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The Great Controversy
“To the law and to the testimony.” While conflicting doctrines and
theories abound, the law of God is the one unerring rule by which all
opinions, doctrines, and theories are to be tested. Says the prophet: “If
they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in
them.”
Verse 20
.
Again, the command is given: “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy
voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and
the house of Jacob their sins.” It is not the wicked world, but those
whom the Lord designates as “my people,” that are to be reproved
for their transgressions. He declares further: “Yet they seek Me daily,
and delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and
forsook not the ordinance of their God.”
Isaiah 58:1, 2
. Here is brought
to view a class who think themselves righteous and appear to manifest
great interest in the service of God; but the stern and solemn rebuke
of the Searcher of hearts proves them to be trampling upon the divine
precepts.
The prophet thus points out the ordinance which has been forsaken:
“Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou
shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to
dwell in. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy
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pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of
the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways,
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then
shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord.”
Verses 12-14
. This prophecy
also applies in our time. The breach was made in the law of God when
the Sabbath was changed by the Roman power. But the time has come
for that divine institution to be restored. The breach is to be repaired
and the foundation of many generations to be raised up.
Hallowed by the Creator’s rest and blessing, the Sabbath was kept
by Adam in his innocence in holy Eden; by Adam, fallen yet repentant,
when he was driven from his happy estate. It was kept by all the
patriarchs, from Abel to righteous Noah, to Abraham, to Jacob. When
the chosen people were in bondage in Egypt, many, in the midst of
prevailing idolatry, lost their knowledge of God’s law; but when the
Lord delivered Israel, He proclaimed His law in awful grandeur to the
assembled multitude, that they might know His will and fear and obey
Him forever.