A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY by W. N. Glenn

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 10, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 44.

A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.

By W. N. Glenn

BY W. N. GLENN.

ONE of the “regular contributors” of a California religious journal took a trip across the Atlantic in the early part of the summer. It seems, too, that on his arrival in Liverpool he made a discovery—a discovery so important that he records it for the benefit of his readers. Here it is:—

There is five hours’ difference between here and New York, and eight hours between here and California. Thus the Sabbatarians in Oakland are at work while those here are resting, and vice versa. Is time sacred?

All of which he might have learned without leaving California. He seems to think that he has found a poser for Sabbatarians; but Sabbatarians knew all of this long ago. They can tell him more,—that if he will go on further east he can find even twelve hours’ difference between a given locality and California, and the Sabbatarians there will be resting while those in Oakland are working, and vice versa. And he will find on the next day that the same thing is true of Sunday and the people who observe that day as a day of rest. If he will continue his journey around the world he will find that the seven days of the week also travel around the world in regular succession, and he will meet them everywhere he goes.

The law of God is in force all around the earth, as two or three established facts will show: (1) “Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4), and “where no law is, there is no transgression” (Rom. 4:15). (2) “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), which is further shown in the commission, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (3) To believe this gospel is to acknowledge sin on the part of the one who believes, and to acknowledge that one is a sinner is to acknowledge that one is a “transgressor of the law.” Faith in Christ is an acknowledgment of the justice of the condemnation of the law under which we are placed by transgression. By faith “we establish [or acknowledge] the law.” Rom. 3:31.

Now the Sabbath, being a part of the law of God, must of necessity have application wherever the law exists. God knew how it would be when he instituted the Sabbath in Eden, and he is not so unreasonable as to require impossibilities. He does not require anyone to keep the Sabbath in two places at once. But he does require us to keep it wherever we are when it comes to us, without worrying about how somebody else is going to do several thousand miles distant. There is no place on the earth where people cannot keep track of the twenty-four-hour days, and know when the seventh day comes to them.

God also knew when he reiterated his law at Sinai that the Jewish people would sometime be scattered throughout a good many degrees of longitude. And so it was in the various captivities and dispersions; but he made no exception as to the observance of his Sabbath according to the commandment. On the day of Pentecost there were “at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.” From that day to this there have been Jews in every part of the world, yet we have never heard of any perplexity among them on the Sabbath question. There are to-day Christians keeping the Sabbath all round the world, and they have no trouble about when the seventh day comes. A noticeable feature of the matter is that those who have settled it in their hearts to obey the commandments of the Lord are not perplexed in regard to the time, no matter where they are; it is only those who are anxious to get rid of the obligation of the Sabbath of the Lord, and espouse the more popular substitute, who see such imaginary difficulties about the time in different longitudes.

“Is time sacred?” asks this East-bound traveler, with an implied sneer at the commandment. Ask the word of God; it will tell you that the time of the seventh day is holy, and it makes no exceptions as to latitude. “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Gen. 2:3. Again, in Isa. 58:13, he calls it “my holy day.” That which God sanctifies is sacred, and that which he calls holy is sacred.