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We recently had a rather inspiring discussion on the Last Great Day of the recently concluded Feast of Tabernacles. We talked about a topic that has been on the minds of some of our members for some time, and featured in several recent studies, that being the Mark of The Beast. Quite a lot of ground was covered, including the nature of the 4th commandment, which is designed to identify the seventh day of every week as a day of spiritual, financial, and physical rest. It is not a Law, we understand, that requires a person to actively labor every day other than the seventh. This would make no sense practically, considering the number of retirees, people on vacation, people who are traveling, and so on. I was also speaking with Sis. G. this morning, and she told me that she was reading about some European countries that were experimenting with a four-day work week, which seems to actually be increasing productivity. And really, how would we evaluate the amount of work we would “need” to do to conscientiously fulfill such an interpretation of the commandment anyway?
I think people get caught up on the word “shalt,” as in the way that the commandment reads in many versions of the Bible: “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work.” The word “shalt” there is not a command, however, it is an allowance. Here is a parallel verse that gives the same information, but with slightly different wording: “Six days may work be done, but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to Yahweh; whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.” (Exo 31:15) Even in this very strict explanation of the commandment, the penalty – death – which is the indication of sin, applies to the work done on the Sabbath day, not to rest done on any other. Work “may be done” during the other days of the week; it is an opportunity, and every passage that speaks of labor on the six working days of the week always contrasts that idea with the rest on the seventh; it is not a stand-alone instruction.
The Scriptures contain numerous examples of individuals resting on non-Sabbath days. For example, when the Jewish community living in Persia survived the plot of Haman the Amalekite, we read, “On the thirteenth day of the month Adar; and on the fourteenth day of the same rested they, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.” (Est 9:17) This was not a religious command, so that one would say that Yahweh commanded the rest. It was a day chosen by the people to celebrate. Nobody said, “It’s not a Sabbath, so I need to go and labor in my fields.” Nor is the decision to rest one that can only be made on special occasions. We read, “And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Yahshua, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. And He said unto them, ‘Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while,’ for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately.” (Mark 6:30-32)
Rest is not always mere idleness, and lest anyone think this was a brief rest, only a part of a day, it is written that they took a ship to get to their place of rest, some distant desert place. That was not a short or casual trip; that was time needed to recover from significant spiritual labor, and it was not a violation of any commandment. What we find, too often, is that for any verse, any passage, that can be read in a fanatical way, there will be a group, there will be an individual, who thinks they have discovered some brilliant new truth, and will try to impress it on others.
The people of Yahweh are balanced. We are reasonable. We believe all Scriptures as they were intended by their authors, or as those words are applied to us in our current generation. And so, as applied to the Mark of The Beast, we find that at no point in Adventist history was it taught by any inspired source that a Law commanding worship on Sunday is in any way a violation of the Law of Heaven. As much as has been made about “Sunday” being the “Day of the Sun” and dedicated to sun worship, we don’t find anyone objecting to Saturday as the day of the titan Saturn, or Thursday as the day of the Norse god Thor. These are names, relatively recent names, actually, for the days of our week in English… and are not dedicated to the worship of anyone or anything in any modern sense of the word.
The Mark of The Beast involves Sunday ONLY because the Law as envisioned by Ellen White would be one that sought to replace the Biblical Sabbath with Sunday. That’s it; that is the only reason the word “Sunday” even appears in later editions of The Great Controversy. If the Law created by the Image of The Beast sought to replace the Sabbath with Friday, it would have been a Friday Law, and it would have been just as much the Mark of The Beast in that case. The problem is not worship on Sunday; as Sabbath-deniers rightly point out, we are called to worship every day of the week. The problem is an enforced violation of the 7th day Sabbath, for which no Law that I can think of to this end has been, or can be, passed.
