p. 121 | That Sunday Blessing by Uriah Smith

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 21, 1884

That Sunday Blessing.

By Uriah Smith

"If Sunday is not the Sabbath, why have I been blessed so often for keeping it?" One of our T. and M. workers writes that the people he meets bring up this excuse more frequently than any other for not keeping the Sabbath. God has blessed us, they say, for keeping Sunday, and that is proof to us that it must be right.

But let us look at this proposition a moment. We would ask them, first, if they are sure God has blessed them for keeping Sunday. That he has blessed them while keeping it, we will not deny; but that is a very different thing from blessing them for it. Has any one with the issue before him, with a conviction that he must keep Sunday as a duty to God, in opposition to counter influences and impulses, decided in its behalf and been blessed therefor? This question we must answer in the negative till further evidence to the contrary is presented. It will be found that when they have been so blessed, the question of Sunday observance was not the point at issue at all. We lay this down as the general rule. There may have been exceptional cases of the kind, which we will now name.

We have known persons to be soundly convicted of their duty to observe the Sabbath of the Lord; but it involved a cross, and personal inconvenience, and perhaps pecuniary loss; and they were determined not to keep it, if any possible excuse could be framed for such a course. At length they would seize upon some flimsy pretext, and with it stifle their convictions, give up all idea of keeping the Sabbath, and thereupon feel great peace of mind and buoyancy of feeling. What was it? The blessing of God? Not by any means, but the spirit of error counterfeiting the blessing of God—the work of the enemy, not the work of the Lord. Fearful deception!

We received a letter not long since from a young man rejoicing in the discovery that the Sabbath was not binding and no one was under obligation to keep it. He was a telegraph operator and had a good situation. He had been powerfully convicted of his duty to keep the Sabbath; but after studying on the subject a long time, he suddenly discovered that the ministration of death was "done away," and then away went the Sabbath in his own mind, and all his convictions of duty; and in his exuberance of joy he wrote to us of his emancipation from "the yoke of bondage." Now we can read that case as easily as we can read an open book. The Sabbath stood in the way of his business. He would lose his situation if he kept it; but that he was determined not to lose; his pecuniary interests would suffer; and not having integrity or nerve enough to follow duty in the face of unfavorable worldly prospects, he seized upon that flimsy pretext, a perversion of 2 Cor. 3, to throttle his conscience and throw off convictions of duty, and then felt great relief and freedom. What was it? God's blessing? No, but a soothing spell thrown over him by the power of darkness. God will accept no unwilling and half-hearted obedience; and if this is all a man has to offer, he will suffer him to follow his own way as he did Balaam. From this snare and deception of the enemy into which this young man has fallen we have our fears that nothing will arouse him till, in the Judgment, he meets the demands of God's unchangeable law, and has nothing to answer.

So some may have acted in reference to the Sunday question, and thought they received a blessing; but any blessing received for Sunday-keeping, we aver, without any fear that it will be disproved in the great day when all secrets shall be revealed, has been one of the kind last indicated.

But let us analyze this excuse a little further. If Sunday-keeping had been an error (so they reason), God would not have blessed them in it. If such is the rule, it would work in everything else as well as Sunday-keeping. This could of course be no exception; so we must make the rule universal, and come to this conclusion, namely, that no man can be blest while he is cherishing any error; that any one who receives the blessing of God, is absolutely free from all error! This is the inevitable conclusion from this objection. But will our friends stand to this? Every denomination of Christians believes that all the others are involved in some errors of doctrine or practice. But will any one deny to all the others the blessing of God? It is logically bound to do so according to this rule. Suppose the Methodist should say, God has blessed me for being sprinkled; but if sprinkling for baptism is wrong, God would not have blessed me in it; therefore sprinkling is right! What would the Baptist say to this? Just so of any difference of views or practice between any of the denominations.

But further, has God anywhere laid down this rule by which to test what is truth? Has he said, Whatever you have my blessing in, that is truth; and by this you are to determine what the truth is? If he has not, then no man has any right to erect such a standard? But all know that he has said nothing of the kind. But he says that his word is truth. Whatever he has declared and caused to be written as his revealed will, that is his truth; and that we are to obey regardless of feeling or blessing.

But how then can it be explained that so many have enjoyed the blessing of the Lord while in the observance of Sunday? That this has been the case we freely admit. But the matter is easily explained according to a rule which Christ himself lays down. He teaches that a person is responsible only for the light he has. Thus he said of the Jews: "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin." If a person is honest at heart, desiring, no matter at what sacrifice, to do God's will, and is walking up to the best light he has, the Lord accepts such person according to his good intentions and the amount of light he enjoys; for it is required of a man according to that he "hath, and not according to that he hath not." 2 Cor. 8:12. Multitudes, yes the great majority of Christendom, have no doubt honestly observed the first day of the week, supposing they were doing God's commandment thereby; and multitudes are at the present time so observing it. And God does not withhold his blessing from them, because they are honest in purpose, and it is the best light they have. But when light comes, and new truth is developed, that light must be followed, and that truth obeyed, or condemnation will follow. To refuse to do it because you have been blessed without doing it before you had the light, is to abuse God's mercy by making his past favors an excuse for not doing his present will. Be not guilty of so great a sin. But receive the truth and share in the new blessing which always accompanies it.—U. S., in Review and Herald.