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Volume III - Number 4
"Watchman,
what of the night?"
"The hour has come, the hour is striking and striking at you,
the hour and the end!" Eze. 7:6 (Moffatt)
"SEIZE UPON CIRCUMSTANCES"
Editorial
Local option as voted by the Ontario legislature opened an opportunity for witness in many rural and small communities across the Province. It was soon discovered that this avenue had its advantages and disadvantages. The first major advantage was the reduced cost of advertising which permitted much larger ads to be placed in the local papers. However, without an Adventist presence in these small communities, which was the situation back in 1950, we were looked upon as an "intruder" disturbing the tranquil religious life of the community by seeking to destroy their "quiet" Sunday. Thus at that time, seizing the opportunity was merely a seed sowing evangelistic outreach. Today, how a small community with no Adventist presence would react has not been determined. There is even the possibility that only the distribution of a tract wherein the issue of religious liberty is the major thrust would be the way to spearhead the witness with a follow-up tract of the Biblical basis for the true Sabbath. If, however, there is a definite Adventist presence, a direct confrontation using even the $1,000 Reward Offer, correctly worded, would be just as effective now as when used in Toronto in 1949.
The tragic part of the whole Puerto Rican affair is that something was not done at the very beginning when Sunday closing first became a major issue in San Juan. To consider every agitation for the enforcement or enactment of a Sunday closing law as creating an "image to the beast" and to exploit this situation for a solicitation of funds is to miss the opportunity afforded when such an issue is raised. It is true that Revelation 13 will be fulfilled, but it may not be fulfilled in the way we have thought it would be. To assume that the enforcement of the Sunday Closing Law in Puerto Rico is the beginning of the unfolding of a plot to enact a National Sunday Law is to manifest credulity. Even if a national Sunday Closing Law should be enacted, it would not meet the specifications of an "oppressive" law as indicated in the Writings. To close business activity on Sunday by law is not forcing one to go to church and worship on that day. However, agitation over these laws does give the opportunity to witness to religious liberty and the Biblical Sabbath. When the iron is hot, then it is time to strike; and the iron gets hot over the enforcement of Sunday closing for business.
While it is professed that Sunday closing laws are simply to provide the people with a day of rest, it becomes quickly evident that "religion" is involved. Many people in business and public office do not know how to meet the religious issue simply because they have not taken the time to investigate, or were unaware of the real difference between Sabbath and Sunday. This was the case in Toronto. One of the Controllers of the city who openly advocated the relaxation of the Lord's Day Act was deluged with material and letters quoting Bible to sustain Sunday. He called me privately and asked if I would help him formulate a general answer for these letters. However, if we are not publicly confronting the issue, these men have nowhere to turn for religious guidance which reflects the truth and are thus overwhelmed by the religious forces. Mere distribution of tracts at such a time is not the answer.
In this Commentary, we will include a flashback on an incident which occurred during the Toronto campaign. The position of the Catholic Cardinal is in marked contrast to the statement issued by the bishops in 1986. See article - "Balfour and the Cardinal."
Another item - quotes from a college text book as space permits - will speak for itself. See
Bibliography at the end of this Commentary.
Seize Upon Circumstances
"We should seize upon circumstances as instruments by which to work." - Ministry of Healing, p. 500
When on January 2, 1950, the voters in the City of Toronto, Canada, approved a more "open" Sunday in what was termed an "upset" election, they by this vote "tossed the controversial question back at the members of the city council, most of whom had declared outright opposition to any changes in Toronto's observance of Sunday." (Globe and Mail, Jan. 3, 1950, p. 1) The city council accepted the mandate of the electorate and petitioned the provincial government for the authority to "open" Sunday afternoon for commercialized sports. By passing on the issue to the legislature, a new opportunity to witness was opened.
Elder O. B. Gerhart and I formulated a letter which was sent to all members of the Ontario legislature and to the three major newspapers in the city. (See pp. 2 & 3) Besides this, Elder Gerhart made it his special work to visit personally with as many as possible of these legislators. The final result was that a local option law was passed permitting each city and town in the Province to vote or whether Sunday should be "opened" in its jurisdiction.
