Right, on the Sabbath by Uriah Smith

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 17, 1877

Right, on the Sabbath.

By Uriah Smith

How many make this admission who yet pay no attention to the Sabbath as a divine institution. Oh! yes, they say, we see no fault in the argument for the seventh day, we believe you are right on the Sabbath question.

Right on the Sabbath! How then can they refuse to commence immediately its observance, and thus try to discharge their obligations to God in this respect? Surely they do not realize how much they admit when they acknowledge that we are right on the Sabbath question, nor how their own words will condemn them if they finally choose the portion of the children of disobedience.

We hold that the Sabbath is a divine institution, immutable in its nature, and of perpetual obligation upon all men. “You are right on the Sabbath.” Then they acknowledge this, and say in reality, We hold it to be so too.

We hold that God expressly commands us to keep the Sabbath, in memory of himself and his work; that his honor is involved in our obedience; and that for any one knowing his requirements, to refuse to keep the Sabbath, is to deliberately refuse to obey God. “You are right on the Sabbath.” Then they fairly acknowledge their obligation in this respect; and what will be their answer when it is required of them why they have not kept it?

We hold that the Sabbath is an integral part of that moral law, that law of liberty which James declares shall judge us in the last day; James 2: 8-12; that the question whether we have kept the Sabbath or not, and how we have kept it, will be one of the questions in relation to which our destiny will be forever decided, and our place be assigned among the saved or lost. “You are right on the Sabbath.” Do they mean this? So they say in unmistakable terms.

All this is involved in the acknowledgment that we are right on the Sabbath question; that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, and ought to be kept as such. Yet with all these fearful issues involved in the question they pass on in utter disregard of its sacred claims. Some mere worldly consideration, pecuniary gain, success in business, the fear of loss, the shame of the cross, the danger of being cast out of the synagogue, and in a hundred other ways the fear of man, overbalance the claims of God, and lead men right against what they acknowledge to be duty. Is this the moral heroism that God requires, and which he will acknowledge and reward in the end?

What influence can be brought to bear upon those who acknowledge this truth, to lead them to obey? This is by far the most difficult part of the Sabbath question. No argument will answer the cross, nor refute a sneer. Moral courage alone will lift a man over these obstacles which the enemy will try to magnify across his path. Oh! that all would cultivate this.

We desire it not simply on account of the immense accessions which would immediately be made to the ranks of Sabbath-keepers, if all who acknowledge the truth would obey it; but for their own sakes; for soon the reward is coming, and those who keep God's commandments, will gain the boon which Adam by transgression lost, right to the tree of life, not now in the world's primeval paradise, but in the city of the living God. Rev. 22:14. U. S.