EDITORIAL
there should be opposition on the earth
to Satan’s kingdom. By the provisions
of the plan of salvation he reestablished
his own kingdom, notwithstanding the
fact that rebellion against the govern-
ment of heaven had been communicated
to the human family.
Satan sought the most effective means
of warring against the government of
God. All government is based upon
law, and by striking at the law of God
Satan sought to overthrow the very
foundation upon which the divine gov-
ernment rested. How could he most ef-
fectively attack the law?
There is one place in the great moral
code of Jehovah, the Decalogue, where
are set forth the name and authority of
the lawgiver. Here, then, was the point
at which to aim his blow. If he could
take away from the law the name and
authority of its author, he could des-
troy its force, and in fact bring the law
into harmony with a false system of
worship.
Let us suppose a Christian to be talk-
ing on the subject of the moral law with
a worshiper of the sun. He points the
sun-worshiper to the first command-
ment, “Thou shalt have no other gods
before me.” ‘The latter can reply, I
agree to that; I have no other gods be-
fore my god. Ile mentions the second
commandment, “Thou shalt not make
unto thee any graven image,” etc. To
this also the sun-worshiper assents; that
is in harmony with his system of wor-
ship. Likewise, he consents to the com-
mand against taking God’s name in vain,
also those against killing, stealing, com-
mitting adultery, bearing false witness,
and coveting. All these, he affirms, are
in perfect harmony with his religion.
But when he comes to the fourth com-
mandment, he finds a vastly different
situation. “Remember the Sabbath day,”
it says, “to keep it holy; . . for in
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six days the Lord made heaven and
earth, the sea and all that in them is,
and rested the seventh day; wherefore
the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and
hallowed it.”
“Ah,” the sun-worshiper exclaims,
“that does not fit my religion at all. My
god did not make the heavens and the
earth.” And he must admit that the
Decalogue is not the law of his god. No
false system of worship can lay claim to
the Decalogue in the form in which it
was spoken from Sinai.
It was the fourth commandment, there-
fore, that Satan selected as the point of
his attack. If the world had kept this
precept of the moral code, idolatry could
never have come in. If on every sev-
enth day the minds of men had been
called to the true God, the Creator, by
the observance of the Sabbath, they
could not have been turned to the wor-
ship of false gods. But man turned away
from the observance of the Sabbath and
thus idolatry came in, and through false
systems of worship men were led to the
lowest depths of physical, mental, and
moral degradation.
Satan led the chosen people of God,
the Israelites, to forget the Sabbath and
worship other gods. Throughout their
whole history, from the exodus from
Egypt to their captivity in Babylon and
Assyria, this apostasy marked their
course. If they had been faithful in ob-
serving God’s Sabbath, the great calam-
ity which destroyed Jerusalem and
swept them out of their land into cap-
tivity, would never have come. This is
stated in the prophecy of Jeremiah.
Here are the words: —
And it shall come to pass, if ye shall dili-
gently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to
bring in no burden through the gates of this
city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sab-
bath day, to do no work therein; then shall
there enter into the gates of this city kings
and princes sitting upon the throne of David,