BE OBEDIENT WHERE YOU ARE.
By William N. Glenn
WE are often met with the objection to keeping the seventh-day Sabbath, that it is impossible for us to keep it at the same identical time that they do on the other side of the earth. Strange to say, these objections generally come from those who keep the first day of the week, and yet seem to see no such difficulty with that day. But the Lord does not command impossibilities; all he asks of us is to keep his commandments where we are, and not somewhere else at the same time. The days follow each other around the earth successively, and we can only observe the seventh day when it comes to us, and people in other parts can do the same. This imaginary difficulty is of comparatively recent origin, and is a kind of "last-ditch" argument against the Sabbath of the Lord. In the days of Christ and the apostles there were Jews "out of every nation under heaven" (Acts 2: 5) who kept the seventh-day Sabbath, but we have no intimation of any difficulty in regard to the different longitudes. From that day to this they have lived in all parts of the world, and have kept the seventh day, but we never hear of any confusion amongst them. If men would exercise themselves as zealously in efforts to obey the commandments of God, in the light of his word, as they do in seeking to evade them, these supposed difficulties would vanish before the ever-increasing light. See Ps. 119: 105; Prov. 4: 18; John 7: 17. Be obedient where you are; if this be the rule, duty will be made equally plain wherever you may go. It is not our seventh day, but God's seventh day, that is commanded. God established the weekly cycle in the beginning, and distinctly set apart the seventh day as his. He made no mistake then; he made no mistake at Sinai, when his law was repeated to his liberated people; there was no mistake at the death and resurrection of the Lord, when the day of the Sabbath was distinctly designated as the day preceding that of the resurrection, which was on the first day of the week (Mark 16: 1, 2), and there has been no mistake since that day. "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God" in all lands. The test of love is obedience. John 14: 15; Rom. 13: 10. W. N. G.