Exodus 20:10, commentary and pictures

The seventh day is the Lord's own holy time, set apart from the six ordinary working days, and in it no ordinary secular work for profit or pleasure is to be done by the whole household within the gates. It means just as it reads, a definite seventh day, which is Saturday kept from sunset to sunset, not merely one day in seven or any day humans choose. It began in Eden when God made the world in six literal days and rested, blessed and hallowed the seventh, so keeping it commemorates Him as Creator and distinguishes Him from false gods. It stands in the center of the Ten Commandments as enduring moral law, identifying the Lawgiver as Creator and serving as His seal, sign and covenant with His people, unchanged in heaven and not nailed to the cross. The first day is a common working day with no divine sanctity, and its substitution by human and papal authority is a spurious rival, making the true Sabbath the final test of loyalty between the seal of God and the mark of the beast.

Wording and Scope

The seventh day is the Sabbath belonging to the Lord God Himself, His own holy, sanctified, blessed time and specified portion set apart for rest. The first six days are given for labor and for doing all ordinary work, while the seventh commemorates the Creator's rest after six literal days of making the world. It stands unchanged with the same force as when spoken amid lightnings and thunder and written on stone, with nothing abolishing it or moving it to the first day, and keeping a day handed down from heathen and papists instead is trampling the law. It stands in the very bosom of the Decalogue with a brighter light and halo of glory around it than the other nine, placed close beside God and overshadowed and protected by His holiness. It still reads the same on the tables in the ark in the Most Holy Place of the heavenly temple as at Sinai, and loyalty requires sorrow for past transgression and keeping it holy.

In it no work is to be done, with all ordinary labor for a livelihood or for worldly profit suspended and all secular employment laid aside. The prohibition covers ordinary, secular, unnecessary, servile and worldly work for profit, convenience or pleasure, and cannot be set aside for worldly profit or inconvenience even when poor and seeking to support a family. It applies even in the busiest seasons of plowing, earing and harvest, and using its sacred time for work that should have been done beforehand robs God of time reserved for Him. Apparent gain from such work becomes loss, for God's withdrawn blessing can diminish possessions, and He requires heart service and obedience. Its observance distinguishes true worshipers of the Creator from surrounding nations as a continual visible token of connection with God and separation from others, while works of mercy and benevolence to relieve the afflicted and comfort the sorrowing are a labor of love that honors the day and are not limited by time or place.

The rest extends beyond the individual to everyone within the household and gates, to thou, son, daughter, manservant, maidservant, hired help, servants, workers, dependents, cattle, livestock, horses, animals, guests, family, children and the resident stranger. No one under the household's authority is to do ordinary work on it, and keeping it means more than avoiding outward labor, for business thoughts and arrangements that keep a person engaged in work also violate it. Sending children to school when attendance includes study or practical work violates it even when school authorities demand it, so parents must teach obedience, seek arrangement allowing Sabbathkeeping, and let obedience to God take priority over convenience and human demands. The command remains binding on all people as a sign of loyalty and memorial of creation that does not change, and keeping Sunday instead does not fulfill it, nor does unpopularity or loss of influence excuse disobedience. This conflict over the seventh versus the first day will become a test imposed by the two-horned beast.

The verse is part of the fourth commandment of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, the moral law and law of God binding upon men of every age and country, with all mankind under obligation to obey every injunction of the ten precepts. It is definite and explicit, revealing the divine origin of the Sabbath, instituted after creation when God made heaven and earth in six days, rested the seventh and sanctified it, requiring the seventh day and not the first. Replacing it with Sunday dishonors it and treats a human institution as substitute for the Lord's Sabbath, and when human authority demands disobedience God's Word must take precedence even where loyalty conflicts with customs or laws promoting Sunday. It is to be read together with Exodus 31:12-18, which explains the Sabbath commandment, and its truths and role as great memorial and test for this time are to be kept before the people.

Its meaning is just as it reads and too plain to be misunderstood, definite, explicit, plain and specific, to be taken as written. After six days given for labor, it fixes the seventh as the true rest day for thou, son, daughter, manservant, maidservant, cattle and stranger within gates, grounded in God making heaven, earth, sea and all in them in six days, resting the seventh, blessing and hallowing it. Its explanation is complete and leaves no one without guidance or in darkness unless choosing darkness, and truth concerning it is learned from the Bible alone, from words spoken by the Creator, not from fathers or human agency, leaving no room for uncertain suppositions. Anyone willing to keep it if shown duty must search Scripture with earnest desire, pray for opened understanding, and ask for a mind willing to grasp every ray of light even when opposed to past belief, for it is part of God's revealed will to be done by believers. Placing the first day where the seventh should be and making laws compelling its observance honors a false rest day, dishonors the Creator, tramples His Sabbath, disregards His commands and brings condemnation.

The specified seventh day is Saturday, identifiable from the Bible and the calendar, with the Italian name for the seventh day, il Sabato, meaning the Sabbath, and the custom of beginning the day at sunset helping explain when observance begins. Sunday, the first day, is not the Sabbath and has no sanctity, and honoring a different institution in its place breaks the fourth commandment and does not keep the commanded day. The Sabbath's timing is not uncertain, for it is God's holy rest day set apart as memorial of creation in six literal days, made for the whole world and observed when the seventh arrives according to the sun's cycle in each country. Where sunrise or sunset is absent for months its timing is calculated from records, so obedience is required in a way consistent with circumstances of the created world. It is God's enduring law not to be changed, given for a thousand generations whose time has not ended, so denial of its requirements denies Him, and keeping the sanctified day brings blessing not found in Sunday and leads toward entrance into the city.

The command requires a definite seventh day in the weekly cycle, not merely one day in seven or any seventh part of time or any humanly chosen day. It sets apart that exact day which God sanctified and blessed, definite and explicit in requiring no work, placed in the very bosom of the Decalogue, with transgression as sacred a matter as any other precept and as guilty as stealing, murder or adultery, which God's mercy does not excuse. Treating creation days and God's rest as indefinite ages makes the commandment senseless and weakens its claim. Withholding the only day God set apart robs Him even when claimed to harm no fellow man and to be between soul and God alone, and following world, great men, good men or majority in keeping Sunday does not change obligation. Knowing light then trampling it while teaching by word and example it is of no consequence makes one a breaker of one of the least commandments and called least, whom God cannot save in knowing transgression any sooner than thief, murderer or adulterer. It is a positive command, which is why the seventh rather than Sunday is kept, a definite day to be observed not an uncertain one, as sign of loyalty continuing through future generations and among the redeemed from Sabbath to Sabbath.

God Himself spoke about what day to keep so there is no uncertainty, and He has put His own holiness upon that Sabbath and gives it to those who observe it. It is the day He set apart and sanctified as rest for mankind, marked with His own signature, to be observed as long as time lasts. He set it apart as holy and gave it to people to keep holy, so obeying it with His commands honors Him on earth. Scripture should be searched to understand which day He sanctified, and knowing brings responsibility to be obedient, for a day He did not sanctify cannot take its place through human law, and laws promoting such change oppose His authority. Keeping it testifies to love for Christ, for it is the day He blessed and sanctified because He rested on it.

Origin at Creation

The Sabbath began in Eden at creation, when the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy, instituted before the fall and before the Jewish people existed, given to Adam and Eve for all their posterity. It was not new at Sinai but recalled a day already known, a weekly memorial of the Creator's work and rest calling people to honor Him as Maker. The seventh day belongs to the Lord as His own sacred rest, set apart at creation and placed in the heart of the Ten Commandments, its validity confirmed by the manna and its sacredness proclaimed at Sinai.

In six literal days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all things therein, all useful and beautiful things, ended His work, rested on the seventh day, was refreshed, and blessed and hallowed and sanctified it. The first six days are given for labor, and rest on the seventh commemorates the Creator's rest after those six literal days of creation. The command covers the whole household within the gates and grounds the rest in God making the world in six days, resting on the seventh, and blessing and hallowing that day.

The creation days were six literal days of labor followed by a literal seventh day of rest, and the Sabbath command in Exodus 20:8-11 depends on that literal week. Treating the creation days and God's day of rest as vast indefinite periods or ages makes the command for literal weekly rest senseless, obscure, and undermines its force. Otherwise the command would call people to observe a week of seven literal days in memory of seven unlike indefinite periods.

The recurring weekly cycle of sevens and the requirement to number by sevens was appointed so that people would not forget God as Creator who made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh. God set the day apart and blessed it and conferred special honors upon it by sanctifying it and commanding it to be kept holy, and its special honor calls people to remember Him as Creator. Treating the day lightly is transgression whose reward is death.

The word Remember points back to that Eden origin and warns against forgetting its sacred importance or excusing obedience because of cares, perplexities, and worldly business in the press of life. It is the only commandment so prefixed. The reason given is full so none need be in darkness unless choosing darkness: God surveyed His work of creation, saw it was very good, rested on the seventh day, and man is to keep it holy because God Himself rested on that day.

The Sabbath was observed by Adam and Eve before the fall and continued to be observed by them after expulsion from Eden, and by the patriarchs from Abel through Jacob. Loyal obedient children of Adam revered the Sabbath, while Cain and his descendants disregarded the day of God's rest and chose their own times for work and rest. Their experience taught that disobeying God's commands brings the declared punishment.

Its knowledge was lost during bondage in Egypt and was restored in the wilderness, taught by the weekly manna miracle with a double portion on the sixth day and none on the seventh, with special directions recorded for all to the close of time. Israel had lost knowledge of the Sabbath and of the Creator in bondage, and God gave the law in the wilderness to restore that knowledge. The command was not new at Sinai but recalled a Sabbath already known.

The Sabbath was founded when the foundations of the earth were laid. It uniquely marks the living God as Creator of heaven and earth, and faithful continual keeping would have guarded the world from idolatry, unbelief, atheism and infidelity and kept the knowledge of God alive. Had man always kept the blessed and sanctified day there would never have been an infidel, idolater, atheist or unbeliever.

Giving at Sinai

The command was spoken by God Himself at Sinai with awful solemnity, amid lightnings and thunder, trumpet voice, cloud and tempest, thick darkness, smoking and quaking mountain and devouring fire, after Israel came out of Egypt in the third month and encamped before the mount and promised to obey His voice and keep His covenant. It was given by Christ Jesus Himself, the Teacher speaking in human flesh, with both Father and Son upon Sinai's holy mount. It declares the seventh day to be the Sabbath of the LORD thy God and forbids any work in it by thou, son, daughter, manservant, maidservant, cattle, and stranger within the gates, as part of the ten commandments which are the plain and clear law of God's kingdom and expression of the character of the Sovereign of the universe, proclaimed so all mankind might clearly understand the whole duty of man. It stands unchanged with the same force as when spoken on the mount and written on stone, with nothing abolishing it or moving it to the first day, and its inscription by God on stone marks the law as enduring, grounded in creation when God made heaven and earth in six days, rested the seventh, and blessed and made it holy. It must be studied and set before the people in full detail, in jots and tittles, as needed now just as verily as Israel needed it in the days of Moses, belonging to the laws written in a book that guard against injustice and guide dealings so contention ceases and hearts are softened to love as brethren.

It was proclaimed because Israel had witnessed idolatry in Egypt, had confused ideas of God's law, and had failed when proved after the Red Sea deliverance by murmuring and wishing to return to Egypt, leaving them without excuse. God delivered Israel from Egypt so they could keep this Eden law, and His own proclamation showed its sacredness, importance, and authority and called the people to obey. The moral law already existed before Sinai and was not made new there, yet God condescended to come down and speak it with audible voice in hearing of all, making the mountain sacred so neither man nor beast might touch it on penalty of death, teaching that everything connected with God must be regarded with greatest reverence. He accompanied its declaration with sublime exhibitions of power, with thunder and flame and great power and glory, His voice like a trumpet waxing louder and rolling down the mountain, the mountain smoking as a furnace and quaking greatly and the earth trembling, while the people shook with fear and fell on their faces, to impress profound veneration for the Author so the scene would never be forgotten and to show all men the sacredness and importance of His law. It was then to be held in highest regard and lived by, especially by physicians, for living by it with the rest of the Sinai laws keeps from loose manners and carelessness about chastity, so that all who live by these laws may be safely trusted.

It was written by His own finger on tables of stone so it would not be forgotten or corrupted, signifying permanence, kept in the ark beneath the mercy seat behind the second veil. The fourth commandment stands with the ten placed close beside God and overshadowed and protected by His holiness, shining with brighter light than the other nine with a halo of glory around it. Breaking it by keeping a day handed down from heathen and papists instead of the day God sanctified is trampling God's law and transgression calling for humbling before God and mourning over past sin, while the Sabbath day of rest has not been changed.

The law was spoken audibly because He would not trust its teaching even to angels, so short memory, tradition, and practices of men could not mingle with or confuse its requirements. It was spoken by God Himself while enshrouded in glory and surrounded by angels, and again understood as spoken while enshrouded in thick cloud, distinctly and with solemn impressiveness. Keeping it is part of perfect obedience God requires, by which love for the Supreme Ruler is revealed and self purified even as He is pure, as one of the provisions made against sin.

The ten precepts were given for all people and all mankind, not for Israel only, setting out in detail duties of love toward God and neighbor. Israel was brought out of Egypt to be a peculiar treasure and was greatly exalted to be made its depositary to preserve and hand it down to those upon whom the ends of the world are come, and their entire history was written for admonition. Giving these commandments was a special honor to Israel, whom God chose as His own people because He loved them and kept His promise to their ancestors, not because they were numerous, and the command was proclaimed to Israel at Sinai during their wilderness journey. The ten, spoken by God's voice and engraven on stone, endure through all time, unlike specific social and religious rules given through Moses for Israel which embraced their principles, and general transgression does not lessen sin, for God holds every man responsible for every precept.

The judgments and statutes Moses wrote at God's bidding supplied definite directions guarding the commandments, simplifying principles so erring man prone to transgress need not err, including duty to one another and to the stranger. Moses wrote those judgments and statutes from the mouth of God while with Him in the mount, with minute directions to draw erring man back to obedience of the moral law. The principles were not fully understood by Israel after slavery, so additional precepts were given to explain and apply the commandments' obligations, and Moses communicated those precepts to the people. The Sabbath is God's Sabbath given as sign between Him and His people that they might know He is the LORD who sanctifies them, and greatly polluting it by rebellion, by not walking in His statutes and despising His judgments, shows open contempt for the Lawgiver bringing guilt deserving death.

The moral law already existed before Sinai and was not made new there but spoken with audible voice in hearing of all while enshrouded in thick cloud, distinctly and solemnly, to impress veneration so the scene would never be forgotten. God came down upon Sinai in fire and glory amid thunder and flame with trumpet voice growing louder, with earthquake and smoke like a furnace, making the mountain sacred and holy, and the awful grandeur accompanied the declaration to impress profound veneration for the Author and the sacredness and exalted character and importance of the law. Its place among the Ten Commandments shows it belongs to God's sacred law entrusted to Israel to preserve and pass on, not a law given exclusively to Israel.

The Sabbath command was given amid display of divine power and glory, and was kept as sacred by John on Patmos as when he preached among the people, the solid-rock tablets signifying permanence of its precepts and the law being unchangeable. The seventh day is the Lord's day, the Sabbath of creation, the day God sanctified and blessed, and the day on which Christ by His angel showed John the things that must come to pass before the close of the world's history.

Memorial of Creation

Keeping the seventh day commemorates creation, honors God as Creator, recognizes duty to Him, and directs people to worship the true and living God. The command identifies the seventh day as the Lord's Sabbath and requires no work by anyone in the household, including children, servants, hired help, and strangers within the gates, or by cattle and livestock, because God made heaven and earth, the sea and all useful and beautiful things in them in six days, rested on the seventh, was refreshed, and blessed, hallowed, sanctified and set it apart. It was not new at Sinai but recalled a Sabbath already known, made by Christ with the Father, helping people remember Christ's love and power as Creator. It is also His sign between Him and His people and the seal of the living God, and replacing it with a day chosen by human authority destroys its sacredness and obscures the memorial of the Creator.

It keeps ever present the true reason worship belongs to God because He is Creator and humans are His creatures, defines and identifies the true God as Maker of heaven and earth and sea and fountains of waters, distinguishes Him from false gods, idols and heathen deities, and His creative power proves His superiority and claim to reverence. It lies at the very foundation of all divine worship by teaching the distinction between Creator and creatures, a truth that can never become obsolete or be forgotten, established in Eden to keep this truth before human minds and continuing as its sign and memorial as long as God's creatorship remains a reason to worship Him. Keeping it shows loyalty to the true God, and the final message commanding worship of God and obedience to His commandments especially calls people to keep this fourth commandment. The fourth commandment is the only one pointing to God as Creator and stating definitely who God is, declaring to the whole universe, to worlds unfallen and to the fallen world, that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, giving evidence that leaves no standing room for skepticism, materialism, and science attempting to explain creation and life. If universally kept it would lead thoughts and affections to the Creator as the object of reverence and worship and leave no idolater, atheist or infidel, while Satan works to obliterate this memorial and the papal power ignores it by arrogating power to change times and laws.

It directs thoughts and affections to the Maker, keeps the Creator in remembrance through nature testifying to His power and love, and keeps God as source of life before people as the one to revere and worship. Faithful keeping would prevent idolatry, atheism, unbelief and infidelity, and continual observance would have guarded people from them. Its place in God's immutable law distinguishes the true God from false gods, and the historical effort to exalt Sunday and diminish the Sabbath is a challenge to this commandment and to God's authority. Keeping it signifies worship of the living God as Creator of heaven and earth, serving as the link between God and humanity given for humanity's benefit and God's honor, and as a sign between God and His people for as long as He has a people on earth to serve Him.

Its observance calls people to contemplate God's works and goodness, mercy and love. Resting means looking at the work of His hands and remembering His mighty power and wonderful goodness, for by this commandment God is pointed out as above all other gods because He is the Creator of all things. Its purpose includes turning people to behold the Creator's glory in the works of creation, and on this day people should especially study God's messages in nature and Christ's parables in their natural settings. Its rest recalls that God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, and gives people reason to behold the evidence of His wisdom and respond to their Maker with love and reverence.

Humanity is to follow the divine example by laying aside labor and secular pursuits, devoting the day to rest, worship, spiritual growth and sacred meditation, reflecting on earth and heaven as proofs of infinite wisdom until the heart fills with love and reverence. The Sabbath was instituted in Eden before the fall and was observed by Adam and Eve and the angels, made for humanity after humanity's creation to meet human necessity and benefit, not to make people serve the day, and it will never be abolished but the redeemed and angels will keep it forever in honor of the Creator. God gave His own rest as the example for man made in His image to follow by putting by labor and engaging in no secular pursuits on that day but worshiping Him, with all unnecessary work strictly forbidden even in the busiest seasons of earing time and harvest. The day before is to be a day of preparation so everything is ready for its sacred hours, and the rest is for looking upon earth and heaven and directing thoughts to Him who made all wonderful and beautiful things, and for remembering that temporal blessings come from the Creator who can increase or diminish them according to faithfulness. It was given to the world at creation when the morning stars sang and the sons of God shouted for joy, that mankind might ever remember that God created the world in six days and might remember Him as the true and living God.

The very day on which God rested must be kept to observe the true memorial, just as the fourth of July is kept in commemoration of national independence. Resting on the day God appointed honors Him as Creator, while treating another day as interchangeable disregards His command and the day He blessed and sanctified as a memorial of creation and makes a breach in that law. The Sabbath is an institution as old as the world, the rest day of Jehovah, whose Sabbath is to be brought before all nations, tongues, and people as part of God's law requiring obedience to the seventh day.

Forgetting, moving or replacing it obscures knowledge of God, destroys its significance and helps obscure Him, while obedience would lead to recognizing and honoring His power. The Sabbath is the Creator's memorial preserving knowledge of the true God who made heaven and earth in six days, rested on the seventh, and blessed and made the Sabbath holy, identifying the God the Hebrews worship as above all other gods, not a god of wood or stone made by men's hands but the living God. Keeping it expresses allegiance to God and does not make His commandments void, while disregarding this commandment means taking a side against God in the controversy over His law. It is a day to cease from labor and rest in peace while contemplating God as Creator, beholding God's glory in the works of creation and studying the messages God has written in nature and Christ's parables in the natural settings where He spoke them. Keeping it holy does not require staying indoors or shutting oneself off from nature, for walking in fields and forests and viewing the beauty of creation can help people know God and see His love, since the command and its limits are intended for the happiness of God's children. It was burdened with human rules that God had never specified, until its sacred character was obscured and it was made an exacting yoke of bondage rather than a blessing.

It testifies to the world and to heavenly intelligences that He made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. Bringing the Sabbath to attention is how God proves the human family today, the same test as the prohibition in Eden, with the same instruction as given to Israel, though church and world join in confederacy to do the work God prohibited in it and disobey it with impunity. It is to be sustained in obedience to God's rule even when doing so brings inconvenience or trial, identifying the true and living God as the one to recognize and serve. God gives six days for work and claims the seventh for worship, reflection on the Creator's works, and praise for His goodness and love, and keeping it preserves knowledge of God as Creator and marks His people as distinct from those who refuse to honor Him as a sign of His love and kindness and an assurance of blessing in obedience. The Sabbath is the day God sanctified as the memorial of creation, a day for reverencing and worshiping Him, whose observance by people from other nations who join themselves to the Lord marks their commitment to God's covenant and their place among His people as part of yielding themselves to Him and keeping His law.

Authority and Permanence

The law containing this verse binds people of every age and in every country, with all mankind under obligation to obey every injunction of the ten precepts, enduring, immutable and unchangeable with not one command annulled and not a jot or tittle changed. The seventh day named is the Sabbath belonging to the Lord God, in which work is forbidden to every person and household including children, servants, cattle and strangers, and its blessing that first hallowed it has never been removed. There is no scriptural evidence that the fourth commandment has been abolished or that the Sabbath has been changed to the first day, and keeping the seventh day holy is loyalty while disregarding it to observe the first day is transgression calling for sorrow.

It belongs to the perfect law that reveals God's will and the principles of His government, expressing the character and authority of the Sovereign of the universe and covering the whole duty of man. That perfect law serves as the standard of righteousness in the judgment, where obedience is prerequisite of salvation and its principles determine the sentence of life or death and decide the destiny of every soul. It must be studied and set before people in full detail, in jots and tittles, needed now as verily as Israel needed it in the days of Moses, and keeping it in truth and righteousness means obeying every command.

The law is the transcript of His character, revealing His beauty, majesty, justice, goodness, wisdom and holiness, unchangeable as the eternal throne. It was proclaimed by Christ Himself amid thunder and flame on Sinai with displays of divine power and glory to impress its sacredness, importance and permanence, its obligations part of far-reaching principles explained more fully by additional instructions. Its precepts were framed by God rather than by human mind or Moses, its first table defining duty to God within the moral code that sets foundation principles for His subjects, and Israel's prosperity depended on obedience.

The verse stands in the very bosom and center of the Decalogue, on the first table above the six on the other table, made specially significant by its place. It shines with a brighter light than the other nine with a halo of glory around it because set apart to honor God's holy name, placed close beside God and overshadowed and protected by His holiness. It declares the seventh day to be the Sabbath of the Lord thy God and forbids any work in it, placing the requirement on the individual and the whole household and dependents.

The fourth commandment identifies the Lawgiver by name and title and serves as the seal of His law and sign of His rightful authority over beings He made. It is the only precept pointing to God as Creator of heaven and earth and stating definitely who God is, giving proof that He is the true and living God as Maker who rested, blessed and hallowed, whose superiority is seen in the heavens. Keeping it shows allegiance and signifies worship of the only true God, while taking God's time for work or teaching disregard brings accountability.

The Sabbath is a sign between God and His people for as long as He has a people on earth, a lasting perpetual covenant identifying Him as their God who sanctifies them. Keeping it shows loyalty and bears His seal, distinguishing true worshipers and worshipers of the Creator from surrounding nations, the disobedient and unbelievers. It lies at the foundation of divine worship by teaching the distinction between Creator and creatures, a truth that can never become obsolete, and refusing to work on it is a sign of loyalty for present and eternal good.

The seventh day stands unchanged in heaven, still reading the same on the tables of stone in the ark in the Most Holy Place of the heavenly temple as when delivered at Sinai, not altered to the first day. The earthly ark is exact transcript of the heavenly, and its wording still appoints the seventh day, not the first. The change from seventh to first was made by the Pope, and to receive its blessing then give it up shuts the gates of the Holy City.

The ten are like links of a chain to be kept together, with God requiring obedience not to nine-tenths but to every one of the ten precepts with willing obedience. Violation of this one makes one a commandment-breaker guilty of all, equal in obligation to the laws against stealing, murder and adultery, with no difference allowing one precept to be disregarded with impunity while the rest are respected. To violate it is to join Satan's rebellion against God's law, where every transgressor must die, and as Adam and Eve lost Eden for the forbidden fruit so transgression brings retribution. The claim that Christ's rising on the first day changed the Sabbath is a device to corrupt this one commandment by covering plain will with error and tradition, while God keeps faithful witnesses who keep all.

No power has authority to change that law, and doing so defies God as Ruler of the world. Setting it aside and exalting the first day to be observed by all insults God, profanes His holy day and assumes authority as gods, usurping an authority that infringes upon His divine prerogatives. Framing a law for a spurious Sabbath bearing no sanctity and compelling obedience brings His displeasure, for to obey that human law compels transgression of Jehovah's laws, and all human enactments conflicting with God's laws bear not the stamp of divine approval.

The Sabbath was not nailed to the cross, for if it were the other nine were also nailed and all could be broken. It contains nothing showing abolition or change to the first day, reading unchanged as when spoken in solemn grandeur and written by His finger and placed close by Jehovah. Christ's sacrifice vindicates rather than cancels its claims, confirming its changelessness and making keeping possible.

The Sabbath command stands immutable, magnified and made honorable by Christ's death, allowing no compromise for petty temporal interests and no partial obedience or divided interest. It belongs to the Decalogue distinguished from ceremonial observances and types that met antitype and passed away in the one great offering for sin. Jesus giving His cruel shameful death to save man from curse and penalty merited by transgression proves the law cannot be changed, and by virtue of His blood man can keep it including the Sabbath and be brought back to the tree Adam forfeited, as part of the golden link uniting finite man to the infinite God.

The verse belongs to the first four commandments outlining duty to the Maker in supreme love, joined to love for neighbor. Faithfulness in this commandment decides faithfulness to neighbors, for one false to God cannot be true to neighbor, and one who loves God supremely will love neighbor as self. Keeping it opposes pride that lifts itself to vanity and makes a god of self, and belongs to the gospel of Christ that sanctifies the soul by expelling self-love. The ten were spoken by God's voice and engraven on stone for all mankind enduring through all time, central among regulations defining duty to God and fellow men as the golden link uniting finite to Infinite.

Once Sabbath light has been received, rejecting it brings greater condemnation than breaking the other nine.

True Day Versus Counterfeit

The seventh day alone is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, and no work is to be done in it by person, sons and daughters, servants, cattle, or strangers within the gates, because God Himself spoke which day to keep and put His own holiness upon that Sabbath for those who observe it. That specified seventh day cannot be replaced by the first day, the sixth day, any other common day, or any humanly chosen day, for it is the specific day God sanctified and rested upon and it is too plain to be misunderstood. Calling the first day the Sabbath does not make it the seventh day God specified, keeping it does not keep the day set apart, and the fourth commandment is to be obeyed as written. Treating another day as equally sacred insults the Creator and disregards His explicit command, and placing the first day where the seventh should be and compelling its observance honors a false rest day, dishonors the Creator, tramples His Sabbath, and brings condemnation.

The first day of the week has no sanctity specified by God and is not identified as the Sabbath He will honor, but is a common working day given for ordinary business. There is no scriptural command, testimony, or sanction from Christ or His apostles for it, not even in honor of the resurrection, and its observance has its origin in apostasy. Substituting Sunday rests on human, papal, and Catholic authority handed down from heathen and papists, on tradition and church authority and not on Scripture. The Catholic Church claims to have substituted Sunday as the sign of her authority to ordain feasts and to legislate in divine things, so that those who keep the first day recognize that power.

The attempt to change fulfills prophecy that the papal power, the man of sin, would think to change times and laws, authorized only by church authority. Law-making is God's prerogative alone and no one can change His law, yet tampering with the Sabbath founded at creation when the foundations of the earth were laid is the work of the man of sin, followed by the Christian world in dressing up Sunday in Christian garb. Replacing the consecrated seventh day with another day changes a divine institution and sets human authority above God and above all that is called God or that is worshiped. Changing rest from seventh to first throws down the memorial of creation and part of the foundation of God's government and exalts in its place a day God has not sanctified. That breaks the law of Jehovah, makes the commandment of none effect, brings His law into contempt, puts an affront upon the Majesty of heaven, and joins the enemy in trying to destroy that foundation. Those who have done this will in the day of judgment be brought face to face with their work, be asked who required this at their hands and why they did it, and will have no excuse for cooperating with the enemy.

Sunday sacredness is a spurious rival sabbath instituted by Satan to counterwork God's purposes. Resting on the first day instead of the seventh bears false witness to the world about the creation memorial, while keeping the seventh honors God's law and upholds it. The claim that the law was abolished at the cross and that the first day became holy in place of the Sabbath contradicts the commandment. In the early fourth century Sunday was made a public festival throughout the Roman empire to unite heathenism and Christianity, and was gradually regarded as possessing sacredness. At first all Christians still held the true Sabbath as the holy of the Lord and observed it in obedience to the fourth commandment, with Sunday still regarded as a day of recreation where religious services were held. Then in church councils the Sabbath God had instituted was pressed down lower while Sunday was correspondingly exalted, until the pagan festival was honored as a divine institution while the Bible Sabbath was pronounced a relic of Judaism and its observers were declared accursed, with the Sabbath despised as a Jewish institution and turned into a fast of sadness and gloom to show hatred of Judaism. In Scotland an edict even joined Sunday observance to part of the ancient Sabbath by requiring Saturday from noon through Monday morning to be kept from worldly business.

