Exodus 20:11, commentary and pictures

The verse gives the reason for the Sabbath command, that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and the sea and all in them, rested the seventh day, and therefore blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it as the holy memorial of creation. It is plain, definite and explicit, means just as it reads, and leaves none in darkness unless they choose darkness. The six days and the seventh are literal ordinary twenty-four-hour days like the weekly cycle, not indefinite ages or vast periods. The Sabbath is God's memorial pointing to Him as Creator, Sovereign, and true and living God, distinguishing Him from idols and false gods, and lies at the foundation of worship due to Him as Creator. The blessed seventh day is Saturday, not Sunday the first day, nor any seventh part of time. Keeping the seventh-day Sabbath shows allegiance to the only true God and is the test of loyalty especially in the last-days warfare, while the change to Sunday was made by the papal power thinking to change times and laws.

Wording and Plain Reason

The verse gives the reason for the Sabbath command, that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, rested the seventh day, and therefore blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it and set it apart as holy. The creation week is the pattern for the human week, with six days for labor and the seventh as a day of rest commemorating the Creator's rest. Its place at the very center and heart of the Ten Commandments as first proclaimed gives it special significance as part of God's enduring law and memorial of creation binding people of every age and country. The blessing that made the seventh day holy has never been removed, and the commandment has neither been abolished nor changed, so the seventh day remains the Creator's rest day.

The command is plain, definite and explicit, means just as it reads, and gives a complete reason that leaves no one in darkness or without explanation unless they choose darkness and reject the light. Its light regarding the Sabbath is too plain to be misunderstood, showing why the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord to be kept holy with no work done. It is sacred truth carrying a Thus saith the Lord that is all-sufficient in itself, to be learned from the Bible alone rather than fathers or human agency. Those who believe it will do as directed there, searching the Scriptures to see if these things are so and praying for opened understanding and a mind willing to grasp every ray of light even when it opposes past belief, for only those who do His commandments have right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates into the city, and no one can be saved while refusing to keep it. Putting the first day in its place and making laws to compel its observance dishonors the Creator, reverences the false in place of the true, tramples God's Sabbath, and brings God's condemnation on those who disregard His commands, a violation discerned after the disappointment of 1844 by earnestly re-reading His commandments.

The precept begins with Remember and was spoken so all could understand after the charge to keep holy, coming after the command to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy and the reason given in the preceding verses. It was given because man in the multitude of cares and perplexities and the press of worldly business for profit or pleasure would be tempted to forget its sacred importance or excuse himself from its full requirements. God gives man six days for his own work and the usual business of life, but claims the sanctified seventh day as His own for rest from labor, worship and improvement of spiritual condition, so to steal it for selfish purposes and petty temporal interests is a flagrant outrage. To use the Sabbath occasionally for secular business is as ruthless a violation as to reject it entirely, making God's commandments a matter of convenience, for there is no exception for any person, no excuse of business or care, no partial or divided obedience, no compromise, and no postponement for pleasure or convenience, but willing sacrifice is required. Slack, deficient keeping causes backsliding, separation from God, lack of freedom of soul and loss of the light of heaven because light and privileges have not been improved, and every transgression is kept in the book of record and will be visited with punishment when the nations come before God for judgment.

After laying earth's foundations, dressing it in beauty and making the wonders of land and sea in six days, Jehovah ceased His labor of creating, rested upon the seventh day, was refreshed, blessed it, sanctified and set it apart for a special purpose, instituted it as holy, and commanded it to be kept holy. He required His people to number time by sevens so they would not forget their Creator, and the seventh day is ever to be kept as a memorial of God as Creator of the heavens and the earth and Monarch of the universe, proclaimed from Sinai in awful grandeur to be observed in commemoration of the rest day He ordained. That divine pattern defines human Sabbath-keeping: man is to lay aside the occupation of daily life and labor as He rested, leaving daily work for livelihood and worldly pleasure or profit to devote the sacred hours to healthful rest, worship and holy deeds, for the rest-day was not intended to be useless inactivity or sleeping away the hours. Caring for the sick, meeting the needs of the needy, and relieving avoidable suffering are fitting Sabbath work, for God's sustaining care for life continues, while to lightly esteem that day is transgression whose reward is death.

Literal Six Day Creation

The six days in which heaven and earth, the sea and all in them were made, and the seventh day on which rest was taken, are literal ordinary twenty-four-hour days of the same kind as make up the weekly cycle now. They are not indefinite ages or vast periods, and to read them as long ages obscures the commandment and makes its commemoration of literal days incoherent and senseless. The reason for the Sabbath is clear only when the creation days are understood as literal days, for the day commanded to be observed must be a literal day.

The first creation week established the pattern for every week until the close of time, with six days appointed for human labor and the seventh appointed for rest from labor. The first six days of each week are given for work and usual business for profit or pleasure because they correspond to the six days used for the work of creation, while the seventh is to be kept from ordinary work in commemoration of the rest taken after those six days. The seventh day was blessed and set apart for human use as a memorial of that rest, and treating it as a common workday disregards its holiness.

How the work of creation was carried out has not been revealed, and the manner of its accomplishment is beyond human comprehension. The age and history of things found in the earth cannot be fixed by geology alone but must be learned from the inspired record. The great changes caused by the Flood affect how earlier conditions are understood.

The Sabbath was instituted in Eden at the close of the six days, when the foundations of the world were laid amid the song of the morning stars and the shout of joy from the sons of God and all the heavenly host. It was given before the fall to Adam and Eve and observed by them both before and after expulsion, and it was given before the existence of the Jewish people to Adam and Eve for all their descendants in every age and into eternity. As God's own institution from the beginning it is firm and unchangeable, standing as firm as the marriage institution also constituted as a divine ordinance in Eden.

Sinai Giving and History

The reason for the Sabbath was spoken by God Himself at Sinai after He had brought Israel out of Egypt and out of the house of bondage, in awful grandeur with thunder and lightning, flame and smoke, earthquake and trumpet, with an audible voice in the hearing of all the people, and written with His own finger upon tables of stone to denote its enduring character. He did not trust it to be taught by any other, not even angels, lest a people prone to forget should forget His requirements, mingle tradition with His holy precepts, or confuse His requirements with the practices of men. The Teacher who gave this direction on Mount Sinai is Christ Jesus, who was with the Father there from the beginning, worked with the Father in creation and made the Sabbath, and has spoken in human flesh as Teacher and Lawgiver and Redeemer. The law thus proclaimed expresses His character and authority and majesty as Ruler of the world, to impress the people with the sacredness of His law and the importance of obeying it.

The commandment then proclaimed was not new, for the law was first given in Eden and the Sabbath was established at creation for humanity, not added because of sin. It belongs to the moral law given to Adam after his fall, preserved in the ark by Noah, and observed by Abraham, with its principles existing before the fall and unchanged afterward though additional precepts were given for fallen condition. Abraham's descendants broke the covenant, went into idolatry and down into Egypt, lost sight of the true Sabbath and of the Creator during bondage, and mingled His requirements with heathen customs, so that if they had kept the law and the covenant pledged by circumcision there would have been no necessity to proclaim it from Sinai, engrave it on stone, and guard it by definite directions. Therefore God by mighty power delivered Israel from Egypt in spite of Pharaoh's opposition so they might keep it, and gave it anew in the wilderness and at Sinai, speaking the ten commandments with His own voice to leave Israel without excuse.

Its sanctity was already impressed before Sinai by the weekly miracle of the manna, in which God rained bread with a double portion to be gathered on the sixth day and miraculously preserved, and none on the seventh, feeding Israel so for forty years until the borders of Canaan to show the Sabbath a sacred day and to test obedience to God's law. In the wilderness kindling fires on the seventh day was strictly prohibited because fire was not needed for warmth, unlike in Canaan, and willful Sabbath-breaking was presumption and contempt for divine authority deserving death, while greatly polluting the Sabbaths and lax observance were reasons the first generation was excluded from Canaan. The instructions given through Moses, including the manna test, were recorded for the benefit of all who should live on earth to the close of time, and God has spoken them to be heard and obeyed.

That writing still reads the same in the ark in the most holy place in heaven, where the seventh day is the Sabbath and not the first day, exactly as written by the finger of God and delivered to Moses at Sinai. After Jesus entered there at the close of 1844, at the end of the 2300 days, light on the seventh-day Sabbath shone from the most holy place, with the Sabbath commandment and its creation reason shining above all the ten with a halo of glory because set apart to be kept in honor of God's holy name. It was not nailed to the cross, for if it were the other nine would be also, and God has not changed it for He never changes; it has become a present test of obedience to God's law for His people, as ancient Israel was tested, directing the disappointed ones upward by faith into the holiest where they find Jesus. So understood it is and will be the separating wall between the true Israel of God and unbelievers and the great question to unite the hearts of God's waiting saints.

Moses was to repeat it to the new generation, and the instruction God gave on the mount in Exodus 19 to 24 is to be studied and presented before the people, needed now just as verily as by the children of Israel in the days of Moses, guarding against injustice and guiding dealing with one another. It belongs with the further teaching in Exodus 31 and with the keeping of the law enjoined in Exodus 21 and 22, whose judgments and statutes from His mouth give minute directions about duty to one another and to the stranger, simplifying the principles of the ten commandments in definite form so erring man prone to transgress need not err but is led to strict obedience. The true significance Ezra sought to learn belongs to this law given at Mount Sinai and preserved in the writings of Moses, given at Sinai a second time when God spoke the commandments and engraved them on stone as the standard of obedience. After about 2500 years of oral transmission Moses wrote the creation account as historian, setting forth what in six days the Lord made and how on the seventh He rested, blessed, sanctified and hallowed the day.

Israel had to wash their clothes before hearing the holy law spoken at Sinai, showing that clean and orderly appearance was required in approaching its proclamation, and decency and neatness are not pride. The sacred law cannot be written on the hearts of people who neglect cleanliness in themselves, in their clothing, or in their homes.

Memorial of the Creator

The Sabbath is God's enduring memorial of creation, given because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all in them, rested the seventh day, and therefore blessed that day and made it holy. It points to Him as Creator and Sovereign, the true and living God, and was meant to keep His power, wisdom, goodness and love before minds each week through His works in earth and sea, in the heavens, the sun giving life and beauty, the moon and the stars as the works of His hands. Instituted in Eden to keep this truth ever before minds, it directs people to the only true God and calls for worship and allegiance to Him as long as His creatorship remains a reason to worship Him.

By naming God as Maker of heaven, earth, sea and all in them, it alone of the ten defines who the living God is and distinguishes Him from idols of wood and stone and from heathen worship. The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish, while the Creator's superiority is declared by the heavens showing His glory. Resting on the Sabbath means looking at the work of His hands and remembering His mighty power and wonderful goodness.

