WE MUST LIVE by A. C. Spicer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 28, 1879

WE MUST LIVE.

By A. C. Spicer

“But we must live, you know,” said a professed S. D. Adventist mother the other day, in apology for the fact that her son, who is also a member of an S. D. A. church, was working weekly on the Sabbath day.

“Father, Mr. —— wants to hire me; but I must work Sabbath days if I work for him. Shall I do so?” “Never, by my consent,” responded the father, quite hesitatingly, and half-heartedly. “Well, mother, what do you say, shall I agree to work Sabbath days for the sake of good wages?” “I do not like to have you do so, my son,” replies the mother, but, dropping the head, she continues in a low voice, “but we must live, you know.” The son passed out, saying to himself, as he tossed his head and snapped his fingers, “That’s it, that’s it, we must live;” and he straightway made an engagement to work Sabbath days. Such, substantially, was the conversation in another professedly Sabbath-keeping family, and such the result. Similar cases are frequent, and many a child of parents who profess to love the Sabbath and to honor the law of God, is thus dishonoring the Christian profession. And then that mother professed to her brethren and sisters to regret that her son was violating the Sabbath; and the father sighed as if in great sorrow, remarking, “But then, he’ll do as he has a mind to.”

And thus many a father and mother virtually consent to, and become responsible for, the open and flagrant violation of God’s law, by their children, while making great professions of sincere love and reverence therefor. But who has determined that any of God’s people “must live” at the sacrifice of such high and sacred interests? These parents profess to be Christians. If, then, they are Christ’s, they are “bought with a price” and “are not their own,” but “servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.” And has not the good Master promised on condition of implicit obedience to “bless in basket and store” abundantly, and that all temporal, material necessaries “shall be added unto you,” if ye will “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness”?

Why, then, assume responsibilities that belong to the Master? Why arrogate to the servant to say how he “must live,” in contempt of the Master’s expressed will? Where is it written that the laborer and the poor need not be particular or scrupulous about keeping God’s commandments? Where is it written that children of poor Christian parents may be permitted to do, innocently, what the parent would be ashamed to do on the Sabbath,—to disregard God’s law? God said not only, “On the seventh day thou shalt rest,” but was particular to specify, “Thou, thy son, thy daughter, thy man-servant, thy maid-servant, thy cattle,” etc.; and, to guard all avenues to license even in the most busy time of the year, he added, “In earning time and in harvest, thou shalt rest.”

But poverty is pleaded in excuse. But did not He who made the law, and ordered the precepts and examples of the gospel, know the necessities of the poor? And yet he has made no such exceptional provisions for such license. And may it not be the very reason why you are so poor, that, while you have professed to be a child of God, you have been so improvident of time and opportunities and means, and so persistently regardless of his law, that he has not dared to intrust you with anything beyond the most stinted necessaries of life? Even man can see, and how much clearer can God see, that the only possible condition in which some people can be fitted for Heaven is that of poverty.

The Master has also declared it a condition upon which we may have eternal life, that we be willing to be poor, yet obedient; to forsake all of this world and “follow him;” declaring that “whosoever will save his life [by disregarding God’s will] shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall find it.” This language implies an obligation to regard, also, the honor of the gospel. Why, then, is it assumed that this poor, profitless life must be preserved, regardless of God’s law and the glorious plan of the gospel? Perhaps the Infinite mind sees that the only way for you to be humbled, subdued, chastened, and purified, and fitted for Heaven, is by suffering in poverty. And yet you would thwart his efforts in this direction also, assuming that you “must live” this poor, finite life, even at the sacrifice of life infinite, of the eternal interests of self and children.

The statement that our sons cannot get work unless they agree to work on the Sabbath cannot be accepted; for many quite as unfavorably situated get labor and just as good wages, and yet keep the Sabbath. Let us note the crimes involved in the plea under consideration:— 1. Sabbath-breaking, by the parents, and by the sons; 2. Insincerity and dissembling hypocrisy; 3. Dishonor and disgrace to the church; 4. Great trial and grief to the brotherhood; 5. Incalculable wrong to children, by which they learn to disrespect all religious profession, and soon to reject religion, and become infidel. The wrong done the child involves all that is of value in a true Christian life here, and eternal life in the hereafter.

Yet it is attempted to justify all these terrible sins by the plea, “But we must live, you know.” A. C. SPICER.