The churches of Africa observed the seventh day by abstaining from labor, while abstaining from work on Sunday only according to church custom. When Rome gained control it forced them to set aside the true Sabbath and observe Sunday, and after regaining independence they returned to obedience to the fourth commandment. For many centuries beyond the limits of Romish jurisdiction bodies of Christians remained almost wholly free from papal corruption by holding to this faith and practice, even while surrounded by heathenism, including churches in Central Africa and among the Armenians of Asia. The Sabbath of the fourth commandment, hallowed by the Creator's rest and blessing, has been kept from the patriarchs onward, kept by Adam in Eden before and after the fall and by the patriarchs from Abel through Jacob, proclaimed to Israel when delivered from Egypt, and preserved through later generations. Even during the supremacy of the power that trampled on the Sabbath, faithful people honored the Creator's rest day in secret, and since the Reformation believers have continued to keep it despite reproach and persecution. In every age God had witnesses who hallowed the true Sabbath and maintained it in purity from age to age as a sacred heritage for generations to come, together with faith in Christ as the only mediator between God and man and the Bible as the only rule of life. The Waldenses kept this true Sabbath through ages of persecution, refusing to yield this distinctive truth, though branded as heretics, with impugned motives, maligned characters, and suppressed, misrepresented, or mutilated writings.

To disregard the seventh day and honor the first day is to trample the Sabbath of the Lord underfoot and to honor an institution of the Papacy. To honor the papal, rival, spurious, false sabbath made by men and taken up by the Protestant world where the seventh should be, in preference to the Sabbath of the Lord, is to make void the memorial of God and set it aside as a thing of naught to be despised. It gives sanction to her fornication and drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and there the man of sin is exalted above the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Refusing this Word and accepting Sunday, a child of the Papacy bearing not a vestige of sanctity yet set up before the people to be regarded as sacred like Nebuchadnezzar's golden image, is doing what Satan wishes and showing respect to a day exalted by the enemy of God. Setting aside God's memorial and placing the human institution of the papal sabbath where it should be is transgression and arrogantly seizing God's power to change His signpost so it points the wrong way.

Keeping Sunday handed down by heathen and papists instead of the sanctified seventh day is trampling upon the fourth commandment, which stands unchanged with the same force as when spoken upon the mount amid flashing lightnings and rolling thunders and written by His own finger on tables of stone placed close by Jehovah. It contains nothing showing the Sabbath abolished or changed to the first day, and disregarding it to observe the first day instead is transgression calling for humbling before God and mourning over past sin. It makes a real difference which day is kept, for choosing otherwise is like Adam eating the forbidden fruit after God told him not to, and such disobedience transgresses God's command and brings terrible consequences. Even keeping the first day for the resurrection substitutes human invention for obedience, since Scripture gives no sanction for it in honor of the resurrection.

To trample that sanctified holy time belonging to God and put the first day in its place on human authority robs God of His holy time every week, makes a breach in His holy law, and exalts the changer as equal with God and above God. The fourth commandment has been torn down and covered up to make men forget God, and the divine seventh-day Sabbath must not be trampled for the spurious first day. The time has fully come for the people of God to make up that breach and build up the waste places by restoring the seventh-day rest to its rightful place in the law and presenting it to the world. The seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the test for this time and a great memorial, and all connected with it is to be kept before the people.

Prophecy and Final Test

The seventh day Sabbath is the test for this time, a test of loyalty to God and a boundary between the faithful and transgressors, the seal of the living God and the sign of His authority, the separating wall between the true Israel of God and unbelievers and the great question uniting the hearts of God's waiting saints. It stands unchanged in heaven, still reading the same on the tables of stone in the ark in the Most Holy Place of the heavenly temple as when delivered at Sinai, not altered to the first day, shining brighter than the other nine with a halo of glory because set apart to honor God's holy name. It was not nailed to the cross, for if it were the other nine were also nailed and all could be broken, and God has not changed it because He never changes. To receive its blessing and then give it up and break it shuts the gates of the Holy City. The truths connected with it and its role as a great memorial are to be kept before the people, and those who keep God's commandments must honor its claims rather than reduce them to fit business needs or personal convenience.

Keeping the true Sabbath in obedience to God's law is evidence of allegiance to divine authority and leads to the seal of God, while knowingly choosing a false Sabbath in defiance of the commandment signifies allegiance to an earthly power opposed to God. Those who understand the commandment's claim but choose Sunday in its place pay homage to the power that commands observance of that false Sabbath. In the final test the Sabbath becomes the point of truth that distinguishes those who serve God from those who do not, the two choices being linked with receiving either the seal of God or the mark of the beast. Each person must have enough light to make that choice knowingly, for God does not bring His wrath on anyone until the truth has reached mind and conscience and been rejected, and everyone who wants to know the truth will have enough light to decide knowingly.

Its importance shone out after Jesus opened the door into the Most Holy Place in 1844 where the ark stands, and God's people are being tried on it just as the children of Israel were tested anciently. The test began when light shone after His entering, given to the disappointed ones after the proclamation of the second advent down to the passing of the time in 1844, with the third angel pointing upward showing the way to the holiest of the heavenly sanctuary. By faith entering there where Jesus pleads His blood before the mercy-seat shows the Sabbath command still binding, with its rest from work for household, servants, cattle and stranger, to be embraced with fresh courage on the onward course to the golden gates of the city of God. Keeping it is loyalty to the God of high heaven against apostasy, and gives right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city and is part of keeping God's commandments marking those who will enter God's kingdom. Christians who died before light was given upon the law and the claims of the fourth commandment were not guilty of violating it but rest in hope, while sufficient light has now been given to learn duty and privilege and to be holy and happy, with warning sent to arouse neglect before Christ comes to judge in righteousness.

The Sabbath question is the great testing question for this time, and the true Sabbath must be presented to minds in contrast to the false sabbath so all may choose between them. It must never be forced on the conscience, for God never forces the conscience and compelling observance is Satan's work, and until the fullness of time God's people must wait patiently and must not snatch at power or compel anyone else to observe the law. When efforts are made to enforce Sunday observance, that pressure opens the opportunity to present the Sabbath of the fourth commandment before legislative assemblies and leading men of the nation, where if it does not convert them it stands as a witness to condemn. God's plan is that agitation of the Sunday question brings knowledge of the truth upon the Sabbath question before many minds as a witness and brings the first-day sabbath and its weak foundation before the world. In the important crisis just before us there will be two distinct parties, the one elevating the standard of truth and the Sabbath, the other trampling under foot the law of God and lifting up the spurious sabbath, developing two classes and revealing every heart with one party gathered as loyal to God and His commandments and the other as transgressors under the first great rebel, ripening the world for harvest.

A confederacy of Protestantism with the papacy will urge Sunday worldwide, seek to trample the Sabbath, and make law to compel observance and force conscience, bringing persecution and conflict with national laws binding conscience. In the warfare to be waged in the last days between Christ's followers and all the united corrupt powers apostatized from allegiance to Jehovah's law, the Sabbath commandment will be the great point at issue because there the great Law-giver identifies Himself as Creator of heaven and earth. Satan comes to God's people with the laws of nations in his hands demanding worship under threat of withdrawing protection and offering bribes as he offered Christ the kingdoms of the world, while many make the Sabbath void treating it as naught and the spurious sabbath, child of the papacy, is exalted with laws of the man of sin elevated in place of God's laws to receive universal homage as the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar did. Near the close of earth's history Satan strives to make himself god, to speak and act like God and control consciences, by placing a human Sunday institution in the position of God's rest-day to counterwork God's purposes. Those who keep this Sabbath will refuse demands to observe Sunday and will be persecuted for honoring God's commandments, facing unjust treatment when human laws exalting the rival sabbath are placed above God's law.

In the coming time of trouble a decree will go forth requiring all to disregard this Sabbath and honor the first day or lose their lives, to disregard the seventh day and honor the first day as an institution of Papacy. The faithful will earnestly cry and agonize day and night for deliverance and will not yield even when Satan's host and wicked men surround them and exult over them as having no way of escape. God will in a wonderful manner preserve them and answer with peal upon peal of thunder as He utters His voice from His holy habitation, vindicating loyalty to His holy law when He delivers and glorifies them. Observing that Sabbath may bring great suffering when a false sabbath is established by law and made a test, but God's faithful servants are to remain true to His requirements and need not fear the conflict's outcome, even when unjust judges refuse to listen to reasons for obedience and condemn the loyal as worthy of death.

Enforcing Sunday by law and placing the first day where the seventh should be honors a false rest day in place of the true, dishonors the Creator of heaven and earth, tramples God's Sabbath underfoot, disregards His commands and brings His condemnation. The requirement fixing the seventh day as the true rest day following six days given for labor is too plain to be misunderstood, commanding remembering to keep holy with no work by person, son, daughter, manservant, maidservant, cattle or stranger within gates. The seventh day alone holds this place as God's sign of authority grounded in creative power, the only precept pointing to God as Creator distinguishing the true God from false gods, instituted to keep minds directed to the true and living God. Sunday observance when enforced by law is the mark of the beast in contrast to the Sabbath as seal of the living God, and framing a law for a spurious Sabbath and compelling obedience brings the Lord's displeasure and compels transgression of Jehovah's laws.

Once the world is enlightened concerning the obligation of the true Sabbath and Sunday observance is enforced by law, the issue is plainly set before the people as a choice between the commandments of God and the commandments of men. Whoever then transgresses the command of God to obey a precept which has no higher authority than that of Rome honors popery above God, pays homage to Rome and to the power enforcing the institution ordained by Rome, and worships the beast and his image. By rejecting the institution God declared to be the sign of His authority and honoring in its stead that which Rome has chosen as token of her supremacy, such a person accepts the sign of allegiance to Rome, the mark of the beast, and it is not until men are thus brought to choose that those who continue in transgression receive the mark. When the decree goes forth enforcing the counterfeit sabbath the line will be clearly drawn between false and true, and that period is rapidly approaching when Protestant churches unite with secular power to sustain false religion and the papal sabbath is enforced by combined church and State authority ending only in national ruin.

God accepts the sincerity of purpose and integrity of those in past generations and now in every church who honestly believe Sunday is of divine appointment and observe it supposing they are keeping the Bible Sabbath. True Christians in every church, not excepting the Roman Catholic communion, who do not know the origin of Sunday and keep it believing it is God's sanctified day are accepted in ignorance and sincerity, have not yet received the mark of the beast because the testing time has not yet come, and no one is condemned until having the light and seeing the obligation. People who keep Sunday without understanding the issue have not received that mark. But when light falls on their pathway God requires them to come into harmony with His law by observing the Sabbath of His appointing, distinct from Sunday as the day of the sun devoted to heathen sun worship cherished by Rome and clothed in garments of sanctity.

At the final deliverance in the time of trouble, when God speaks from heaven with a voice like many waters that shakes heaven and earth to announce the day and hour of Jesus' coming and to deliver the everlasting covenant to His people, He pronounces a never-ending blessing on those who honored Him by keeping His Sabbath holy. They answer with a mighty shout of victory over the beast and over his image, their faces lighted up with the glory of God. In the crowning final deception Satan himself will appear among men as Christ in dazzling brightness and claim to have changed that Sabbath to Sunday, commanding all to hallow the day he has blessed. He will declare that those who persist in keeping the seventh day holy blaspheme his name by refusing to listen to his angels sent with light and truth, a strong almost overmastering delusion to which multitudes from least to greatest will give heed as the great power of God.

The verse gives special present truth adapted to the conditions of the last generations living upon earth in relation to the closing scenes of its history. The light now shining in regard to the Sabbath is a test to the people of this generation, and those who enjoy that privilege and light are accountable for it, while people of generations far back were not tested by it and were not responsible for light they did not have, because all are judged according to the measure of light given and every fact concerning salvation is made so clear none need err or walk in darkness. God has children who do not yet see and keep it because they have not rejected its light, but at the commencement of the time of trouble the Sabbath will be proclaimed more fully in the Holy Ghost. Then God's chosen will see clearly that Sabbath keepers have the truth and will come out and endure persecution with them, though proclaiming it enrages churches and nominal Adventists because they cannot refute it, and the wicked will blame Sabbath keepers for sword, famine, pestilence and confusion and take counsel to rid the earth of them thinking evil will then be stayed. The Sabbath is the test today as Christ was a test to the Jews, and rejecting God's holy memorial decides fate as rejection of the Son decided the destiny of Jerusalem, destroyed forty years after His prediction with more than a million perishing in the siege.

Doctrine and Other Scripture

Christ Himself proclaimed the law at Sinai and is Lord of the Sabbath, having made the day sacred for the worship of angels and people, and its claims are not made optional by convenience or by any supposed difference between Jewish and Christian dispensations. He is the Creator of man and the living representative of perfect obedience, taking human flesh into vital union with divinity to pass over the same ground where Adam fell and to bear the test upon which the first parents failed. He knew the meaning and far-reaching claims of its precepts and revealed the law in its true light, not as a cold code of human traditions, for the law is holy, just and good and remains the standard of righteousness as long as heaven and earth endure. It is perpetual and unchangeable as God's character and cannot be abolished or gotten rid of, given in love to order human conduct, restricting man to what increases real happiness, guarding from sin, ennobling and sanctifying heart and mind, and giving moral fitness through Jesus Christ for the society of holy angels. It must be made the rule of daily life out of love for God with willingness to suffer any inconvenience rather than break it, since obedience is more pleasing than professions of loyalty or words of praise and is the only safety for individuals and nations, securing divine favor, happiness and prosperity. Finite wisdom cannot improve it, not one precept can be broken without disloyalty, every jot and tittle must be kept for present and eternal welfare, the whole world will be judged by it, for it reaches to intents of the heart demanding purity in secret thoughts, desires and dispositions, requiring supreme love to God and love to neighbor and perfect obedience, with the least deviation by neglect or willful transgression being sin exposing the sinner to wrath. In His humiliation and death on the cross He vindicated His right to pardon transgression and sin against that law, having been tempted in all points like as men are yet without sin, where failure on one point would have made Satan victorious. Breaking this commandment or teaching others to lessen it makes one least with no place in the kingdom, while doing and teaching it makes one great.

Christ defended its great precepts against human traditions, the divine command being distinct from petty rules people devised. He kept the Sabbath according to that law, rejecting human rules that had distorted it and misrepresented God's character. Sabbath breaking was violation serious enough to bring severe punishment, and Christ, Stephen and other Christians could not have violated it without giving enemies grounds to condemn them, so that false witnesses would not have been needed to provide a pretext. Their care to respect even customs and ceremonies of lesser importance shows they would not have violated the Sabbath without facing the severest penalty.

