Presenting the Law and the Sabbath
207
obligation of the true Sabbath, then whoever shall transgress the com-
mand of God, to obey a precept which has no higher authority than
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that of Rome, will thereby honor popery above God. He is paying
homage to Rome, and to the power which enforces the institution
ordained by Rome. He is worshiping the beast and his image. As
men then reject the institution which God has declared to be the sign
of His authority, and honor in its stead that which Rome has chosen
as the token of her supremacy, they will thereby accept the sign of
allegiance to Rome,—“the mark of the beast.” And it is not until the
issue is thus plainly set before the people, and they are brought to
choose between the commandments of God and the commandments of
men, that those who continue in transgression will receive “the mark
of the beast.”—
The Great Controversy, 449
(1888).
Reception of Mark of the Beast Future—The change of the
Sabbath is the sign or mark of the authority of the Romish church.
Those who, understanding the claims of the fourth commandment,
choose to observe the false sabbath in the place of the true, are thereby
paying homage to that power by which alone it is commanded. The
mark of the beast is the papal sabbath, which has been accepted by the
world in the place of the day of God’s appointment.
No one has yet received the mark of the beast. The testing time has
not yet come. There are true Christians in every church, not excepting
the Roman Catholic communion. None are condemned until they have
had the light and have seen the obligation of the fourth commandment.
But when the decree shall go forth enforcing the counterfeit sabbath,
and the loud cry of the third angel shall warn men against the worship
of the beast and his image, the line will be clearly drawn between the
false and the true. Then those who still continue in transgression will
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receive the mark of the beast.
With rapid steps we are approaching this period. When Protestant
churches shall unite with the secular power to sustain a false religion,
for opposing which their ancestors endured the fiercest persecution,
then will the papal sabbath be enforced by the combined authority of
church and state. There will be a national apostasy, which will end
only in national ruin.—
Manuscript 51, 1899
.
When Seal of God Is Refused—If the light of truth has been
presented to you, revealing the Sabbath of the fourth commandment,
and showing that there is no foundation in the Word of God for Sunday