Which Day
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 2:2,3
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Every one is tested and tried in probationary time in regard to his obedience to the word of God. But what is the matter with the professed Christian world?--That which was the matter with Adam and Eve in Eden,--they are listening to another voice than that of God. God's voice, which is speaking plainly and distinctly to them through the fourth commandment, is disregarded; and a false voice, which advocates a false Sabbath, is listened to. They turn from a plain, "Thus saith the Lord," to a Sabbath based upon inference and supposition, without a particle of Scriptural evidence to support it. Satan has succeeded in throwing the Christian world off the track, as he threw Adam and Eve off. People are walking in by and forbidden paths. O, why are men, when tempted, so easily overcome? Why are they so deceived in regard to the Sabbath? Why, without any foundation for their faith, do they accept and exalt a spurious Sabbath?
A. R. & S. H.
July 06,1897
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From that day to this the knowledge of God's law has been preserved in the earth, and the Sabbath of the fourth commandment has been kept. Christ has given no hint that the seventh-day Sabbath has ever been or ever could be changed, and no apostolic example for the change from the seventh to the first day of the week can be cited. The custom of observing the first day of the week instead of the seventh day of divine appointment has no authority save that of tradition, popular custom, and the command of the Church of Rome. The Church of Rome has been the agent by which Satan has made this breach in the law of God, and turned the professed Christian world away from the precepts of Jehovah. Through his insinuation men made the claim that because Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week, therefore the first day of the week should be celebrated as the Christian sabbath, but the Scriptures give no authority for this manner of reasoning. The prince of evil well knew that could he set aside the true foundation for Sabbath observance, he could make the fourth commandment of no significance in the minds of men.
Thus, under the pretense of honoring Christ, Satan succeeds in tearing down God's great memorial, turning the minds of men away from their Creator in a false zeal for a spurious institution. He led the Jews to have a false zeal for the Sabbath, and then induced them to reject Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath.
S T
November12,1894
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Satan's chief agent in bringing about the rejection of the fourth commandment, and the institution of the first day of the week as a day of rest, has been the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church does not deny the part she has acted in this change, but makes a boast of her power as shown in the change which she has brought about in the world. Papists acknowledge that the Bible gives no sanction to this change, and that Protestants have no Scriptural authority for Sunday worship. The Catholic Church changed the day of rest from the seventh to the first day, and without the shadow of divine sanction it has been accepted by almost all the Protestant churches, and Rome, pointing to the adherents of her doctrines, claims the supremacy. In changing the fourth precept of God's law, the papal power has thought itself able to exalt itself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped. This was the very work that the prophesy foretold would be done by this power. In trampling upon the fourth commandment, the first commandment is broken. Their idolatry is similar to that of Israel's when she substituted a god which her own hands had made, for the living and true God, and followed after the example of Egypt; for when the Catholics substitute a sabbath of their own making for that which God commanded, they too worship that which their own hands have made, and follow the example of the heathen who worshiped the sun on the first day of the week.
S T November 19,1894