The verse belongs to the moral law, which points back to creation and remains binding on all people through every age. It is distinct from the ceremonial law of sacrifices and offerings, which was established because of sin and pointed forward to redemption in Christ. God gives man six days for work and usual business but claims the one day He blessed and sanctified for rest from labor and worship of the Maker, allowing no compromise for petty temporal interests and no partial obedience or divided interest. Rubbing ears of wheat and eating to satisfy hunger, as Christ and His disciples did, is perfectly in harmony with its requirement, not a breaking of it, so those who accused them condemned the guiltless. The command belongs to the Decalogue, distinguished from ceremonial observances and types that met antitype and passed away in the one great offering of Christ for the sins of the world, and it stands immutable, magnified and made honorable by His death, binding in the Christian age. As part of God's moral law of ten commandments it is not a ceremonial rule ended by Christ's death, its authority remains, it stays binding under the gospel dispensation to be kept in spirit as well as in letter as Paul kept it, different from sacrificial offerings and rites of the Mosaic dispensation which only shadowed forth the death of the Son of God and ended when type met antitype. It remained binding at Christ's death, as the disciples obeyed it even in grief, hastily placing the body of Jesus in Joseph's tomb because the Sabbath approached and then keeping the day, that Sabbath while Jesus lay in the tomb being sorrowful and never-to-be-forgotten for disciples and also for priests, rulers, scribes and people who kept Passover and temple services while the true Lamb they prefigured lay dead.

When typical sacrifices ceased at the death of Christ the original law engraved on stone stood immutable with claims upon men in all ages, and in the Christian age duty is not limited but more especially defined. The command begins with Remember because man in cares, perplexities and worldly business would be tempted to forget its sacred importance or excuse himself from full requirements. God surveyed His work of creation, saw it was very good, and rested on the seventh day, and man is to keep it holy because God Himself rested on that day. It was given to Adam and Eve in Eden for all posterity, the Jews being no more closely related to Adam than any other nation, so His rest was not merely example to the Jews. The law has not lost force but is to be more fully understood, the Sabbath commandment obligatory upon all men to the end of time, its observance to be carried into the future world and perpetuated throughout eternity. Its sacredness remains firmly established, the New Testament has not changed God's law, and Paul continued to keep the Ten in letter and spirit after becoming a Christian.

Perfect obedience is possible, for Christ obeyed the Ten Commandments showing it can be done, and those who accept Him as Saviour and share in the divine nature are enabled to follow His example. The gospel grows from this law as fragrant blossoms and fruit from a tree, and Christ as Head of humanity fulfilled all its righteousness to show men can do the same work and meet every specification of God's requirements, with treasures of grace making keeping the commandments the made-easier path to fulfilling all righteousness and thus magnifying the law and making it honorable. People are under sacred obligation to obey, and the Spirit is provided to enable them to do so. Keeping that law is not replaced by a self-made standard of sanctification, and the perfection it requires is made possible through union with Christ and His merits, those who keep through His merits and rely on Him coming into harmony with heaven. Refusing to obey does not abolish its authority, for it is plain and binding on every person with clear commands and prohibitions.

Violating a commandment is sin, for the ten are divine law. The seventh day is the holy Sabbath requiring obedient rest in imitation of God Himself, instituted at creation when God rested after six days work of making earth, land, sea and all useful and beautiful things, blessing and sanctifying the seventh because He rested on it, made for man that man lay aside labor as God rested. The commandment is to be obeyed and not only believed, not regarded with carelessness or indifference, and transgression will bring divine judgment now just as transgression brought judgment upon Adam. Jesus declares breaking one of the least commandments and teaching men so brings lowness in the kingdom while doing and teaching them brings greatness. Transgression reveals sin's seriousness and calls for repentance.

The verse is one of ten precepts spoken by the voice of Jehovah Himself above warring elements at Sinai amid trumpet tones, thunder, lightning, cloud, tempest, thick darkness and glory as devouring fire, given when Israel was taken into covenant as peculiar treasure, as holy nation to be united with a holy God. It is part of God's great mirror revealing man's true condition and part of God's great rule of right showing the offensive character of sin and man's guilt in sight of a pure and holy God, causing terror in hearers. Its first four commandments define duty to God and its last six define duty to other people, so using God's time and money for needless display of dress violates both, failing to make God supreme and to love neighbor as self. As one of the first four distinct from the last six, it stands as part of the law that convicted the lawyer who knew he had kept neither group, calling for confession instead of excuse. Its principles must govern business dealings, unjust transactions violating them and misrepresenting God's character. The seventh day is God's sanctified rest-day, observing it honors God, breaking it makes one a transgressor, discovering that transgression brings trouble of conscience, confession offered by Jesus to the Father brings blessing, hope and joy, and proclaiming the Sabbath and calling others to observe it is the work of the third angel and solemn warning received by few at first then embraced by many joining voices with the faithful. Its claims when brought to conscience show violating the Sabbath is sin, clearer understanding revealing breakage even when unintentional, ignorance not excusing transgression when truth was within reach, therefore leading the honest seeker to recognize guilt, repent and seek pardon through Christ.

The law of ten must be obeyed from the heart and not merely assented to or taught in theory. Its principles must be cherished because they require purity, supreme love to God and love to neighbor as self. Obedience comes by opening mind and heart so truth finds entrance, making conscientious surrender of every habit, practice and sin closing the door against Jesus, letting light from Christ search every dark corner, adopting right course because pure principles are loved, then truth works with transforming and vitalizing power. Holding wrong course, making provision to please and glorify self and cherishing lust while constantly living a lie, causes truth to lose vitalizing power, strengthens sin, and leaves no strength, confidence or efficiency as agents for the Master. Knowing and teaching in theory is not enough, principles must be cherished and obeyed from heart. As one of ten holy precepts it shows laws of Christ's kingdom presenting the standard to be reached, all to be tried by them because none is his own to do as he pleases but bought with a price, God jealous of His law testing every person whether he will obey, though man sinned and death is penalty Christ bore it securing present probation to prove value and fitness for everlasting life. It plainly states what must and must not be done, supporting that children be taught to obey from principle not merely compulsion.

Needless violations of bodily laws are as serious in God's sight as breaking the Ten. Full obedience to God's law is necessary for health, truth and happiness, its authority not abolished. The law warns against transgression, and violating natural laws of the body through depraved appetites and lustful passions is also violation of God's law. Godliness kept in obedience to seventh-day rest is in harmony with health laws and does not conflict, carrying out its principle with the other nine would have kept the curse of disease now flooding the world from coming. The direction from Sinai after deliverance from Egypt is to be held highest and lived by, especially by physicians, living by it with rest of Sinai laws keeping from loose manners and carelessness about chastity, all living by them safely trusted. Its binding claims can be taught by leading people from health and temperance principles they already accept. Understanding the Sabbath commandment is presented as truth that can be taught after health and temperance principles.

Marriage was also made in Eden as divine ordinance from creation when foundations were laid, when morning stars sang together and sons of God shouted for joy, and marriage is to stand as firm as the Sabbath instituted then. The Sabbath is a golden link God designed to unite people with one another and connect humanity and earth with God and heaven. Despising it is trampling God's law and breaking the everlasting covenant. Observance sanctified and blessed at creation is the sign making calling and election sure, so those striving rightly on right principles shall never fall and shall have abundant entrance into everlasting kingdom. Keeping means obedience to all commandments and shows love to God, God fulfilling His word to keepers. Reverence engraved on first table leads to keeping first three toward God, while last six reveal duty to fellow man, for the Sabbath is covenant between God and man, test of loyalty, golden clasp uniting man to God in supreme obedience and reverence and uniting man to fellow man. Obedience marks loyalty, those obeying may face growing envy and hatred but are not to conceal allegiance or abandon commandments to avoid hardship or follow the crowd. The Sabbath question is a test coming to the whole world, God's people needing no additional test making this more severe.

The verse is part of the moral law given at Sinai that teaches and enforces sanctification. The conversion and sanctification to be preached and lived, in which self does not seek supremacy, is not new doctrine but required by this law. It requires obedience from everyone claiming to be sanctified, giving no heed showing refusal to render God required obedience. Urging excuses to evade requirements proves claimed sanctification spurious, and saying I am sanctified while setting up imagined law of self-righteousness in its place is false sanctification.

Proper Sabbath Observance

Keeping the day holy means laying aside usual work, worldly business and planning, worldly conversation and pleasure, guarding words, thoughts and conversation from worldly and trivial subjects, turning the mind to sacred themes, and giving the day to God in rest, worship and spiritual growth. Work that could have been done in the six working days is to be completed beforehand, and Friday is set apart as preparation to finish clothing, cooking, boots, baths, thinking and conversing on necessary things, stopping all business before sundown without hurry and without lying abed in the morning. All secular work must be laid aside before sunset on Friday, with clothing in readiness, cooking finished, boots blacked and baths taken as a rule, secular papers put out of sight, and children taught to share in the preparation. God gives six days for secular duties and claims the seventh, even one hour of it, as holy; no business is important enough to transgress it, and using it for personal interests, livelihood, profit or pleasure violates it as surely as rejecting it altogether. Taking even a little reserved time for secular work or work left over is robbing God and stealing His time, and using it occasionally or for convenience is violation, not acceptable partial obedience.

To work for pecuniary advantage or to save property violates the letter and makes one a breaker guilty of all, and transgression over property hardens conscience until much labor is done while still claiming to keep it. God is very particular, and infringing a little to save time or gain robs Him, dishonors His name, forfeits blessing and brings curse causing loss ten or twentyfold greater than the gain, with apparent gain becoming loss as possessions decrease under withdrawn blessing. Acts of necessity and mercy, including care for the sick and suffering, Christ's healings, and labor to save life of men or animals, do not violate it and are its only exception, and physicians should let unimportant cases wait until after it. Deeds of mercy, charity, doing good, saving life, relieving suffering and healing are lawful and honor the day, rubbing wheat to satisfy hunger is in harmony, while senseless restrictions encumber it. The priests' increased labor with offerings does not break it, for ordinary work is forbidden but not holy work in God's service.

Preparing food by baking or boiling belongs to the sixth day, and cooking on the Sabbath violates it, so food is prepared Friday and eaten even if less palatable, with only warming in winter and hot gruel on cool mornings, guarding against gluttony so the mind stays clear for sacred meditation and worship. The prohibition applies even in busiest earing, harvest and plowing seasons, and holy time must not be trespassed upon. Travel is to be avoided when possible, arranging tickets and plans another day and planning journeys to avoid arriving on the Sabbath. When travel is necessary for God's message and helping churches, the mind stays on God without worldly or business conversation, devoted thoughts and words are maintained, time is used for communion and helping those in need, and the necessity is regretted.

The day is not to be spent sleeping much of it, absenting from meeting to rest, making up sleep lost in working for money, pleasure-seeking, secular papers or amusement, and the claim of rest does not excuse staying from meeting. It is to be devoted to spiritual exercises, prayer, meditation, interesting the family, assembling at the house of prayer with few or many, whose influence attends through the week, and made a delight meaningful to children through instruction, stories, walks and reading. Parents are to give time to children, take them for walks, read and explain Scripture, give religious instruction and pray, so children receive the privileges and blessings of the sanctified rest day. Parents must teach and enforce obedience rather than allow children to do as they please or play indoors or outdoors, and allowing play makes parents breakers themselves regarded as commandment breakers.

Respect requires neat suitable clothing for worship rather than week work clothes when change is possible, after Israel cleansing clothing before Sinai, and coming clean and neatly dressed honors it and God's house. Because work and exercise cease, food should be simpler and smaller than on workdays, lest heavy meals cause dullness, drowsiness and hinder devotion. Keeping does not require staying indoors, for walking in fields and forests viewing creation helps know God and see His love, nor does it require long tedious services preventing time outdoors, and its limits are for happiness. Going out to gather sticks and kindling fires in the wilderness was open presumptuous contempt equal to blasphemy punishable by stoning without the camp, though the fire prohibition for that sojourn where fire was not needed did not extend to Canaan where fires were necessary, and though not now temporally punished the wages is death in the judgment.

Washing dishes is unnecessary work to be postponed till its close when manageable, and washing all day, cutting chaff, polishing shoes left until then, blacking boots, shaving after it begins, and personal studies violate it. Sending children to school when attendance includes study or practical work violates the requirement even when authorities demand it, and parents must seek exemption, establish own schools, instruct children themselves, move if needed, and obey God at whatever cost. Servants are not to be made to work, so restaurants should be closed and helpers given its privileges rather than serving public meals, and managers must arrange so it is no longer broken, with food prepared Friday and taken home. Having employees take turns does not make it right, for serving even a limited number still violates it and teaches disregard, while boarding someone does not violate if it requires no overwork or Sabbath cooking.

The command forbids real work but imposes no meaningless usages or yoke of bondage, and prohibitions such as not kindling fire or lighting a candle are human traditions, not part of the just command. It requires resting from work and worldly conversation, even if staying alone in cold and suffering in health rather than where work and talk go on, and it exposes first-day keeping as failure, making Sunday the most laborious day. The verse limits labor's demands so people may have time for family, communion with God, and fellowship with one another, and for parents to be with children teaching them about God as Creator. The Sabbath is not to be used for work even when urgent and intended for God's house, as haste to complete the tabernacle did not justify Sabbath work, for sacred observance takes precedence. The Sabbath requires mental as well as physical rest, putting away gloomy thoughts, being cheerful grateful and trusting in God, which improves health. The verse requires avoiding nearby Sabbath work by others as a temptation to children, keeping land and school land under control of those who will not permit Sabbath work.

Obedience Witness and Reward

The command is not set aside for profit, poverty, inconvenience or family support, and keeping it can require arranging business differently and accepting loss and self-denial, for no excuse will stand at judgment where each is rewarded according to works. Keeping may cost employment, wages, studies, profit and even bread, meaning refusal of Sabbath labor, accepting lower wages, giving notice and leaving, and trusting God who honors obedience and provides. Loyalty may conflict with human customs or Sunday laws, and when human authority demands disobedience God's Word must take precedence, even to refusing war service that would make continual violation unavoidable. Embracing it takes moral courage, firmness, decision, perseverance and prayer on the unpopular side with Thus saith the Lord as all-sufficient authority, for keeping takes courage to leave custom and puts one out of joint with the world two days weekly.

Those who keep with strict devotional mind receive blessing, special light, help, strength, health and sanctification through the week under heaven's watch, while those failing lose light and strength and are left desponding, sad and lacking the Spirit. Kept exactly by stopping business and remaining at rest while laboring other days including the first, the visible contrast is a sermon arousing conscience, provoking questions, directing minds to the Creator and sowing seed that bears fruit worldwide. Its sacredness is to be impressed upon children as part of teaching commandments, with parents like Abraham restraining and instructing households even when children feel parents over-exacting. Those who take God's time for work or teach disregard are accountable, for God will not hold guiltless anyone setting aside commands and teaching others in their place but will reward everyone according to works.

