Yoke of Bondage by William M. Healey

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 8, 1883

Yoke of Bondage.

By William M. Healey

BY ELD. W. M. HEALEY.

It is quite generally conceded that one day in each week, set apart as a day of rest, is beneficial to humanity. But if the seventh day is mentioned as the day set apart for such rest, many persons say: “No, not that day; it is not convenient for us to keep it; it conflicts with business and our associations generally; it belongs to the old dispensation, but was taken away, nailed to the cross, because it is a yoke of bondage; but the first day we can keep without so much trouble.”

We ask why it is more difficult to keep the seventh than the first day. Every one knows that custom makes the one more convenient than the other, and if everybody kept the seventh day, it would be less trouble to keep it than any other. Let us go back to the cross, and see what day was observed at that time. It was the seventh day. Then suppose a sect arose at that time, and taught the observance of a day which differed from the general custom; which would be held as a yoke to observe? Of course it would be the new day. How then could the seventh day have been a “bondage,” and another day of “liberty,” at the cross? Dear reader, are you not in bondage to custom and to sin, in observing a day for which there is no authority in the sacred word, instead of that which the Lord says we must obey and call “holy,” “honorable,” “a delight,” not doing our own pleasure? Isa. 58:13.

Do you keep Sunday, instead of the seventh day, to please self, or to please God?