IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 13, 1901

IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

By L. A. S.

It makes a difference whether a person observes one particular day of the week as the Sabbath, or as an equivalent observes “any one day in seven.” It is often argued that the Fourth Commandment does not specify a particular day of the week, but merely a seventh day, and therefore that any one day in seven will answer the purpose of the Sabbath law. But however plausible this may look in theory, there is a vast difference between the two in practice. If you think this is not so, try it and see.

Change from the observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath to the observance of the seventh day, and see if it does not make an immediate and very tangible difference in your circumstances. See if your neighbors do not feel differently toward you; see if your employer does not think there is a difference between keeping the first day of the week, and keeping the seventh. And if you are in a State where the Sunday laws are enforced, tell the court, when you are brought before it for breaking Sunday, that one day of the week will do just as well as another for Sabbath-keeping, and see if the court will excuse you on that ground. You will hear that argument dismissed by the court in a very summary way.

No; it makes a difference—a vast difference—everywhere save in the theories men have invented to evade the self-sacrifice required by obedience to the Fourth Commandment. It makes a great difference with men, and do you suppose it makes no difference with God? Is God less particular than man in the matter of obedience to law?

God’s people are “a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” It is their religion that makes them peculiar. Seventh-day observers are a peculiar people; first-day observers are not. Peculiarity is not always Christianity, but Christianity is always peculiar. An indefinite religion so elastic as to conform to popular custom, and thereby avoid inconvenience, scorn, and ridicule, will not stand the test. God designs that His people shall be different from the world and from all such as are influenced by selfish motives; therefore He has put a difference between taking Him exactly at His word and the pretended obedience of those who have only a form of godliness. He has established this difference not for the detriment of His people, but for their everlasting good. In the day of Judgment we shall be glad indeed of this distinction. L. A. S.