Observance distinguishes Seventh-day Adventists keeping commandments as God's peculiar chosen people, His representatives exalting His downtrodden law. Keeping is a test requiring obedience to all Decalogue, supreme love for God and love for neighbor and creatures, studied in jots and tittles and kept fully even in living and working arrangements. After 1844 earnest rereading exposed contrary walk and diligent study of Revelation 14 made clear that keeping including the seventh day is the patience of saints who keep commandments and faith of Jesus. Receiving the truth leads to work for others, great sacrifices, preparing tracts in other languages, inviting neighbors and securing ministers for Bible readings.

Bible study alone with prayer laying prejudice aside can convict one that the seventh is true and lead to keeping without a preacher, as seen in those who stood despite opposition. Keeping must be proclaimed plainly as present truth for last days without concealment, as burden repairing the breach, even from exalted station and before congregations and legislatures. Houses of worship wherever believers are raised stand as visible memorials and lights amid darkness until the standard is worldwide, and churches established are to proclaim its holiness against the rival. Obedience brings peace, prosperity, refreshment, conscience without condemnation and entrance to the city and tree of life, while trampling chooses disobedience and at judgment teachers of abrogation answer for leading astray.

Disregarding after light leaves no guiltlessness but guilt with punishment, for rejecting light for traditions does not remove accountability, and setting aside after seeing truth is serious sin putting one out of harmony. Knowingly trampling and teaching it of no consequence makes one breaker of least and called least, whom God cannot save sooner than thief or adulterer, and loose ideas hinder others requiring separation even in employment. Outward keeping alone does not save, for principles of every commandment must be honored in practical life with law written on heart, otherwise profession cannot excuse breaking others or gain trust for corruption. Many keep with insufficient sacredness in letter and spirit, doing unnecessary work, sleeping in worship and keeping as idleness, so reform is called for with instruction, energies and meeting God by faith.

God set apart the seventh as His portion as He set apart the tithe, and taking it for self is stealing His day, requiring willing sacrifice with no compromise or divided interest, visiting disobedience with punishment and showing mercy to thousands who keep. Refusing to keep robs God and contempts His holiness, while obedience chooses the Lord as Leader, and lightly regarding it lightly regards God. The Sabbath is God's special appointment with six days for business, and obedience marks those who love and serve Him while disobedience marks those who do not, showing clear difference between servers. All that God has said of this future will surely come to pass and not one thing will fail.

Keeping the coming Sabbath is an act of obedience to God's commandment. The holy law is part of God requiring strict observance, and only holy men strictly observing it honor God by teaching it, for He will not entrust souls and the last message to men perverted by cherished errors. Congregations assembling with shut windows breathing foul air impair health and blunt spiritual susceptibility, and violating life laws in pious act is murder heightened by sacredness. The verse belongs to rules defining the yoke He prepares, while human yokes are heavy because not conforming, and freedom in Christ is not bondage and obedience is ground of freedom.

Until fullness of time none must compel observance, yet when world and church unite by national act to void law and exalt Sunday, loyalty must not yield and zeal will increase as at Dura. Believers have perfect right to work Sunday because Sabbath is seventh, yet should not defiantly display Sunday labor, and refraining where it advances work is not receiving the mark, for wisdom requires harmlessness before the crisis. Working Sunday does not prevent keeping Sabbath, and Sabbath instruction should follow first principles, while Sunday may be used for missionary and medical work. The Sabbath is not merely Jewish custom, for Jews were entrusted as guardians and depositaries through whom commandment and promises came, with Christ leading Hebrews and proclaiming law at Sinai.

Keeping truly means respecting rest of law, for it cannot be kept while another is disregarded, and keeping does not excuse breaking the seventh against sexual sin. Merely professing doctrine gives appearance of honesty but does not make acceptable when truth held in unrighteousness with defiled body and corrupt life. Accepting brings conversion, including Catholics turning to observe it, as a woman convinced decided to observe required rest for household and servants. Keeping faithfully even when alone, as by mother and daughter without husband or meeting, brings joy and hope others will unite, and keeping even when alone in family continued for decades into old age.

The Sabbath forbids operating a mill and drinking liquor, and such work and revelry reveal corrupt character, so keepers should keep premises free from what attracts such company. A brother keeping about four years shows seventh as Lord's including servants and animals, and keeping as witness may require arranging work such as making up hours, refusing work at cost of job. A man accepting it resigned overseeing position rather than work, yet remained faithful, and promising not to break another Sabbath is step toward Christianity. Taking employment obliging Sabbath work is giving it up even when faith unchanged, and fellow believers should house and encourage such a person.

Because stranger is sheltered, no sharpness or grasping dealing is to be exercised toward outsiders or one serving God fully and bringing tithe. Deciding to embrace as truth is confessing Christ by repentance, faith and baptism, and keeping is taken with wife, children and baptism, affecting family choices despite husband's opposition. Keeping is to be taught decidedly even where prejudice strong, yet quietly without stirring words against idol Sunday, for preaching Christ crucified prepares minds and Spirit brings commandments to remembrance. Keeping Saturday on plain authority brings charge of fanaticism, yet open Word proves familiarity and convicts honest hearers, though ministers misinterpret and repeat false statements once made against Christ.

The debate over the fourth as biblical basis challenges Sunday as Christian Sabbath and insists Scripture rather than tradition must establish observance. The seventh, not first, is Sabbath belonging to Ten spoken at Sinai binding every person, and disregard breaches law as surely as damaging reputation. The verse with context establishes six days for work and seventh for rest, among truths searchers recognized, and resting as commanded is basis for reverencing. Keeping requires setting aside work, as storekeeper closing shop and telling employer Saturday impossible, sometimes allowed without loss, and families raising poultry could keep without fear.

Doing business work violates it and money so earned is unacceptable and dishonors Him, and helping another enter such business by lending shares transgression and means should go to God's cause. Collecting debts, paying workmen and settling accounts on it dishonors God, and keeping only when convenient is transgression, for even burying dead does not justify Sabbath business. The hours beginning Friday evening are sacred and must not be infringed even to save property like a sailboat, so forethought must avoid placing where Sabbath work is required. Those rising to keep need a place to live where they can obey and do good to surrounding places.

The verse states one of broad high claims requiring Sabbath reform with temperance, and true reform cannot stop with half reforms ignoring it, nor loyal unite with reformers leaving it out. Failure to keep precepts shows love of God not within, and commandments are standard in dealings, leaving none free to do least injustice to neighbor. Conscientious keeping sets observers apart from pleasure-loving profession, and views of most conscientious are matters of conscience to be treated with tenderness and freedom. Turning from known duty to avoid reproach violates commandments, while some professed keepers conform to worldly fashions.

The decalogue has just claims, and persisters in disobedience defy it and face punishment when forbearance ends. The Sabbath gives light in contrast to Sunday that knowers must act on, supplying reasons unbelievers need, with care not to offend before heard. Obeying holy seventh means obeying every command without knowingly violating any, distinct from papal spurious, upholding God's while avoiding needless provocation. Honoring aboard ship can be difficult where crowding prevents quiet, bringing sadness when God cannot be honored as desired.

Its claims are binding as moral standard by which all will be judged, and obedience must not be treated as crime. Exalting Sunday in place tramples seventh and voids law, for Sunday is not Lord's Sabbath and exalting it opposes commandment treating human teaching as God's. The seventh is day to worship, with believers assembling in church, and it is set apart for worship calling for humble houses where people gather to pray, sing and worship. The seventh-day is distinctive truth marking peculiar people, and institutions proclaiming last message must remain true rather than appear undenominational.

The Sabbath is fourth connected with believing truth, reachable to every class, and observance is truth belonging to right position on faith convincingly presented to intelligent. The law is plainly stated in wilderness journeyings as direct heaven communication, lesson recording morality, justice, reverence and respect for man made in image. The Sabbath is principle of truth and memorial belonging to Lord who created it, not to be lightly regarded. The fourth remains unchanged grounded in creation as memorial, not abolished at cross.

Disregarding tramples memorial underfoot. Preparing meals beforehand avoids cooking violation. The commandment stood in way of son's desire for soldier life, leaving unreconciled and discontent though not alone causing leaving home. It is God's holy day to be respected by visitors, and entertaining disrespectful visitors is unwelcome.

Disregarding unity transgresses as truly as breaking fourth, making verse measure of disunity seriousness. It is violated when children run, play and show temper in worship, and observance requires reverent order. Commandments remain fully obligatory with none nonessential, and verse means what it says and must be obeyed rather than set aside because ministers say not binding. Those receiving put names to covenant to keep it, and keeping first Sabbath means observing seventh in obedience to Word standard.

Minds impaired by slavery could not fully comprehend as first given, so God later gave Moses additional precepts. Observing can require conscientious stand even bringing opposition or threatening livelihood, in which family may be united, and keeping may require giving up employment, with small country farms providing support. Keeping is battling under Prince Immanuel, and turning souls from it uses talents for enemies, grieving angels strengthening what remains. Keeping can bring struggles because of faith required.

God's direct Thou shalt pattern guides parents to govern with firm prohibition without temper, training children neat and orderly, for order is in heaven. The verse is among first four requiring supreme love with all heart, soul, mind and strength, allowing no idol or divided affections, and keeping them with last six is serving God and test of probation. Breaking with others is living in transgression, while in it God can do little for a person. Efforts to keep despite family opposition by doing much Friday and observing best possible reflect it.

Its facts must be made known everywhere as present truth part of third angel's message, held firmly and made prominent. It with passage presents commandments as guide and household rules strictly obeyed, commanding seventh kept with work forbidden to children, servants, livestock and strangers, with habits harmonized. A boy choosing to obey was not to be made to work that day. The Sabbath spent among mountains in quiet rest, reading, prayer and closing prayer reflects keeping it set apart from ordinary work.

Breaking is disobedience, and it is to be kept rather than set aside for business. Keepers will have consciences bound by coming constitutional change, so all must vindicate God's law before church and world. Refusal to conform had become widespread before advent through enmity, and trampling is rebellion and unholiness, while men rejected His rest and made stringent laws to compel false sabbath. The verse states one of ten promises assured to obedient governing universe, they express sum of law, keeping shows love, and obedience is condition of eternal life.

Rest must include everyone under care, and after it began ordering girls to clean, patients to sew and chickens to cook were violations. It sets standard for physician's conduct, and keeping does not excuse dishonest practices, for keepers must honor law in dealings. It is to be observed as living non-negotiable principle even in secular schools, kept while respecting rules without controversy by quietly living belief so principle becomes known and under Spirit bears fruit. Acknowledging as Lord's day brought confidence and blessing.

Bearing as God's sign means living to Lord under covenant, making worldly secondary, surrendering all to God as kingdom subjects publicly declared at baptism. It is devoted to God calling for rest from employment and special attention to soul's needs. Laboring men with large families and risk of losing situations obey rather than work, including those newly learning what loving God means. It is test calling to break from customs and obey God rather than men, not reason to impose extra duties or manufactured trials.

It is part of eternal law Christ's death upholds, and when Christ crucified is preached quietly the Spirit repeats truth inwardly until hearer convicted seventh is Sabbath. As applied it requires in conscience no ordinary paid work, though willing to help urgent breakage without Sabbath pay. Trampling is disobedience grieving Saviour. Given for rest, leaders failed to grasp meaning and made severe burden with outward standards eclipsing spiritual requirements.

Human laws commanding Sunday holiness overturn God's distinction and transgress, and framers are breakers filling earth with wickedness. Keeping is claim to be honored even at cost of employment, for soul worth more than security. Christ did not come to change or lessen it, and His coming expressed love and vindicated every precept. It is claim to be taught plainly as standard against counterfeit undermining law.

It with passage contains far-reaching principles easily missed when fixed on temporal, and they call for complete conformity requiring prayerful study freed from worldly priorities. Keeping only when convenient and breaking for interest transgresses and dishonors, showing no sacred sense. Observance required even when Sunday pressure makes living difficult, and keepers need practical support including land to sustain families without forced giving up. In last days keeping marks allegiance while trampling shows disloyalty, and rejecters counted with those rejecting any conflicting law.

Its first four require supreme love, and whole law expresses every person's duty. Obeying is taking position to obey God, and enlightenment can bring reform throughout religious life. It belongs to law as Creator whose command must be heard, and obedience is not optional. Changing to first is Satan's invention intruded through human policy seeking to be as God, leading to disbelieve declarations, exalt own ways, lessen commandments and hinder God's work.

Its Sabbath requirement calls for obedience without bargaining or delay, and waiting for prosperity treats obedience conditional and dulls Spirit. It carries divine authority above human customs, for in Christ's time maxims handed through scribes were made more forceful than Ten, holding disciples back. Applied to community, breaking neighbors set troubling example while keeping neighbors bless. It is one of ten royal holy law, character standard in judgment, immutable eternal, perfect converting soul, to be taught rising and sitting, and had world obeyed crime would not prevail.

It belongs to moral code which with ceremonial is schoolmaster bringing to Christ. It belongs to law from beginning Christ taught on Mount, unchanged, forever standard by which judged, and gospel grows from it and Christ fulfilled righteousness to show men can, magnifying law. It belongs to Ten Christ upheld in purity distinct from human maxims. Keeping first instead of seventh breaks commandments, and those having done so must be baptized into faith keeping commandments and faith of Jesus.

It forbids work including when drought and debt make people feel no other provision. To defend false sabbath men declare law abolished, falsehood producing lax morals when parents fail to teach statutes. It is point of allegiance in last conflict when national laws pressure contrary worship, and faithful keeping voices third angel following judgment hour and Babylon fall, requiring holding banner as memorial against substitution. The verse forbids any work by everyone within gates including hired help, and its boundary is strict requiring not only resting but not allowing hired help and using influence, with husband accountable.

Family hardship did not make son's work right even when father feared starvation. Keeping may require giving up responsibilities, but business need not block obedience, for God helps, and arranging work even accepting lower positions while firm. Refraining raises concern how to sustain family when giving up work, as young man losing two days. Obedience precedes supposed necessities even causing inconvenience, and keeping by no regular work applies even few hours at risk of losing employment as decided stand.

Refusing to let convenience or gain excuse, not treating as ordinary or adjusting for business, but retaining dignity to honor Creator by teaching and example, with business yielding. It applies to Christians as well as Israel, and day before is preparation so all ready. Hours not wasted in bed, and family rises early because late rising brings confusion and unholy feelings making day dreaded weariness. Kept with sense of goodness by laying aside common work, gathering in nature, reading, sharing writings, seeking to lead interested, writing religiously and closing with prayer.