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Among the first group of towns to take advantage of this local option proviso was Brampton, Ontario, a then rural community north and west of Toronto. (Brampton is now a part of - megalopolis which surrounds the western shore of Lake Ontario from Oshawa to Hamilton.) There was no Seventh-day Adventist Church in Brampton at that time and the Adventist presence was minimal. In entering into the Brampton plebiscite, we sought to focus on three major factors: 1) The religious liberty issue; 2) The Biblical basis for the true Sabbath; and 3) The origin of Lord's Day of the Lord's Day Act. Elder Gerhart prepared a penetrating "news" release - "Ottawa Enacts Saturday Law" - which put the "shoe" on the other foot for those seeking to maintain a restrictive Lord's Day Act. This was printed as a small single-fold tract in a newspaper format as well as being published in the Brampton, Conservator. (See p. 3)
It will be readily seen that this article by Elder Gerhart can be adapted with but minor changes to any locality where there is an issue involving Sunday laws. For example, in Puerto Rico, it could read - "Commonwealth Enacts Saturday Law." Also a sentence or two which speaks of the Lord's Day Act of Canada could be modified to speak of the Sunday Closing Law of 1902 in Puerto Rico.
Two other ads were placed in the Brampton newspapers which set forth the religious issue. You will observe in one of the ads, while we used the original offer of Enright in 1899, we also used the offer which had been made during the Toronto campaign, thus utilizing the effect of a current offer noting that there were 1,000 ministers in the city and not one tried to collect. See pages 4 & 5.
The response was small compared to the reaction in Toronto. The clergy of Brampton led a concerted effort to keep Sunday closed. One of the Brampton papers reporting an organizational meeting of "Church Workers" quoted one of the clergymen as stating - "The plan of attack must be well organized." Another minister advised - "If we're going to win this thing it's got to be a political campaign." Still another said - "If it's going to be successful it's got to be done by laymen. The clergy would be suspect of having a professional interest."
The battle for truth is not for the weak and fainthearted. Those upholding error fight with no holds barred, while those advocating truth can only use an approach consistent with truth. Tragically many of God's professed people recoil from open confrontation. How would our salvation have been accomplished if Christ had not come and met the enemy head-on? We dare not do less in an hour of crisis.
LETTER:
THE FIRST SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH
3 Awde Street, Toronto
Phone: KEnwood 0591
Hon. George H. Dunbar,
Parliament Buildings,
Toronto, Ont.
Dear Sir:
The Seventh-day Adventist churches of Toronto beg to place before you certain considerations regarding the current Sunday-law issue, which we believe merits serious attention.
Seventh-day Adventists are definitely opposed to restriction of Sunday sports because we are and have always been consistently opposed to all religious and anti-religious legislation.
The Lord's Day Act is a piece of religious legislation as indicated by: -
1. The name of the law itself, and the history of such legislation.
2. The fact that the original sponsors and most zealous guardians are a religious group known as the "Lord's Day Alliance."
3. The revealing observation that it was 114 churches that purchased a full page of advertising in the December 31, 1949 Toronto newspapers to oppose the proposed relaxation of this law. Would the churches have done this for any purely civil issue?
We hold that if the Government can properly enforce one religious act, it can with equal logic enforce any or all religious observance by law, as the temper of the times may indicate. This was the logic that produced the long centuries of cruel persecution of minorities during the Dark Ages. We do not share the complacency of those who think these times cannot return. Therefore, we earnestly oppose the retention of any law on our statute books that can serve as the "thin edge of the wedge."
We believe that in the eyes of the law all religions must be equal with favoritism to none. But the "Lord's Day Act," discriminates against Mohammedans, Jews, Seventh-day Baptists, and Seventh-day Adventists, all of whom observe a different day other than Sunday as their day of worship, thus depriving them of one of their rightful working days. The possible objection that these are a minority group is alien to our contention here that the Government has no right before God to discriminate in religious matters.
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We desire to point out in this connection that religious tolerance is not religious liberty. While the Lord's Day Act tolerates citizens who observe a day other than Sunday as a day of worship, it does not permit them equality of liberty. To clarify this point one need only to picture the reaction if the Lord's Day Act were changed to "protect" only Saturday. Would not the religious observers of Sunday rightly protest that such a law advantaged the observers of Saturday to the disadvantage of Sunday keepers? Religious liberty requires equality of all religions before the law.
