The Fourth Commandment by Milton C. Wilcox

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 23, 1916

The Fourth Commandment

By Milton C. Wilcox

The Law of God — No. 9

The Fourth Commandment

MILTON C. WILCOX

This article is not an exposition of the great Sabbath question. It is not the question of the days involved that we wish to study. There are other things worthy of our time, on the practical side. We quote the commandment from the common version, with the exception of retaining the covenant name of God instead of its rendering “the Lord:”—— “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 Jehovah thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Ex. 20:4-11.

Let us study to know what it means or should mean to us.

1. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. To remember is not to forget. The Sabbath day should be kept in mind. Other matters must not crowd it out or take its place. The Sabbath day is already in existence; God’s people are to remember it.

2. They are to remember the Sabbath day; not the Sabbatic institution in a general sense, but the day, the rest day, divinely appointed. Saturday keeping is not Sabbath keeping. Nor are Saturday and the seventh day identical. The seventh day begins at sunset; Saturday begins at midnight. The seventh day ends at sunset; Saturday ends at midnight. The precept is not that we should remember the secular day, but the holy seventh-day Sabbath. If humanity had always remembered the day, there would have been no idolatry, no division in the world over the Sabbath. Union and harmony would have existed throughout the world.

3. Remember the Sabbath day, the rest day, to keep it, not to violate it, not to neglect it, not to reject it, but, to remember God’s rest day to keep it, whether others keep it or not, whatever others may do or say or be. Remember God’s Sabbath to keep it, as he commanded.

4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Man cannot make it holy. Only the Maker can do that; and when God made the Sabbath, he made it holy. He made it holy by blessing and sanctifying it. That is, God separated the day of his rest from the other days of the week, and set it apart to himself. The seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, holy to Jehovah. Ex. 31:15.

Only a holy man can keep holy a holy Sabbath. Man’s first duty is, therefore, to give himself unreservedly to God, that God may separate him from sin and set him apart to himself, “holy to Jehovah.” So God designed his people to be. “Ye shall be holy: for I Jehovah your God am holy.” Lev. 19:2. “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” Ex. 19:6. “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.” 1 Peter 2:9. The holy people, made holy by God’s power, can keep holy God’s holy Sabbath as he has commanded. No unholy man can keep a holy Sabbath holy. What folly it is, then, to endeavor to compel men by law to keep a day holy when sinful man can neither make the day holy

nor even keep it holy after God has made it holy.

5. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. How much of the day did God make holy? Did he leave common an hour at the beginning of sunset the sixth day and an hour at the close before sunset the seventh day?—No; we know that the whole day was holy from sunset on the sixth day to sunset on the seventh day. Every hour, every minute, was and is holy. There is no part of the day that is not covered with the sanctification of God. How much of it are we to remember? The last twenty-three hours?—Nay, the twenty-four hours. It is all holy.

Remember it to keep it as God commanded. After its holy hours leave you, the day upon which you enter is the first day toward the Sabbath, the next day is the second toward the Sabbath, etc. Every day is a reminder of the Sabbath to come. Remember to plan every day so you can keep the Sabbath holy when it comes. Calculate the work of the week from the first day so that it shall not encroach upon the holy time of the Lord’s day. In the home, let cooking be done for the Sabbath instead of on the Sabbath. Begin it in time on sixth-day morning so that it shall not hold in busy, anxious, fretful care the mind and heart of the housewife. Let the last two hours of the day of preparation be easy hours, for bathing and finishing touches, with a restful heart because the mending, cleaning, and cooking are done, and the house is ready to receive the Master with his double Sabbath blessing. It is so much easier to put away the thoughts of the world over finished work.

Let the man of business, the farmer, the teamster, the laborer, the student, see that the secular business and work are over, and that time is given to catch up the fag-ends of the week’s work, that the frayed cords shall not hold back the mind to the work of the world. Better a little less done in all the various lines of work, or an earlier start on the sixth-day morning, than to carry the work over into God’s day, and come to the Sabbath dirty, unshaved, harried, and unsatisfied. The various things to be done need not be specified; our conscience knows them. Of course there are necessary chores in the care of beasts, but these should be minimized. It is said that on the seventh day the Creator “rested, and was refreshed.” The original seems to indicate a breath of relief, of satisfaction, of restfulness over finished work.

If the Sabbath keepers of today would plan for God in the observance of the Sabbath, they would find God’s blessing. But to carry the world’s work and cares with them is like transporting or making a slough or a desert in a garden of beauty. There were many journeying with Israel to the border of the Promised Land, who never got out of Egypt; they took Egypt along with them, and consequently never reached the promised rest. Those who carry the world into the Sabbath day never find its blessed spiritual rest, which is, after all, the great purpose of the Sabbath. But those who yield their all to God and find rest from sin in Christ Jesus, will know the truth of the great divine commandment, “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 Jehovah, 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 Jehovah,” the great covenant God of his people.

One more thought among the many that still surge in upon the mind: Every Sabbath day should be a step heavenward. The bread of God’s presence was eaten in the holy place of the sanctuary on the Sabbath day. God gives now special spiritual food on that day. He gives added strength to the soul, added blessing to the life. It need not be said that God does not desire us to lose any blessing he gives. We should therefore retain the Sabbath blessing through the week. We should hold to the higher plane of life to which the Sabbath brought us. The week following should know no backward step, no lower plane, no lesser blessings. Thus the Sabbath days become constant stepping-stones, golden, jeweled stairs to a higher life in Jesus Christ.

Mountain View, Cal.