¥ Ernest Christian Sibberson, pastor of a deaf-
mute church in Topeka, Kansas, learned the
deaf-and-dumb language in order to speak to
the deaf-mutes of his church. He discovered
that while in the words of Scripture “their ears
were heavy’ lo sound vibrations, yet their eyes
were alert to recognize the truth.
ALY zZ/.
rs AN NY
[An age-old tradition teaches that the os-
trich, in order to hide itself, buries its head
in the sand, where it can see nothing, hear
nothing, and do nothing. Mr. Crane sug-
gests that there are those doctrinaires who
assume the proverbial ostrich attitude with
reference to certain Biblical doctrines. Ep.]
seize upon Deuteronomy 95: 19,
where Moses urged Israel to
honor the one who had so mightily deliv-
ered them from their bondage in Egypt,
by keeping His Sabbath holy. By an ex-
treme and unwarranted interpretation of
this text they endeavor to make it teach
that the Sabbath was given to the Jews
alone as a token of their deliverance from
bondage in Egypt; and that since Chris-
tians were never in Egypt, they are under
no obligation to keep the Sabbath.
A little thought given to this text will
show the utter inconsistency of such in-
terpretation; for if this were true con-
cerning the Sabbath, it would be true also
of all the other commandments, which,
according to Leviticus 19: 36, 37, were en-
joined for the very same reason; and there-
fore Christians need not keep any of the
commandments. What a shame so to
pervert the word of God!
Furthermore, if the Sabbath was to be
observed only by those who had been de-
livered from Egyptian bondage, then it is
evident that no Jew born in Canaan would
be under any more obligation to keep the
Sabbath than Christians would be today.
Most of the Jews who were delivered from
Egypt died in the wilderness, and doubt-
less none who had been in Egypt were
alive at the end of one hundred years from
the time they entered Canaan. Imagine
the young Jews reminding their parents
that they were never in Egypt and need
not keep the Sabbath! How absurd and
unreasonable such an interpretation of
this text is, and yet it shows to what
lengths people will go when they close
their eyes to the truth.
®
Instead of the Sabbath ending with
those who had been delivered from Ligyp-
tian bondage, we hear the Lord declaring
its never-ending obligation when hundreds
of years later, just before the Jews were
carried into Babylonian captivity, He
promised if they would faithfully keep the
Sabbath, He would never allow Jerusalem
to be destroyed, and would never cause
Israel to cease from being a nation forever.
(Jeremiah 17:24, 25.) Had the Jews
heeded this warning and accepted this
promise, they would now be safe in their
own land, free from the hand of oppression.
oe
ERE
Page TWELVE
ARE YOU OSTRICH MINDED?
By I. A. Crane
But they refused, and to this day are reap-
ing the results of their rebellion. Ezekiel,
who prophesied contemporaneously with
Jeremiah, declared that apostate Israel
“hid their eyes” from God’s Sabbath, and
that He was ‘“profaned among them.”
Ezekiel 22:26. The same determined
blindness exists today among many pro-
fessed Christians. If people today would
not ‘hide their eyes” from the truth they
would see—
1. That the Sabbath did not originate
with the deliverance of Israel from Egyp-
tian bondage, but that it was set apart in
Eden before man sinned. (Genesis 2: 2, 3.)
2. That had man never sinned there
would have been no death (Romans :5
12), and that therefore the world would
now be inhabited with sinless people who
had always been observing the original
Sabbath set apart at creation.
3. That the seventh-day Sabbath
was given not only to the one small nation
of the Jews, who had been set free from
Egyptian bondage, to be observed during
the few centuries of their possession of
Palestine, but that it is given to all the
nations of the redeemed, who have been
delivered, not merely from the bondage of
Egypt, but from the bondage of sin and
death; and that it will be observed by
these immortal, redeemed ones, not for a
few brief years, but throughout all eternity;
not in earthly Canaan, but in the beautiful
glorified new earth. (Isaiah 66:22, 23.)
Many people today are hiding their eyes
from the Sabbath and the fullness of its
meaning. Are you?
The Galilean Prophet
(Continued from page 4)
another, that shall not be thrown down.”
Matthew 24: 2. This remarkable prophecy
was literally fulfilled thirty-nine years later.
Jesus and His disciples wended their
way to the Mount of Olives, and there
with the city and temple in full view they
sat for a while. From Mark's Gospel 1t
does not appear that all the twelve were
with Him on that occasion. At any rate
Mark informs us that it was Peter, James,
John, and Andrew who asked Him the
questions, “When shall these things be,
and what shall be the sign of Thy coming,
and of the end of the world?” Matthew
24:3. “When shall these things be?”
That is, when shall come the destruction
of Jerusalem, and of the temple, and the
end of the Jewish state? ‘What shall be
the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of
the world?” That is, when shall come the
(Continued on page 19)
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE