Morality of the Sabbath
By D. M. Canright
IV. Man's moral duty to love and obey God rests chiefly upon the fact that the Lord created all things, which fact the Sabbath was given to commemorate. God made me and all the blessings which surround me, hence it is my moral duty to love and serve him as the Author and Giver of them all. Those who do not believe that God created the world, feel under no obligation to obey him, even if they believe that there is a God at all, which they seldom do. Hence it becomes of the greatest importance morally, that the facts of creation be ever kept fresh in the memory of men. If these facts be disbelieved or forgotten, the Creator himself will also be forgotten. Man is constantly prone to forget his Creator and to deny his existence. To have, to preserve, and to teach the knowledge of the true God is the very highest of all moral duties. Indeed, without this we could not serve God at all. How morally important, then, that God should give men something which would be a frequent and constant reminder of the Creator and of our obligation to him. For just this purpose God did give the Sabbath to man in the very beginning. Thus we read, “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; (why?) because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Gen. 2:3. A rest implies a work performed. God had just finished the wonderful work of creation for which the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Job. 38:7. As a monument for a memorial of this great work God there set apart the seventh day to a sacred rest. From that time on through all ages the observance of the Creator’s rest day was to be a weekly reminder, or memorial, of God’s work of creating the heavens and the earth. Every time a person intelligently keeps the Sabbath day it reminds him of God’s work of creating the earth at the beginning in six days and resting upon the seventh day. Thus it is an appropriate memorial of creation. When the Lord gives the reason for the observance of the Sabbath, he always points back to the facts of creation. Thus, when he gave the decalogue from mount Sinai, the Lord said, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do any work, (why? for what reason?) ***for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Ex. 20:8–11. Why was the Sabbath hallowed? Because God had rested upon it after his six days of labor at creation. A sign and a memorial are the same thing. The 4th chapter of Joshua proves this, while at the same time it gives us a beautiful illustration of the use of a memorial or sign. When the children of Israel crossed over Jordan the waters of the river were cut off and dried up. Then the Lord directed them to take twelve stones out of the bottom of Jordan and make an heap of them upon the bank of the river. “That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off; and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel forever.” Josh. 4:6, 7. The Lord says that these stones shall be a sign among you; and then he says they shall be a memorial, showing that sign and memorial were synonymous. When the Lord explains the object of the sign, or memorial, he says that when their children in days to come ask their fathers what these stones mean, then the fathers shall tell them the story about how the waters of Jordan were cut off, &c., when their fathers passed over Jordan. Thus in all coming generations, whenever men looked upon this pile of stones it would constantly remind them of that wonderful miracle which God wrought for his people, and thus keep it fresh in their memory. So God declares that the Sabbath is a sign of creation. “Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever; (how? and why?) for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” Ex. 31:16, 17. Here the Lord directly says that the Sabbath is a sign. We have already shown that sign and memorial are synonymous. But why is it a sign? The reason is plainly stated. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested.” Thus the Sabbath is declared to be a divinely appointed memorial of God’s great work of creation. Its importance cannot be overestimated. God instituted it for a great moral purpose, namely, to preserve in the memory of men a knowledge of God’s work of creation. Had the human family carefully observed this sacred memorial, they never would have forgotten the living God and have become atheists or the worshipers of false gods. “Had all men properly kept the Sabbath, all would have known Jehovah and worshiped him from the creation of the world to the present time, and idolatry never would have been practiced on the earth.” Justin Edwards. The Sabbath, therefore, does have for its object the greatest of all moral principles, namely, the preservation in the earth of the knowledge of the true and living God, the Creator of the earth. The reader cannot fail to observe, that if this be so, the farther we come from creation the more important becomes the careful observance of the Sabbath. For the first few generations the facts of creation might have been handed down from father to son without any memorial. But now when all such traditional knowledge has been lost, and men are becoming skeptical with regard to God’s existence and the miraculous work of creation, how morally important becomes the preservation of the ancient and divinely-instituted memorial of creation, God’s holy rest day! V. God has a moral right to claim a certain part of our time as sacred to his worship. The Sabbath commandment is based upon this moral principle which shows it to be a moral precept. Man was not created simply to please himself and study his own convenience; but the great object of his creation was to please and glorify his Creator. Thus the Revelator says: “Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” Rev. 4:11. And Paul says, “Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” 1 Cor. 6:19, 20. The chief object of man’s creation, then, is to serve God and glorify him. God has a perfect moral right to require us to give all our time wholly to his service. None will deny this. But man must have food and raiment, houses and other necessaries of life; hence God has given him six days out of every seven in which to provide for all these wants of his nature; but the seventh day God has reserved to himself. This he has never given to man to be used in secular, worldly affairs, but it is to be used wholly in religious services and the worship of our Creator. Who will say that this is unreasonable? We affirm that God never made a requirement of men which was more reasonable, just, and morally right than the Sabbath commandment. Reason itself would teach us to expect that God would make just such a requirement. Man is naturally prone to forget his God, and his obligation to his Creator, and to become wholly absorbed in his worldly affairs. As he engages in his necessary business for a subsistence, the cares of life are apt to press upon him till there is great danger that he will give his time up wholly to this, and forget his duty to God. Hence the Lord has wisely interposed the Sabbath day to break up this tide of worldliness, and to remind man of his duty to his Creator. Men are allowed to engage in their worldly pursuits for six days continuously. Then the Lord says, “Now stop, lay this all aside, shut up your shop, close your store, put up your tools, let your fields rest, lay aside your books, and take one day to meditate upon the works of God; to study his word, to go to the house of God, to offer praise and worship before the Lord.” If there is a living God to whom we owe all things and whom it is our duty to remember and worship, then of all moral precepts the Sabbath is pre-eminently the most reasonable and morally important. We must bear in mind constantly that the first duty of man, his highest moral obligation, is to love God with all his heart. Nothing is designed to promote this so directly as the proper observance of the Sabbath.