Sunday Sacredness as a Form of Baalism

"International Sunday-school lesson for July 17, 1898, was “Elijah on Carmel.” The M. E. Church South publishes a weekly Illustrated Lesson Paper, devoted largely to the lesson for each successive Sunday.

In this Lesson Paper, concerning “Elijah on Carmel” we find the following, which we copy exactly as it was there printed:

CATECHISM LESSON
Question 81.—What is the fourth commandment?
Answer.—The fourth commandment is: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
Ques. 82.—What does the fourth commandment forbid?
Ans.—The fourth commandment forbids us to work on the Sabbath day.
Ques. 83.—What day is the Sabbath?
Ans.—Sunday is the Sabbath.

That is precisely the way that the Baalites talked and taught in Elijah’s time. See here:

CATECHISM LESSON
Question.—What is the first commandment?
Answer.—The first commandment is: “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Ques.—What does the first commandment forbid?
Ans.—The first commandment forbids us to have any god but the true God.
Ques.—What God is the true God.
Ans.—Baal is the true God.

That is a catechism lesson such as was taught by the priests of Baal in Elijah’s time. And no man can fairly deny that it is parallel in every respect with the catechism lesson here quoted bodily from the Lesson Paper of the M. E. Church South.

Setting Up a False God

The word of God in the fourth commandment, as printed in this

catechism lesson of July 17, A.D. 1898, says, plainly, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Yet directly in the face of this word, a man, or a set of men, sets up the word, “Sunday is the Sabbath;” while these men themselves know that Sunday is the first day, and not the seventh day at all.

Just so in the lesson of July 17, B.C. 898; the word of God in the first commandment said plainly that the true God was he who had brought the children of Israel “out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Yet directly in the face of this word of God, men set up the word, “Baal is God;” while these men themselves knew that Baal was not he who had brought them out of Egypt." 

A.T. Jones