It lies at the very foundation of all divine worship, because worship is due to God as Creator and all other beings owe their existence to Him, teaching in the most impressive manner the distinction between Creator and creatures. This ground of seventh-day worship and of all worship can never become obsolete and must never be forgotten. Had the Sabbath been universally kept, thoughts and affections would have been led to the Creator as the object of reverence and worship, and there would never have been an idolater, an atheist or an infidel, for everything in nature would have brought Him to remembrance and borne witness to His power and love.

The fourth commandment uniquely gives the Lawgiver's name and title as Creator, identifying whose authority gives the law and serving as its seal of authenticity and binding force, the token and sign of His rightful authority over the beings He has made. It is therefore the seal of the living God, placed in the mind, standing in direct contrast to the spurious sabbath accepted in its place, and treating another day as sacred obscures that reminder and serves an attempt to supplant God's authority. Keeping the Sabbath is a sign of loyalty to Him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters, so the Revelation 14 message commanding worship of God and keeping His commandments especially calls for keeping the fourth commandment.

It calls people to behold the glory of the Creator in His works, with the holy rest day especially suited to studying the messages God has placed in nature outdoors, as Christ's lessons drawn from natural things direct people to the Creator. God's people were to count by sevens so they would remember creation, and youth are to learn the lessons given at Sinai amid the scenes of nature and the everlasting hills as constant students of nature, with children taught from nature to remember Him. This grows love and reverence for Him by seeing the works of His wisdom, turning minds from earth to contemplate His power and love in creation and redemption.

A memorial must be kept on the exact day commemorated, for the seventh day blessed and made holy as the Creator's rest day is not interchangeable with another day or with a common working day. Replacing it by human authority with another day destroys its sacredness and its meaning as memorial of six-day work and rest, making it an ordinary day and a test of obedience like Adam's choice concerning the tree. The law to which it belongs expresses God's goodness by revealing what the Creator expects from His creatures, made known first in Eden when the morning stars sang and proclaimed again from Sinai after deliverance from bondage. The seventh-day Sabbath thus made holy is a sign between God and His obedient children, marking them as His people and testifying that He sanctifies them.

Authority of Divine Law

The commandment stands in the very center and bosom of the Ten, among the first four that define supreme love and duty owed to the Maker, distinct from the last six that define love and duty to neighbor, and together they are the whole duty of man. Its central place gives it special significance, for only a remnant keep the very day specified and urge its importance, and its keeping is further enjoined in Exodus 21 and 22. The first four outline duty to God and call for care and wisdom to uphold God's Sabbath against a false sabbath. The law of Exodus 20 will stand to witness against the world in the judgment day.

As moral, universal, and unchangeable law, distinct from ceremonial rites nailed to the cross, it binds all mankind in every age and in every country, not Hebrews only, whether acknowledged or not. It was given for the benefit of all to endure through all time, and no one has authority to flout it more than any other precept, nor does general transgression lessen the sin, for God holds every person responsible for observing it. It was spoken by Christ as Sovereign to make known the principles that must govern mankind, first given in Eden and then proclaimed at Sinai after deliverance from Egypt despite Pharaoh's opposition, in awful grandeur to demonstrate its importance and God's majesty and authority as Ruler of the world. It already existed before Sinai and before the fall, was not added because of sin, though additional precepts were given for the fallen condition, and it is the faith once delivered to the saints. While heaven and earth remain it can never be repealed or abrogated any more than loving God or reverencing His name, and all enlightened law and government comes from those ten words.

It perfectly reveals God's will, character, and government, expressing the principles of His government. It is the standard of righteousness in the judgment, whose righteous principles decide destiny and determine whether people receive life or death, so that obedience is prerequisite to salvation and no one will have excuse for sin. Its commandments call for wholehearted love to God and love for neighbor, not mere profession, and the Sabbath day of rest has not been changed. It is a transcript of God's character, and to obey it is life. Christ came to represent the Father in character and is the example in keeping it, and those claiming to be God's children yet living in disorderly self-will misrepresent Christ and transgress the law of Jehovah.

It shows transgressors what sin is and gives the knowledge of sin, condemning unrighteousness and excusing no wicked act. Men must be convicted of sin by a proper understanding of its holy character before they feel need of Christ with ready obedience, for the unrenewed heart hates its restrictions and to present it as a yoke that cannot be borne or to trample it underfoot lessens the grievous character of sin and does the work of the deceiver. It reaches to intents and purposes of the heart, demanding purity in secret thoughts, desires, and dispositions, requiring supreme love to God and love to neighbor as self and perfect obedience from every soul, so that without that love profession is hypocrisy. Christ perfectly fulfilled every precept, and when a repentant person trusts in Him and seeks to obey, Christ's perfection covers transgression. Those who break the law must be shown their sin and pointed to Jesus Christ as its remedy, and obedience to it is a proper aim of moral training.

Obedience connects with the laws God established in human beings, so violating natural law through depraved appetites and lustful passions is also violating God's law and is as sinful as breaking the Ten Commandments. Health reform shines light on the sinfulness of breaking those bodily laws, as one branch of the great work to fit a people for the coming of the Lord, as closely connected with the third angel's message as the hand is with the body. Its principles, if obeyed, would prevent the curse of disease afflicting the world, and obedience to its physical and moral requirements with faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for health, truth, and happiness rather than yielding to harmful appetite. The Lord will not punish transgressors without first sending a message of warning.

