Would you accept a substitute, knowing that it was just as easy to obtain the original? Of course not! Nevertheless, that is exactly what many are doing to-day.
“Hot peach pie! Hot peach pie!” The inviting cry greeted the ears of a crowded busload of tired and dusty land seekers, who had been spending the day exploring the newly opened reservation. It was during one of those land drawings so popular a few years ago throughout the West. Every few years a great hunger for land possesses the souls of men. The cry of “Back to the farm” reechoes throughout the entire field of industry. Merchants, professional men, clerks, factory men, laborers and farmers even, suddenly develop a great yearning for land and more land.
This longing seems to come periodically, and sometimes ends disastrously. And yet, no doubt it is this innate love of the soil in the human heart that prompts the race to push out into new countries, to subdue the wilds, and to conquer the virgin places of the earth. The frontier has always beckoned to venturesome souls, and while the world stands will continue to do so. Man ever aspires for the unknown and the undiscovered.
A friend, a professional man, was one of this busload to whom the cry, “Hot peach pie,” was especially welcome. In telling about it, he said: “We had been out all day exploring the land, and an accident to our bus had delayed our return to camp. Most of our fellow land seekers had retired, and most of the hastily improvised lunch stands had closed for the night, so when I heard the cry, ‘Hot peach pie,’ I struck out as fast as my tired legs would carry me toward the place from which the cry emanated.
“A piece of pie and a glass of milk will do for me,” I addressed the young man in charge of the dingy counter.
“Sorry, mister, milk’s all gone; but I have some black coffee left; have a cup?”
“No, just a glass of water, and make it two pieces of pie, instead of one.”
“Hungrily I bit through the soggy crust. Peach pie being my favorite pie, I was silently congratulating myself on my good fortune. But, no peach pie I’d ever eaten tasted like this one. Something was radically wrong, either with the pie or with my taster. Upon examination I found that the pie was made of sour, dried apples, and I wasn’t fond of dried-apple pie.
“Say, fellow, what do you mean by selling me sour dried-apple pie when you are yelling, ‘Hot peach pie’?”
“Well, mister, it’s like this: The crowd about cleaned me out to-day, and all I had left is this lot of dried-apple pies. Yellin’ ‘Hot dried-apple pie’ didn’t get me anywhere, so I decided to yell ‘Hot peach pie,’ instead. These hungry land seekers are mostly city fellers, and good sports, and a lot of ’em can’t tell the difference, anyway; and them that can seem to enjoy the joke. Don’t you see I’m just callin’ ’em ‘hot peach pie,’ and even though they are made out of dried apples, there ain’t no law agin’ callin’ ’em ‘hot peach pie,’ is there?”
“So, while he continued to call ‘Hot peach pie! Hot peach pie!’ I swallowed my disappointment, and, being ravenously hungry, did the same with the counterfeit peach pie, even though I had to wash it down with copious gulps of alkali water.”2
No, not really hot peach pie, just “callin’ ’em” that. Hot peach pie sounded more appetizing. A good sales talk, perhaps, and yet not quite honest. Such tactics, though, are quite common in the business world, and are not unknown even in the religious world. The well-advertised confection, “Chicken Dinner,” at five cents a bar, is an example of such tactics as are employed in the business world. They just call it that.
While perusing my daily paper a few days ago, I read an announcement, as follows: “The Reverend Mr. Blank next sabbath at 11:00 A. M. will speak on the subject, ‘Why I Keep Sunday Holy.’” Now the Reverend Mr. Blank is a popular preacher in a popular church in our little city, and no doubt would have something enlightening to say on this interesting question. The announcement itself struck me as being rather paradoxical. Notice it: “The Reverend Mr. Blank next sabbath at 11:00 A. M. will speak on the subject, ‘Why I Keep Sunday Holy.’” I wondered why it shouldn’t have been, “The Reverend Mr. Blank next Sunday at 11:00 A. M. will speak on the subject, ‘Why I Keep Sunday Holy,’” or “The Reverend Mr. Blank next Sabbath will speak on the subject, ‘Why I Keep Sabbath Holy.’”
I trust I shall not be considered irreverent if I say the announcement strangely reminded me of the hot-peach-pie incident already narrated. However, finding myself at leisure the following Sunday morning,—for after all it was Sunday morning,—I decided to go to church and hear the Reverend Mr. Blank tell why he kept Sunday holy.
