Lesson 3 — Sunday and Slavery

JANUARY 21, 1905.

Questions

  1. What is the result of obeying God and keeping His Sabbath? — Freedom and rest. See lessons 1 and 2, and Ps. 119:45 ; Isa. 48:18 ; 58:1g, 14.
  2. What would we naturally conclude, therefore, would be the result of worshiping false gods and keeping a false Sabbath? — Slavery and unrest. Ps. 106:34-36; 107:11, 12; Isa. 48:22; Rev. 14:11.
  3. What is the most ancient form of idolatry? Job 31:24-28; 2 Chron. 14:2-5 (margin) ; Eze. 8:15, 16. Note 1.
  4. What day was very early dedicated by the heathen to the sun and to sun worship? Note 2.
  5. What was the beginning of this apostasy? Gen. 11:1-9.
  6. Who was the leader in this apostasy and rebellion against God? Gen. 10:8-10. How did he rule? Note 3.
  7. How general was sun worship among the ancient nations? Note 4.
  8. How generally were slavery and oppression practiced by these nations? Note 5.
  9. What is Babylon called in Jeremiah 50:23?
  10. What is sun worship? — Idolatry. What leads to slavery and oppression? — Covetousness, or unlawful desires, which cause men to disregard the rights of their fellow men, and bring them into bondage. And what is covetousness? Col. 3:5; Eph. 5:5.
  11. What relic of this most ancient form of idolatry has come down through the ages to our own time? — The Sunday.
  12. Is there not, therefore, an intimate relation between Sunday and slavery? Note 6.
  13. When the Papacy put down the Sabbath and elevated Sunday in its place, what did it become? — The worst persecutor of the saints the world has ever seen. Matt. 24:21, 22; Dan. 7:25; Rev. 13:1-7.
  14. How were church and state united in the early centuries of the Christian era? — Largely through Sunday legislation.
  15. Give a brief history of Sunday legislation during the fourth and fifth centuries. Note 7.
  16. How are those who refuse to receive this mark of apostasy yet to be treated? Rev. 13:15-17.
  17. What general conclusion, therefore, may be drawn from the facts already adduced? — That while the Sabbath stands for liberty, rest, and peace, the Sunday stands for slavery, oppression, and persecution.
  18. In the enumeration of the merchandise of Babylon the Great, what two things are mentioned last? Rev. 18:12, 13.

Notes

  1. The most ancient form of idolatry is sun-worship. In turning from the worship of the Maker to the worship of the things that were made, the sun, the most prominent and powerful agent in the kingdom of nature, with its brilliancy, largeness of size, and apparently life-giving power, was most naturally turned to as the first and chief object of worship. Along with sun-worship came the worship of the moon and other heavenly bodies. And connected with all was the idea of sex, male and female; family relationship, father, mother, sons, and daughters; and generations and procreation generally. Hence the lewdness and immorality into which this form of worship degenerated. It became simply the deification of lust.
  2. The day dedicated to the worship of the sun was the day on which light was created, the first day of the week. Being dedicated to the sun, it was naturally called “Sunday,” as were the days dedicated to the moon, to Saturn, etc., called Monday, Saturday, etc. That this was an ancient arrangement, is shown by the title given to the day in Constantine’s famous Sunday law, of 321 A. D., — “the venerable day of the sun.” The North British Review (Vol. 18, page 409), calls it “the wild, solar holiday of all pagan times.”
  3. Nimrod was both a tyrant and an idolater. Josephus tells us that “he gradually changed the government into a tyranny, — seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence upon his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if He should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach; and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers.” — Antiquities of the Jews, chapter 4. Moreover, it seems that by the ancients he was directly connected with sun worship. The name by which he was known in the Chaldean mysteries was Saturn, and as such he was worshiped as the “offspring of the sun.” — The Two Babylons, pages 269, 270. It is a significant fact also that the numerical value of the name Saturn in the Chaldee is just 666, the Apocalyptic number of the beast; in other words, Nimrod was not only an oppressor, but a great prototype in early post-diluvian times of the pope, or “man of sin.”
  4. Dr. Talbot W. Chambers, in the Old Testament Student for January, 1886, correctly styles sun-worship “the oldest, the most wide-spread, the most enduring of all the forms of idolatry known to man.” He adds: “The chief object of worship among the Syrians was Baal, — the sun, considered as the giver of light and life.” “In Egypt the sun was the kernel of the state religion.” “In Babylon the same thing is observed as in Egypt.” “In Persia the worship of Mathra, or the sun, is known to have been common from an early period.” The “Encyclopedia Britannica” says: “Sun-worship was the primitive form of the Egyptian religion,” and Rawlinson adds that “no part of the Egyptian religion was so much developed and so multiplex as their sun-worship.” — Religions of the Ancient World, page 21.
  5. As every student of ancient history knows, all these ancient nations practiced slavery. Slavery was common among them, and at times, as with Greece and Rome, the number of slaves equalled and sometimes out-numbered the number of freemen. Along with sun-worship, this embodiment of human selfishness, slavery, has come marching down through the ages even to our own time. The two have gone hand in hand.
  6. The relationship between Sunday observance and slavery is more close than might at first appear. The most ancient and wide-spread form of idolatry, sun-worship, led to Sundaykeeping, and selfishness, or covetousness, which is idolatry, led to slavery. The two are simply two phases of the same sin, — that of idolatry; Sunday observance representing the religious side, and slavery the social side, of this sin. Just as covetousness leads to human slavery, so Sunday observance leads to the same thing, only in another way. Every Sunday law is simply an attempt to make men the slaves and servants of men.
  7. Constantine’s Sunday law, the first on record, was enacted in 321 A.D. This required judges, townspeople, and the occupations of all trades to rest on Sunday, but permitted work in the country. In 386, a more strict imperial law was enacted, forbidding all work on Sunday. Work being forbidden, the people would attend games, shows, and the theater on Sunday. In 401, at a convention held at Carthage, the church bishops petitioned the emperor to forbid all public shows and the like on Sunday. The desired law was secured in 425. “In this way,” says Neander, “the church received help from the state for the furtherance of her ends.” In the year 800 Charlemagne enacted a law requiring church attendance on Sunday. See Religious Liberty Leaflets, No. 2, entitled “Sunday Laws: Their Origin, Nature, and Object.”

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