Our Relations to Civil Rulers and Laws
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the Lord will work in their behalf, showing plainly that He is the God
of gods.
The law for the observance of the first day of the week is the
production of an apostate Christendom. Sunday is a child of the
papacy, exalted by the Christian world above the sacred day of God’s
rest. In no case are God’s people to pay it homage. But I wish them to
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understand that they are not doing God’s will by braving opposition
when He wishes them to avoid it. Thus they create prejudice so
bitter that it is impossible for the truth to be proclaimed. Make no
demonstration on Sunday in defiance of law. If this is done in one
place, and you are humiliated, the same thing will be done in another
place. We can use Sunday as a day on which to carry forward work
that will tell on the side of Christ. We are to do our best, working with
all meekness and lowliness.
When we devote Sunday to missionary work, the whip will be
taken out of the hands of the arbitrary zealots who would be well
pleased to humiliate Seventh-day Adventists. When they see that we
employ ourselves on Sunday in visiting the people and opening the
Scriptures to them, they will know that it is useless for them to try to
hinder our work by making Sunday laws.
Sunday can be used for carrying forward various lines of work that
will accomplish much for the Lord. On this day open-air meetings
and cottage meetings can be held. House-to-house work can be done.
Those who write can devote this day to writing their articles. Whenever
it is possible, let religious services be held on Sunday. Make these
meetings intensely interesting. Sing genuine revival hymns, and speak
with power and assurance of the Saviour’s love. Speak on temperance
and on true religious experience. You will thus learn much about how
to work, and will reach many souls.
Let the teachers in our schools devote Sunday to missionary effort.
I was instructed that they would thus be able to defeat the purposes
of the enemy. Let the teachers take the students with them to hold
meetings for those who know not the truth. Thus they will accomplish
much more than they could in any other way.
The people must be given the truth, straightforward, positive truth.
But this truth is to be presented in the spirit of Christ. We are to be as
sheep in the midst of wolves. Those who will not, for Christ’s sake,
observe the cautions He has given, who will not exercise patience and