DO WE KEEP THE SABBATH ACCORDING TO THE COMMANDMENT?
By C. N. Stuttle
“Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice; for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.” Isa. 56:1, 2. Are we keeping the Sabbath in such a way as to please the Lord? Let us square our lives by the word of God, and examine our hearts at the close of each Sabbath day, and see if we have honored God’s holy day in not doing our own will. I fear, if we looked into our hearts, we should find that we have not honored our Father which is in Heaven. Have we not thought our own thoughts? In doing our own wills, have we not profaned that day upon which the Lord rested from all his labors, and which he blessed and sanctified in the garden of Eden? “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work.” Have we prepared for the Sabbath by doing all our labor in the six days that are allotted to man—wherein we may think our own thoughts and do our own ways—that at the commencement of the seventh we might think upon the works of God? Or, does the Lord’s day break in upon us with the work of the week still in our hands, and the thoughts of the world in our hearts? Let us so calculate our work through the week, that the Sabbath will find us waiting, Bible in hand, having ceased from our labor, as God, on the seventh day, did from his. And may we call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and honor him, not doing our own ways, nor finding our own pleasure, nor thinking our own thoughts, that we may delight ourselves in the Lord. Let us ever remember that the psalmist says the commandments of God are “exceeding broad.” C. N. STUTTLE.