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RESTORING OF FAMILIES SHOWN IN SABBATH-KEEPING

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 6, 1900

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 77, No. 45.

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RESTORING OF FAMILIES SHOWN IN SABBATH-KEEPING.

By Stephen Nelson Haskell

“God is love,” and love manifests itself in contributing happiness to others. All of God’s created works bear this stamp of divinity. No bird that cleaves the air, no animal that moves upon the ground, but ministers to some other life. The leaves of the forest, the lowly blades of grass, have their ministry of love. Every tree and shrub and leaf pours forth that element of life without which neither man nor animal could live; and man and animal, in turn, minister to the life of tree, shrub, and leaf. The beauty and fragrance of flowers contribute to the pleasure and happiness of man. “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” Eccl. 1:7. In their journey they refresh the thirsty, supplying the needs of every living being God has created. They furnish a remedial system for health. A river is an emblem of the river of the water of life. It is a type of him who said, “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat.” Isa. 55:1. “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.” John 4:14, 10.
All that God has created has properties and qualities peculiarly its own, revealing the character and power of God. Thus the creation reveals the power of God and its operation, as well as his character of infinite love. In this divine law of nature is restoration of whatever man has lost by sin, and it thus reveals the character of him who died for our salvation and the restoration of all things. Nature, like man, has come under the power of Satan by sin, and could of itself in no wise restore itself. “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, . . . waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Rom. 8:22, 23. The Sabbath points back to the world and nature in its perfection.
On the sixth day man was created. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Gen. 1:26, 27. Adam and Eve bore the moral image of God. In this respect they were equal. “Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.” Gen. 5:2. There was no lack of harmony between the two. She was his equal, standing by his side as “an helpmeet for him.” “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. . . . Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.” Gen. 2:18, 23, 24; Matt. 19:4–6.
It was sin that brought a disparagement between husband and wife. “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Gen. 3:16; see also 1 Cor. 11:3–15.
The marriage institution and the Sabbath were given before the fall of man; therefore the Sabbath calls the mind to the original plan of God in the creation of the first human pair. The Sabbath can not be kept properly in any family where there is discord, especially if husband and wife profess to be Sabbath-keepers. They are both one flesh. Whatever one is interested in, so is the other. And so would have been every child, had not sin marred all.
“Children are an heritage of the Lord,” and they are to be trained for the Lord. In the Judgment he will say, Where are those children I gave unto thee to train for my service? Sin has brought division and alienation into families, and unnatural affection. When God first said, “Multiply, and replenish the earth,” he designed that families should exist to all eternity. In the kingdom of God there will be no homeless ones. “God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.” Ps. 68:6. “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people. He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord.” Ps. 113:7–9.
The restoration of families is in the kingdom of God. The ties of relationship are made by the grace of Christ. “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” 3 John 4. “I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.” 1 Cor. 4:14, 15. The families are made up of those who have been brought nigh by the blood of Christ. In the kingdom of God the children are those begotten in the gospel by the truth of God. The highest type of heaven is when an entire family—husband, wife, and children—are all in the service of God. It is then the natural ties have become sanctified by the Spirit of God, and the original design of God is accomplished, through Christ, in Eden restored.
The Sabbath is a reminder of what families would have been; and in its observance is especial instruction how families can keep it holy. It includes sons, daughters, menservants, maidservants, and all that is within thy gates. It not only points back to the Edenic state and calls to remembrance God’s original design, but the mind is carried forward to the time when families will be restored through Jesus Christ.
Properly to observe the Sabbath, would exclude all disparagement of either husband or wife, all labor, and everything out of harmony with the original design of God when he created man and gave him his home in the garden of Eden. The Sabbath calls our thoughts to nature, and brings us into communion with the Creator. He who talked with Adam and Eve in Eden when they came fresh from the hand of their Creator, will talk with man to-day when he observes the day according to God’s plan. As we behold the Lord’s power in nature, we find comfort; for the word that created all things is the same word that speaks to the soul and enlightens and instructs us now. The original design of God was to speak peace and life to the soul on the Sabbath through the works of nature.
When the Sabbath comes to us, we should observe the day in full accord with God’s original design. On the first Sabbath, peace brooded over the world. Peace was in that group composed of Adam and Eve, Christ, God the Father, and holy angels. Heaven and earth were in harmony. Love pervaded all. Even in this present age of the world, when love is manifested by the parents and they, as the head of the family, train their children properly to observe the Sabbath, and to see the handiwork of God in nature, this united family is an object-lesson of Eden restored, because it is in harmony with the Edenic Sabbath observance.
“For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.” Isa. 66:22, 23. S. N. H.