THE USEFULNESS OF THE SABBATH.
Of all the blessings our heavenly Father has bestowed, there is nothing more useful to us than the Sabbath. As was shown from the Sabbath commandment in our last article, the reason God gave for instituting the Sabbath is that He may point us to His mighty works in creation. Our God is an all-powerful and all-sufficient God, and nowhere is this more apparent than in His created works. Hence He would have us study these things, so that we may truly know Him, and rest in the enjoyment of having a Father to care for us who is boundless in His ability to do it. To any one who studies the reason God gives for Sabbath-keeping, it must be apparent that if the Sabbath had always been intelligently kept by everybody there never could have been an idolater in all the world. It is because men have departed from the ways, and plans, and laws of their Creator that they are to-day bound about and burdened with all the superstitions and torturing exactions of idolatry. The very effort of the mind to grasp a conception of the power manifested in creation lifts us away from idolatry and brings us to God. We look at the hills, the valleys, the majestic mountains, the trees, the plants, and the whole animal creation as well, and we involuntarily exclaim, What infinite intelligence is manifested in all this creation! See what careful design is shown in the formation of that tree or plant. Look at its beauty. See the intelligence manifested in the formation of every leaf and flower. Look at that horse, or sheep, or ox; how symmetrical is its formation! And then see man, the great masterpiece of the handiwork of God. Observe his masterful intelligence. Think of the gifts bestowed upon him by the skill of the great Creator. Having viewed the things of this orb on which we live, then join the psalmist’s astronomical party, and “consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained.” Ps. 8:3. And as we view these things, how clearly will it be manifest that “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, without these their voice is heard. Their line is gone out thru all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” Ps. 19:1-7, margin. “The law of the Lord” is very broad. It not only embraces every precept of morality, but in the very heart of the Ten Commandments we find the Sabbath precept, which embraces all created things. Thus do we see that the law of the Lord embraces everything in the natural as well as in the spiritual world. The commandments truly define our duties and relations to our fellow-men; and they just as truly point us to the Creator and all His created works, and thereby invite us into the great field of nature, that we may study and know God. Then if we view the Sabbath from the practical side and from no other standpoint, how great is its usefulness! We look at the civilization that has been built up under Christian influences, and we at once note its superiority over heathen civilization. As compared with life in China or Arabia, how vastly greater and more to be desired is the average life in England and America! Who can estimate the indescribable suffering that the superstitions of heathenism have brought upon the world? The one who lays his homage at the shrine of an idolater’s god, is continually racked by fears and forebodings of disaster. There is never a truly happy moment for such an individual. The Lord foreknew all this, and so He provided the Sabbath as a mighty bulwark against it. There is another class of evils that true Sabbath-keeping guards us against. Idol-worship leads men into one kind of superstitions and dangers, and leaves them under the spell of one class of fears and mental and physical distresses; but in such a condition men are no more to be pitied than those who have virtually thrown away their Creator by refusing to recognize His place in creation. Those who throw away the fact that God made the world in six days, claiming instead a system of evolution covering unnumbered millions of years, are filling the minds of men with vain philosophies, that are as unsound and befogging in their tendencies as the doctrines of Confucius or Sakya Muni. The Bible tells the simple truth in regard to creation, and it is so plain and clear that one is brought into nearness with his Creator, and feels the inspiring and uplifting strength of His sacred presence. Evolution sets one adrift in the fog to guess his way out. And some of the things that are guessed out, and that we are asked in all seriousness to believe, require a greater faith in the evolutionist than God asks us to confide in Him when we accept the Bible story of creation. Evolution sooner or later leads to infidelity; and infidelity gives a religion that is colder and more gloomy than out-and-out heathenism. The fact that some influential ministers believe in evolution does not invalidate the fact just stated. Evolution leads to infidelity, no matter what its professions or the pretensions of those who hold to it. It is against all these evils that the Sabbath stands. The Lord knew in the beginning all about the influences against which mankind would have to contend in holding their Creator in mind; and He foresaw the need of a constant reminder of His creative work, so as to hold man from the pitfalls that would beset his feet. Hence He gave the Sabbath to be a great memorial of the real power that was exerted in creation. Every one who reveres the Lord and His Word will have a very tender place in his affections for the Lord’s Sabbath. He will desire to keep the day holy because of the fact that it gives him richer and clearer views of his Creator. He will desire to study the Bible so as to know just how the Lord wants the day kept. In the next paper the Sabbath in conversion will be considered.