We are mindful of the virtues of legislation granting the laboring man a day of rest and maintain that this right could be as ably secured by requiring his release one day in seven without specifying the day.
Therefore, because Seventh-day Adventists oppose all religious laws in principle, we favour every step toward their relaxation. Hence we voted for Sunday sports and beg you, honourable sir, to consider the issue before you in the light of the fundamentals involved.
Respectfully yours,
Wm. H, Grotheer
O. B. Gerhart
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE:
OTTAWA ENACTS SATURDAY LAW - LORD'S DAY ACT AMENDED - Saturday Protected as All Sunday Bans Lifted -- Nonsense? Fantastic? Impossible? Granted. But come now, just suppose to-morrow's newspapers did carry such headlines as these.
After the first shock had passed the Canadians had begun to realize what this new Saturday law would mean, some of our finest citizens would begin to say, "Why, this means I'm going to lose a day's pay every week, for I don't intend to work on Sunday whether the Government expects me to or not. Sunday is my day for worship. That's the day I go to church." But many would soon discover that more than a day's pay was at stake, for their employers might not want to employ at all a man who absents himself from work on a day the law designates as a working day. So these would either forfeit their jobs or smother their consciences and go to work on Sundays. In either case, a needless misfortune.
And what about the ministers of their churches? Would they complacently accept it as a law of the land which Christians are bound to obey? Rather, would they not unanimously protest that this Saturday law discriminates against them and caters to the groups who observe Saturday as the Sabbath? Would they not denounce this law as class legislation and opposed to religious freedom? And who could refute them?
Suppose the government were able to ride out the initial storm. In time business would adjust itself to Saturday closing, and the laboring man would find Saturday rest as acceptable as he found Sunday rest, for outside the field of religion, one day is as good as another.
Not so, however, in the realm of conscience. There would long remain a religious minority who would continue to observe Sunday, no matter what the sacrifice. They might eventually come to consider further protest useless and suffer the injustice of that law in silence. But would that make the law right, Who with an enlightened conscience could defend such a piece of legislation?
Did you ever stop to think that Canada has just such a law on its statue books? Of course it is a Sunday law, not a Saturday law, but it affects thousands of loyal, law-abiding citizens precisely as a Saturday law would affect conscientious Sunday observers.
Did you know that Seventh-day Adventists, Seventh Day Baptists, and Orthodox Jews do no work on Saturdays because that is the seventh day of the week and because one of God's Ten Commandments says, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work"? (Exodus 20:10) These citizens are quiet, inoffensive people who almost without exception respect the consciences of their Sunday-keeping neighbors by granting an outward respect to their day that is rarely returned. More than that, thousands of these citizens have suffered loss of employment from time to time, because of the Lord's Day Act of Canada which all but compels Saturday labor by ordering all business closed on Sunday.
"But", some will say, "there must be one day a week protected by law, otherwise religion would perish from the earth." Did the Christian religion perish from the earth before the days of the Roman Emperor Constantine who in A.D. 321 passed the first Sunday law?
Are Seventh-day Adventists disappearing from the earth? Indeed, let such objectors ponder the phenomenon of this church which within the last one hundred years has spread itself over 228 countries of the world, prints and circulates its books in 195 languages, and whose membership in all these countries contributed in 1948 a per capita average of $62.49 to their church. (Taken from 1950 S.D.A. Year Book, p.355). All this without the aid of Saturday laws. Why, then, should Sunday laws be necessary for the protection of Sunday worship? Let those who advance this plea consider what they are implying.
Others object that Sunday laws are necessary for the protection of the laboring class. But a law requiring one day's rest in seven without specifying the day, would have all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of a Sunday law. Such a law would discriminate against no religious principle and could be supported by all who really have the working man's interests at heart.
