EDITORIAL by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 8, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 39.

EDITORIAL

By Editor

The Sabbath a Worship Day

WHEN we learn from the Bible the real purpose of the Sabbath, it is readily seen that it is preeminently a day for divine worship. And Sabbath keeping brings a joy into this worship that it is impossible to describe. The individual who looks upon the Sabbath as a gloomy day, set apart for dismal duties, has not learned the real purpose of the day, neither has he entered into its joys. The inspired promise reads:

"If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of Jehovah honorable; and shalt honor it, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in Jehovah; and I will make thee to ride upon the high places of the earth; and I will feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it." Isa. 58: 13, 14.

The foregoing text asks us to "call the Sabbath a delight" as well as to call it "the holy of Jehovah honorable." We are to find in the Sabbath such delight that we will not do our own ways, nor find our own pleasure, nor speak our own words, for the reason that we have learned the delights of Jehovah, and He is feeding us with the heritage of Father Jacob.

Jacob was the prevailer with God who had his name changed to Israel, and who thus became a type of all the prevailers with God that should follow after. And all the delights of service, and of association, and of blessing, and of promise, are transmitted to the one who has entered into the real joys of Sabbath keeping. To such a one the Sabbath is not merely a day upon which he has chosen to refrain from labor, but it is the one day of the week that has God's special blessing in it. Into its rest, its joys, and its worship, he enters with heart and soul and mind.

The individual who has not found the Sabbath of Jehovah, which contains the blessing and the hallowing and the rest of Jehovah, has not yet learned from actual experience what the abounding joys of Sabbath keeping really are. It is these transcending joys that come into worship through true Sabbath keeping, that will cause a man or a woman to give up any position in the world, and to face any kind of hardships and difficulties, only that they may enter into this sacred and soul-satisfying rest. The joys of it, the satisfied contentment of it, the intelligent bliss of it, can not be described in words. It must be experienced in order to be understood.

The Sabbath calls the mind out in worship toward the greatness of Him who is the Author of the Sabbath. The mind can not worship that which is beneath us, that which is on a lower or a narrower plane than we ourselves. Worship must reach out to the great, to the sublime, to that which is far beyond us. And hence Jehovah calls us to worship Him as Creator, and the Sabbath is the worship day that commemorates creation. If you doubt this, read again the Sabbath commandment, which follows:

Worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters

"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, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 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.

Woven all through this commandment is the thought of creation. God is the mighty Creator. God made the worlds; they did not evolve themselves from whirling dust. The creatures upon the earth and in the sea are His creation; they did not evolve from lower forms of life that had their beginning in some mysterious, unknown way. God is the direct Creator of the human race; God is the Author of humanity, and we are to look upon Him as our Father, and not upon the ape or the chimpanzee of the jungles

of Africa. And because He is the infinite Creator of all things in heaven and in earth, He calls upon us to worship Him. And when we consider the suns and the systems of worlds in the space about us, and when we consider that this little earth upon which we dwell is but a mere speck in the infinite expanse of God's creation, surely He presents Himself before us as an object of worship that is well worthy of our highest adoration. He is not only the Creator, but He is the Infinite One. And that we may have due opportunity to study His great creative powers as manifested in His works of field and forest and sea and sky, He has given us the Sabbath, so that we may devote one whole seventh part of our time to the delights of creation and to the joys of worshiping the Creator.

The exiled prophet of Patmos sends this inspiring message to the generation that will live when the hour of the great judgment is pending:

"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Rev. 14: 6, 7.

This message calls the human race to "worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." This is a call to worship God as Creator, and that, too, right when the judgment-day is pending. And the fourth commandment, quoted in the foregoing, shows unmistakably that the call to worship Him as the Creator is a call to Sabbath keeping.

Is there not a great need for such a call? We are living in the days when the prophecies make it clear that the end of all things is just before us, and when, in the language of the prophecy just quoted, the "hour of His judgment is come." And in this very time, faith in evolution has taken the place,

not merely in the world, but even in the professed church itself, of faith in the creative acts of Jehovah. The story of Genesis and the force of the fourth commandment are made to bow, in the mind of the great multitude, before the well-nigh universal sentiments of evolution. And against the absurd speculations of the evolutionist, there is proclaimed in the sublimely binding declarations of the fourth of the ten precepts of Jehovah the truth that creation has a Creator; that it did not blindly create itself.

The issue is clear and well defined. It is evolution and infidelity on the one hand; on the other it is the Creator, and faith, and an intelligent Sabbath keeping that recognizes and adores this Creator. And do not overlook the fact that while this issue is balancing in the minds of men, the great judgment-day is pending, and the decisions that men reach will be acted upon very soon by the infinite and just Judge. Neither should we overlook this other fact — that Sabbath keeping as taught by the Bible carries with it the worship of the Creator Himself. It is the worship day of Jehovah, in which His creative power in a special sense is recognized. The Sabbath is the worship day that commemorates the real, living, infinite Father and Creator, as opposed to human speculations that have made a creator out of some unknown “spontaneous generation” through the dreams of evolution.

Jehovah through His Word is calling the world to take its stand on this momentous issue. Where will you stand when the Judge arises from His throne to issue the decree that He has already foretold?

“He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Rev. 22: 11-14.