WHY do you observe the seventh-day Sabbath?" asks many a conscientious inquirer. "Why make oneself so odd or peculiar? Why be different from the great mass of Christians?"
These are proper questions, and should receive proper and candid answer. Certainly there is no desire on the part of the writer to be different from his fellows. He loves companionship. He does not wish to separate from his fellow men. He has no desire to bring in dissension among his fellow pilgrims. Neither does he desire in any way to emphasize non-essentials. He believes that there is too little time and that the essentials are too important to waste time on the non-essentials.
But he believes with many others, thank God, that the Bible is the word of God, and that Jesus Christ, our Life, is the great exemplification of that word. He believes, as set forth in that word, that the worth of the word lies in faithful doing.
Let us, then, consider just two reasons for observing the Sabbath.
1. The Commandment, which reads as follows:
"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 Jehovah 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 Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex. 20:8-11.
This commandment is clear, definite, plain. "Remember," God tells us; for we are prone to forget. "Remember the Sabbath day," the day of the rest. Remember that day in order to keep it holy. Remember it all thru the week, plan all the week with reference to its end, the crowning day.
Remember the day of rest (Sabbath means rest) to keep it holy. We can not make the Sabbath holy. No mortal man or men can make anything holy. Only God can do this, and He did it when the Sabbath was made at the first week of time. Gen. 2:2, 3. Man can only keep holy what God has made holy.
Remember the day, the rest day, the seventh day, to keep it holy. God rested upon one day, and only one day. He blessed and hallowed one day and one day alone, the definite seventh day of the weekly cycle. He asks me to observe that Sabbath day, the seventh day, which He set apart.
Much more might be said, but this is sufficient. "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." Luke 16:17. The Sabbath is a part of that law.
2. The Example of Christ Jesus.
We need not dwell on this phase of the subject. There is no question as to what Jesus did. He kept the law and the Sabbath. Thus we read:
"I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love." John 15:10.
"He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." 1 John 2:6.
There are other passages, but these are sufficient. When the great eternal law of God speaks, when Jesus Christ left us such an example, why should we hesitate to hear God's voice and obey?