First Reason for Sabbath-Keeping by S. B. Horton

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 26, 1911

First Reason for Sabbath-Keeping

By S. B. Horton

S. B. HORTON

SEATED by the side of a pastor who observed the seventh day as the Sabbath, a stranger pleasantly accosted him in the following way: “Now, pastor, I have you just where I want you. I wish you to tell me why you, and the people you represent, observe Saturday instead of Sunday as the Sabbath.” The pastor, taking his Bible, opened to the twentieth chapter of Exodus, and read, beginning with the eighth verse:—

“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.”

“There,” remarked the pastor, “that is the first reason I will give you why we keep the seventh day instead of the first: God in his law commands us to do so. And the second reason is —” and, suiting the action to the word, he began looking for another scripture, when he was interrupted by the stranger, who said: “Please let me take your Bible.” He read the commandment over several times to himself, and then remarked:—

“In one respect you remind me of an attorney I once knew who had a case to try in court. As frequently as the case was called, he would manage in some way to get it postponed. At last the patience of the court was exhausted, and he asked the attorney why he asked for postponement, saying he had had ample time to prepare his case, and the opposing parties were anxious for the trial. The attorney replied that there was an important witness that it was necessary for him to have whom he could not then obtain. The court earnestly inquired where the witness was, and why he did not have him there. The attorney replied that there were several reasons why he was not present: First, he was dead, and second — ‘Well, hold!’ said the judge; ‘if the man is dead, that is sufficient reason why he is not here. We do not care to hear your second reason.’”

“I ask you for your reasons for keeping the seventh day, or Saturday, for the Sabbath, and in reply you turn and read a law of God himself, spoken by his own voice, and chiseled by his own hand upon the granite quarried from the rock-ribbed side of Sinai. And now you propose to give me a second reason! My young friend, no man who believes God or God’s Word ever ought to ask for a second reason. Think of it! In the bosom of the only law that God ever gave his creatures, that law which is justly regarded not only as the law, but as the constitution from which all the legislation of God proceeded,—in that law he tells all his creatures to keep the seventh day, or Saturday, as the Sabbath. I repeat that no one who believes God or his Word can escape from your conclusion, and no second reason is admissible.”

It was afterward learned that the stranger was at the time a justice of a State supreme court, and he spoke as the jurist rather than as a theologian. His mind had been trained to logical reasoning and logical conclusions.

One lesson in this incident worth noting is that there is but one reason for the observance of the Sabbath of Jehovah, and that is because God has so commanded. Another lesson is that, while the letter of the law makes it plain that the Sabbath should be observed, still an experimental knowledge of the Lord of the Sabbath is required before it can be properly observed.

Washington, D. C.