When we dig back into church history we come out with this fact: All Sunday laws are but the remaining vestiges of those centuries when the laws of the Church were the laws of the State and dissenters were persecuted to the death. There is not a trace of Sunday legislation to be found anywhere in the Bible. The Lord's Day Act of our country can be defended only on the grounds that Sunday laws were defended during the Dark Ages. It cannot be defended on democratic principles, much less on Bible or humanitarian grounds.
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Let no one think that this article is an attempt to vilify the motives of those who are agitating for the retention of Sunday laws. Let us be charitable enough to concede that good men may thoughtlessly urge legislation without studying its results. Rather, it is the purpose of this leaflet to call attention to the gross injustice and inhumanity of a law that has remained upon our law books too long unchallenged.
That there be no misunderstanding, let us state the issue clearly. No government has any God-given commission to distinguish between loyal citizens in matters of conscience. It has no right to favor one religious group and penalize another, or to judge which is right and wrong in such controversies. Before the law of the land all religions must stand on equal footing. For this right the blood of millions was shed during earlier centuries. For this right our country professes to stand and does stand.
In the current Sunday sports issue the opportunity is granted in a limited degree to voice whether as citizens we favor or disapprove the principle of Sunday laws. This is the true issue. The matter of Sunday sports is comparatively trifling.
We thank God for the liberties we do enjoy in this great Dominion. Let us treasure them and hasten the day when this last vestige of a dark past shall be completely erased from the laws of Canada. O. B. Gerhart -- For further information write to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Box 73, Brampton, Ontario.
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE:
THE LORD'S DAY of the LORD'S DAY ACT -- By W. H. Grotheer, B.A.
The electors of this municipality are being asked to vote on certain aspects of the Lord's Day Act of Canada. In a preceding article "Ottawa Enacts a Saturday Law", we dealt with the question from the viewpoint of religious liberty and freedom of conscience. To the vast majority, this question is the basic issue involved. But to the authors of this law, and in the minds of those who desire most to keep it in force, there is a pure religious question. to these, The Lord's Day is Sunday, a day to be kept sacredly devoted for the worship of Jesus Christ. Naturally anyone who takes the Bible and the Bible only as the basis of faith and doctrine has a right to raise the question: - "Is Sunday, the Lord's day?" The Canadian act has so defined it; is it Biblically correct?
The Bible speaks of only one day, as the commanded day of worship. In the Ten Commandments we read: -
"The Seventh-day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work." Ex. 20:10.
Here the Lord regards the seventh-day as His day. This is further emphasized in Isaiah 58:13, where the Lord calls the Sabbath, "My holy day". Jesus Christ when here as a Man among men proclaimed Himself as Lord of the Sabbath day. He said: -
"The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2:27-28.
Since it is clearly stated in the Holy Scriptures that God the Father, and God the Son have a day over which, in a special designated sense, they are Lord of; and that day being clearly stated as THE seventh-day of the week, the next question follows naturally, "which day is the seventh-day?" This is not hard to determine. Jesus, Christ, the Savior of the world was crucified on what is now commonly called Good Friday, and arose on the day we now refer to as Easter Sunday. In Mark 16:9, we read: -
"Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week."
Thus the resurrection day - Easter Sunday - was declared to be the first day of the week. It is not hard to determine, then the seventh day. But let us observe another series of verses. These are found in Luke 23:50 - 24:3. Quoting in part we find this: - (You can look up this reference and check for yourself.)
"And behold, there was a man, named Joseph ... This man went unto Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. Ad he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulcher ... And that day was the preparation (Good Friday), and the Sabbath drew on. And the women also, ... beheld the sepulcher ... and they returned and prepared spices and ointments; and rested on the sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week (Easter Sunday), very early in the morning they came unto the sepulcher ... And they found the stone rolled away ... and they entered in and found not the body of the Lord Jesus."
It does not take a genius to see that the day between Friday, and Sunday is Saturday, which the Holy Scripture calls the "Sabbath day according to the commandment". This day then is the seventh-day, the true Lord's day, which was blessed and sanctified by God Himself.
Nowhere in the sacred writings, is a counter command given which sets aside another day of worship. The Sabbath commandment is a part of the Ten Commandments, the great moral code of conduct. I do not believe anyone would be so naive as to suggest that this code is no longer applicable to mankind. What a tragedy would ensue, if the law which stated, "Thou shalt not kill," would be declared null and void.
