What Do You Call It? by E. R. Jones

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 12, 1878

What Do You Call It?

By E. R. Jones

CALL what? The Sabbath of the fourth commandment.

"We call it 'the old Jewish Sabbath,' of course."

But do you not know that the applying of improper names to persons or things is wrong, and that when the feelings of the heart are bitterness and enmity, the calling of an institution of God by a name of contempt or reproach is downright wickedness? Well, it is. When your attention was called to the Sabbath, and the observance of God's holy day was pressed home upon you, in your determination not to obey, did you not call it "The old Jewish Sabbath"?

Why did you do this? What were the feelings of your heart? Was it a real love for God and the honor of his name, a delight in the law of God after the inward man, Rom. 7:22, that led you thus to do? Ah, think again. God sees your heart. He understands it all. Was it not rather because of that carnal mind in you which is enmity against God, and is not subject to his law? Rom. 8:7.

In his word, God has said that it "is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Christ said that he is its Lord. Mark 2:28. It is the Sabbath of the Lord Jesus, and we greatly dishonor the dear Saviour when we call it by a name of contempt.

Let us read what the Lord has said in his word that we should call it: "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." Isa. 58:13, 14. Here he tells us what to call it. The old Jewish Sabbath, and a yoke of bondage? No, indeed. Call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable. He has further said if we do this we shall honor him; and if we also observe it as he has instructed us in this same scripture, the unfailing promise of the God of the Sabbath is, "Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord." Precious promise!

Dear reader, may this delight in the Lord be yours. E. R. JONES.