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God’s Final Message
329
the church by observance of the false sabbath. All who refuse will
finally be declared deserving of death. On the other hand, the law of
God enjoining the Creator’s rest day threatens wrath against all who
transgress its precepts.
With the issue thus clearly brought before him, whoever shall
trample upon God’s law to obey a human enactment receives the
mark of the beast, the sign of allegiance to the power he chooses to
obey instead of God. “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, which is poured out without
mixture into the cup of his indignation.”
Revelation 14:9, 10
.
Not one suffers the wrath of God until the truth has been brought
home to his mind and conscience and has been rejected. Many have
never had opportunity to hear the special truths for this time. He
who reads every heart will leave none who desire the truth to be
deceived as to the issues of the controversy. Everyone is to have
sufficient light to make his decision intelligently.
The Great Test of Loyalty
The Sabbath, the great test of loyalty, is the truth especially
controverted. While the observance of the false sabbath will be an
avowal of allegiance to a power in opposition to God, the keeping of
the true Sabbath is an evidence of loyalty to the Creator. While one
class receive the mark of the beast, the other receive the seal of God.
[369]
Predictions that religious intolerance would gain control, that
church and state would persecute those who keep the commandments
of God, have been pronounced groundless and absurd. But as Sunday
observance is widely agitated, the event so long doubted is seen to
be approaching, and the message will produce an effect it could not
have had before.
In every generation God has sent His servants to rebuke sin in
the world and in the church. Many reformers, in entering upon their
work, determined to exercise great prudence in attacking the sins of
the church and the nation. They hoped, by the example of a pure
Christian life, to lead the people back to the Bible. But the Spirit
of God came upon them; fearless of consequences, they could not
refrain from preaching the plain doctrines of the Bible.