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- D.L. Moody - The Ten Commandments
"The Ten Commandments" by D.L. Moody
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The Fourth Commandment
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou
labour, 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.
THERE HAS BEEN an awful letting-down in this country regarding the
Sabbath during the last twenty-five years, and many a man has been
shorn of spiritual power, like Samson, because he is not straight on
this question. Can you say that you observe the Sabbath properly?
You may be a professed Christian: are you obeying this commandment?
Or do you neglect the house of God on the Sabbath day, and spend
your time drinking and carousing in places of vice and crime,
showing contempt for God and His law? Are you ready to step into the
scales? Where were you last Sabbath? How did you spend it?
I honestly believe that this commandment is just as binding today as
it ever was. I have talked with men who have said that it has been
abrogated, but they have never been able to point to any place in
the Bible where God repealed it. When Christ was on earth, He did
nothing to set it aside; He freed it from the traces under which the
scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. "The
sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath." It is just as
practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever was--in fact,
more than ever, because we live in such an intense age.
The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever
since. The fourth commandment begins with the word remember, showing
that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote this law on the
tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one
commandment has been done away with when they will admit that the
other nine are still binding?
I believe that the Sabbath question today is a vital one for the
whole country. It is the burning question of the present time. If
you give up the Sabbath the church goes; if you give up the church
the home goes; and if the home goes the nation goes. That is the
direction in which we are traveling.
The church of God is losing its power on account of so many people
giving up the Sabbath, and using it to promote selfishness.
HOW TO OBSERVE THE SABBATH
"Sabbath" means "rest," and the meaning of the word gives a hint as
to the true way to observe the day. God mated after creation, and
ordained the Sabbath as a rest for man. He blessed it and hallowed
it Remember the rest-day to keep it holy. It is the day when the
body may be refreshed and strengthened after six days of labor, and
the soul drawn into closer fellowship with its Maker.
True observance of the Sabbath may be considered under two general
heads: cessation from ordinary secular work, and religious
exercises.
1. CESSATION FROM SECULAR WORK
A man ought to turn aside from his ordinary employment one day in
seven. There are many whose occupation will not permit them to
observe Sunday, but they should observe some other day as a Sabbath.
Saturday is my day of rest, because I generally preach on Sunday,
and I look forward to it as a boy does to a holiday. God knows what
we need.
Ministers and missionaries often tell me that they take no rest-day;
they do not need it because they are in the Lord's work. That is a
mistake. When God was giving Moses instructions about the building
of the tabernacle, He referred especially to the Sabbath, and gave
injunctions for its strict observance; and later, when Moses was
conveying the words of the Lord to the children of Israel, he
interpreted them by saying that not even were sticks to be gathered
on the Sabbath to kindle fires for smelting or other purposes.
Inspite of their zeal and haste to erect the tabernacle, the workmen
were to have their day of rest. The command applies to ministers and
others managed in Christian work today as much as to those Israelite
workmen of old.
WORKS OF NECESSITY AND OF EMERGENCY
In judging whether any work may or may not be lawfully done on the
Sabbath, find out the reason and object for doing it. Exceptions are
to be made for works of necessity and works of emergency. By "works
of necessity" I mean those acts that Christ justified when He
approved of leading one's ox or ass to water. Watchmen, police,
stokers on board steamers, and many others have engagements that
necessitate their working on the Sabbath. By "works of emergency" I
mean those referred to by Christ when He approved of pulling an ox
or an ass out of a Pt on the Sabbath day. In case of fire or
sickness a man is often called on to do things that would not
otherwise be justifiable.
A Christian man was once urged by his employer to work on Sunday.
"Does not your Bible say that if your ass falls into a pit on the
Sabbath, you may pull him out?" "Yes," replied the other; "but if
the ass had the habit of falling into the same pit every Sabbath, I
would either fill up the pit or sell the ass."
Every man must settle the question as it affects unnecessary work,
with his own conscience.
No man should make another work seven days in the week. One day is
demanded for rest. A man who has to work the seven days has nothing
to look forward to, and life becomes humdrum. Many Christians are
guilty in this respect.
SABBATH TRAVELING
Take, for instance, the question of Sabbath traveling. I believe we
are breaking God's laws by using the cars on Sunday and depriving
conductors and others of their Sabbath. Remember, the fourth
commandment expressly refers to the "stranger that is within thy
gates." Doesn't that touch Sabbath travel?
But you ask, "What are we to do? How are we to get to church?"
I reply, on foot. It will be better for you. Once when I was holding
meetings in London, in my ignorance I made arrangements to preach
four times in different places one Sabbath. After I had made the
appointments I found I had to walk sixteen miles; but I walked it,
and I slept that night with a clear conscience. I have made it a
rule never to use the cars, and if I have a private carriage, I
insist that horse and man shall rest on Monday. I want no hackman to
rise up in judgment against me.
