Fifty Reasons for Sabbath Observance
By D. T. Bourdeau
FIFTY REASONS FOR SABBATH OBSERVANCE. NO. 6.
TWENTY-SEVENTH. We observe it because it forms a part of the law that is not made void, but established by faith in Jesus Christ. Rom. 3:31: "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law." It was easier that Christ should die to save us than it was that the law we had transgressed should be made void or abolished. Twenty-eighth. We observe it because we are thus encouraged to keep it when "salvation is near to come," in other words, when Christ's children are about to say, "Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him, and He will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation." Isa. 56:1, compared with Isa. 25:9. It is then, it is now, that the Lord says, "Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil." Isa. 56:2. Twenty-ninth. We observe it because God wants us to do it when it has long been neglected. Isa. 58:12-14: "And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. [All these expressions are figurative and denote a work of reform. See also Isa. 40:3-5; Jer. 6:16.] If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." This heritage is the same as that which was promised to Abraham and Isaac, and embraces our world restored; all the new earth, which shall be given to true Israelites, to those who are the children of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ. See Gen. 13:14-17; 26:3-5; 28:12-14; Acts 7:4, 5; Rom. 4:13; Acts 26:6-8; Heb. 11:39, 40; Matt. 5:5; Rom. 9:6, 7; Gal. 3:26-29. Thirtieth. We observe it because it will have its place of honor in the new earth in which we hope to dwell. Isa. 66:22, 23: "For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord." Read also 2 Peter 3:13. Thirty-first. We observe it because John the beloved apostle thus referred to it toward the close of the first century: "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." Rev. 1:10. In the light of the Biblical fact that the seventh-day Sabbath is the only day that the Lord claims as His own under this dispensation, we say that the day of which the beloved apostle here speaks is certainly the ancient Sabbath; and knowing that it belongs to the Lord, we cheerfully and gratefully consecrate it unto Him.