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The Spirit of Prophecy Volume 4
strictly enforced, and that those who present the claims of the fourth
commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers
of the nation, preventing its restoration to divine favor and temporal
prosperity. Thus the accusation urged of old against the servant of
God will be repeated, and upon grounds equally well established.
“And it came to pass when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto
him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have
not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house, in that ye have
forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed
Baalim.” [
1 Kings 18:17, 18
.] As the wrath of the people shall be
excited by false charges, they will pursue a course toward God’s am-
bassadors very similar to that which apostate Israel pursued toward
Elijah.
[409]
The miracle-working power manifested through Spiritualism
will exert its influence against those who choose to obey God rather
than men. Messages will come from the spirits declaring that God
has sent them to inform the rejecters of Sunday that they are in error,
and that the laws of the land should be obeyed as the law of God.
They will lament the great wickedness in the world, and second the
testimony of religious teachers, that the degraded state of morals is
caused by the desecration of Sunday. Great will be the indignation
excited against all who refuse to accept their testimony.
Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will be denounced as en-
emies of law and order, as breaking down the moral restraints of
society, causing anarchy and corruption, and calling down the judg-
ments of God upon the earth. Their conscientious scruples will
be pronounced obstinacy, stubbornness, and contempt of author-
ity. They will be accused of disaffection toward the government.
Ministers who deny the obligation of the divine law will present
from the pulpit the duty of yielding obedience to the civil author-
ities as ordained of God. In legislative halls and courts of justice,
commandment-keepers will be censured and misrepresented. A false
coloring will be given to their words; the worst possible construction
will be put upon their motives.
The Protestant churches have rejected the clear, scriptural argu-
ments in defense of God’s law, and they long to stop the mouths
of those whose faith they cannot overthrow by the Bible. Though
they blind their own eyes to the fact, they are now adopting a course