Coming to the Point

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 11, 1878

Coming to the Point.

“THERE will never be agreement in the church congress on this much vexed question until a very grave preliminary question has been settled: Is there now a Christian Sabbath to which the fourth commandment applies? . . . A commandment must be obeyed at whatever risk or inconvenience.”—The Guardian.

This is coming to the point. Happy will it be for the universal church when the leaders shall come to the Scriptures on the Sabbath question, and abide by their teaching. What day does the fourth commandment teach should be kept holy? Only one answer can be given, namely, the seventh day, commonly called Saturday. This is the primeval, patriarchal, Jewish, Christian, and world’s Sabbath; or rather, it is the Sabbath of the Lord our God, made for man in all ages.

“A commandment must be obeyed at whatever risk or inconvenience!” Bold and startling words are these; but they have the true ring in them. Take away the stern, unrelenting inconvenience of Sunday restriction, and in three months our 30,000 Protestant Sabbath-keepers might be augmented to 100,000. But our people have set out to obey, at whatever risk or inconvenience. Paul and Barnabas “hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Why should it be thought a thing impossible for a Christian to do the same and to keep the Sabbath? The Jews keep it, and we keep it, though threatened with financial and social inconvenience. We risk much, and yet we are much blessed in keeping God’s commandments. Now, will the Guardian come to the rescue of the Lord’s long-down-trodden rest-day? After making such a frank avowal it would be ungenerous to suppose that it intends anything else than going to the root of “this much vexed question,” and vindicating only the “Thus saith the Lord” against every human quibble and invention, and in favor of the plainest commandment of the Bible. On this subject the Guardian will find that the field is the world, and that the fourth commandment is exceeding broad. “Great peace have they who love thy law; and nothing shall offend them.”—Sabbath Memorial.