Thus in conclusion number one, the Lord's Act of Canada, which is supposedly based on the Bible, defines as the Lord's day, a day which is not mentioned in the Bible as the day which the Lord blessed and sanctified. This Act then in definition is weighed in the balances and found wanting to the individual who takes the Bible as the basis of faith and doctrine.
But is Sunday a Lord's day? Yes, but a very different Lord's day than many a Christian would like to recognize. In the pagan world, the devotees of the sun-god devoted Sunday to the worship of their god. Jennings in his work, Jewish Antiquities, Book 3, chap. 3, tells us: -
"The day which the heathen in general consecrated to the worship and honor of their chief god, the sun, which, according to our computation, was the first day of the week."
Thus this day devoted to the worship of the sun-god, was called the "Lord's day" by the pagans long before that term was used by Christians to refer to Sunday as a day of worship. A. Pavia in his book, O Mitraismo, p. 3, writes: -
"The first day of the week, Sunday, was consecrated to Mithra (sun-god) since times remote, as several authors affirm. Because the sun was god, the Lord par-excellence, Sunday came to be called the Lord's day, as was latter done by Christianity."
Arthur Weigall adds this testimony: -
"As a solar festival, Sunday was the sacred day of Mithra; and it is interesting to notice that since Mithra was addressed as Dominus, Lord, Sunday must have been the Lord's day long before Christian times." p. 145, The Paganism of Our Christianity.
The question is very clear. Can a Christian vote to sustain a law, which defines a day set aside first by pagans as the "Lord's day," and then accepted by a nominal Christian church as a "Lord's day," without Biblical sanction?
For your free booklet entitled: "The Early Christian Sabbath," write to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Box 73, Brampton, Ontario.
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NEWSPAPER ARTICLE: THE CONSERVATOR, BRAMPTON ONTARIO - WHY COULD THESE OFFERS BE MADE?
In 1899 - "I hereby offer $1,000 to anyone who can prove to me, from the Bible alone, that I am bound under pain of grievous sin, to keep Sunday holy." -- T. Enright CSSR (Catholic Church)
(This offer was reaffirmed in 1902, and 1905. No one ever collected.)
In 1949 in Toronto - "The undersigned offer to pay a total reward of $1,000 to any person or persons who can show from the Bible alone (King James Version), a single text where Christ or His Apostles specifically commanded the observance of the first day of the week (Sunday) in honour of His resurrection." -- Seventh-day Adventist Reward Committee.
(The Command was never produced - and there are 1,000 ministers in Toronto)
BECAUSE - "The Bible commandment says on the seventh day thou shalt rest. That is Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday. Tradition has made it a day of worship." -- Archbishop Philip Carrington of the Anglican Church in the Toronto Star, October 26, 1949.
"There was and is a Commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will be said, however, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, with all its duties, privileges and sanctions. Earnestly desiring information on this subject, which I have studied for many years, I ask, Where can the record of such a transfer be found? Not in the New Testament, absolutely not. There is no Scriptural evidence for the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week." -- Dr. E. T. Hiscox, author of the "Baptist Manual" in a paper read before a Baptist Minister's Meeting, Saratoga, N.Y., Aug. 20, 1893.
"The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps, at the end of the second century a false application of this kind had began to take place; for men appear by that time to consider labouring on Sunday a sin." -- P. 186 "The History of the Christian Religion and Church." By Dr. Agustus Neander. (Dr. Neander is considered to be the "Prince of Church Historians.")
"Q. Have you any way of proving that the Church (Catholic) has the power to institute festivals of precept?"
"A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her; - she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority." -- P. 174. "A Doctrinal Catechism" by Rev. Stephen Keenan, R.C.
GOD SAYS - "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ... For in 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 hollowed it." Ex. 20:8-11.
"But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Matt. 15:9.
"Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition." Matt 15:6.
Send for your copy of "From Sunday to Sunday". Write to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Box 73, Brampton, Ontario.
