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The Great Controversy
Creator and His creatures. This great fact can never become obsolete,
and must never be forgotten.”—J. N. Andrews, History of the Sabbath,
chapter 27. It was to keep this truth ever before the minds of men, that
God instituted the Sabbath in Eden; and so long as the fact that He
is our Creator continues to be a reason why we should worship Him,
so long the Sabbath will continue as its sign and memorial. Had the
Sabbath been universally kept, man’s thoughts and affections would
have been led to the Creator as the object of reverence and worship,
and there would never have been an idolater, an atheist, or an infidel.
The keeping of the Sabbath is a sign of loyalty to the true God, “Him
that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.”
It follows that the message which commands men to worship God and
keep His commandments will especially call upon them to keep the
fourth commandment.
In contrast to those who keep the commandments of God and
have the faith of Jesus, the third angel points to another class, against
whose errors a solemn and fearful warning is uttered: “If any man
worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead,
or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.”
Revelation 14:9, 10
. A correct interpretation of the symbols employed
is necessary to an understanding of this message. What is represented
by the beast, the image, the mark?
The line of prophecy in which these symbols are found begins with
Revelation 12
, with the dragon that sought to destroy Christ at His birth.
The dragon is said to be Satan (
Revelation 12:9
); he it was that moved
upon Herod to put the Saviour to death. But the chief agent of Satan
in making war upon Christ and His people during the first centuries
of the Christian Era was the Roman Empire, in which paganism was
the prevailing religion. Thus while the dragon, primarily, represents
Satan, it is, in a secondary sense, a symbol of pagan Rome.
[439]
In chapter 13 (
verses 1-10
) is described another beast, “like unto a
leopard,” to which the dragon gave “his power, and his seat, and great
authority.” This symbol, as most Protestants have believed, represents
the papacy, which succeeded to the power and seat and authority once
held by the ancient Roman empire. Of the leopardlike beast it is
declared: “There was given unto him a mouth speaking great things
and blasphemies.... And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against
God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell