THAT THIS IS NOT WHERE THEIR EMPHASIS IS. IT IS UPON THE KEEPING OF THE SABBATH DAY. "Please note 1) The claim that the Seventh-day Advent ists have turned one million Christians from worshiping on the first day o f the week to the seventh day. They have reason to boast, for this is the objective o f their message. 2) This meeting was not held on the seventh day, but on Sunday in order to catch untaught Baptists, Presbyterians and those o f other denominations. 3) It is sponsored by 'Advent ist churches.’ Where is the Seventh-day designation? You and 1 are both 'Adventists’ if by that is meant belief in the second coming o f Christ. A number o f good, sound 'Advent’ magazines come to my desk but they are not Seventh-day Adventist. This too is misleading. I f the m il l io n S a b ba th - k e e p e r s increase to tw o m il l io n , the Seventh-day Ad ventists will be greatly in your debt.” I received no reply. TRIAL. JURY SATURDAY OR SUNDAY . . • which is the Lord's day for Christians? Defense Attorney will give 19 reasons for keeping Sunday [Evangelist] will speak for Saturday Why Have More Than A Million Modern Christians Turned From Sunday To Saturday? Does It Make Any Difference? Will You Be Lost If You Are Keeping The Wrong Day? Who Is Right? The JURY made up from dif ferent denominations will decide the case — JOIN THE CROWDS SUNDAY, 7:10 P.M., TR IAL 7:30. All Seats Free, Sponsored by Adventist Churches in this area. The pastor of the church in which I was ministering sent a stenographer to this widely-publicized service and she took down the message verbatim. It is an understatement to remark that the report was most enlightening! One of the things that struck me most was the way in which the Seventh-day Adventist "evangelist” introduced the subject. Said he: "This evening we shall take into consideration why it is that most of the Christian people of the world are keeping Sunday. In the language of Deuteronomy 30:19: I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.’ Friends, it is a life and death matter we have before The Most Unusual Church Service Ever Held in St. Petersburg
us this evening, because it deals with one o j the Ten Com mandments by which we shall be judged.” This "life and death matter” — the Adventists’ belief as universally held by them that Sabbath-keeping is essential to salvation — was not the question of receiving or rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ as one’s personal Saviour, but of making a decision with regard to one’s observance of ‘the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath! I understand that this kind of meeting is by no means an isolated case, but it came to my personal attention as an illustration of the emphasis upon law and Sabbath-keeping as being vital to the salvation of the soul, which characterizes Seventh-day Adventism all the time, everywhere and without which there would be no Seventh-day Adventism at all. Since I have been writing these articles, my mail has been flooded with Seventh-day Adventist literature. In one day I picked up from my desk a handful of pamphlets bearing these titles: Has the Sabbath Been Lost?, The Blessing is the Sabbath, The Sabbath Man Made, Is the Sabbath Vital?, The Sabbath Christ Made, Breaking One Means Breaking Ten, How Sunday-Keeping Started, Remember the Sabbath Day and God’s Sabbath-Keeping Church Today. One and all of these publications are of Seventh-day Adventist origin. Do you wonder, friends, that I have concluded that the Seventh-day Adventists’ regard for the Jewish Sabbath virtually amounts to the worship of a day instead of a Person? N ev er o n c e in all the Scriptures did the Lord Jesus Christ command the observance of a day. There is, however, a plain and most important commandment given to the Christians in the New Testament. It is found in 1 John 3:23 and it has no reference to the seventh day or to any day. It is written: "And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.” Origin of "the Seventh-day Adventist Sabbath" As O. R. L. Crosier (with Edson and Hahn) was respon sible for actually formulating the Adventists’ sanctuary teaching (afterwards repudiating it and Seventh-day Ad ventism as well), it was Joseph Bates, a former sea captain, who was principally responsible for adding the seventh- day Sabbath doctrine to the Adventist creed. His influence and support launched Elder James White and his youthful wife, Ellen, upon their respective careers as leaders of the sect. Bates was also mainly accountable for the sect’s formerly held error, "shut door,” or belief that probation for the world ended on October 22, 1844. In five years this crude fallacy was abandoned by both Bates and the Whites but the Sabbath teaching grew in power. Influenced by a book of Preble’s entitled, The Hope o f Israel, Bates wrote a tract of 48 pages entitled, The Seventh-day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, which in substance contains the views on the seventh-day Sabbath as held by the Adventists at the present time — that the Sabbath was
The King's Business/June 1957
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