BALFOUR AND THE CARDINAL
The "Home Edition" of the Toronto Daily Star of December 2, 1949 headlined in heavy bold type - "Cardinal Opposes Open Sunday." In a letter to the Roman Catholic clergy of the city, James Cardinal McGuigan, Archbishop of Toronto made it clear that Sunday as a whole day "is to be given to God and kept holy." The full text of the Cardinal's letter was printed. It read in part:
The attempt that is being made to legalize commercial sport on Sunday calls for a reminder of the law of God and the teaching of the Catholic church on the keeping of the Lord's Day. The third commandment of God forbids work on that day, which under the old law was the seventh day of the week, but which in the Christian dispensation is kept on the first day of the week in honor of our Divine Lord's resurrection.
The Catholic church has always zealously maintained the law of Sunday rest. The whole day is to be given to God and kept holy. It is to be kept for the benefit of our souls. The hearing of holy mass on that day is of strict obligation. There is a general obligation to keep in mind during the day our duties to worship the Almighty God, especially public worship, and Catholics are urged to assist at afternoon and evening devotions in the church on Sunday when they can do so without serious inconvenience.
Following our Divine Lord's teaching that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, the Catholic church approves of wholesome recreation on Sunday and she permits work on the grounds of necessity, custom, utility, piety and charity. These permissions are not extended so far as to be inconsistent with the character of Sunday as a day of rest and worship. The church deplores the laxity and abuses which in some places have desecrated the Lord's Day. The present Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, has expressed the mind of the church saying: "Sunday must again become the day of the Lord, the day of adoration, of glorification of God, of the holy sacrifice, of rest, of recollection and reflection, of happy reunion in the intimate circle of the family." (Ibid. pp. 1,2)
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It Is most interesting and revealing to compare what was written in 1949 by this Catholic prelate with what the Catholic bishops of Canada wrote in 1986 on the same subject. (See WWN XXII-6, p. 2)
An article in the same edition of the Star next to the report on the Cardinal's position was captioned - "Up to Conscience States Balfour of Sunday Vote." Controller David Balfour, then the only Roman Catholic on the Toronto city council played a leading part in having the question put to the people. The article reported that he "received with incredulity the news" of the Cardinal's letter. Another Toronto daily was not quite so benevolent in reporting this difference between Balfour and the Cardinal. It placed above the news item on the Cardinal's letter the single message - "Balfour Retreats" and stated, "Con. Balfour's enthusiasm for Sunday sport suddenly cooled when he learned that Cardinal McGuigan had announced his opposition to changing the city's Sunday blue laws."
Balfour responded to questioning by the news reporter of the Globe and Mail by saying he wasn't going to campaign anyway for the open Sunday as "the people must make their own decision on the question." But when asked as to whether he was in favor of Sunday sport in view of the Cardinal's opposition, he replied:
I don't think there's anything wrong with Sunday baseball, or golf, or any other sport which gets one out into the fresh air - but, at the same time, if the cardinal asked me not to do these things, then out of respect for his wishes, I would not do them.
This reaction of an elected official of the Roman Catholic faith reveals the influence of the hierarchy on such an official. Add to this the "time serving" Protestants in elective offices and you have the ingredients for the storm that "is coming, relentless in its fury." (8T:315) But to many, it will come as an "overwhelming surprise" because it will not come as they have pictured it should come. The Jews were looking for a Messiah when Jesus came the first time, but because He did not come as they preconceived He should have come, they knew Him not. The same danger faces us today.
BIBLE-OGRAPHY
In Revelation 13, a second beast identified as "the false prophet" causes "the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast." (13:12) [For identification of this beast as "the false prophet," compare Rev. 13:14 with 19:20] Further, this "false prophet" says to "them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image" to this same first beast. The "false prophet" not only causes a mark to be placed upon individuals and enforces the acceptance of this mark through economic sanctions (13:16-17); but also he gives "life unto the image of the beast" that it is enabled to enact a death penalty against those who refuse to worship it. (13:15)
Behind both powers, - the beast and the false prophet - is the dragon, "the Devil and Satan" (Rev. 13:2, 11; 12:9) The Scripture indicates that these powers unite in gathering the rulers "of the whole inhabited world" Gr.) to "the war (Gr.) of the great day of God Almighty." (Rev. 16:13-14) If we accept our common historic understanding of these symbols, and there is no reason that we should not, then this tells us that the present religious elements that dominate the world - spiritism, Roman Catholicism, and apostate Protestantism - will unite the political powers of earth against God.
