W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

abiding of Christianity in their midst. They pronounced it a strange frenzy which its votaries in some mysterious
way had the power to transmit; observing that frequently they communicated it to their executioners, so that
they turned Christians and submitted to the same martyrdom. Those historians proceed to describe the
prosecution of a Christian pending martyrdom, and state that the magistrate always asked; “Dominicum
servasti? Hast thou kept the Lord's day?” Then he answered, “Christianus sum intermittere non possum” -- “I
am a Christian I am not able to omit it.”
Then they proceeded to execute them either burning them or carting them to the wild beast in the Coliseum.
This is positive proof that they were keeping the first day of the week, hallowed by the Lord's resurrection and
consequently always called the Lord's Day, Rev. 1:10, whereas Saturday never was so called. If they had been
keeping Saturday, as the Seventh Day Adventists tell us, then the judge would have said, “Sabbalicum servasti?”
-- “Hast thou kept the Sabbath day?” But they never did propound that question, which is positive proof that
they were not keeping the old day, but the new one.
There is an impracticability in this stickleristical Sabbatic regime of these people. I found it illustrated in my
own history when I traveled around the world. As I went from West to East, I had 366 days in the year.
Therefore I gained a day, and if I were now keeping the seventh day, it would be Saturday. Should I travel
around again, it would make my Sabbath Friday. Therefore you see in seven years, I would actually have to
adopt every day in the week as my Sabbath. Suppose I should go around the other way; then when I got back,
my Sabbath would be Monday as I would only have 364 days in the year. Should I make another trip, it would
be Tuesday, and in seven years traveling around the world from East to West, would again change my Sabbath
every year if I kept the seventh day. Any way you can arrange it, if the Seventh Day Adventists were right in
their hypothesis that you must keep the seventh day or fall under condemnation, one-half the world would be
violating the Sabbath. When the Old World has Sunday we have Monday. This illustrates the impracticability of
keeping some certain number as the day.
At Jerusalem they have six Sabbaths every week. They tell me that the Howling Dervishes keep Monday, the
Jumping Dervishes Tuesday, and the Dancing Dervishes Thursday, the regular Sabbath of the great
Mohammedan Church is Friday; the seventy-five thousand Jews in that city keep Saturday, and the Christians,
who have their colonies there from all the prominent nations, keep Sunday. [The Dervishes are the holiness
people of the Mohammedan Church.] I am much concerned for the Seventh Day Adventists, lest they may lose
their souls, and their hemerolatry, I. e., day worship, instead of being Divine worship, actually drag many of
them into Hell. If you will examine Paul's treatment of that subject in Romans and I Corinthians, where he is
discussing the subject of eating meats offered to idols, you will come to the same conclusion. He proceeds to
state that all those who had reached the clear light which qualified them to see that the “idol is nothing,” can eat
the meats offered to them with perfect impunity; while those who had not reached the degree of light, so that
they till felt that the idol to which the meat had been sacrificed existed, all such should desist from eating the
meat offered to them, as their consciences would be polluted with conviction that they were still serving those
idols, Then he adds that those who, like himself, had the clear light and saw that the idols were nothing and
consequently could eat the meat with perfect impunity so far as their own conscience was concerned, must still
abstain for the sake of the consciences of their brethren, who had not reached the clear light which they
themselves enjoyed. Paul said, “If meat cause my brother to stumble, I will never eat any more of it.” The clear
and unmistakable conclusion from these deliverances of inspiration is simple and inevasible; the Seventh Day
Adventists must either keep the Christian's Sabbath, for the sake of the conscience of Christendom, or fall under
condemnation.
The fratricidal Cain told God he was not his brother's keeper still God held him to the awful responsibility and
said to him, “Thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.” Therefore if these people want to go to
Heaven they will have to keep two Sabbaths every week, Saturday for their own conscience and Sunday for the
conscience of Christendom. They would better solve the problem in a short way; I. e., get sanctified wholly, then
they will have an everlasting Sabbath in their hearts wherever they are and so far as the day of temporal rest is
concerned they will rejoice to be “all things to all men.”