creed. Namely, the authority of 'the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Timothy 3:15). Whereas you who are Protestants have really no authority for it whatever. For there is no authority for it in the Bible, and you will not allow that there can be authority for it anywhere else. Both you and we do, in fact, follow tradition in this matter; but we follow it, believing it to be a part of God's word, and the [Roman] Church to be its divinely appointed guardian and interpreter. You follow it, denouncing it all the time as a fallible and treacherous guide, which often 'makes the commandment of God of none effect." [14]
By attempting to change God's holy law this religious system really tries to exalt itself above Him. If any one knowingly and understandingly observes Sunday as a religious day, he obeys and gives homage to that power which claims to have made the change. Consequently allegiance is rendered to the pope rather than to God. The apostles of Christ say: "We ought to obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29) This divinely inspired counsel is still good.
While Sunday has been accepted and observed by many, yet God has those today who observe the true Sabbath, the seventh day. Seventh day Adventists, loyal to Christ and God's law, constitute the true church today. Their work of reform was foretold by Isaiah: "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. ... And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shaft raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shall be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable. And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words: then shall 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." (Isaiah 58:1,12-14)
The message concerning the Sabbath is being heralded around the world. The divine, institution hallowed by the Creator will be accepted by those who make the Sacred Scriptures their guide. Those who willingly accept the papal institution which rests on human tradition and the authority of the apostate church will suffer the inevitable result. God will never permit any willful transgressor of His law to enter heaven. (Matthew 7:21-23; Hebrews 10:26; Revelation 22:14,15) Historical facts, Scriptural evidence, and papal admissions tell the inquirers for truth that they are without excuse if they refuse to keep the true Sabbath of the Lord.
It is the external attractiveness of the church represented by the fallen woman of the prophecy, (Revelation 17) with her imposing ceremonies and seductive influence, that leads unwary feet to the delusive cup to sip of the wine of her false doctrines. Multitudes find the contents of this cup more palatable to their carnal desires than they do the pure water of life which the word of God offers.
There is nothing that God desires so much as obedience to His word. (1 Samuel 15:16-23; John 15:10,14; 1 John 2:3-5; 3:22; 5:2,3) While many may steel their hearts and shut their eyes against the truth, yet some from all the various churches, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, are responding to the call of heaven. They will follow the Holy Bible, and the Bible alone, as their guide. Like Paul of old, they will inquire, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" (Acts 9:6) Blessed is the man or the woman who has to suffer for his Lord." (Matthew 5:10-12) Heaven with all its glories will be cheap enough regardless of the price." (2 Corinthians 4:17) When the last day shall come, and Christ shall separate the inhabitants of this world into two classes, it will matter little where proud pontiffs, richly robed cardinals, and learned divines with their scholastic philosophy may stand. What will concern each of us most will be: Where is my blessed Savior? On which side is He? His banner with this inscription will be waving over His people: "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." (Revelation 14:12) And He will say: "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." (Revelation 22:14)
Notes: