Making Too Much of the Sabbath!
By Editor
THOSE who keep the seventh-day are often accused of making too much of the Sabbath—of being too tenacious of the matter of the fourth commandment. But frequently the thoughtful among our opposers rise up and vindicate our position, though they have no sympathy with us in the observance of the seventh day. Mr. Noble, of the Plymouth Congregational Church, San Francisco, is giving a series of Sunday night lectures on Sunday amusements. Of the importance of the Sabbath he speaks as follows:— "Abolish the Sabbath and the social sanity it fosters, and in less than a century the conflict between labor and capital will issue here in petroleum and fire bottles. Give America, from sea to sea, the Parisian Sunday, and in two hundred years all our greatest cities will be politically under the heels of the leatherheads, the roughs, the sneaks, and the money-gripers. God, no longer brought before the minds of our people by the public services of the sanctuary, with our heterogeneous population and with the antagonistic forces already in existence working themselves out with no let or hindrance, what will there be to prevent the awful scenes witnessed in ungodly Paris in 1870 from finding a repetition in this metropolis of the Pacific Coast? What will there be to keep the hand upon the dial-plate of our civilization from turning ceaselessly backward, till at last it shall be written of us, as of the doomed Roman nation, that even as we did not like to retain God in our knowledge, He gave us over to a reprobate mind, 'to worship and serve the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever, amen.' My fellow countrymen, if we love our God, and would have our people 'happy and prosperous in Jehovah,' let us remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy unto the Lord." This picture is not overdrawn. All paganism is the result of the nations not liking to retain God in their knowledge. Because of this they cease to worship the Creator, and blindly bow down to the creature. In the same scripture to which reference is here made, Paul says the eternal power and Godhead of the Deity are "understood by the things that are made." Rom. 1:20. Or, as the psalmist says, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." Ps 19:1. God provided a safeguard against paganism and heathenism, so that his "wonderful works" may "be remembered." Ps. 111:4. This safeguard is the memorial of the work of his hands, which is the holy Sabbath. Jehovah said, concerning the keeping of the Sabbath, "It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever, in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed." Ex. 31:17. The design and importance of this sign is fully set forth in the following scripture:—"Hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Eze. 20:20. Yes, as the apostle said, the eternal power and Godhead of Jehovah are understood by the things that are made; his works declare his power and glory. But man has neglected the memorial of his work, and therefore has forgotten God. Can the importance of the Sabbath be over-estimated? Now after all their finding fault with us for over-estimating the Sabbath, they will accept our estimate, and grant all that the Scriptures teach of the importance of the Sabbath if we will let it all apply to Sunday. But the fatal difficulty in their way is this: It will not apply to Sunday! Sunday is not the sanctified rest day of the Lord, and the Lord never consecrated it to commemorate anything whatever. Certainly it does not prove the power of God in creating the heavens and the earth. "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." When Paul taught the Athenians who is the true God, he gave the same evidence: "God that made the world, and all things therein." Acts 17:24. Mr. Noble took Isa. 58:13, 14, for his text, and said, of the Sabbath, it is "an institution that runs back to the very morning of the past;" which is true of the Lord's holy Sabbath, but is not true of Sunday. The institution which God honored by himself resting upon it, by blessing it, and sanctifying it as his rest-day,—the Edenic Sabbath, which runs back to that hour when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy," rejoicing in the work of his hands,—is the seventh day, and not Sunday. We see no connection between "Sunday amusements" and Sabbath desecration. But why so tenacious of the seventh day? is still asked. Our answer is given in the very words of Jehovah; it is because "the seventh day is the Sabbath." While we value the Sabbath we must value the seventh day. They are inseparable; they are identical; "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it;" not an institution separable from the seventh day, but the seventh day itself is the thing sanctified. In setting at naught the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord, both the right and the authority of the Creator are disregarded. God says of the seventh day, it "is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," "My holy day," "the holy of the Lord." When he gave to man six days whereon to labor and do all his work, He reserved the seventh day to himself, for his own glory. Who dare dispute his right? And with a voice that shook the very earth, he commanded us to keep it holy. Who shall question his authority, or the reasonableness of the obligation and the requirement? "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.