It lies at the foundation of all right and righteous laws, restrains wrongdoing, and is a rule of action and foundation of all enlightened civil law requiring respect for the good of society and safety of man. Those prominent in framing national laws should understand what is written in it, and its full rays as present testing truth of the third angel's message should be proclaimed in Washington at the very heart of the nation. It is higher law supreme over laws of the land, the foundation of all good laws so that those who love them conform to every good law, yet when rulers require what conflicts the only question is whether to obey God or men. Those with God's law in the heart will obey God rather than men and sooner disobey all men than deviate in the least, and for that reason God's peculiar treasure cannot engage in war that violates conscience, because in the army they cannot obey truth and at the same time obey officers. God accepts no business transactions that set aside its principles governing dealings between men, and prosperity will not attend them, for to deal unjustly is to abandon truth and misrepresent His character. To the inebriate it is meaningless because benumbed senses cannot comprehend the language of Sinai, and he tries to bring the law down to his debased standard rather than elevate himself to God's exalted standard.

The blessing that first hallowed the seventh day has never been removed, the command has never been abolished or nailed to the cross, the Sabbath has never been changed to the first day, and God has never changed it into a common working day, for He never changes. The seventh day remains the Creator's rest day, and there is no evidence anywhere in the Word for such a change. Keeping the seventh-day Sabbath is evidence of obedience perfecting Christian character, and keeping His Sabbath holy manifests loyalty to God even when disregard is ignorant. This creation reason is to be taught to children that they may honor God and learn to serve Him.

God requires obedience to every one of the ten, not nine-tenths, for they are like links of a chain where one broken link makes the chain worthless, so violation of this Sabbath command makes a person a commandment-breaker guilty of all, and only willing obedience to all makes a true commandment-keeper. Setting aside the fourth with the fifth helps remove respect for law protecting human life and social order, weakening respect for commandments generally and leading toward disobedience, harm, violence, and disorder. The first four require undivided devotion with nothing sharing supreme love and delight in God, and needless display of dress using God's time and money breaks those as well as the last six. Neither the first four nor the last six had been kept, so the law convicts of sin and exposes need to confess rather than excuse or argue difficulty.

Its words are the words of the living God, of greater force and value than customs, maxims, traditions, precepts, and teachings of men handed down through scribes, Pharisees, and rabbis, which kept disciples from advancing when Christ was in the world with few followers. It is of divine, not human, composition, spoken by God and written by His own hand. It was spoken with audible voice from Sinai and engraved on stone with God's finger, to be put into the mind and written in the heart, where its words and commands are spirit and life with power to bring into subjection and enforce obedience. Failure to keep it shows a heart still defiled with sin and filled with selfishness, unable to be zealous of good works. Giving the first four greater importance while neglecting practical godliness fails to honor the full demands of the commandments, which define duty to God distinct from the last six defining duty to fellow men.

True Day Versus Counterfeit

The day blessed and hallowed for the reason that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all in them and rested the seventh is the seventh day, not the first, not any seventh part of time and not a common working day, and it is Saturday, while in Italian il Sabato means the Sabbath beginning at sunset. That seventh day is the Sabbath the Lord specified, set apart, blessed and made holy, and it has never been changed by Him into a common working day. Keeping that seventh-day Sabbath is obedience to God's command and evidence perfecting Christian character, while keeping the first day as the Sabbath is rejecting the commandment of God and choosing the commandments of men. Replacing it with the first day does not make the first day the Sabbath God sanctified, and the fourth commandment is to be obeyed according to the Bible's plain wording.

The first day of the week has no sanctity specified by God as the Sabbath, no command and no evidence anywhere in His Word, but is a common working day, and calling it the Christian Sabbath makes it a spurious substitute for the Lord's day. The claim that Christ changed the Sabbath to Sunday by His resurrection is unsupported and has no testimony of Scripture, for Sunday observance rests on human authority rather than the divine authority of the Sabbath command grounded in God's creation and rest. Transferring the Sabbath's duties to the first day did not transfer them by Scripture but emboldened disregard of the Lord's Sabbath and tramples upon it. After light has come about the true Sabbath, observance of the first day is a plain contradiction of the law of God, a spurious sabbath originating with the papacy and exalted above God's day, which children must be plainly taught not to confuse with the true Sabbath.

The change from the seventh to the first day was made by the Pope, the papacy, the man of sin exalting himself above God, and the beast power thinking to change times and laws. It was carried out through church councils that pressed the Sabbath lower and exalted Sunday until the pagan festival was honored as a divine institution and the Bible Sabbath was pronounced a relic of Judaism, with Constantine's early-fourth-century sun-day festival exalting Sunday and depressing the Sabbath. That Sabbath was set apart to be kept in honor of God's holy name, shining above all the ten with a halo of glory because blessed and hallowed as memorial of creation, and it was not nailed to the cross, for if it were the other nine would be also. God has not changed the Sabbath, for He never changes, and the writing on the tables of stone in the ark in the most holy place in heaven still reads the same as delivered at Sinai, that the seventh day is the Sabbath, not the first. The Sabbath is part of the unchangeable law ever to stand unmoved as memorial of creation, beginning with remember and giving the full reason so none need be left in darkness unless they choose darkness, and no rival Sabbath from the man of sin can be accepted because law-making power belongs to God alone.

Putting the first day in place of the seventh discards the creation memorial of His making the world in six days and resting the seventh, rejects God's command confirmed by the manna miracle and proclaimed at Sinai, and reverences the false in place of the true. Setting it aside for a common working day presented by Catholic authority disobeys God's explicit directions, dishonors the Creator of heaven and earth, tramples His Sabbath underfoot, and brings His condemnation and reward according to works, leaving none guiltless who set aside His commands and teach others to do so. The light about the Sabbath is too plain to be misunderstood, and working and walking contrary to it after the disappointment of 1844 made plain by earnestly re-reading His commandments is violation of the law of God. The very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday is the sign or mark of the Romish Church, the mark of the beast, contrasted with the Sabbath as memorial of creation and sign or seal between God and His people. By resting on Sunday the earth and them that dwell therein are caused to do homage to the power that originated the Sunday institution.

Sunday is a substitution for Saturday made by the Catholic Church, which cites it as the sign of her authority and power to ordain feasts and to command them under sin, and Protestants by keeping Sunday strictly acknowledge that power. A law compelling observance of Sunday instead of that Sabbath annuls this commandment requiring Saturday the seventh day, elevates human enactments above God's law, usurps divine prerogatives, assumes the authority of gods, profanes His holy day and insults God. Framing a law for a spurious Sunday Sabbath, a child of the papacy, and compelling obedience to it brings the displeasure of the Lord, compels transgression of the laws of Jehovah, bears no stamp of divine approval, and violates the precept of the Decalogue identifying the Bible Sabbath as the seventh day. Changing God's Sabbath law is an act of defiance against God, substituting church authority for God's authority and safeguarding the first day while coercing consciences. Those who fear God therefore cannot accept laws imposing Sunday observance, but must obey God rather than men, be sustained by faith to obey when the decree goes forth against those who will not worship the image of the beast and receive his mark, gathering strength and courage now without needless provocation and using the conflict to present truth even to lawmakers.

The Sabbath of the fourth commandment identifying the seventh day as the Lord's Sabbath grounded in God's creation and rest can be professed as truth while being used to gain trust and conceal teachings that twist Scripture and excuse sin. The Sabbath is Jehovah's, not merely Jewish, and calling it the old Jewish Sabbath wrongly treats its entrustment to the Jews for keeping God's law as an argument against it.

Final Test and Prophecy

Keeping the seventh-day Sabbath shows allegiance to the only true God, for the reason given is that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all in them, rested the seventh day, and blessed and hallowed it. The duty to worship rests on the fact that He is Creator and all others owe existence to Him, so the commandment pointing directly to Him as Maker lies at the very foundation of divine worship and teaches the distinction between Creator and creatures. So long as creatorship remains a reason to worship, so long the Sabbath continues as its sign and memorial, instituted in Eden to keep this truth ever before minds, and had it been universally kept there would never have been an idolater, atheist or infidel. Keeping it is the sign of loyalty to Him who made heaven and earth and sea and fountains of waters, and the Revelation 14 message commanding worship and keeping the commandments especially calls for keeping the fourth commandment. The blessing that first hallowed the seventh day has never been removed, the command has never been abolished or changed to the first day, and even ignorant disregard transgresses the precept while holy keeping manifests loyalty. The fourth commandment uniquely gives the Lawgiver's name and title as Creator, serving as seal of authority and binding force, to be honored as Jehovah's rest day through all time with refraining from work.

The commandment has been trampled when the man of sin exalted himself above God and changed rest from the seventh to the first day, putting a laboring day in place of sanctified time on human authority and robbing God every week, which makes a breach in the holy law. Just prior to the great day of God a message is sent to warn the people to come back to allegiance to the broken law, to repair the breach and plead for the broken-down Sabbath by precept and example. The third angel proclaiming the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus gathers a people who keep the commandments and embrace the Lord's Sabbath, presenting the whole Decalogue as foundation for reform and protection. The Sabbath command with its creation reason shines as present testing light from the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary after Jesus entered there at the close of 1844, testing obedience as ancient Israel was tested. The time has fully come for God's people to make up the breach and build up the waste places rather than abandon the Lord's Sabbath for a human institution even under threat of death.

In the coming controversy those keeping the blessed and holy seventh day as required will be condemned by religious and civil authorities as troublemakers. A decree will require God's people on pain of death to disregard the Sabbath of the fourth commandment and honor the first day, an institution of the papacy. Loyalty to God's Sabbath distinct from a false sabbath established by law may bring persecution, but faithfulness leads to eternal life. They will not yield to trample the Lord's Sabbath underfoot, and God will in a wonderful manner preserve and honor them as they cry day and night for deliverance. When rulers and legislatures clothe the commandment of men with sacred garments, pronounce it holy, and give divine honors to a spurious sabbath, persecution will break out against observers of God's memorial, and at that very time the banner for God's memorial must not be hidden but testimony borne in its behalf with the commandments more highly esteemed.

No one feels wrath for disobeying until its truth has been brought in contact with mind and conscience and rejected, and everyone is to have sufficient light to make an intelligent decision for or against it. Those who died before light was given on the law of God and the claims of the fourth commandment are not guilty of violating the seventh-day Sabbath, for God in wisdom gives light at the proper time and sends warning before judging that they may repent and prove allegiance. Those who know the commandment and refuse to obey are accountable, while those dying without knowing the truth about it are not held accountable for that mistake. Many true Christians in every church, even never having had opportunity to hear in a land of light, do not know the origin of Sunday from heathen sun worship cherished by Rome, and while that ignorance and integrity remains God accepts sincerity, but when light comes He requires observance of His appointed day. None has yet received the mark because testing time has not yet come, yet after light contacts conscience rejection leaves none guiltless.

Faithful witnesses have continued to keep the commandments through the church's errors and persecution, for the resurrection on the first day does not change the Sabbath from the seventh to the first. The creation Sabbath made holy by rest and blessing was kept by Adam in Eden and after the fall, by patriarchs from Abel to Noah to Abraham to Jacob, proclaimed to Israel at deliverance, and preserved to the present, honored in secret even during supremacy of the man of sin and maintained in every generation since the Reformation despite reproach. Churches in Central Africa and among the Armenians of Asia held the Bible as only rule of faith and kept that Sabbath for many centuries beyond Romish jurisdiction, almost wholly free from papal corruption though surrounded by heathenism. When forced to set it aside they returned to obedience upon regaining independence, showing setting aside God's Sabbath for Sunday exalts a human institution. Christ, Stephen and other Christians who died for faith did not break it, for their careful respect is evident in that genuine violation would have given enemies grounds for condemnation without resort to false testimony. The disciples obeyed it by keeping the Sabbath while His body lay in the tomb, and opponents who trample it must be shown what sin is and pointed to Jesus as its only remedy.

Holy Observance in Life

Strict obedience is required, with no work on the seventh day for self, son, daughter, manservant, maidservant, cattle, or stranger within the gates, because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all in them, rested the seventh, blessed it and hallowed it. Six days are given to labor and do all work for livelihood, profit or business, but the seventh allows no work for worldly profit and no plea of convenience, poverty, need to support a family, financial loss, educational disadvantage, conflict with civil law, or claim that God is not particular excuses departure from the exact letter. Keeping the Sabbath only when convenient is disobedience, and if one man were excused all must be excused; investing in or using means to support a business that violates it is disobedience God cannot prosper, and those in one's employ must not show open disregard of it. The Sabbath law stands in the very bosom of the ten moral laws as binding as the laws against stealing, murder and adultery, so transgression of the fourth carries the same guilt as any of the other nine, mercy covers guilt only after sin is repented and forsaken, and Christ died to preserve the honor of the law rather than let man perish, exalting its sacred character and making obedience possible through His merits. Arranging work, school, employment and livelihood so as not to violate the commandment is required even when it brings inconvenience or loss, loyalty is proved by honoring God's law above the requirements of men at whatever cost, and believers must gather strength and courage now to obey when the decree goes forth against those who will not worship the image of the beast.

Preparation must be finished on Friday before sunset, with Friday devoted as preparation in thought, deed and conversation so nothing remains to be said or done on the Sabbath. Cooking, baking, boiling, household work, tickets, business and all such own work belong to the six working days, and if neglected on a working day it must be left undone until the Sabbath is past, letting beards remain unshaven and boots remain rough and brown as a help to memory and greater care. Even cooking to satisfy appetite violates the fourth commandment, refraining from cooking on that day with needed preparation done Friday is required, and the prohibition also guards against gluttony. At annual gatherings seeking the Lord and humbling before Him must come first rather than making eating and drinking the chief business, and health and clearness of mind are preserved by eating temperately of plain, wholesome, simply prepared food, with benefit from taking only two simple meals and eating much more plainly than on working days.

Keeping holy requires more than stopping work, for God Himself set the example by resting, sanctifying and setting apart holy time, and resting means looking at the work of His hands and remembering His mighty power and wonderful goodness. It requires a strict devotional frame of mind, religious conversation, attendance at meeting, spiritual exercises, interesting the family in its observance, using the sacred hours to help others serve and honor God, and calling the Sabbath a delight. Sleeping away much of the day to make up sleep missed in working for money, skipping meeting for rest, and occupying holy time in an unprofitable useless manner dishonors the Creator and misuses the sanctified rest day, while of all days it is most favorable for devotional thoughts and feelings and its blessing attends the faithful through the week until the next holy Sabbath. Heaven watches those who acknowledge the claims of the fourth commandment, angels mark their interest and high sense of the divine institution, and those who keep it faithfully receive special light, help, strength and blessing, while angels turn from those who fail to appreciate its sacredness, removing light and strength and leaving them overshadowed, desponding and lacking the Spirit. The Sabbath need not be gloomy or uneasy, time outdoors can direct families to the beauty of creation and its Creator, and the sacred hours are to be devoted to God in cheerful service with ordinary work throughout the household set aside.

The mind as well as the body must be withdrawn from worldly business before the Sabbath begins, for the Sabbath from its commencement is time strictly the Lord's to be guarded in acts and words lest God be robbed. It requires disciplining the mind to dwell on sacred themes, because conversing on worldly things, business transactions, losses and gains, stock and provisions, crops, cattle, and light and trifling talk, and joining the unconsecrated in common topics, transgresses by speaking own words. A person outwardly free from labor but with attention fixed on business has not truly kept it and is regarded as a transgressor, and carrying work from the six days into it even for an hour at its beginning or end takes that hour from holy time and lets worldly business and self-interest displace obedience. If the mind runs on worldly business the tongue will reveal it, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, so refraining from labor while mind and tongue are on the world is still Sabbath breaking. The Sabbath is given so men stop and consider what they have gained during the week in preparation for the pure kingdom which admits no transgressor, and each Sabbath reckoning must be made with the soul to see whether the week has brought spiritual gain or loss.

