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Wise Use of the Sabbath

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 1, 1910

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 87, No. 48.

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Wise Use of the Sabbath

God is never content with less than the best for man. To this end he gave him authority over the material creation, that it might be subject to him, and minister to him; for this he established the family, that together men might be perfected through the joys and duties of domestic and social relationships; for this he ordained work, that life might never be blighted with the curse of idleness; for this he instituted the Sabbath, that rest might contribute its helpful solace and comfort, to repair the waste of life, and renew man for the struggle of life.
Some have interpreted the Sabbath as a day set apart for God, that he might exact for himself a fraction of man's time. Nothing could be more mistaken. The Sabbath was made for man. It was made for him in recognition of the fact that man was made in the image of God, and that it would be an instrument of power in achieving godlikeness.
The Sabbath as a day of rest recognizes the discipline of work. A man made in the image of God must resemble God in a life of active and purposeful usefulness and benevolence. But it also recognizes that a man must occasionally, and if he would work at his best and longest, periodically rest.
Two extreme views of the Sabbath are current. One is the Pharisaic view that the day is to be observed with an exacting and wearisome round of religious services, which even the saintliest find anything but a means of grace, and never cease to reproach themselves because they can not feel otherwise. The other is the secular view, which makes it an occasion of frivolous idleness, if not of more vicious dissipation. If one of the two had to be chosen, there can be no doubt of the immense superiority even of the Pharisaic Sabbath to that of the secular.
The best use of the Sabbath is that which makes it best for the manifold man — regarding his body, his mind, his heart. A wholesomely religious Sabbath is our salvation; religion is the only efficient sanction for morals, the only power which can make us better men and better women, the only offset to the eternal grind of material interests, the only efficient discipline of character, by which man is able to reach and maintain “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”—Northwestern Christian Advocate.