To address one of the things I have heard recently, an environmentally-minded law that causes everyone in the world to lower their pollution level or energy consumption every Sunday would not, at all, fulfill the Biblical description of Heaven-rejecting legislation, because it has nothing to do with the Sabbath. It would not restrict Sabbath worship in any way, and, in fact, a committed environmentalist would probably applaud a reduced rate of consumption on both Sunday and Sabbath. This is just one of the many theories that traditional Adventists would be forced to adopt in an attempt to cling to an increasingly irrelevant conditional prophecy, for which the conditions have never been met. The SDA Church was never reformed from the sins against which Ellen White warned. They did not pursue significant evangelical efforts toward the Jewish People (which I’ll talk about below). They did not reject every opportunity to adopt pagan errors, create a creed, and then enforce that creed using civil power. For these reasons, the Adventist Church of the past is not the Adventist Church of today, and the warnings and promises given to her have passed on to a newer, smaller spiritual nation, which will bring forth the fruits.
Yes, in the history of Adventism, we have had brethren who were fined and even imprisoned for not observing Sunday as a day of rest… but the truth is that their consciences were not in tune with the God of Heaven who may well honor their sincerity, but did not cause or sanction their persecution.
As I mentioned before, one of the necessary steps toward a Sunday Law as it was originally envisioned was a work to be done among the Jewish people of the modern age. That was not done, which leads to this observation…
The modern nation of Israel was founded in 1948. This was long after Seventh-day Adventists received prophecies concerning a national Sunday Law that would have begun in the United States and spread to every civilized country, mandating a replacement of the Sabbath with the first day of the week under heavy penalties. This would have forced all Sabbath-keeping Christians to choose between loyalty to Yahweh, or loyalty to the spirit of Satan as manifest in human institutions, also known as The Beast.
Israel, as a nation, is not going to pass a Sunday Law that replaces the 7th day Sabbath. That should seem obvious, and it IS obvious, to any who are not convinced that the words of Ellen G. White are set in stone. When the Sunday Law prophecies were given, there was no nation on earth that had institutionalized Sabbath-keeping. And I am not saying that the Jewish people today are keeping the sanctifying, character-transforming Sabbath in letter and in spirit as described in the Bible, but they ARE observing a day of rest at the correct time, and there is no authority on earth that could induce them to change that to a pagan, or papal, replacement.
What we find is this: even if we ignore the growth of atheism and agnosticism in the world... even if we neglect to include the rise of secularism and the loss of religious sentiment... even if we discount the Muslim-majority nations, and countries like India and Pakistan that have little to do with Christianity... belief in a soon-to-arise Sunday Law as a worldwide Mark of The Beast is not a rational one.
Now, some may say this is an anti-Adventist message, because I am teaching that the prophecies of our history were based on conditions that were never met. The apostles could have been accused of teaching an anti-Jewish message, because their prophecies would mean that some of the Old Testament predictions would not be fulfilled regarding earthly Israel. Some accused Christ of destroying the Law of Moses, because they did not understand the Law that they thought they were defending. And regarding the specific Mark of The Beast prophecy some may say, “Even though we don’t see how it could happen, faith is not rational. Unlikely, and even impossible, things have come to pass because God declares it, and He is in charge of the nations.” I grant that principle, and I believe it entirely.
However, there are a few things that it is healthy to keep in mind. First, we never throw logic and reason out the window, regardless of the God of miracles with whom we deal. It is this same Yahweh of which it is written, “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” (Rom 12:1) Our Father tells us what He is going to do so we can reason from cause to effect. He is training intelligent, rational agents to serve Him for eternity in the age to come.
Second, the Sunday Law was never predicted to arise through sudden, unexpected means. It was to be a gradual, visible process for which the saints could watch the “Signs of the times,” and know to prepare. This idea has been perverted so that hard-line Sunday-Law believers will take any news about what the Pope is doing, any popular movement like environmentalism, and read into that the expected signs of the times, no matter how hard they need to squeeze. This causes, and will continue to cause, a lack of credibility with the rest of the world, who take one glance at the so-called evidence, and see that it is nonsense.
