Our obligations to the day of rest and worship

Contents

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I. A Call for the Defense of the Day of

Rest and Worship 7

Chapter I A Call For The Defense Of The Day Of Rest And Worship

"The Sabbath was made for man" — Jesus.

"As we keep or break the Sabbath we nobly save or meanly lose the last hope by which man rises" — Lincoln.

"The longer I live the more highly do I esteem the proper observance of the Christian Sabath and the more grateful do I feel toward those who impress its importance on the community" — Webster.

HOW should we keep the Day of Rest and worship, has been a problem through the centuries. These pages are written to help the reader to think, first of all, how he should observe the day so as to get the most out of it, considering all his interests, physical, moral and spiritual, and live in harmony with our Master. The fourth commandment is before us, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ; in it thou shalt not do any work, 7 thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." This command is in the decalogue and it has its claims upon us. How should we keep it? Each one must solve the question for himself. No one can be conscience for another. Some do not regard it as having any binding force upon them. Perhaps they have not thought much about the subject, or have not been trained to observe the day. Others are convinced that it is the law of God, binding upon us as the other commands of the decalogue. Some have no settled convictions on how the day should be observed, and use it as those about them may lead. The question we want each one to ask is, how should I, situated as I am, spend the Sabbath so as to obey the requirements of this commandment, so as to please God best and receive and give the greatest benefits intended by it? This is a strenuous century with modern inventions, large corporations and fast living. How far should the Christian Sabbath bend to suit these conditions, and how far should the conditions be made to conform to the fourth commandment.

The reader is asked to think, also, how he should conduct his business or occupation on Sunday. Will

Defense of the Day of Rest and Worship 9

your business yield a larger profit by Sunday and seven-day labor, or by turning the key upon it Saturday night and not opening up for business until Monday morning? Some attend to business seven days in the week, while others, in the same pursuit, use the day for rest and moral development. Are they more prosperous who attend to business on the Lord's Day or those who do not? And then our moral and Christian character enter into the problem; do profits increase by Sunday and seven-day labor to render an equivalent for the benefits of Sunday rest and moral development? Is it right to employ others in Sunday and seven-day labor so as to deprive them of opportunities of Sunday rest and the advantages of moral development that its observance affords? Can a person do more and think as clearly by seven days of labor each week, or by six days of labor and a day of rest and worship? What are the "works of necessity?" What is the minimum of Sunday labor in your business? What plan can be adopted which will allow the toilers who do the necessary Sunday work to rest and attend church?

The defense of the Sabbath in the community needs attention, also. There are places where the sound of the church bell is blended with the noise of building and teaming and holiday sports of the children ; where places of business are open on the Sabbath day and people are coming and going with purchases from the stores; and their arrangements for social affairs and io Obligations to the Day of Rest and Worship

pleasure outings make it impossible to attend the public worship of the church. All because the people have not thought how they should defend the day in the community for the nobler purposes of rest and spiritual upbuilding. Historians tell us that crime and immorality follow Sabbath desecration. And from those places where the day is largely given over to frivolity and business and conversation about secular affairs, proceed a large proportion of persons of degenerate and criminal tendencies, and a small proportion of individuals of the nobler attainments and ambitions of Christian character. In contrast with this is the community where the Sabbath has been more nobly defended for the sacred purposes of the day; where stores are closed and the people do no trading; where sporting and festivities are not engaged in, and the call to worship is responded to by a people who have formed the habit of using the day for more sacred purposes. From such places go forth a large number who occupy prominent places of honor and usefulness, and the percentage of crime is very low.

The situation today, calls for the attention of the people to another phase of this subject — to a united and organized movement for reducing Sunday and seven-day labor to the minimum, and defending the quiet of the day for rest and worship. A special and combined effort is required for this work. Leaders are needed who are specialists in this kind of effort who have

Defense of the Day of Rest and Worship II

studied the conditions and have seen and feel the wrongs of Sabbath desecration. We need leaders who know and realize the greatness of the numbers of young men and women who are kept out of the Christian life by this evil that abounds and are pushed down into godlessness and demoralization. The people must stand back of those whose souls are on fire with zeal for this cause, and who are able to plan and lead the movement for defending the day of rest and worship. The public mind must be instructed and the public conscience awakened to a sense of the wrongs done. Petitions must be placed before those who are in position to regulate Sunday labor. Efforts already made prove that much can be done.

As the Anti-Saloon League and other temperance organizations combine the efforts of the people in preventing the evils of the liquor traffic; and the Home Mission organizations are the effort of the people in building up the religious life in neglected places; and the Foreign Mission Societies unite the efforts of the people in carrying Christianity into pagan lands; so the Lord's Day Alliance and kindred organizations combine the efforts of the people in securing the benefits of a day of rest and worship.

There never was a time when it was not necessary to make an effort to prevent the Sabbath from being crowded out. In the days when Jeremiah was the religious leader of the people, God told him to stand in the gates of Jerusalem and instruct the rulers and people in Sabbath keeping, and reprove them for their Sabbath desecration. In the days of Nehemiah, a century and a half later, he said, "What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not God bring all this evil upon this city? Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath." He then put forth measures to defend the Sabbath. When God gave the commandments, including the fourth, to the Hebrew nation, He told them repeatedly, "Ye shall teach them diligently to your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine houses and upon thy gates." Many times the Scriptures record earnest directions to keep the Sabbaths. And it is held up before us that because they polluted the Sabbath judgment was sent upon them. Always it has been necessary to make special effort to protect the day for its sacred uses. The people who have not made that sufficient effort have forgotten their Creator and in their blindness and idolatrous worship have paid the penalty of an irreligous people. Today, when business is on such a large scale that labor can scarcely cease with many for a day, and the attractions appeal to the baser nature as never before, we are in danger of allowing the love of money and the love of pleasure to rule

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out the nobler sentiments by crowding out the Sabbath. We need to think carefully how we can help in a united movement to defend the day.

Never was the Sabbath so strongly attacked, or so poorly defended as in this commercial age. While we are directed to teach Sabbath keeping diligently unto our children, inscribing it upon "the door posts of thine house and upon thy gates," we find, instead, that large numbers of parents are bringing up their children with no instruction or example on this subject. They make the day a holiday with no instruction in the moral and religious life in the home. Many children see their fathers start out on Sunday morning with his work clothes and dinner pail to his work. Many others spend the day in sporting and return at the end of the day wearied with pleasure seeking. Some go to Sunday-school in the forenoon and leave the church at the close to spend the remainder of the day in carousal. They pass through the formative period of life seeing business, labor and sporting on all sides on the Sabbath, and when they read the fourth commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work," they wonder what it means. Is it any wonder that multitudes are about us who are in a state of inquiry about the meaning of the fourth command of the decalogue?

Attention is not given to this subject adequate to its need and importance. The writer has given attention to the number of books on this subject in the public libraries in smaller and larger cities. The result of the inquiry is, that no book on the subject is found usually, in the smaller cities, and those in the larger libraries are few and out of date, generally. Large numbers of volumes are found upon other subjects of comparatively trifling importance, while the Sabbath, which is fundamental in the moral and spiritual upbuilding of every life, inseparably essential to the church and important for the highest good of every home, is given the smallest consideration. Is there not occasion for us to stop and think of the meaning and need of the fourth command of the decalogue?

Chapter II

''Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." — The Fourth Commandment.

"It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the law to fail." — Jesus.

"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day." — John I,

"Where there is no Christian Sabbath, there is no Christian morality; and without this free institutions cannot long be sustained." — Justice McLean of the Supreme Court of the U. S.

"Laws setting aside Sunday as a day of rest are upheld, not from any right of the Government to legislate for the promotion of religious observances, but from its right to protect all persons from the physical and moral debasement that comes from uninterrupted labor. Such laws have always been deemed beneficial and merciful laws, especially to the poor and dependent, to the laborers in our factories and workshops and in the heated rooms of our cities; and their validity has been sustained by the higher courts of the states." — Supreme Court of the U. S. by Justice Field.

"The stability and character of our country and the advancement of our race depends, I believe, very largely upon the mode in which the Day of rest, which seems to have been specially adapted to the needs of mankind, shall be used and observed." — John Bright. 15

"Of all Divine institutions, the most Divine is that which secures a day of rest for men. I hold it to be the most valuable blessing ever conceded to humanity." — Lord Beaconsfield in House of Commons.

"There has perhaps never been a topic on which a greater number of the wise and good have been agreed, than the Divine authority, the sanctity and the value of a weekly day of rest and prayer." — GlLFlLLAN.

"Experience shows that the day of rest is essential to mankind; that it is demanded by civilization, as well as by Christianity." — Theodore Roosevelt.

BRIEFLY stated, the authority for the Sabbath is in the account of the creation in Genesis; in the fourth commandment; in Christ's acknowledgment of the Sabbath; in the continual reference to it throughout the Bible; in the evident need of a day in seven for rest and moral and religious refreshment, discovered in the physical, moral and spiritual nature of humanity as we read it in the Scriptures.

The Bible account of the creation is written in reference to the idea of six days for work and a sacred day. "The evening and the morning were the first day. The second day," through the six days. "He rested on the seventh day from all the work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." Nothing has given us the week but the sacred day in seven. The seasons define the year, but no natural division has given us the week. Wherever we find the week of six days and a sacred day, we find evidence of the Sabbath. For a sacred day in seven is the only thing that defines the week. Humboldt says, "We find the cycle of seven days among the Hindoos, Chinese, Assyrians and the Egyptians."