Seventh as Lord's gives binding force to be kept openly including sanitariums, honoring memorial and marking loyal. It is test placing on God's or Satan's side by treatment, and Sunday law obstructing true would in Southern field result in slavery. Keeping is loyalty, and one must not promise to give up to obtain spouse, with return not erasing breach, for command must not yield to passion. Transgressing day of rest is disloyalty and failure to remain true.

Law lays binding claims requiring conscientious observance, and accepting light brings repentance, with obedient precious even when expelled, for keeping is having Christ's commandments and abiding in love. Truth to be made known everywhere not to rejecting shepherds but honest deceived, giving courage because work soon done and all must be ready for unequaled trouble. Disregarding and instituting another day is transgression bringing sure penalty, for reaping what sown, and working is disobedience to expressed command. Israel brought out to keep and honor, and observance does not justify excluding laborers, for Christ worked as carpenter and laborers welcomed.

Keeping in obedience rather than sayings of men means lifting cross amid laughter, reproach, parental disappointment, ministers' opposition and college threat, witnessing openly. Disobedience greatly dishonors and shows defilement requiring purification, heart-searching and restitution in deed, because dishonest dealing breaks law. First four set obligations to God defining love as heaven's principles, and true obedience belongs with last six showing pitying love and missionary consecration through Christ's Spirit. First four require loving supremely, and obedience with rest is entire duty, unchangeable gospel condition of eternal life, perfect converting soul, while neglect leaves weighed and found wanting.

Ten are character standard and covenant in life, death, resurrection and eternity, and loyalty reveals covenant relation, as Adam to glorify by obedience, all hanging on supreme and neighbor love. Law given in Eden, spoken at Sinai by Christ through cloud, written and placed in ark expressing character entrusted to Israel, requiring prior sanctification and washing to impress purity, with believing families to obey rather than let business overwhelm. Obedience was to make Israel example of righteousness and model, while Moses' laws illustrate Ten forming national foundation with obedience condition of promises, giving superior principles as memorial, though wicked defy. Loyalty must be held as rock, while diet differences like butter where fruit abundant left to conscience without disunion.

Ignoring requirement is open contempt putting in danger to be warned, breaching and trampling law as breach to be repaired by restoring. Seeing light and refusing leaves sin like Jews rejecting Christ, and no risk where salvation at stake, for indifference rejects heaven, while acceptors stand as restorers against majority. Accepting is duty honest will understand, but rebaptism must not be forced as equally important. Living by commandments shows profession genuine, and believers keep fourth while work corresponds without lax indifference.

Keeping precept shows love for Christ. Keeping holy gives special honor uniting Mosaic and Christian dispensations. Embracing and keeping is right to press on loved ones, worth prayer and dying wish, and God regards prayers bringing parents to keep. Conscientiously keeping marks distinct people who should live without reproach.

As requirement among present truth it should be explained clearly with Christ's spirit where meaning taught. God's requirements are to be understood and obeyed as His voice. It is part of Ten making known Father's will to be done to enter kingdom, given in Eden and at Sinai, with character in harmony bearing good fruit while profession without doing builds on sand. It is one of Decalogue truly divine laws giving standard shared by nature's laws.

Its requirement remains binding unchanged in Christian era to be kept in letter and spirit, and New Testament has not changed it. It identifies as Lord's day calling for steadfast faith. It is part of divine law of Ten, and body laws are equally divine inscribed on body. It belongs to written word begun in Moses' time after centuries without writing, as inspired revelation beginning work continued to John.

Honoring is obedience, and keepers may be pressured by authorities and falsely accused for faithfulness. It belongs to ten God gave setting apart and hedging Israel from nations. It presents as command whose importance must not be belittled to gain association, and loyalty is part of faithfulness. It with passage establishes not day for work, and medical students can complete training without Sabbath studies and without failing supporters.

It shows seventh as rest kept even while laboring other days to earn money for truth. It is part of Decalogue precept people will defy, and holders sacred will face persecution. It is included in Ten repeated as reminder that obedience brought blessing and disregard curses. It means seventh is rest passed pleasantly with good rest and prayer outdoors.

It identifies seventh as sacred part of call to obey and keep holy. It lays binding claims despite carelessness, and light forbids lax indifference and requires work corresponding, mastering hindrances by courage and prayer. It belongs to binding law of serious importance, and teachings leading away oppose truth. Proclaimed by Christ whose voice later drove traders, it is transgressed when courts turned to traffic burdening poor at Passover.

It places command within law serving as proof seventh is Sabbath. It is part of law spoken at Sinai engraved in stone with sacred claims, serving as mirror, defining sin, with conversion including repentance. The seventh-day Sabbath forbids ordinary work such as mill operation, and Sabbath work and revelry reveal corrupt character. The Sabbath command became test when medical students faced ridicule, and some fearing ridicule abandoned hold rather than face pressure.

Hatred toward it was leading cause of true church separation from Rome, which trampled law, compelled Sunday, demanded profaning and denounced honorers. Even many true became bewildered observing both days from confusion, so obeying in peace required escape from Rome's power. These Christians observed fourth as enduring law and held true Sabbath through persecution faithful to truth resisting corruptions. The fourth instituted in Eden as old treasure through Moses is not to be thrown aside but presented with Jesus' teachings as inseparable whole illuminating each other.

Jews uphold commandments but weaken witness throwing aside new treasures, while Christians fail to influence Jews rejecting Sinai law, so minister must know both and present in true light. Seventh is Lord's commanding rest for everything within gates by which earth itself rests, commemorating creation so earth and inhabitants glorify Creator. Law compelling Sunday annuls command, and resting Sunday causes earth to homage power originating Sunday. Plain precept points to living God as Maker, and obscuring turns from revealed word.

Seventh is God's because sanctified, and sanctity requires keeping, while evidence calls for full conversion. Ten engraved so all understand eternal character, calling for heart harmonized. Decalogue spoken at Sinai whose teachings Jeremiah renewed as call to covenant, with opportunity to know will. Given at creation as memorial, replacing with first has no authority and is spurious separating from God.

Creator's command stands against human laws requiring false, and refusers face penalties and death, while God's law warns wrath, for choosing human over it is disobedience. Seventh is commanded by God grounding duty, while first not commanded, and seventh is Sabbath not first, for keeping first as sacred rejected, and Sabbath principal truth not abandoned including ceasing work. Sabbath became subject of civil decision when Congress declared Sunday Sabbath, with officials deciding religious question. Law lies at foundation of right laws, and framers of national laws should understand what is written.

Law God gave as conduct rule does not excuse wickedness, and obedience is believer's response, while Christ's fulfillment imputed covers transgression. Holy law reveals character proclaimed after bondage with command to obey, and Sabbath part of enduring. Law spoken by Christ at Sinai is not cold code but holy just good whose claims He made clear. True Sabbath has claims as light for this time to be presented, and sanitariums away from cities in Southern California are memorials presenting true Sabbath and third angel while sick relieved.

Positive declaration gives seventh authority Sunday lacks, and honoring Sunday sets aside divine command. Sanctified command is memorial and loyalty sign, and setting aside brings law contempt, for first is false lacking credentials, while human laws and fear of loss pressure disregard. Fourth's teaching is truth made clear through searching Scripture. Seventh as Lord's is binding requiring no work, part of enduring law represented by heavenly sanctuary, obligating keeping rather than obeying men.

Ten reveal duty to love God supremely and neighbor as self. Law engraven and spoken by Christ through Moses calls for implicit obedience from new life, giving clearer medical missionary understanding. Commands proclaimed require obedience and penalty definite. Jesus became stepping-stone lifting man so by blood man can keep law including Sabbath and return to tree Adam forfeited, part of golden link uniting finite to infinite.

Setting aside with others weakens respect leading to wider disobedience. Seventh must be kept from violation by Friday preparation, putting aside pleasure, using convocation to draw near, search heart, compare with law and honor Creator. Observance as obedience contrasts keepers with pleasure-loving violators, marking different standpoint from world-blended lives. Sabbath continued known even when man of sin trampled, because faithful honored in secret.

Those keeping keep commandment while beast's mark is counterfeit on sun's day, and servants receive seal through willing allegiance, with importance shown by persecution and judgment on enforcers. God set Sabbath at end of six days, and before it mind and body must withdraw to consider week's gain, with each Sabbath soul reckoned for spiritual gain in preparation for kingdom admitting no transgressor. Rejecting binding law proclaimed at Sinai and in Eden rejects enduring part. Fourth in God's law is trampled when Sabbath truth opposed.

Fourth is present truth once dark made plain through publications, confirmed by searching with angels impressing, and receiving brings tears, prayer, seeing harmonious chain making Bible new embraced with joy. Seventh belongs to God reserving time, and none may take for personal without guilt. Requirement demands sacrifice many including most Adventists unwilling to make. God placed sanctity and gave to keep as covenant He will not break, and in universal contempt loyal have solemn work to magnify law.

Trampling or taking holy time is robbing and voiding law, and keeping is obeying even risking friends, position or gain. Keeping was necessary for those awaiting return to be counted saints, and Sabbath reform was part of third angel. Keeping seventh marks obeying Lawgiver distinct from keeping first as papal contradicting, and seventh is prominent belief of faithful. Changing seventh to first breaks law and desecrates.

Fourth identifies seventh as original trampled and replaced by working day. Command enforced on world by last message warning in mercy to arouse to danger and turn to life, and turning from plain truth leaves without excuse. Principles given at Sinai are everlasting and standard to be met rather than lowered. Sabbath part of enduring law not first at Sinai, known in Eden and before Sinai, for all humanity binding while heaven endures as sign, honored in renewed earth.

Farm work such as treading presses, bringing sheaves, loading asses, bringing burdens and selling, bearing burden through gates or out of houses violates it, and it requires hallowing instead. Day set apart to rest made after creation to meet needs not make serve day, recalling six-day making and giving reason to behold wisdom with love. Sabbath originated not at Sinai, but honored before fall, kept by loyal, disregarded by Cain choosing own times. Given to humanity binding every member, not Jews only, instituted before Israel chosen, given after Egypt, to be observed to end and among redeemed from Sabbath to Sabbath.

Moral royal law transcript of character spoken and framed by God written by finger, and principles same as beatitudes, with obligations far-reaching with instructions explaining, other commands specifying Ten. Moral law spoken from smoking mount in hearing of all written for all till close, unlike ceremonial social political delivered in secret for Israel, and none can be dropped or changed, for God never withdrew seventh. Obedience to sacred law is life of God's people leaving none in darkness, and it means life to obeyers and death to disobeyers, for prosperity depended on obedience. God gives six days and reserves seventh for honor and man's good, giving communion, contemplation of creation and redemption and nature study, and without rest health endangered, for stealing reserved time is robbing.

Preparation required through week and in full readiness day before, with Friday to think and converse beforehand so nothing left, and honoring means stopping before sundown free from hurry and selfish pleasure. Violating through amusement including personal pleasure trips is unconcerned breach disrespecting God leaving no confidence blessing attends work. Obedience must be evident in business and needed to perfect character, and yielding will makes saving efforts more effective. Observance is divine command not custom, requiring refusal of first without proof and willingness to leave studies for manual work rather than violate conviction.

Command binds sons and daughters away from home, requiring express agreement for no servile work, and washing all day and cutting chaff forbidden, while feeding and caring sick may be done. Strict observance upheld by teachers includes not sending children to study when not compelled, and if no contract only one way to keep strictly. Requirement not postponed until convenient nor reduced, and carrying work into worship disrespects, dishonors and prevents blessing. Keeping may require closing busiest most profitable day giving up income, and choosing profit is yielding to temptation.

Command obeyed even when spouse pressures or peers jeer, and giving up loses hold, while loyalty may bring conflict. Seventh must be kept as found by searching rather than sayings, and keeping brings blessing not in Sunday and leads toward city, requiring sanctifying Lord and missionary labor. Keeping true versus spurious divides humanity, and all must take sides, for keeping marks loyal while trampling dishonors, and merely agreeing without living brings condemnation. Turning to Sunday tramples law, dishonors and misrepresents character, and resting first bears false testimony while keeping seventh maintains dignity.

Changing to first makes void law, exalts Satan above heaven, unites with deceiver, bears mark of rebellion, and accepting as Sabbath mistake shown by study. Corrupting ancient truth and inventing falsehood brings ruin and darkness, and mixing makes error predominate, for Christ as truth opposes error, and knowing Him leads to truth fields. Claim is focus of opposition seeking to lead from Word, and traditions must not set aside sanctity, for giving first religious authority or compelling by fines competes with divine. Laws compelling Sunday challenge genuine Satan seeks to replace, and choosing human over God's dishonors and refusing dishonors before universe siding with enemies.

People recognize broken and supplanted by spurious without Scripture, and despite opposition remain loyal to repair breach, while disregarding sets human against divine plunging world in rebellion. Refusing Word to accept Sunday respects day exalted by enemy doing Satan's wish like Nebuchadnezzar's image, and principles made known by third angel, for royal law stands firm, and not one jot changes while God reigns. Ministers see force but refuse because cross, and shepherds rejecting Thus saith for fables not vindicated, for turn is Satan through Rome thinking to change, accepted by authorities, world wondering after papacy. Keeping is truth while opposition is breaking and fighting God, and indecision displeases, while fellowshipping confirms unbelief, requiring decided stand knowing loving supremely and keeping is first duty.

After light loose ideas hinder others requiring disconnection even in employment, though efforts before light accepted. Accepting papal Sunday calls for firm observance as rock and is special dishonor. Sabbath burdened with human rules until obscured becoming yoke rather than blessing. Light shows formerly kept day was common substituted, and accepting meant recognizing wrong kept unknowingly, with truth clear through searching.

God sanctified no other day, and keeping definite day not uncertain is positive command and loyalty sign, why seventh kept rather than Sunday. Law remains, sin is transgression with penalty for choosing self-gratifying path, and Christ died to return to loyalty, so matters which mark borne. People under sacred obligation, and Spirit provided to enable. Willfully disregarding forsakes God, robs blessing and separates from source of good.

Churches can testify to genuine sign obscured by spurious, and leaving business to worship testifies to cease work distinguishing people. Verse spoken at Sinai amid grandeur written to preserve from tradition placed in chest, with claims changeless as throne. Command applies to all history not Jews only, perpetual binding in Christian age while heaven endures, including Gentiles joining Lord. Ten express character and give wise principles dividing supreme love in first four and neighbor in last six, requiring purity forbidding living for enjoyment disregarding others.

Keeping requires refraining from work, pleasure and profit, withdrawing from temporal, avoiding travel arrangeable another day, and when traveling keeping by devotion avoiding careless speech and using for communion and helping. Fourth remains exactly as written not altered, with authority over human demands and Sunday, so conflict obedience honors Him. Rest includes household and gates not head only. Divine sign, seal and token of creative and sanctifying power placed in mind, distinguishing Creator, marking sacred and common and true and false, evidencing covenant and sanctification through heartfelt obedience.