The things of Yahweh are not nonsense. They are designed to evangelize, to make sense to sincere seekers of truth, even if they haven’t been raised in an Adventist environment. The purpose of evangelism is to convince, to convict the heart, and if we bear a message to the world that is demonstrably untrue in any way, it proves that we have no better Gospel to offer, and we are actually working at cross-purposes with the Three Angels’ Messages, even if we believe we are doing the right thing.
And the protest might arise, “Okay, so Ellen White didn’t know about the founding of Israel, a Sabbath-keeping nation in the 1940s. But God, who gave her the vision, knew, and that is what is important.” Again, the principle behind the objection is valid, but the application is not.
God knew that Nineveh would not fall when He told Jonah to warn them of their destruction. More to the point, the same God who gave Ellen White the Sunday Law prophecy also told her to let the Church know we had that “work to do” for the Jewish people. Because that work was not done, because the Church fell, divorcing itself from Christ by imbibing pagan errors and then uniting with the State, history was altered. We do not know what would have happened.... but certainly if mainstream Adventism had remained faithful to Christ, the conditions necessary for the Sunday Law prophecy would have been met, and the events described in The Great Controversy would have unfolded exactly as predicted. Nobody is denying the gift of prophecy given to Ellen White. However, the SDA Church has, as an institution, fallen. This is not a judgment on the individual members; in fact, our ministry is largely toward them, to teach them these things.
And why are “these things” important? We see how Satan is using truth. He quoted the Bible to Yahshua, (Mat 4:6) in an attempt to deceive Him by bringing Him out of the will of His Father, bringing Him out of balance. With Sunday Law, in order to maintain it as reality, one must either believe in an extreme conspiracy theory, or honestly admit that it is not anywhere in the immediate future. Even if Israel were to be destroyed by the Palestinians in the Middle East, for example, you are just replacing one nation that will never pass a Sunday Law with another. But in either of these cases, the Enemy wins. He has either made a nation of unreasonable zealots, disconnected from the world they should be evangelizing, or a people who set the return of Christ so far into the future that the Three Angels’ Message loses all of its intended urgency.
But the People of Yahweh are educated in the Mind of Yahweh. They understand the principles by which He operates when speaking to mankind. They are students of their own history, and the history of the world. They understand and teach the necessary principles to understand the Scripture’s predictions: conditional prophecy, prophetic license, and dual fulfillments. Without these three ideas understood, one cannot comprehend or apply the Law and the Testimony.
So, as I said, a lot was discussed, and I am sure that a lot is still to come, perhaps to be revealed in future Sabbath meetings. This week, however, I want to narrow our focus down to a very specific question, to one relevant principle that will help us in teaching others the Three Angels’ Message, and specifically the relevance of the Mark of The Beast prophecy to the Gospel. I don’t think it is a complicated idea, or one that will take a long time to explain, so I was able to lay a lot of context leading up to it.
The question may be asked in a number of ways, such as: When does the Protestant protest? When does the Christian, the follower of and ambassador of Christ to the world, complain about his treatment? When does the peace-loving worshipper of Yahweh sound the alarm, perhaps for himself, or perhaps on behalf of another? To know this is to hear the voice of Yahweh, who sends His people to the world with a message, with a “loud cry.”
The answer is this: It is when Yahshua is betrayed. It is when He is rejected and persecuted, either in His own flesh, or in the Person of His saints, by those who are supposed to be His people. This is always the answer to when we are to make our voices heard, to when we have the right to complain, as I will demonstrate in a number of different contexts.
First, let’s see how this works with what we have been talking about so far. A law that merely requires the observance of Sunday as a day of rest would not be a good law, but it isn’t a betrayal of Christ. There are two things that are necessary for it to be the Mark of The Beast. First, it needs to not only require Sunday observance, but it must also replace the Sabbath, of whom Yahshua is Lord, (Mat 12:8) thus rejecting Him. Second, it must be initiated by a Church, by a people who claim to be His, but who act contrary to His Spirit. When this happens, He is crucified afresh, and God calls all His sincere people out of any such organization. He calls them out, and He does so with the voice of divine offense, with a firm protest, with a “loud cry.”