Traces of the Sabbath are found throughout history. The word "Sabbath," is found on Acadian tablets of baked clay, now in the British Museum, that came from the age of Noah, who talked with Methuselah, who talked with Adam. The ancient heathen nations who lost the sacredness of the Sabbath, and turned from the true worship of God, yet retained the week, six days and a sacred day. Ancient Egypt worshipped Osiras, the Sun-god, symbolized by Apis, the golden bull, one day in seven. The Sabbath was observed on the plains of Babylon before the Hebrew nation was known, generations before the ten commandments were given on Sinai. The language of ancient Assyria has the word "sabattuv," with the meaning, "day of rest of the heart." (See F. Delitzsch in II Rawl., 32, 16). This should make clear that the Sabbath was not intended for the Jews only, as we have heard a few persons say. It was made at the creation of the world; that is, He made the world with reference to six days for labor and a day for rest and religious worship. As He made the world with reference to the law of honesty and the law of truth, so He stamped in the nature of man that form of being which requires a day of rest in seven and time to cease from labor and turn his attention to the higher truths belonging to moral character. Honesty has been for the welfare of society, for God made man with that law built into his nature. There never was a time when it was not wrong to steal. And there never was a time when murder was not wrong. When Cain killed Abel his blood cried out from the ground just the same as it does today, when that crime is done. The law of the Sabbath is likewise the same. Man grows just as weary with seven day toil as he ever did, and he is just as prone to forget God and become demoralized and godless without a day each week for the study of the higher qualities of his being. The ten commandments define the relations which the Creator established between man and Himself and between man and his fellowman, when He made the world. These relations never change. Christ said "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the law to fail." The heavens must pass away sooner than the nature of man would change so that continuous labor would not weaken man by weariness, or when man would not become godless with no day in the week for moral and religious purposes. Before the Creator inscribed the fourth commandment upon the tables of stone at Sinai, the same hand built that law into the nature of man in the Creation.

Authority for the Sabbath, then, is on the same basis as authority for, "Thou shalt not steal," or "Thou shalt not kill." God made the world that way. Each nerve and sinew of our bodies is constructed under the law of one day in seven for rest. He made the Sabbath law when He made the soul of man. He made the soul of man so that it needs a day in seven to give thanks and worship its Creator; liable to forget its Creator and needing to seek help. He created the Sabbath law when He created the affections in the soul, needing a day in seven to turn to the Creator and the nobler objects which we should love, but liable to turn to baser things. When Jesus said "The Sabbath was made for man," He evidently meant that it was made in the creation of the world. It was not made when the ten commandments were given, but when the world was created. It was not for the Jews, only, but for every human being, and for the creatures under us.

We have reliable authority for the Sabbath because it is in the decalogue. To realize fully that the fourth commandment is for our observance we should notice the place the ten commandments occupy as the law of God for our guidance.

First of all, they are from God. Not because He gave them on Mount Sinai any more than for the reason that He made the world with these laws in the world and in man. The law contained in the commandments are written upon the heart of man. We know from our inner consciousness that it is wrong to steal ; we know that one day in seven for rest is needful and that we should have a day each week free from secular toil that we might worship God and develop our moral and spiritual natures; we know that it is wrong to bear false witness. The ten commandments only define the duties which were established by our Creator when He made the world. We publish the laws of gravitation; but they were established in the relations of things when the world was created. We publish the law which we find when water becomes ice at a certain temperature, the law of expansion which the beneficent Creator made when He designed the world. So the ten commandments only define our duties to God and man which were fixed by the all-wise Creator when He made the world. God is the author of them. The Sabbath was not founded but promulgated by giving the law from Sinai.

The fact that God gave the ten commandments is emphasized in the account in the Scriptures. "He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him, upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God." "And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables." The account of the giving of the decalogue emphasizes the extraordinary presence and authority of God. "There were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the Mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud. And Mount Sinai was all together on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in a fire and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furance, and the whole Mount quaked greatly." The sublime presence of God in giving the ten commandments mark the fundamental character of the precepts given. They are God's law to man. They embody all our duty to God and to our f ellowman. Nothing is left out and nothing in them is unnecessary. Many phases of duty are under each command. All rulers have laws for the government of their subjects. These are the laws for the Creator's servants.

The ten commandments are perpetual. They are for all people in all ages. They are not for one people or for one age; but they are the precepts that never change. Outward conditions change, but the duties imposed by these laws never change. There never was a time when it was not wrong to steal and there never will be. Murder was always wrong and there never can come a time when the relations of duty to our fellowman will so change as to make murder right, that is contemplated, malicious murder. The nervous system built into man is the same forever; it will grow weary with seven-day toil now as ever and there never was a time when people did not drift away from God and righteousness without a Sabbath. In Psalm 148:6, we read, "He hath also established them forever and ever.

