Proper Sabbath Observance by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 10, 1911

Proper Sabbath Observance

By F. M. W.

WE need continually to be on guard lest the spirit of the world enter the church. We must hold aloft the banner of truth, and let the light shine forth in clear, distinct rays. The church of God in the past has made shipwreck of its faith and experience because it has lowered its ideals and standards to meet the measure of the world's thought and action. By so doing it has become more popular, but the vital power of godliness has been lost, and the great Christian church to-day is weak in consequence of this spirit of compromise and worldly fellowship.

If the Seventh-day Adventist Church follows in the same path, it will reach the same unfortunate condition. But the standard of truth in the church can be held, and the power of vital godliness maintained, only as each individual member making up the church preserves his living connection with Heaven. The church drifts as the individual membership drifts. The source of spiritual power in the church is the power in individual experience; hence back of the church life must be considered the family life and the individual life. We as a church shall be able to hold forth the word of truth in the power and demonstration of its spirit to the extent, and to the extent only, that that truth works with power in our own lives.

To this church has been given, for all the world, a message of reform regarding the Sabbath of the Lord. The Bible arguments which we present can not be gainsaid nor refuted; but after all, these will fail largely in producing results unless by our own lives we demonstrate our faith in the perpetuity and sanctity of the Sabbath institution. If we observe the Sabbath of the Lord as a great many observe Sunday, making it merely a day of rest from physical labor, the effect on others can only be to deaden the power of the truth which we seek to represent.

The Sabbath should not be a day in which we seek our own pleasure, or follow our own ways, or speak our own words. Isa. 58:13. The Sabbath should not be made a day of gossiping, or even of social visiting. By too many its sacred hours are employed in such ways as these. It is proper to call on our brethren and sisters, provided we do it for the purpose of Christian conversation. Visits to the sick and suffering are certainly appropriate, but we should be careful that these occasions are employed in a way befitting the character of the day on which they are made. It is so easy to permit the standard to be lowered, to allow the conversation to be directed into channels not only of no value, but positively injurious to the

spiritual life, that we should be continually on our guard.

Every week, as God’s rest day comes round, it should be hailed with delight, as a day in which may be found spiritual rest as well as physical rest. The affairs in the home and in the personal life should be so regulated that all work shall be accomplished, or unfinished work be laid aside, before the day begins. The Sabbath should be welcomed with songs of praise, with prayer, and with the study of the Word. What an influence goes forth from the home when the Sabbath is thus made an honored guest! With what pleasure does Heaven look down upon such a scene as this!

During the Sabbath hours, the needs of the children should especially be borne in mind. It should not be required that they sit noiselessly all day in thought or study. The older members of the family should seek to enter into their experience. A walk through the green fields or in the woods, pointing their young minds through nature to nature’s great God, and drawing lessons from the material universe which will direct the mind to the world to come; reading to them some helpful religious book, uniting in Bible study with them in new and unique ways suited to their capabilities, relating to them incidents in the experiences of God’s people,—in these and many other ways which active minds may suggest, may the Sabbath of the Lord be made a day of delight to the younger members of the household of faith.

We need as a people to return to a simplicity of Sabbath observance. Without rigorness or austerity, but joyfully, we should return to the old-time carefulness which once characterized the experience of this people. Sabbath observance should not be a service of bondage, but a service of joy. Let us come so near to God, and enter so liberally into communion with him, that all his service shall be this to us.

F. M. W.