p. 5 | What Shall We Do with the Fourth Commandment?

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 26, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 13.

What Shall We Do with the Fourth Commandment?

By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

VI—"The Conclusion of the Whole Matter"

WHAT is the distinguishing mark of God's Israel? — They worship the living God instead of dumb idols. Why are they farthest removed from idolatry? — Because they have been enlightened by the fourth commandment, which is the only one that plainly identifies the true God.

The first, second, and third commands forbid idol-worship, idol-making, and blasphemy; but neither the one nor the other satisfies our mind as to what "God" is meant. The author of those three commandments might be Baal or Moloch to the mind of the ignorant and prejudiced heathen. It is the same with the last six. They all speak with authority, but do not tell us by what or whose authority they speak.

But the fourth commandment comes to the rescue. No danger of any misunderstanding after this; no groping in the dark any longer. This command informs us in unmistakable terms just who is speaking, and just who it is that forbids idolatry and blasphemy and murder and Sabbath-breaking and theft, and all the sins mentioned in that law which is "exceeding broad." Ah, it is the God who "made heaven and earth."

Again I hear some one exclaim: "It seems to be still impossible for you to talk about anything but the law and the Sabbath. I wonder if you will not change the subject, and talk about Christ for a while." I must ask, in reply, if it ever came to the attention of our friend, that the psalmist mentions the law just one hundred seventy-six times in the 119th Psalm. But I believe that we have been talking of Christ, and that the moral law and the Gospel are as inseparably connected as are the Father and the Son. Do you forget that Christ names the keeping of the commandments as the one undeniable proof of our love to Him? You must remember His words: "If ye love Me, keep My commandments." How many of them? — four? eight? nine? — Nay, verily. If Christ found it necessary to give ten to mankind, He will be satisfied with nothing short of obedience to them all. And they are "exceeding broad."

Did you know that it is dangerous to refuse to listen to the teaching of those who urge the importance of the Ten Commandments?

"Dangerous?" — Yes, very dangerous.

"How do I prove that?" — Listen: "He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination."

Then it is well for us, before we ever again bend our knee and take the name of the Almighty upon our lips in prayer — it is well, I say, for us to ask ourselves the questions: "Am I turning away my ear from hearing or my heart from obeying any one of the commandments of God? Am I willing to substitute a man-made commandment for the law of Jehovah? If I am, what virtue can there be in my prayer? Will the

Eternal bow His ear to listen to those prayers which He has emphatically declared were an 'abomination'?'

My prayer may be eloquent and learned; it may be long and logical; I may "storm the battlements of heaven" with my logic and my learning; I may cry and shout and leap as long and as noisily and frantically as did the priests of Baal when they screamed, "O Baal, hear us!" but if I am not willing to listen to the claims of God's law, if I watch with blinded eyes and hardened heart the "man of sin," as he stretches unholy fingers toward God's perfect law, that he may despoil and mutilate that which the Almighty declares "holy and just and good," — if I watch all this without a protest, I would better close my lips before I offer insult to the Majesty of Heaven by approaching Him with a prayer that He has declared "abominable."

"Well," you say, "that's pretty strong language." Granted; it is; the language of inspiration is generally strong. But those words are not mine; they are the words of God.

Now, in summing up: We have spoken of the unchangeable character of God's law, — that not one jot or tittle can pass from it; we have discussed and proved its reasonableness; we have shown that the Almighty means what He says, and that He is particular; we have found what the New Testament says on the subject; and we have pleaded, with all sincerity of heart, the vital necessity of obedience. We have also driven to quarry that power whose boastful assumption led it to mutilate that law which the Almighty engraved upon tablets of enduring stone; we have discovered the work of the arch-enemy, as he undertakes to stamp into the dust of oblivion the seal of the living God, that he may root out the knowledge of the Creator from the very world which He created; and as we have seen all this, we have uttered a protest.

O, it pays, it pays gloriously, to obey God. Some day, not very far from this, all the little "objections" which we so often hear, about the "inconvenience" of obeying the fourth command, and about the "round world," and "lost time," and a thousand and one like excuses, will seem, O, so vain and foolish, when we stand before the great Lawgiver to be judged by that holy law which we have knowingly trodden underfoot.

Finally, listen: these are not my words; they are the words of the Eternal:

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Eccl. 12: 13, 14.