Let’s see how this works in history. The very name “Protestant” was given to a group of people who stood up in defiance of the papacy, which was supposed to be the head of the Catholic Church. By that time, however, it was no longer a Catholic Church because while it was indeed catholic (i.e., worldwide) it was no longer the Church, the Bride of Christ. It had married itself to Rome, the very power that had crucified Her supposed Husband, and therefore Christ was betrayed by His own. Imagine a woman seeking out and marrying the murderer of her first husband… that is what was done; therefore, we see a replacing of the true with the false, and that initiated by a people who claimed to be Christ’s. The people of Yahweh were called out of her, and they were given the right to protest, the right to complain.
Let’s see how this works in the life of Christ Himself. I will turn once again to a passage we have read a couple times now, each time seeing the matter from a different perspective, one revealing new light. We read, “But I say unto you that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Mat 5:39)
Now, we will read two points from the last days of the Messiah’s earthly ministry, and we will note a contrast in His responses. Here is the first: “And when He had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Yahshua with the palm of his hand, saying, ‘Answerest thou the high priest so?’ Yahshua answered him, ‘If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?’” (John 18:22, 23) Here, He protested His treatment.
Now, we read the following: “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.” (Isa 53:7) This was quoted in Acts 8:32 as a reference to Yahshua, and it was fulfilled in the Gospel record here: “And Yahshua stood before the governor, and the governor asked Him, saying, ‘Art thou the King of the Jews?’ And Yahshua said unto him, ‘Thou sayest.’ And when He was accused of the chief priests and elders, He answered nothing. Then said Pilate unto Him, ‘Hearest Thou not how many things they witness against Thee? And He answered him to never a word, insomuch that the governor marveled greatly.” (Mat 27:11-14)
So, in one place, He protested His treatment, and in the other, He was silent, and received the accusations against Him without a response, turning the other cheek, in effect, to their repeated charges. What was the difference? The difference was the authority to whom He was answering. Before Pilate, the representative of Rome, Yahshua said nothing. When Pilate asked Him, later on, “What is truth?” Yahshua did not speak a word in response. (John 18:38)
Before Caiaphas, however, the High Priest, the spiritual leader of the Jewish Nation, Yahshua’s own people, who were to have received Him gratefully, here He protested His treatment. Here, because He was betrayed by His own, He had the right to complain. What we see here is perfect consistency in the character of the Savior. Pilate did not betray God in delivering up Christ to be crucified; at least, not directly. Of him and those like him, Yahshua would rightly pray, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34) The Jews were also ignorant of Yahshua’s divine nature, but they knew the religion of Yahweh. They had been exposed to the holy character. They had no excuse for their behavior, because they had been instructed in righteousness. They knew that greed, and the desire for power, were never to motivate their judgment. Despite this, for power and for greed, they offered up the Son of Man to the government’s executioners. Their betrayal was on their own heads to a far greater degree than the pagan Romans.
We read the principle, simply expressed, here: “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.” (1Cor 5:9-11)
Here we see the difference in how the Mind of Christ deals with the world, vs. one who claims to be on Yahweh’s side. We see it in the example of Yahshua Himself, and we see it in the instructions His disciples left for all of history.
Finally, let’s see how this principle works today: When Creation Seventh Day Adventists were arrested and imprisoned in the United States of America for calling themselves “Seventh Day Adventists” in accordance with divinely inspired instructions, but separate from the General Conference Corporation of Seventh-day Adventists, they protested. We protested. Those of us who were free, or in other countries, sought to get the media’s attention, utilized social media, put up information websites to inform others, and generally made what noise we knew how to make. We did not protest violently, but we protested.
