Monday, April 20, 2009

Sunday Laws


Satan's Challenge to God's Authority
God denounces Babylon "because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.". . . {LDE 123.1} God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, sanctifying this day, and setting it apart from all others as holy to Himself, to be observed by His people throughout their generations. But the man of sin, exalting himself above God, sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself to be God, thought to change times and laws. This power, thinking to prove that it was not only equal to God, but above God, changed the rest day, placing the first day of the week where the seventh should be. And the Protestant world has taken this child of the papacy to be regarded as sacred. In the Word of God this is called her fornication [Rev. 14:8].--7BC 979 (1900). {LDE 123.2} During the Christian dispensation the great enemy of man's happiness has made the Sabbath of the fourth commandment an object of special attack. Satan says, "I will work at cross purposes with God. I 124will empower my followers to set aside God's memorial, the seventh-day Sabbath. Thus I will show the world that the day sanctified and blessed by God has been changed. That day shall not live in the minds of the people. I will obliterate the memory of it. I will place in its stead a day that does not bear the credentials of God, a day that cannot be a sign between God and His people. I will lead those who accept this day to place upon it the sanctity that God placed upon the seventh day."--PK 183, 184 (c. 1914). {LDE 123.3}
The Sabbath the Great Point at Issue
In the warfare to be waged in the last days there will be united, in opposition to God's people, all the corrupt powers that have apostatized from allegiance to the law of Jehovah. In this warfare the Sabbath of the fourth commandment will be the great point at issue, for in the Sabbath commandment the great Lawgiver identifies Himself as the Creator of the heavens and the earth.--3SM 392 (1891). {LDE 124.1} "Verily My Sabbaths ye shall keep," the Lord says, "for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you" (Ex. 31:13). Some will seek to place obstacles in the way of Sabbath observance, saying, "You do not know what day is the Sabbath," but they seem to understand when Sunday comes, and have manifested great zeal in making laws compelling its observance.--KC 148 (1900). {LDE 124.2}
The Sunday-Law Movement in the 1880s [FOR HELPFUL BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND MORE EXTENSIVE E. G. WHITE QUOTATIONS, SEE SELECTED MESSAGES, BOOK 3, PP. 380-402, AND TESTIMONIES FOR THE CHURCH, VOL. 5, PP. 711-718.]
We have been looking many years for a Sunday law to be enacted in our land, and now that the movement is right upon us, we ask, What are our people going to do in the matter? . . . We should especially seek God for grace and power to be given His people now. God lives, and we do not believe that the time has fully come when He would have our liberties restricted. {LDE 125.1} The prophet saw "four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree." Another angel, ascending from the east, cried to them, saying, "Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." This points out the work we now have to do, which is to cry to God for the angels to hold the four winds until missionaries shall be sent to all parts of the world, and shall have proclaimed the warning against disobeying the law of Jehovah.--RH Extra, Dec. 11, 1888. {LDE 125.2}
Sunday-Law Advocates Do Not Realize What They Are Doing
The Sunday movement is now making its way in darkness. The leaders are concealing the true issue, and many who unite in the movement do not themselves see whither the undercurrent is tending. . . . 126They are working in blindness. They do not see that if a Protestant government sacrifices the principles that have made them a free, independent nation, and through legislation brings into the Constitution principles that will propagate papal falsehood and papal delusion, they are plunging into the Roman horrors of the Dark Ages.--RH Extra, Dec. 11, 1888. {LDE 125.3} There are many, even of those engaged in this movement for Sunday enforcement, who are blinded to the results which will follow this action. They do not see that they are striking directly against religious liberty. There are many who have never understood the claims of the Bible Sabbath and the false foundation upon which the Sunday institution rests. . . . {LDE 126.1} Those who are making an effort to change the Constitution and secure a law enforcing Sunday observance little realize what will be the result. A crisis is just upon us.--5T 711, 753 (1889). {LDE 126.2}

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