Travel for own business, pleasure visits, or reaching a destination on the Sabbath breaches it and should be planned otherwise, with tickets secured and all necessary arrangements made on another day and journeys planned so as not to reach the destination on the Sabbath. Avoiding travel on boats or cars whenever it can be avoided sets a right example before children and youth, and traveling for personal business on the Sabbath would break the fourth commandment. Travel may be necessary to reach churches that need help and give them the message God desires them to hear, and travel needed to help churches or share God's message may be undertaken, though urgent travel required by God's work was undertaken with regret and in a devotional spirit. When compelled to travel the commandment means avoiding the company of those who would draw attention to worldly things, keeping the mind stayed upon God and communing with Him, speaking to others about the truth whenever there is opportunity, being always ready to relieve suffering and help those in need, and not talking about matters of business or engaging in common worldly conversation, with deliberate care over thoughts and words.

Ordinary secular work is forbidden and suspends all secular employment for livelihood or worldly profit, dedicating the day to rest and religious worship, so treading winepresses, gathering and carrying harvests and goods, lading animals, bringing burdens through gates, carrying burdens out of houses, selling victuals, restaurant service, seeking personal amusement, and doing any secular work violate the day. Works of mercy and benevolence are in harmony with its purpose and not limited by time or place, so relieving the afflicted, comforting the sorrowing, caring for the sick, and healing honor rather than break it. Priestly labor in connection with sacrificial offerings, though increased on the Sabbath, keeps the commandment, and holy work done in service of God does not break it. The Sabbath is not useless inactivity but healthful rest, worship and holy deeds, for God's rest ended His work of creating not His ongoing work of sustaining life, and deeds of mercy are lawful while useless human restrictions dishonor it.

The creation reason is to be taught to children that they may honor God and learn to serve Him, for the binding obligation rests upon parents and children alike and home habits must be brought into harmony with God's law for His household. Sending children to school on the Sabbath including to do assigned work conflicts with keeping it, attending to business to keep it moving, earning bread and all similar labor are forbidden, and parents are responsible for teaching obedience, seeking excuse from Sabbath school attendance, establishing separate schools where possible, and removing to places with different laws if compelled. Children should be taught to respect its religious obligations and not seek personal amusement on it, nor be let to play, run disorderly or violate it, for permitting them makes parents breakers.

God has given six working days to promptly fulfill all secular duties and reserved the seventh as holy sacred time for Himself, not to be infringed even by one hour, and no business is important enough to transgress except labor to save life of men or animals. Taking even a little reserved time for self robs God, violating for pecuniary advantage or to save property makes a person a Sabbath-breaker guilty of transgressing all, and transgression in a small matter hardens conscience and blunts sensibility until much labor can be done while still claiming to keep it when every holy precept is broken. God is very particular, His name is dishonored by partial observance, He cannot bless those who infringe a little for own advantage, His curse rests so they lose ten or twentyfold more than they gain, He may withdraw blessing causing loss and punish violators, and the command applies in busiest planting and harvest seasons with no gain from taking its time. Keeping most commandments does not excuse disobedience, for one deliberate departure remains violation even when otherwise obeyed.

Obedience perfects Christian character and requires moral courage, firmness, decision, perseverance and much prayer to step out on the unpopular side, expressed in taking hold of truth for truth's sake, erecting a house to worship God and praising Him with heart, soul and voice. Knowingly transgressing is a crime in Heaven's sight whose magnitude under Mosaic law required death, yet penalty does not end there, for God will not take a transgressor to Heaven and the transgressor must suffer the second death as full and final penalty, while lightly esteeming the day is transgression whose reward is death and whose retributive justice does not fail.

Where sunrise and sunset do not mark days in the usual way its observance is calculated from kept records, for the Sabbath was made for the whole round world and comes to every country by the sun that rules the day. God accepts obedience according to circumstances of time in a sun-rising and sun-setting world, with careful keeping as test to honor Him, and He gave mankind a world large and proper to inhabit without needing homes in lands so objectionable.

Ministers especially must be circumspect, restrict Sabbath conversation to religious themes, present truth, present duty, hopes, trials, conflicts and reward, and raise the standard by precept and example, for holy people who strictly obey honor God by teaching the holy law which is part of Himself. The Sabbath of the fourth commandment is present truth and test for this time requiring preparation with undivided mind and heart, with no manufactured test brought in to draw away, and it must be clearly set forth by gospel ministers before large congregations to press obedience, make sinners tremble and prove perfect to convert the soul. Leaders must uphold it rather than belittle it, for its precepts carry supreme importance where obedience means life and disobedience death, and its importance and obedience are emphasized in instruction with Sinai's proclamation.

Meals should be simpler and smaller with plain wholesome food because less activity calls for less food, and overeating dulls and stupifies the mind so it cannot appreciate spiritual things, accounting for many dull religious exercises. Special carefulness in diet is required with food selected for the day's duties, and eating the same amount as on a working day is entirely out of place because a clogged stomach means a clogged brain. Caring for sick and suffering may require preparing warm food or drink on the Sabbath, and doing so for comfort with as little labor as possible does not violate it, because the Lawgiver is compassionate as well as just; closing a restaurant marks it as memorial and gives workers time to worship while necessary food for patients and staff may still be prepared. When not preaching the Sabbath should be used for as much rest as possible without carrying ordinary weekly work into it, set apart for prayer, reading, writing and conversing on religious subjects, seeking a retired quiet place when possible.