Today, we see a militant Muhammadanism in serious conflict with elements of Roman Catholicism in the Near East; we see a revitalized Roman Catholicism led by a very charismatic pope; and we see a vigorous rightest movement in Protestantism.
How does a Sunday issue fit into this picture? The Muhammadan world observes Friday. The Catholic and a vast majority of the Protestant world give allegiance to Sunday observance. A small minority of the Protestant world observe the seventh-day Sabbath. Into this picture has been injected since 1948 a reestablished Jewish State as a major political factor. There is within this Jewish State a strong, militant conservative element which promotes a rigid observance of the seventh-day Sabbath.
At present, there is only one common denominator and that is the expectation of a coming world Messiah with Jerusalem as the Holy City. Two prophetic Scriptures focus on this point. The "spirits of devils" gather the leadership of " the whole world" to a place called in the Hebrew - "Har-Magedon" (Rev. 16:16 ARV). This equates with Har-Mo'ed in the Hebrew, or "the mount of the congregation." (Isa. 14:13) From this mount a certain "God" will send forth "his law." (Isa. 2:3) The Lord God of Israel has already spoken from Mount Sinai. He will not "alter the thing that is gone out of His lips" (Ps. 89:34) It is in this setting that a universal Sunday law is projected. God's response is the seven last plagues. (Rev. 16:1) The counter response is the death decree upon those who are charged with bringing such "sudden destruction." (Compare I Thess. 5:3 with 9) Then God answers further with the 3rd plague. It is the "war" of the great day.
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While certain prophecies indicate the high points ahead, the details leading to this confrontation of the war of the great day of God Almighty must await the unfolding of the scroll. May our enlightenment and understanding neither anticipate, nor lag behind the movement of the forces involved; but may we walk in the light of the fulfilling "sure word of prophecy" befitting children of the light.
Understanding Computers (Second Edition) by Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (USN Ret.) and Professor Steven L. Mandel (Bowling Green State University)
THE CARD: WHO'S WATCHING WHOM?
Blue Cross-Blue Shield issued the LifeCard, a wallet-sized card containing medical history stared by laser beam. In Japan, Nipponcoinco vending machines accept laser cards in payment for food. The machine reduces the card's value, originally forty dollars, each time the user buys food. Other cards will be used to record car repairs, guide a student's learning, and report economic news. The cards act almost like credit cards, and the owner controls their use.
'Why own so many cards? Why not have just one card containing a dedicated computer that performs all personal financial transactions? Such a card may be more of a reality than we think, says George Morrow, founder and chairman of the board of Morrow, Incorporated, maker of personal computers and computer equipment. Banks and creditors face mounting piles of paper, bad checks, and unpaid bills. They have already begun to solve the first problem through automatic tellers and EFT, and people now accept the use of credit cards. The next stop could be a card that would identify users, provide personal audits, balance checkbooks, and pay utility bills. The card would be used to buy food and clothing. The user would never have to balance a checkbook or worry about money being lost in the mail. Banks and stores would benefit because customers could not buy goods without having sufficient funds to cover their purchases. Criminals and thieves could be easily tracked; in a cashless society, they could make no purchases without their cards, and a remote computer could sense when a convicted criminal traveled more than two blocks from home. People with more than four speeding tickets could no longer buy gasoline because a remote computer would program their cards to deny them that privilege. Even governments would benefit. Cash-only deals would be eliminated, guaranteeing the federal government its income tax and state and local governments their sales taxes.
Yet such cards carry ominous implications. Governments would have control of everyone's money, and thereby could ensure "correct" behavior. The cards could monitor the kind of things we buy. Perhaps we would only be able to buy "acceptable" publications, or our tastes in reading material would be recorded as "acceptable," "suspicious," or "criminal." ... Our lives would revolve around the cards. (pp. 379-380)
[In a forthcoming WWN, another section from the textbook - "Privacy and the Computer: the Demise of Confidentiality?"]
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