God set apart seventh as tenth of increase, reserving portion while giving larger to man. Commandments plainly set what must be done providing model teaching children obedience from principle, requiring like Abraham restrain households even when felt over-exacting. Torn-down memorial to be restored proclaiming commandments raising companies with missionary work, and Sabbath as third angel presented with Christ central rather than theories first. Obedience brings peace while disobeying brings instability and misery such as drink, and trampling leaves no expectation of protection from calamity.

Worldly churches reject authority trusting own wisdom and tradition, trampling law leaving sin at door for judgment. Keeping in willing obedience requires standing on truth welcoming reproach with Jesus and angels help, and accepting may involve cross but recognizers should obey rather than human denials. Keeping after compromise with opposing wife places her hard requiring meek faithfulness in all responsibilities, relieving suffering to regain confidence, and repentance means returning to full obedience. Claims obligatory sacredly observed just as written not only convenient, honored in household, not weakened for interests, with choice belonging to overcoming to gain heaven and no more pain.

Constant reminder whose light reveals importance made known through Word, and acting is reformatory, for receiving words makes lights amid darkness. These books vindicate law with Sabbath central to contrast with Sunday law seeking place. World accepting false discarded God's day exalting sayings, and giving honor to human institution is idolatry facing judgments without repentance. Churches refused sign, tore down rest and exalted spurious locking out heaven, and setting aside because resurrection tears memorial under pretense honoring Christ, while right honors Creator memorial and Lord of Sabbath.

Verse part of Ten standard of character required under rule and gospel, binding unabolished demanding entire obedience. Seventh only true cannot be controverted, not left to will, and God particular and keeping essential, for question what God requires. Sabbath kept whole day not merely hour, and Sunday not Sabbath not honored as God's. Those on Bible alone should keep seventh and have no reason for Sunday, for Sunday rests on Rome's claimed delegated power setting above God.

Fourth forbids all work for householder and family and stranger, and putting first in place is deliberate change Rome boasts because world acknowledges, with trampling as sin proving mystery of lawlessness. Keeping seventh is obedience in contrast to spurious first without sanctity not commanded. Religious amendment turns from divine promoting false and compelling day not commanded. By declaration seventh is Sabbath, and turning to present another to legislate is turning to spurious not enjoined.

Established by fourth contrasted with false presented in place. Fourth is truth to be presented while Sunday idol rival, and accountable for truth but taught through Word and Spirit not threats. Exalting another is false, and joining is transgression, so obedience refuses to unite, standing on platform inviting to holy. Genuine obscured by deceptive teaching leading world to reject and accept counterfeit.

Command requires rest including setting aside weekly writing and taking rest when not preaching. Parents allowing play violate themselves regarded breakers, so household must keep. Keeping by no work means refusing employment requiring it even when employers won't hire and family may starve, taking courage, while landowners have favorable opportunity. Sabbath hours not wasted in bed, and family rises early because late brings confusion over breakfast and school making dreaded weariness.

Humble houses wherever believers raised stand as signs until standard worldwide, and no interest left without working until house stands. Obedience may require sacrifice at cost, loss or opportunities, refusal to surrender to demands, while conformed example influences acceptance. Prohibitions are safeguards producing purity and joy and wall revealing goodness, with first four teaching love to God last six to neighbor, and Ten hedge around church distinguishing Israel. In sanitariums strict observance by all is silent sermon, forbidding display and games, with light shining without lessening law or offense.

Sabbath defining reason for name Seventh-day Adventist, accepted as unpopular bringing opposition even from fellow believers, evaded by claims law only spiritual. Satan seeks to make plain law of none effect so not respected, continuing since fall when Eden lost by lie, working to destroy memorial bringing apostasy, with Israel forgetting in Egypt before Sinai. Keeping must run through business with equity, eye single to glory, tender hearts like Christ, loving supremely and neighbor, permitting no injustice. Sabbath belongs to government over world and universe not revised, and yielding breaks law, dishonors, sells allegiance, bringing no peace, while again accepting in sincerity right.

Seventh kept from Sinai to present by divine authority, and Christ gave no hint of change and no apostolic example, for sacrifice reveals claims making keeping possible, and custom not justifying breaking. Fourth links duties to God with others, and plain specification leaves none in darkness, so gospel includes bringing before minds in short talks pointing sufferers to hope. Verse divides society into obedient keeping as church of living God and disobedient following antichrist breaking and leading to break. Giving man-made institution glory required for Sabbath is idolatry, and trampling linked with counterfeit and mark which can become compulsion.

As six days given while seventh sacred, so nine-tenths given while tenth sacred to carry divine work. Duties of six must not be left, and temporal must not encroach spiritual, for labor managed so strength kept for worship. Day set apart for minds to turn to goodness, worship, reflection and praise, and keeping includes gathering for prayer and creation contemplation, not shutting indoors nor long tedious services, for intended blessing. Keeping requires temperance and harmony with natural laws in eating, dressing and living, so powers healthy and intellect clear, and ignorance or perverted indulgence makes transgressor because mind cannot discern, for violation of life laws is sin as breaking command, and obeyed principles would prevent disease.

Ordinary must cease, but holy service and mercy do not violate, for priestly service could increase, and healing, rescuing animal and visiting sick even exhausting keep it, since human worth more, while regularly spending in writing with no change breaks, harms soul and fails honor. Keeping means turning from pursuits and attending public worship whose privileges essential and neglect serious error, and honorers find delight and blessing. Sign by which know sanctified, distinguishing from world and refusers, marking loyalty and covenant, with foreigners joining included. Belongs to law whose principles later defined and dignity exalted.

One of first four defining duty to Creator distinct from last six to men, and keeping part of loving with all with willing obedience allowing no rival, while failing shows defiled heart, as rich young man tested exposing riches idolatry shutting neighbor needs. Exalting first four far above other six led to failure of practical godliness, and charge of exalting last six came because deficiency exposed and necessity of mercy taught, for tree known by fruits. Ten in short express supreme and neighbor love, and Israel commanded ribbon of blue with short words to remind. Including rest it is law of love binding to will, not burden but directing to elevating service, and character expressed perfect converting soul, with every expression obeyed.

Part of Ten spoken and written by divine hand of divine composition. As presented in third angel serves as sign, and proclaiming represents receivers raising warning, with many embracing, for requirements binding people must honor in word and act, and pressure to conform affording no excuse. Part of ten great standard not trimmed to convenience, and Sabbath great test by which subjects represent Sovereign, for keeping from pollution brings promises backed by infinite power, with host registering loyal, while belittling displeases, and safety in being on Lord's side committing all to Ruler. Sunday enforced contrasted with true, and keepers wrongly regarded disloyal while tramplers disloyal, for opposition incompatible with sanctification, and commandment target of slanders despised by professed.

True kept through ages refusing to yield, and hallowing with faith in Christ and Bible maintained even amid papal gloom though branded, writings suppressed, yet stood preserving pure faith for which world owes debt, and requires none in household do work. Message must be set forth clearly wherever not heard, and knowers responsible and must not let interests keep from duty. Truth opposed by no-Sabbath teaching, and opposing is heresy showing dragon spirit, while open defense settles minds, removes prejudice, brings decisions, leaves opposition no victory. Fourth brings living God and original on which no work, and adversary wars foundation by bringing mass to trample, tearing down substituting laboring day.

Seventh holy part of law not transgressed, and treading leaves no shelter from plagues dreadful with sores and destruction, while searching shows how to escape declared against beast worshipers. Seventh to be observed rather than substituting another without sanctity, and setting aside counterworks divine, while observing Word is higher education, for law remains not abolished by death, and replacing is counterwork. Seventh set apart requiring work belonging to it and no worldly business, with no moral right to dishonor, and no compulsion but willing heart required rather than own use, for stealing for self robs as withholding tithes, making guilty, and doing commandments part of reformation. Seventh of Lord who created, and lightly regarding lightly regards God, for pillar doctrine sustaining remnant fifty years, and giving up discards truth building on sand storm sweeps.

Keeping part of serving, and repentance includes promising to keep, for seeking mercy to live in obedience brings relief and conversion. Claims include keeping matching profession, and lives affect acceptance. Importance not belittled to accommodate unbelievers, and loyalty part of distinctness, for keeping as religious duty may conflict with unbelieving expectations. Disregarding serious as intentionally damaging reputation, and professed violate when conforming or treating wrong lightly, for commandments declare what shall be done requiring obedience, and obeying mother's requirements trains children.

Part of law declaring claims on ancient Israel to obey and remember, and Israel would not obey prone to forget, so ceremonies added to stir minds not required had obeyed from love, and if now professed obeyed as specified special testimonies not needed. Prohibition implies promise obedience brings blessing disobedience danger, and laws draw closer and lead from evil, but He does not force. Part of law whose sacredness people recognized as aware of transgressions and seriousness of sin. Part of holy law not treated dead or void, with authority acknowledged, and believers urged obey.

Acknowledgers must live by all ten, and keeping requires spirit not profession, including benevolence loving neighbor. Establishes direct requirement regarded sacred, and disregard part of disobedience degrading people. Part of law keepers obey working against adversary. Part of ancient Ten remaining binding neither arbitrary nor severe, and treating abolished licenses sin removing responsibility.

Fourth about Sabbath point of opposition to God's law. Sanctified observance part of keeping and honoring, and recognizers embrace warning magnifying by observing. Keeping part of perfect obedience revealing love, purifying self and providing against sin. Greatly polluting by rebellion shows contempt bringing guilt deserving death, and principles simplified so none need err.

Moral law repeated at Sinai authority proclaimed remaining binding not abolished. Forbids work and requires honoring, preserving knowledge as Creator marking distinct as sign of love assuring blessing. Rest required extends to household including workers and servants, and every member should know requirements. Verse states ancient Sabbath defended by Sabbatarians contrasted to Sunday claim for which no testimony offered.

Law given by Christ veiled in pillar leading Israel speaking now, proclaimed from Sinai, with claims not lessened, and sacrifice atones enabling obedience. Ten must be rule of daily life from heart out of love, willing to suffer rather than break, and obedience pleases more than praise and only safety, for finite wisdom cannot improve, with every jot kept, world judged, reaching thoughts, least neglect sin, all tried because bought with price, Christ bearing penalty to prove fitness. Seventh sacred memorial of creating in six and resting seventh sanctified at Eden through wisdom, given to celebrate until end.

Keeping first instead transgresses, contempts law, and continuing rebellion bars city. Command great test, sign, covenant, memorial, seal, golden clasp uniting to God and man, making election sure so striving shall never fall. Sabbath merciful gift for rest peace joy not burden, and as creating ceased rest taken and blessed, people leave occupations devoting to rest worship deeds, while purpose obscured when teachers added restrictions making carrying bed crime. Proper keeping requires stopping own work at beginning and end, dressing cleanly, devoting to service, hearing Word, searching, meditation, examination, prayer and holy conversation, and loose talk dishonors forfeiting blessings, while full lets light shine.

No unnecessary work, and restaurant must not remain open, for managers arrange so no longer broken, with food prepared Friday, and helper duty to refuse. Traveling for own business violates, while divine work exception kept devotionally without common talk and regret. Children taught seventh sacred, when coming not left to play, and parents give lessons bringing to Christ. Kept whatever cost as duty not set aside for business, and observing may bring inconvenience, employment risk, opposition or leaving study, but temporal must not outweigh.

Obedience marks loyalty taking sides, and obeyers may face hatred but must not conceal or abandon to avoid hardship. Opponents choosing darkness may refuse despite evidence and not convinced even by signs. Israel brought from Egypt to keep tested by manna with rebuke, to leave no mistake Father and Son descended speaking in grandeur. Accepting command is accepting cross coming separate, perpetual memorial of nobler world rescuing law, linking divine, opening eternal realities, showing inferiority of worldly enterprises, teaching talents use.

Transcript of character and conditions of life, and obedience gives access to tree lost, fashions likeness exemplifying Christ, gives revelation, qualifies for heaven. Ten form protective boundary bringing health, happiness, blessing and assurance, and keeping holy brings sanctification and presence, while walking contrary turns light darkness. Character built on ten whose principles further explained privately, engraved to reveal character, and teachers advance as harmonize through obeying. Keeping as gift means coming into line, following light, obeying and sanctifying in heart which is everything, and standing on rock leads to missionary work.

Keeping part of precepts calling courage despite fear for children, and learning leads to honor by keeping. Strivers obey despite contempt from despisers. Jews heard proclaim and claimed as people. Observance placed among central teachings as Lord's rest.

First day common with no command, and councils cannot make holy in place of sanctified, for treating as sacred contempts Sabbath. Sunday spurious set up by papal man of sin changing rest pointing to change as proof of authority, and Protestants keeping recognize power. Obedience absolutely essential to eternal life binding cannot be evaded, and breaking brought in judgment as denial stepping to darkness with no excuse, while breaker called to convert. Salvation depends on keeping all ten with perfect obedience without selecting, and none reaching heaven as well transgressing, for obedience from love to please Him who died.

Sabbath work laid aside as far as possible avoiding noisy labor, school lessons, polishing and restaurant, while suffering needs and feeding with little labor not neglected. Observance calls for more than stopping labor, for day belongs to God for worship, reading, conversation and gathering rather than idleness or sleep, with preparations arranged, and houses stand as memorials. Working even from necessity can lead to habit losing sacredness leaving without effect, so reform called, and trampling treats holy ordinary teaching others, with loss not lessening. Law applies every age no separate standard for masters servants or authorities, and principles govern dealings and institutional decisions, with responsible to practice in every line so honored.

God spoke aloud in grandeur so people feared asking Moses to speak, brought from slavery to keep, but they desired like nations asking human king. Since Jesus in 1844 shut outer and opened Most Holy to stand by ark, commandments including holy have shone and God tested people. Christ did not abolish at death, and death confirms changeless, for declared came not to destroy but fulfill not one jot passing, so binding while heaven remains, with Old with New rather than Jews alone. The seventh-day Sabbath is to have a faithful memorial in God's publishing institution, which must keep a pure sacred atmosphere free from selfish principles with workers rightly related to it.

Keeping the Sabbath is a matter of respect for God's requirements and love for Him rather than outward practice to please friends or gain approval under social pressure. The Sabbath and keeping God's commandments are main pillars of faith and essential points to be kept before people, while speculative ideas that create differences must be kept in the background. Keeping the Sabbath requires intelligent understanding of why it is kept to give a reason for the hope with meekness before kings and learned critics. Living by the Sabbath demonstrates profession is genuine, as an act of conscience and loyalty commending a trustworthy worker, so opposition to it is fighting God. Joining the world and teaching men's commandments subverts reverence for the Sabbath, but prevailing disloyalty gives no reason to respect God's law less or unite to void it.