My friends, if we want to help the Sabbath, let business men and
Christians never patronize cars on the Sabbath. I would hate to own
stock in those companies, to be the means of taking the Sabbath from
these men, and have to answer for it at the day of judgment. Let
those who are Christians at any rate endeavor to keep a conscience
void of offense on this point.
SABBATH TRADING
There are many who are inclined to use the Sabbath in order to make
money faster. This is no new sin. The prophet Amos hurled his
invectives against oppressors who said, "When will the new moon be
gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth
wheat?"
Covetous men have always chafed under the restraint, but not until
the present time do we find that they have openly counted on Sabbath
trade to make money. We are told that many street car companies
would not pay if it were not for the Sabbath traffic, and the
Sabbath edition of newspapers is also counted upon as the most
profitable.
The railroad men of this country are breaking down with softening of
the brain, and die at the age of fifty or sixty. They think their
business is so important that they must run their trains seven days
in the week. Businessmen travel on the Sabbath so as to be on hand
for business Monday morning. But if they do so God will not prosper
them.
Work is good for man and is commanded, "Six days shalt thou labor";
but overwork and work on the Sabbath takes away the best thing he
has.
NECESSARY AND BENEFICIAL
The good effect on a nation's health and happiness produced by the
return of the Sabbath, with its cessation from work, cannot be
overestimated. It is needed to repair and restore the body after six
days of work. It is proved that a man can do more in six days than
in seven. Lord Beacons field said: "Of all divine institutions, the
most divine is that which secures a day of rest for man. I hold it
to be the most valuable blessing conceded to man. It is the
cornerstone of all civilization, and its removal might affect even
the health of the people."
Mr. Gladstone recently told a friend that the secret of his long
life is that amid all the pressure of public cares he never forgot
the Sabbath, with its rest for the body and the soul. The
constitution of the United States protects the president in his
weekly day of rest. He has ten days, "Sundays excepted," in which to
consider a bill that has been sent to him for signature. Every
workingman in the republic ought to be as thoroughly protected as
the president. If workingmen got up a strike against unnecessary
work on the Sabbath, they would have the sympathy of a good many.
"Our bodies are seven-day clocks," says Talmage, "and they need to
be wound up, and if they are not wound up they run down into the
grave. No man can continuously break the Sabbath and keep his
physical and mental health. Ask aged men, and they will tell you
they never knew men who continuously broke the Sabbath who did not
fail in mind, body, or moral principles."
All that has been said about rest for man is true for working
animals. God didn't forget them in this commandment, and man should
not forget them either.
2. RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY
But "rest" does not mean idleness. No man enjoys idleness for any
length of time. When one goes on a vacation, one does not lie around
doing nothing all that time. Hard work at tennis, hunting, and other
pursuits fills the hours. A healthy mind must find something to do.
Hence the Sabbath rest does not mean inactivity. "Satan finds some
mischief still for idle hands to do." The best way to keep off bad
thoughts and to avoid temptation is to engage in active religious
exercises.
As regards these, we should avoid extremes. On the one hand we find
a rigor in Sabbath observance that is nowhere commanded in
Scripture, and that reminds one of the formalism of the Pharisees
more than of the spirit of the Gospel. Such strictness does more
harm than good. It repels people and makes the Sabbath a burden. On
the other hand, we should jealously guard against a loose way of
keeping the Sabbath. Already in many cities it is profaned openly.
When I was a boy, the Sabbath lasted from sundown on Saturday to
sundown on Sunday, and I remember how we boys used to shout when it
was over. It was the worst day in the week to us. I believe it can
be made the brightest day in the week. Every child ought to be
reared so that he shall be able to say that he would rather have the
other six days weeded out of his memory than the Sabbath of his
childhood.
PUBLIC WORSHIP
Make the Sabbath a day of religious activity. First of all, of
course, is attendance at public worship. "there is a discrepancy,"
says John McNeill, "between our creed about the Sabbath day and our
actual conduct. In many families, at ten o'clock on the Sabbath,
attendance at church is still an open question. There is no open
question on Monday morning--'John, will you go to work today"
A minister rebuked a farmer for not attending church, and said, "You
know, John, you are never absent from market."
"Oh," was the reply, "we must go to market."
Someone has said that without the Sabbath, the Church of Christ
could not, as a visible organization, exist on earth. Another has
said that "we need to be in the drill of observance as well as in
the liberty of faith." Human nature is so treacherous that we are
apt to omit things altogether unless there is some special reason
for doing them. A man is not likely to worship at all unless he has
regularly appointed times and means for worship. Family and private
devotions are almost certain to be omitted altogether unless one
gets into the habit and has a special time set apart daily.
