ONE of the apparent mysteries of the Christian profession is the fact that so many good people who claim to believe the Word of God should be seemingly blind to some of the plainest truths of revelation.
Here, for example, are hundreds of thousands of Christian young people who have pledged themselves to “strive to do whatsoever he [Christ] would have me do, and yet deliberately and continually disobey one of his plain commands. In support of this statement we will ask who ever read a command or law of any kind plainer in its meaning than the following:—
“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, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, 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 the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
Most of the words used in this expression of the will of the Creator are common words of one syllable. The whole expression, in point of simplicity, would not be out of place in a child’s “First Reader.”
Yet her are multitudes of the most intelligent young people in the land who are seemingly most anxious to do “whatsoever He would have me do,” who never [453] observe the seventh day at all from one year’s end to another. It is a singular thing, to say the least.
They are careful not to worship other gods, to bow down to graven images, to swear, dishonor their parents, kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, or covet; there is no question in their minds for a moment that all these are things which He would not “have me do.” Yet the thing stated in the fourth precept—the very bosom—of this same law, is set aside as though it were a matter of no consequence.
Oh, well, it is said, in this one precept of the Decalogue there has been a change; and we, as Christians, now keep the Sabbath on the first day of the week, in honor of Christ, who on that day rose from the dead.
But was it not Christ who commanded the observance of the seventh day? and must not that therefore be one of the things which he would have all people do, as well now as then? Aside from the self-evident fact that a moral law must in the very nature of things express the will of Christ and be the same in all ages, it is plain that Christ himself spoke the law which commands rest upon the seventh day. For the first words of the speaker on that memorable occasion were, “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” The deliverer from bondage is Jesus Christ. He it is who was divinely anointed to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” Isaiah 61:1. He it was who went before the host of Israel in a pillar of cloud and of fire; and they “drank of that spiritual Rock which followed [or went with, margin] them; and that Rock was Christ.” 1 Corinthians 10:4.
Would you strive to do whatsoever the Lord Jesus Christ have you do? Then consider who it is that has brought you up out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Or have you not yet been delivered from the bondage of Egypt? “Out of Egypt,” it is written, “have I called my son.” If you are a son of God, you have come up out of that realm of spiritual darkness and bondage into the spiritual Canaan. You have left the company of the idolators, and have “come out from among them,” that you might be separate unto the Lord, one of “a peculiar people,” unlike the nations of the world. 2 Corinthians 6:17, 18. And He who has brought you out of Egypt and its bondage says to you, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy…. The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”
Many, no doubt, fail to discern this plain truth concerning the will of God, because they are among the “wise and prudent.” It is to the “babes” that truths are revealed which the “wise and prudent” fail to discern. Matthew 11:25. Human “wisdom” and “prudence” can darken the plainest language in which God’s will was ever spoken. Pride of opinion is exceedingly strong. This was almost the last thing which the disciples of Christ were willing to surrender, and which darkened their minds to the comprehension of some of his plainest and most important utterances. See Mark 8:31, 32; 9:31, 32. If human wisdom, human teaching and traditions, were set aside, there would be no disagreement among people respecting the identity of the duty imposed by the fourth commandment.