Choosing his text from Exodus 20:8-11, he slowly and impressively read, “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 manservant, nor thy maidservant, 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.” Inasmuch as he agreed with the text, his comments were brief and pointed. He next read Genesis 2:2, 3: “On the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which . . . God created and made.” From these texts that plainly state why and when the Sabbath was made, he traced the Sabbath through the Old Testament. He stated that it was kept through the Old Testament times by Israel, the people of God. As Jesus and the apostles were Jews, they also kept the Bible, or creation, Sabbath. He next informed his hearers that, while the Sabbath is primarily an institution, all Bible characters and writers of both the Old and the New Testament observed it on the seventh day of the week.
INSUFFICIENT REASONS
However, for some reason (he did not seem to be altogether clear on this point), the early Christians began to observe Sunday, the first day of the week. He called attention to the resurrection,—a truly wonderful event,—which occurred on the first day of the week. Many Gentiles accepted Christianity in the early centuries of the Christian era, and these having a strong aversion for things Jewish, seemed to prefer to observe another day than the Jewish, or Bible, Sabbath.
These were some of the reasons, or explanations, given as to how Sunday came into the church. Just what effect the resurrection should have upon the Sabbath, an institution given to commemorate the creation, is more than he explained. It occurred, it is true, on a different day, but it also was an entirely different event.
It was several centuries later, the Reverend Mr. Blank informed us, that the Christians from the Gentile nations began to call Sunday the Sabbath, although quite early they had begun to call it the Lord’s day. After summing up these various points, the Reverend Mr. Blank concluded that inasmuch as the great majority of present-day Christians are keeping Sunday as holy time he thought it best to do likewise.
Now if the Bible itself (and I’d learned to love and respect the Scriptures) wasn’t so definite in regard to the seventh day of the week being the Sabbath, the Reverend Mr. Blank’s sermon might have sounded logical even as it was entertaining. But as I followed the scriptures presented and recalled some that were not used, I was forced to the conclusion that the Reverend Mr. Blank was wittingly or unwittingly employing the tactics of the dried-apple-pie vender. It is quite possible that the majority of his hearers did not know the difference, anyway. But why should this question be so perplexing? I recall an incident that illustrates its simplicity in a forceful way.
DID GOD LIE?
A little girl had been listening to a conversation between her mother and a caller. “Really, Mrs. Jones,” the caller had said, “you know the Sabbath is only an institution, and really not any particular day. Just so you keep one day in each week holy, you are obeying the spirit of the law if not the letter. So why be concerned about the Sabbath, anyway?”
Now was she right? and if so, then the first day of the week cannot be the Sabbath, and the Reverend Mr. Blank’s carefully worded reasons for keeping it were only lame excuses after all. In fact, he could not keep the first day of the week holy because God never made it holy. No, God did not lie. The seventh day of the week is still and ever will be the Sabbath of the Lord. Neither the Old nor the New Testament contains a hint or an intimation of any change of the Sabbath.
SABBATH THE ONLY TRUE DAY OF REST
The prophet foretold that a power would arise that would “think to change times and laws.” Daniel 7:25. The attempted change of the Sabbath is a witness to the truth of this prophecy that concerned an apostate power. The Sabbath, it is true, is an institution,3but, like the Fourth of July, is inseparably connected with a definite day. What is better, it is also inseparably connected with the Creator, who made it as well as all other things. “By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him.” Colossians 1:16. And, somehow, as I read the wonderful promises in the Scriptures, many of them having to do with the Sabbath, I rejoice in knowing the difference between the reality and just “calling” it that. “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.” Isaiah 58:13, 14. “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.” “And hallow My Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.” Ezekiel 20:12, 20.
The word of God is plain, and sweet, and pleasant to the taste of hungry souls. “How sweet are Thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Psalm 119:103. The reason, my friend, the land seeker could discern the difference between peach pie and dried-apple pie was that he had eaten peach pie and found it good and to his liking. After tasting and knowing the genuine, it was difficult to swallow the imitation. So, as for me, I choose to believe and obey my Creator and my Lord, who says, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” It has the genuine flavor. I like the way it tastes, and, what is still better, it satisfies.
