p. 8 | GOD'S HOLY REST DAY by Mrs. C. J. Butterfield

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 23, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 29.

GOD'S HOLY REST DAY.

By Mrs. C. J. Butterfield

BY MRS. C. J. BUTTERFIELD.

SANCTIFY means set apart; the seventh day of creation week was the Sabbath made and set apart for man; it thus became a holy day—a place of time—set apart from the rest, into which, between heaven and earth, as it were, man may always go, ever certain to find it full of the presence of God, in which man is sure of receiving spiritual growth. Here it is that God imparts blessing and rest to his obedient children. He has set apart no other day for this special work; no other of the seven is made holy by his presence and sanctifying power. Jesus, who made the day, declares that “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”

Man is not to do his work on the Sabbath, but God will in that day do his work for man, by instructing and blessing him in eternal things. How fitting the time when, all man's work for the week being done, his whole being may be subject to divine influence! How it fits him for the six days when his interests are centered in secular labors!

God made all things, man included, for his own honor and glory. We are to desire and yield to fulfil the very purpose for which he formed us. Then is he honored, and he says, “Them that honor me I will honor.” It is surely a greater honor to man to be approved of God than to be honored of his fellow-men, who all depend upon the goodness of God for the very breath used often in cursing God and in applauding “that man of sin” whose honor should be only in obedience to that law his life defies, but who instead claims power of God, that he may destroy that law.

Now we know that God is changeless. We know also that his law was made to bring man into harmony with himself, to shape man into his image, his character, which is his glory and man's highest glory, if kept. Jesus Christ came that we might keep the law. God can not change; his law, too, which is his glory, the transcript of his perfect character, is also immutable or changeless, as Christ by his example and precept has declared.

Hokah, Minn.