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. 1898; 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.”
The word of God in the fourth commandment, as printed in this
Just so in the lesson of July 17, B.C. 1898; 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.
Oh, yes, we know full well that those who got up this catechism lesson of July 17, A.D. 1898, say that the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh day to Sunday; this, too, in the face of the plain word of God, and of their own contradictory action in printing, in that very lesson, this: “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”
True, those who got up this catechism lesson of July 17, A.D. 1898, can and do cite the “Fathers,” and the “saints” of the apostate church to sustain their contradiction of the word of God that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”
Just so those who got up the catechism lesson of July 17, B.C. 1898, could cite the chief father of their apostasy to sustain them in their contradictions of the word of God. Jeroboam was the chief in that apostasy; and when he began it with the setting up of the golden calves, he said to all the people,
“Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”
This itself was a form of sun-worship; but when Jezebel came in, she gave the apostasy a further and fuller turn to sun-worship in making the sun in Baal the chief god.
Oh, yes, we know full well that those who got up this catechism lesson of July 17, A.D. 1898, say that the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh day to Sunday; this, too, in the face of the plain word of God, and of their own contradictory action in printing, in that very lesson, this: “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”
True, those who got up this catechism lesson of July 17, A.D. 1898, can and do cite the “Fathers,” and the “saints” of the apostate church to sustain their contradiction of the word of God that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”
Just so those who got up the catechism lesson of July 17, B.C. 1898, could cite the chief father of their apostasy to sustain them in their contradictions of the word of God. Jeroboam was the chief in that apostasy; and when he began it with the setting up of the golden calves, he said to all the people,
“Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”
This itself was a form of sun-worship; but when Jezebel came in, she gave the apostasy a further and fuller turn to sun-worship in making the sun in Baal the chief god.
And the priests of the apostasy in Elijah’s day could cite,
against the first commandment, the chief father of that apostasy, just as readily and as truly as the priests of the apostasy in our day can cite, against the fourth commandment,
the chief Fathers of the later apostasy."
A.T. Jones