Obedience Witness and Reward

Advocating the binding claims of the fourth precept while walking into temptation and moral failure gives enemies of truth occasion to reproach the faith and brings perplexity and discouragement upon those just beginning to see light upon the Sabbath. Disregarding the fourth commandment is open contempt for God's word and places people in danger, and disregarding the Sabbath can result in souls being lost, so those who know its importance must tell neighbors and share this Bible truth with those who have not heard it, for its observance is among the principles testing people today. The claim that rising on the first day changed the Sabbath from seventh to first is Satan's device to corrupt this one plain, still binding, unalterable commandment, covering God's plain will with error and tradition taught as commandments of God, suffered until the second appearing of Jesus, while God keeps true and faithful witnesses keeping all His commandments as the foundation of His government in heaven and earth, the only one bringing to view the true God as maker of heaven and earth, whose violation joins Satan's rebellion and whose transgressor must die.

The reason for remembering the Sabbath to keep it holy was spoken through Moses for all to understand, beginning with remember and explaining that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and all in them and rested the seventh, blessing and hallowing it as His great memorial of creation, an explanation so full that none need be left in darkness unless choosing darkness, ever standing unmoved as a rock of offense and remaining fully binding even when professed people ignore it. There is no excuse for accepting a rival Sabbath from the man of sin who thinks to change times and laws, for law-making is God's prerogative alone and no one can change His law, and the Sabbath is the test today as Christ was a test to the Jews, with rejection of God's holy memorial deciding fate as rejection of the Son decided Jerusalem's destiny, destroyed forty years after His prediction with more than a million perishing in the siege. The ten commandments, spoken by God's voice and engraven on stone for all mankind, endure through all time unlike specific social and religious rules given through Moses for Israel which embraced their principles, and the Sabbath can never be repealed while heaven and earth remain, requiring willing obedience to every one of the ten as links of a chain where violation of this one makes a commandment-breaker guilty of all, with no one guiltless ceasing to keep it holy.

No man has authority to flout or object to this precept more than to any other nine, and though many accept the other nine, disloyalty in accepting a papal institution in place of God's day does not excuse others, for general transgression does not lessen sin and God holds every man responsible for observing every precept, trampling its sanctity disrespecting the God of heaven. The ten are words of the living God with greater force and value than precepts and teachings of men, while customs, maxims and traditions handed down through rabbis and held by scribes and Pharisees were made all-essential and regarded as of even more force than the ten, hindering advancement in knowledge and efficient work and hindering spiritual education unless schools study, receive and do God's Word as guide under watchful guard. The moral law was given to Adam after his fall, preserved by Noah in the ark and observed by Abraham, then spoken by the Lord Himself with audible voice in hearing of all when He came down upon Sinai enshrouded in glory surrounded by angels because He would not trust its teaching even to angels, and written by His own finger on stone so short memory, tradition and practices of men could not mingle with or confuse its requirements. It was proclaimed because Israel had witnessed idolatry in Egypt, had confused ideas of God's law, and had failed when proved after the Red Sea by murmuring and wishing to return, leaving them without excuse, then guarded by judgments and laws Moses was required to write with minute directions to draw erring man prone to transgress back to obedience. Parents must obey and teach the commandment to children as Abraham did, for it forbids work not only for parents but for sons and daughters, so sending children to school on the Sabbath breaks it and cannot have God's approval, requiring seeking exemption, establishing own schools where possible, obeying God at whatever cost even instructing children themselves or moving where commandments can be kept free. The claim that doing good permits Sabbath schooling or business would also permit unlimited labor for bread, and loss in business, difficulty educating children and conflict with civil law give no excuse for departing from its exact letter, for God does not shape requirements to human convenience, making Sabbath keeping a test whether God's law is honored above men, with keeping another day after learning truth contradicting God's law as idolatry.

To free themselves from unwilling duty popular teachers declare God's law no longer binding, thus casting away law and Sabbath together, and as Sabbath reform extends this rejection to avoid the fourth will become well-nigh universal, yet widespread corruption is not caused by desecration of the so-called Christian Sabbath nor cured by enforcing Sunday, and God's servants cannot unite with a Sunday movement joining good reforms with a requirement contrary to God's law, for nothing justifies setting aside God's commandments for men's precepts. Keeping the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord God distinguishes the few bowing to the Lawgiver from larger bodies of professed Christians keeping the first day instead, with the seventh-day Sabbath and waiting for Christ's appearing as prominent features of faith. Honoring the Sabbath is God's command not a human test, drawing a separating line between God's people and the world and between those serving God and those not, not to be treated lightly, with those in responsible positions to lead others to honor it, as a point of the final conflict between truth and error. Replacing the holy Sabbath with a day lacking divine authority opposes God's command, while keeping it commemorates creation, recognizes duty to the Creator, tests obedience and teaches God's power through works and Word, and claimed sanctification does not come from God while His commands are disobeyed.

The command clearly forbids labor on the seventh day set apart and sanctified for Himself, with claims neither abrogated, canceled, lessened nor diminished, and slighting and forgetting it does not remove obligation, for every transgression will bring punishment, and desecrating it through worldly love of gain, pursuits, pleasure and sin wastes probationary time given to prepare for eternity. Cain's descendants chose their own times for work and rest instead of respecting the day God set apart, disregarding the day of God's rest, while those obeying revered the Sabbath instituted in Eden and observed by Adam and Eve before and after the fall because God rested on it after creating heavens and earth in six days and made it holy, with the recurring pattern of sevens meant to keep people mindful of the Creator. The Sabbath and all precepts are sacred not to be treated lightly, for treating the day lightly is transgression whose reward is death, and the cycle of sevens was required so people would not forget Him as Creator who made heavens and earth in six days and rested the seventh, setting the day apart and blessing it with special honor calling people to remember Him.

The direction given at Sinai after deliverance from Egypt is to be held in highest regard and lived by, especially by physicians in medical work, keeping them from loose manners and carelessness regarding chastity so all living by these laws may be safely trusted, and full obedience to God's law including this law is necessary for health, truth and happiness, with needless violations of bodily laws as serious as breaking the ten. Disregard for physical principles is linked with willingness to violate God's law, for like body laws the Decalogue precepts are God's laws and violating them is sin against the Creator. Principles of the law spoken from Sinai are to be held firmly, with differences about diet not becoming a barrier between brethren. The law of the ten is to be obeyed in daily life as personal duty, and neglecting it is sin that can discourage others from accepting truth.

Calling the day sacred means treating it as God does, for the seventh belongs to God set apart from six days for secular work with no ordinary work to be done, established in Eden and placed in human care to keep pure and holy, showing one has chosen the Lord as Leader. The command requires no work by anyone under household authority including children, servants, animals and resident strangers on the Lord's Sabbath, as a moral precept among unchangeable commandments whose seventh-day identity and obligation remain unchanged as a memorial of creative power instituted before the Jewish people existed. It is part of the old commandment from the beginning, the fourth placed in the bosom of the Decalogue as memorial of creation founded on six days' work and rest on the seventh, given with special charge to remember, set apart after creation for observance through all generations, so violating it is disobedience trampling the institution.

After six days God rested, blessed and sanctified the seventh as holy belonging to Him, instituted in Eden before the fall and observed by Adam and Eve and angels, never to be abolished but kept forever by redeemed and angels in honor of the Creator, made for humanity to lay aside work following God's example, even in busiest earing and harvest with holy time not trespassed upon, with the day before as preparation so all is ready. Its object is looking upon earth and heaven, directing thoughts to Him who made all wonderful and beautiful things, beholding tangible proofs of infinite wisdom and goodness until the heart fills with love and reverence, remembering temporal blessings come from the Creator who increases or diminishes according to faithfulness, remembering Him as true and living God first heralded when morning stars sang and sons of God shouted for joy. The verse places the Sabbath in the ten as seal of the living God pointing out the Lawgiver and His right to rule, a sign between God and His people and test of loyalty highly estimated, rewarding those turning from own pleasure, ways and words and calling it delight, holy and honorable with delight in the Lord and heritage of Jacob, requiring full unquestioning obedience once light comes without pleading feasibility or convenience, leaving none guiltless continuing to disregard after enlightenment.

God gave man six days to work for himself but reserved the seventh for Himself to be specially honored, glorified and obeyed, so taking even a little reserved time for secular work robs God, yet reserved also as rest for man's good because man needs rest from toil and care and health and life would be endangered without relaxation from labor and anxiety of six days, made after man to meet necessities rather than man made to fit it, reasonable and merciful for all mankind. Keeping the fourth just as given with strictness and without slackness is required, for deficiency and slackness cause backsliding, separation from God, bondage of soul and loss of heaven's light, while faithfully improving given light and privileges brings freedom of soul and closeness to God. The seventh-day Sabbath is a test of loyalty and boundary between faithful and transgressors, the seal of the living God, whose claims must be honored rather than reduced to fit business needs or personal convenience, for rest is binding not a matter of convenience and profession keeping it is contradicted when conduct violates requirements. The fourth is as binding as the other nine moral precepts, with the true Sabbath not the first day, so observing the first after learning which is true is idolatry contradicting God's law, and keeping the fourth as it reads including honoring the sanctified day is loyalty to God not to be apologized for, distinct from a spurious unsanctified day whose acceptance departs from commandments.

Opposing religious forces trample the fourth underfoot, and the Sabbath truth is unpopular so teachers must expect resistance, falsehood and efforts to keep others from accepting, with differing professed Christians and organizations uniting in opposition, yet its messengers warn the world, identify sin when transgressed and point transgressors to Jesus as only remedy. Papal authorities demanded Sunday and condemned honoring the Sabbath, making it a leading point of conflict with Rome, while some faithful confused by prevailing error refrained from work on both days, so honoring rather than profaning distinguished those faithful to God's law. Validity is defended from straightforward Scripture testimony rather than human tradition or authority, for those questioned answer to get rid of the fourth and get around the Lord's Sabbath, with real honesty not regarded in many positions taken, whose main object is evasion so when driven from one position opponents take an opposite one even just condemned as unsound. Laws promoting first-day observance while legalizing liquor exalt human enactments above God's command and coerce conscience, setting up the first day and compelling it causing creatures to transgress the Creator's law and putting man above heaven's Lord, yet when human laws conflict with plain Thus saith the Lord God's law must be obeyed, for obedience to the higher law spoken audibly from Sinai and engraved by His finger comes before men, even to refusing war service making continual violation unavoidable, and transgressors however high shall be called least.

The Sabbath commandment will be the great point in last-days warfare between Christ's followers and united corrupt powers apostatized from allegiance, because there the Lawgiver identifies Himself as Creator of heaven and earth, and Satan comes with nations' laws demanding worship under threat of withdrawing protection and offering bribes as he offered Christ the kingdoms for worship, while many make the Sabbath void as naught and exalt the spurious papal child with laws of the man of sin elevated for universal homage like Nebuchadnezzar's golden image. The commandment standing in the very center of the ten with a soft halo encircling it as the only one defining the living Creator of heavens, earth and all therein, founded when earth's foundations were laid so keeping it would have preserved the world from infidelity, atheism and idolatry, has been trampled by the man of sin exalting himself above God thinking to change times and laws and changing Sabbath from seventh to first making a breach, yet just prior to the great day a message warns to return to allegiance to the law antichrist broke down, calling by precept and example to repair the breach and plead for the broken-down Sabbath, with the third angel proclaiming commandments and faith of Jesus representing receivers raising the warning to keep them as apple of the eye, in response to which many embrace the Lord's Sabbath. People throughout the world must be warned to return to obedience and help restore the breached Sabbath by teaching and example, for its importance shone out after Jesus opened the door into the Most Holy in 1844 where the ark stands, testing God's people on Sabbath truth, and its binding claims as light must be presented clearly to test and prove the world.

Rejecting the true Sabbath sanctified and blessed at creation and repeated on Sinai amid terrible majesty rejects sacred truth, for its work prohibition states requirements of God's law, and Satan turns men from true worship to control heart and mind, while obedient people hold fast every line as soul's only hope. The command identifies Jehovah as true and living God standing against a rival instituted by the man of sin and enforced by compulsion, so rejecting it is disloyalty, and leading others to ease in transgression and teaching a lie bring punishment. Serving restaurant meals on that day violates God's law whether serving few or many, and workers should not be required to work instead of resting, for closing honors the Sabbath as memorial declaring the seventh is Sabbath and unnecessary work is not done, also giving opportunity to explain principles. The seventh-day Sabbath is biblical practice Christians should observe, removing an obstacle for converts from Judaism, for observing it respects God's word requiring rest from work. Faithful people and institutions bear witness to God's Sabbath instituted in Eden as a sign distinguishing obedient from disobedient and against the false sabbath.

Keeping the seventh holy is a positive command whose sanctity God established, cited against efforts to require Sunday, for general disobedience does not change it and convenience or conformity does not make a common workday proper substitute for the sacred day. The seventh set apart in Eden to be observed holy, sanctified as the Lord's rest day and given as memorial of creation to be held sacred through all time, makes the Sabbath question most vital. Keeping it marks God's people loyal, trusting His truth and power as Creator, identifying them as chosen linked to heaven's God, bringing government's principles into daily life, submitting to His will and keeping commands from the heart. Changed by human authority, it is to be restored, for it requires rest by everyone in household including servants, dependents and animals as continuing safeguard, memorial of creation and matter of obedience. It belongs to ten precepts proclaimed at Sinai providing obedience's standard and revealing whole duty, among first four defining duty to God. The ten are to be practiced in every line of work so conduct does not dishonor God or stumble others.

Grounded in creation and given again at Sinai, it remains a perpetual covenant and sign between God and His people showing the Lord their Creator sanctifies them, a memorial kept by obedient children bearing witness that He sanctifies them, requiring observance of God's law. Work belonging to six days must not be carried into the seventh even by an hour at beginning or end, and keeping means resisting trade and worldly gain rather than letting self-interest govern. As one of ten precepts for mankind's government it is sacred, and respecting it protects homes from horrors of vice, calling for purifying self and deciding to obey God at any cost, whereupon one understands godliness's mystery, loves God's law meditating all day, with eyes opened to wondrous things out of it. It belongs to first four allowing no separation of affections from God, with nothing to share supreme delight in Him, so whatever divides affections and takes supreme love assumes idol form to be sacrificed and put away, for idols separate and prevent spiritual advance, and keeping draws to Christ separating from world, pleasures, friendships and elements with no concord with what opposes Him, trusting God alone and pressing on in obedience.

As one of ten communicated at Sinai it is part of what is written showing what to do to inherit eternal life, holding righteousness's principle as rule of action, yet entrusted oracles had nearly lost sight while Satan gathered the world rapidly leading it against it. As part of truth proclaimed from Sinai's mount it carries weight giving heaven's plain principles in God's Word, under whose power and authority every soul must bow in humility and contrition, for departing while claiming heaven's will is sin leaving disobeyers on ruin's brink, yet Jesus calls those for whom He gave life to come and His blood will cleanse all sin and glossed-over iniquity. The seventh as the Lord's Sabbath of the fourth stands contrasted with a spurious papal sabbath, with laws compelling Sunday presented as effort to suppress the commandment and force conscience.