Keeping it may cost position, wages, schooling or marriage prospects yet requires moral courage to obey at cost trusting God to supply, for its requirement called for obedience even when bringing sacrifice and setting keepers at odds with the world. Brother Sharp accepted it though his employer threatened livelihood and was followed by providential care, coal miners faced starvation when employers refused work to keepers while those with independent livelihoods like wealthy landowners kept it without that barrier, and obedience convinces souls and gathers companies and churches. Lifting the cross may mean enduring laughter and reproach, disappointing parents expecting education for a different ministry, risking expulsion from college and publicly stating convictions, and a woman's resolve to keep it though her husband demanded she give it up did not reject duties as wife and mother, since disobeying God would make her unfaithful to family as well. Giving up the Sabbath for a false sabbath to obtain a wife breaks God's law, dishonors Him, sacrifices truth and allegiance, and beginning married life that way cannot bring peace, while taking it up again in sincerity and fear of God is right.

Keeping the commandment requires holding its true object distinct and carefully observing its ordinances. Outward observance of the seventh day does not excuse breaking the seventh commandment, and such conduct brings reproach on those who conscientiously keep the Sabbath. Defending the fourth commandment while breaking the seventh brings a charge of adultery in heaven's books, gives Satan occasion to taunt angels with the filthy character of professed Christians, and makes Jesus ashamed to call them brethren. New accepters contrasting the Lord's holy Sabbath with Sunday market activity still need to learn careful observance.

Worldwide Proclamation and Witness

The claims of the verse as present testing truth belonging to the third angel's message are to be clearly presented worldwide to every nation and kindred and tongue and people, magnified with trumpet certainty and not weakened. Its full rays are to be proclaimed in Washington, the capital and very heart of the nation, where those who take a prominent part in framing laws for the nation should understand what is written in the law of God which lies at the foundation of all right laws. Holy people who strictly obey the holy law spoken from Sinai honor God by teaching it to others, presenting the Sabbath and obedience to the whole Decalogue as protection and a lasting foundation for reform and repairing the breach made by changing the Sabbath. The first angel's message calls to worship God as Creator and to close examination of the Word and the true light about the power that changed the Sabbath, with increase of knowledge on this subject.

God has ordained sanitariums away from the cities, especially in Southern California, to stand as memorials for Him from which the light of truth for this time and the claims of the true Sabbath go forth together with the proclamation of the third angel's message. Medical missionary institutions that relieve the sick and suffering are especially essential to this work, because healing opens the way to instruct patients in the truth and brings present truth before a class who could be reached in no other way, joining relief with instruction. God's publishing houses are likewise to be a memorial of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, standing as a light in the world and a faithful witness for Him. Because the Sabbath is sacred, the institution that memorializes it is sacred and set apart from common business enterprise such as a workshop, factory, or cornfield, keeping the distinction between the sacred and the common and the holy and the profane, and those who work in that memorial work bear a sacred charge as workers together with God in close connection with heavenly instrumentalities, giving ability, service, and unwearying vigilance with vigorous purpose and lofty aspiration to make the institution just what God desires. Churches and institutions that honor the seventh day instituted in Eden, grounded in the Lord's making heaven, earth, sea and all they contain in six days and resting the seventh, stand as memorials to the Creator and bear witness against the false sabbath, distinguishing the obedient from the disobedient.

Publicly closing business and keeping the building silent on the seventh day while working on the first day preaches the fourth commandment just as it reads, grounded in God's own six-day work and seventh-day rest. Such practice arouses the conscience, answers inquiry about who keeps the Sabbath and why, and directs minds to the truth. Faithful observance each week is a public sign and a silent sermon, and keeping the Sabbath according to the Bible standard is part of a believer's public witness by which others judge the truth, marking those who love and fear God as a distinct and peculiar people free from worldly policy. Obedience distinguishes those who love and fear God and serve Him from those who are disobedient and unholy, as the holy commandments given at creation and recapitulated from Sinai set the day apart from all other days as a memorial of creation to be devoted to Him in spiritual service by His special appointment.

Discovery that the seventh day is the Bible Sabbath and that the first day kept according to the canons of Rome is not the Lord's Sabbath calls for leaving first-day keeping and keeping the seventh day as long as life lasts. It calls for joining those who keep the seventh day, beginning to keep it, recognizing its claims as holy to God, repenting of sins, receiving mercy and forgiveness, consecrating oneself to God, and continuing faithfully as a converted person serving Him. Those keeping the Sabbath for the first time are to be baptized, even when turned out of churches for the light of the Sabbath commandment.

Opposition, ridicule, pressure and slander against the Sabbath must not divert keepers, and yielding for convenience fights God. The question whether its Sabbath is binding is serious, the Scriptures bearing on it have been misinterpreted, trampling it is open contempt for God's word, and those who know it must not ignore it or remain indifferent to breakers but warn them of danger lest disregard result in loss of souls. After full light, refusal breaks harmony and requires disconnection, while differences of opinion among brethren should not become a barrier where principles spoken from Sinai are held firmly. The Sabbath commandment shines above all ten with a halo of glory because set apart to be kept in honor of God's holy name, blessed and hallowed because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all in them and rested the seventh; it was not nailed to the cross, God has not changed it for He never changes, the writing in the ark in the most holy place in heaven still reads the same as written by God's finger and delivered to Moses at Sinai that the seventh day is the Sabbath, not the first, the change having been made by the Pope, and the holy Sabbath is and will be the separating wall between the true Israel of God and unbelievers and the great question to unite the hearts of God's waiting saints.

Publicly preaching the verse in opposition to Sunday as the living Word of God and the reason for keeping the Sabbath creates public interest and inquiry. It brings trial, persecution, and close and severe warfare, calling for prayer, increased faith, and earnest labor without despondency or unbelief. God will reveal Himself, convict and convert souls, help and protect His servants, give victory to the truth, and bring those who suffer with Jesus to share His joy.