We had the right to do so. We had the right to cry and sigh for the abominations we were witnessing, and not to merely bear it in silence, because it was the Seventh-day Adventist Church, not some pagan nation, that had initiated their imprisonment. These were supposed brethren, who claim to worship the same God, who claim to believe the same Gospel, and yet they are acting as the Beast and not the Savior. And it does not matter what the motives of the offender are. I have heard some say, “We don’t know the motives of those trying to use the name for themselves. What if they are agents of Satan, to deceive others and confuse the public?” What does that matter? When the government’s agents came to arrest Yahshua, Simon used the sword in an attempt to defend Him, and he was rebuked for it. God protects His people from both deliberate evil and from ignorant opposition. Our trust is in Him, regardless of circumstances.
When He is betrayed by His own, however, then the Protestant Spirit arises, and we complain, we set the record straight, we defend, not ourselves, but the reputation of the Father and Son before the world. We say, “It is not our God who has done this, who has ordered this. But wicked men, falsely acting in His name, are betraying the Son of Man, and putting Him to open shame before the world.”
This is when we speak. This is when we are not silent. This is when neutrality in a religious crisis is judged as the worst kind of hostility against God, because it reveals a spirit that is not sensitive to holiness, and is absent agape-love. There is a straight line of spiritual descent from Yahshua, through the Protestants, through the Pioneer Adventist believers, and now to the CSDA Church today. We are of one Spirit with the Father, with the Son, with our current brethren, and with our brethren from ages past. We are all One.
Yahshua is Lord. Yahweh is God Almighty, and Yahshua is Lord and Savior. Anyone who believes this, anyone who accepts Him as Savior and Master, knows that He has given us a purpose, bestowed upon us a name decided by the Father, and pledged to be our defender, comfort and rest. Because we know His voice, we know when we are to be silent before the world and its authority, and when to protest the persecution of His people. When the Sunday Law, when the Trademark Law, when any other union of Church and state rebels against the principles of Heaven, and when these things come from a fallen woman, one faithful to her Husband at one point, but no longer... then we go to the world with a “loud cry.”
This is what we Protest. This is why and when we protest, when we see the Church, the former Church, become a persecuting power, and like Judas, betray innocent blood to the governments of the world. When we see this happening, we know the Savior is even at the door. And we say to the world, in His Spirit, as His voice, “Do not take the Mark of The Beast. Do not accept the mindset, or the works, of Satan’s spirit in human institutions.” When the kings of the earth unite with the Woman, with a Church, then that Woman is riding The Beast. Then that woman is betraying her former Husband, even with His very murderer. Then she says, “I am a queen,” even though the true King has already sent her away for her adultery and lack of faith. It is not a coincidence that when someone betrays the marriage covenant, he or she is called “unfaithful.”
These are the things that the Gospel teaches us, even the Good News, that Yahweh has called His people out of fallen Churches with a loud cry, with a voice of protest against the betrayal of the Bridegroom. Yahweh has called His people to a place of rest that He has prepared, where there is a little Flock, and a Shepherd and Savior after His own heart, who guides that little Flock. Though “few” find the way of life, that Way is very straight, very secure, very certain, because we hear the voice of our Father guiding us along the way. He is not silent, and we are not silent. We are called, not to silence, but to agape, to love, which cannot be passive, cannot be submissive, when the safety of our brethren, and the reputation of our Father in Heaven, are at stake.
David.
An Enduring Witness
“At present Sundaykeeping is not the test. The time will come when men will not only forbid Sunday work, but they will try to force men to labor on the Sabbath. And men will be asked to renounce the Sabbath and to subscribe to Sunday observance or forfeit their freedom and their lives. But the time for this has not yet come, for the truth must be presented more fully before the people as a witness.” [The Southern Work, p. 69]
“Refraining from work on Sunday is not receiving the mark of the beast; and where this will advance the interests of the work, it should be done. We should not go out of our way to work on Sunday.” [The Southern Work, p. 70]
“If God abhors one sin above another, of which His people are guilty, it is doing nothing in case of an emergency. Indifference and neutrality in a religious crisis is regarded of God as a grievous crime and equal to the very worst type of hostility against God. ” [Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 3, p. 280]