He hath made a decree which shall not pass." These commandments are unchangeable because God is unchangeable and the nature of man is unchangeable. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." "He is the same yesterday, today and forever." "With whom is no variableness or shadow of turning."

Not only is God the same for ever, but man is unchangeable in the relations and duties which the ten commandments define. A chart exhibiting the anatomy of the circulatory system of man in the days of Noah, if correct, would be as reliable for the surgeon today. The arteries and veins were located the same and carried the blood to the parts of the body. The heart has always been constructed as it is found today and has performed the same work of forcing the blood through the body. The nervous system communicates sensation and vital energy just the same today as in the ages of the past. The nerve cells have vital energy increased by rest and diminished by fatigue just the same today as when God gave the decalogue on Sinai. The muscles and the bones have similar elements in their structure and perform the same office. There is the same demand for food as ever, and no change has taken place in the necessity for honest labor, the right to property, the wrong of theft. Honesty and truth is for the welfare of society today just as they have always been.

The soul of man was the same through the generations of the past as today. Man has always had affections and ambitions and responsibilities which are properly directed by the ten commandments. Love to God, reverence for Him and worship of God is expressed by the first three commandments. There is the same need of guarding these immutable relations and duties, and taking time for moral and spiritual development of the soul. Cain envied Abel; Saul envied David; the rulers of the Jews envied Christ; we find the same thing today. The soul of man is as fixed as the body. God is the same to us and we are the same to Him. Love to God is as essential as it always has been; reverence for things sacred is the same; faith is the same. One day in seven for rest and worship is the same since the beginning of the world, because God is the same, and man is the same; and the relations between God and man stand unchanged. The nervous system demands rest, for it has ever been made that way; the soul owes it always to give thanks to the Creator and Savior, and take a day in seven to worship Him, and to be free from labor to give time and attention that we may guard these sacred relations. The ten commandments which define these fixed relations and duties between the unchangeable God and man must be unchangeable.

The Gospel dispensation did not set aside the ten commandments. The sacrifices which pointed forward to Christ, the Lamb without spot, slain once for all for the sin of the world, these sacrifices were set aside, and the ceremonial rites, but not the ten commandments. Jesus said "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." He follows this statement in the Sermon on the Mount by quoting from the decalogue. He confirmed the commandment when He said, "I say unto you, He that is angry with his brother without a cause" is guilty. "Do we make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." Rom. 4:31. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." Rom. 10:4. "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass than for one tittle of the law to fail," said Christ. The word of our God shall stand for ever. When the nature of man is unchangeable and God is immutable and the relations between God and man stand the same, how can we expect the ten commandments, which define our duties in these relations, to pass away? Therefore the fourth commandment of the decalogue, the longest command of the ten, the central command, the keystone of the arch which supports us in our happy relations to God and to man, must stand forever.

The words and example of Jesus give us authority for the Sabbath. When he said "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," and "The Son of Man is Lord, also, of the Sabbath," He acknowledged the Sabbath. He observed the day with sacred regard. We read Luke 4:16, "He entered, as His custom was, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day." This was spoken of him when at Nazareth, where He was brought up. We do not find a single statement recorded in which Christ denied the authority of the Sabbath or that it was set aside. He was accused by the envious rulers who had lost the spirit of religion, of breaking the Sabbath by healing on the Sabbath and by plucking the corn. But we do not understand these acts to be a violation of the fourth commandment. He never went after those to be healed on that day. There are seven accounts of Christ healing on the Sabbath, and all these cases were brought to Him or were in his presence as He worshipped and taught. In no case did he go out on a journey to seek and heal on the Sabbath. When He was teaching on the Sabbath in Capernaum in the synagogue there was a man "with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, saying, what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus healed him.

The second miracle of Jesus on the Sabbath was immediately after the miracle in the synagogue. He went to Simon Peter's home. "They besought Him for her. And He stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her." The remainder of the Sabbath was spent in quiet, until the time of its observance was past.

The third miracle which Jesus did on the Sabbath was in the synagogue. In the presence of the impotent man they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? that they might accuse Him. And He said unto them, "What man shall there be of you, that shall have one sheep, and if this fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much more value then is a man than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day." He answered their inquiry and their accusation by healing the withered hand. Mark 3:1-5.

The fourth miracle which He did on the Sabbath was, also, in the synagogue. A woman was in the synagogue who "was bowed together, and could in no wise lift herself up. And when Jesus saw her He called her, and said to her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue, being moved with indignation because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath." Jesus defended His act by saying, "Ye hypocrites, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter, whom satan had bound, lo, these eighteen years, to have been loosed from this bond on the day of the Sabbath?"