Sabbath Observance by T. E. BOWEN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 2, 1915

Sabbath Observance

By T. E. BOWEN

T. E. BOWEN

In giving to man the Sabbath, God bestowed upon the race a wonderful gift, for great blessings are bound up in the Sabbath. The Creator made man first, and then made the Sabbath for him. God blessed the day for man's sake. He gave to man the other six days of the week, but he reserved this one day as his own, putting his blessing upon it in a special manner.

The Sabbath was sanctified and made holy and given to man, so that upon that one day in particular the created might become acquainted with the Creator, and partake of his holiness of character.

Sabbath Keeping an Act of Loyalty to God

There is constant danger that we shall lose sight of the importance of keeping the Sabbath holy. As we reverence the day, striving to keep it as God has instructed that it should be kept, we come into special relationship with him, and he commands special blessings to flow out to us. It honors God to thus keep the day he has set apart. The Sabbath affords weekly an opportunity of holding precious intercourse with God, and showing our loyalty to him.

“Wherefore I caused them [the children of Israel] to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness. And I gave them my statutes, and showed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them.” Then the Lord goes farther, and specifies particularly concerning the Sabbath: “Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” Eze. 20: 10-12.

Do you want to know that God has accepted you as his child? Keep his Sabbath day holy. “Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep.” Ex. 31: 13.

The Sabbath to Be a Delight

We cannot look to the world for an example in keeping the Sabbath. Neither may we look entirely to our brethren and sisters to know what is proper and right in Sabbath keeping. There is great danger even that the people who profess to be Sabbath keepers will little by little drift away from true Sabbath keeping.

While true Sabbath keeping does not consist in the strict conformity to some rigid set of rules, there must be a conscientious regard for the underlying principles governing the observance of the day, or our Sabbath keeping will fail entirely in meeting Heaven's requirements. The day is not to be a burden, but a delight, a day appreciated by all, both old and young.

In “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. V, page 431, we find these words, which were addressed to a man and his wife who loved the world more than they loved God:—

“I greatly fear that by your self-righteousness you are building around your souls barriers that nothing can break down. You have been no nearer to God, no more working his works, no more imbued with his Spirit, than the professors in the nominal churches. You have had no real sense of the sacredness of the Sabbath, and God has not accepted your observance of his holy day. You have had no true consecration, no sincere devotion. God has not been honored by either of you; you have not known him experimentally. . . . You have so long cultivated worldly tastes and habits that it will not be easy for you to bend your mind in an opposite direction.”

The deep principle underlying true Sabbath keeping is here illustrated. Simply keeping the seventh day as a sabbath while the “tastes and habits” are worldly and the steps tend worldward, has no saving virtue in it; nor is it accepted by Heaven for Sabbath keeping. All such must turn squarely about and go in the “opposite direction” in order to be counted as separate from the world. Sabbath keeping will be the sign to designate them as God's children.

Divine Directions for Sabbath Keeping

The Lord has given very explicit directions regarding the observance of the Sabbath. His instruction comes close to the heart of every believer. It touches that which is most sacred in the soul—the conscience and thoughts.

“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Isa. 58: 13, 14.

Notice that we must put away our pleasure, our words, our work first. It is not until “then” that the Lord promises to do anything above the ordinary for us. It is when we make his holy day our delight, when we put aside all that we must truthfully term “our pleasure” (and God repeats this thought); when we lay aside our conversation upon our own common, everyday affairs, our farm work, our shop work, our home work,—it is then, and not until then, that we experience the Eden-bestowed blessing stored up for us in the weekly return of the holy Sabbath.

Truly it means much to keep the Sabbath holy, thus honoring God. Many things which are proper and right for us to do on any of the first six days of the week, given us, become sinful when done on the seventh day, God's time.

“All heaven was represented to me as beholding and watching upon the Sabbath those who acknowledge the claims of the fourth commandment and are observing the Sabbath. . . . Those who sanctified the Lord God in their hearts by a strictly devotional frame of mind, and who sought to improve the sacred hours in keeping the Sabbath to the best of their ability, and to honor God by calling the Sabbath a delight,—these the angels were specially blessing with light and health, and special strength was given them. But, on the other hand, the angels were turning from those who failed to appreciate the sacredness of God's sanctified day, and were removing from them their light and their strength. I saw them overshadowed with a cloud, desponding, and frequently sad. They felt a lack of the Spirit of God.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. II, pages 704, 705.