A REMINISCENCE
I remember blaming my mother for sending me to church on the
Sabbath. On one occasion the preacher had to send someone into the
gallery to wake me up. I thought it was hard to have to work in the
field all the week and then to be obliged to go to church and hear a
sermon I didn't understand. I thought I wouldn't go to church any
more when I got away from home; but I had got so in the habit of
going that I couldn't stay away. After one or two Sabbaths, back
again to the house of God I went. There I first found Christ, and I
have often said since,
"Mother, I thank you for making me go to the house of God when I
didn't want to go."
Parents, if you want your children to grow up and honor you, have
them honor the Sabbath day. Don't let them go off fishing and
getting into bad company, or it won't be long before they will come
home and curse you. I know few things more beautiful than to see a
father and mother coming up the aisle with their daughters and sons,
and sitting down together to hear the Word of God. It is a good
thing to have the children, not in some remote loft or gallery, but
in a good place, well in sight. Though they cannot understand the
sermon now, when they get older they won't desire to break away,
they will continue attending public worship in the house of God.
But we must not mistake the means for the end. We must not think
that the Sabbath is just for the sake of being able to attend
meetings. There are some people who think they must spend the whole
day at meetings or private devotions. The result is that at
nightfall they are tired out, and the day has brought them no rest.
The number of church services attended ought to be measured by the
person's ability to enjoy them and get good from them, without being
wearied. Attending meetings is not the only way to observe the
Sabbath. The Israelites were commanded to keep it in their dwellings
as well as in holy convocation. The home, that center of so great
influence over the life and character of the people, ought to be
made the scene of true Sabbath observance.
HOME OBSERVANCE
Jeremiah classified godless families with the heathen: "Pour out thy
fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that
call not on thy name: for they have eaten up Jacob, devoured him,
and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate" (10:25).
Many mothers have written to me at one time or another to know what
to do to entertain their children on the Sabbath. The boys say, "I
do wish 'twas night," or, "I do hate the Sabbath," or, "I do wish
the Sabbath were over." It ought to be the happiest day in the week
to them, one to be looked forward to with pleasure. In order to this
end, many suggestions might be followed. Make family prayers
especially attractive by having the children learn some verse or
story from the Bible. Give more time to your children than you can
give on weekdays, reading to them and perhaps taking them to walk in
the afternoon or evening. Show by your conduct that the Sabbath is a
delight, and they will soon catch your spirit. Set aside some time
for religious instruction, without making this a task. You can make
it interesting for the children by telling Bible stories and asking
them to guess the names of the characters. Have Sunday games for the
younger children. Picture books, puzzle maps of Palestine, and such
things can be easily obtained. Sunday albums and Sunday clocks are
other devices. Set aside attractive books for the Sabbath, not
letting the children have these during the week. By doing this, the
children can be brought to look forward to the day with eagerness
and pleasure.
PRIVATE OBSERVANCE
Apart from public and family observance, the individual ought to
devote a portion of the time to his own edification. Prayer,
meditation, reading, ought not to be forgotten. Think of men
devoting six days a week to their body, which will soon pass away,
and begrudging one day to the soul, which will live on and on
forever! Is it too much for God to ask for one day to be devoted to
the growth and training of the spiritual senses, when the other
senses are kept busy the other six days?
If your circumstances permit, engage in some definite Christian
work, such as teaching in Sunday school, or visiting the sick. Do
all the good you can. Sin keeps no Sabbath, and no more should good
deeds. There is plenty of opportunity in this fallen world to
perform works of mercy and religion. Make your Sabbath down here a
foretaste of the eternal Sabbath that is in store for believers.
You want power in your Christian life, do you? You want Holy Ghost
power? You want the dew of heaven on your brow? You want to see men
convicted and converted? I don't believe we shall ever have genuine
conversions until we get straight on this law of God.
SABBATH DESECRATION
Men seem to think they have a right to change the holy day into a
holiday. The young have more temptations to break the Sabbath than
we had forty years ago. There are three great temptations: first the
trolley car, that will take you off into the country for a nickel to
have a day of recreation; second, the bicycle, which is leading a
good many Christian men to give up their Sabbath and spend the day
on excursions; and the third, the Sunday newspaper.
Twenty years ago Christian people in Chicago would have been
horrified if anyone had prophesied that all the theaters would be
open every Sabbath; but that is what has come to pass. If it had
been prophesied twenty years ago that Christian men would take a
wheel and go off on Sunday morning and be gone all day on an
excursion, Christians would have been horrified and would have said
it was impossible; but that is what is going on today all over the
country.
THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER
With regard to the Sunday newspaper, I know all the arguments that
are brought in its favor--that the work on it is done during the
week, that it is the Monday paper that causes Sunday work, and so
on. But there are two hundred thousand newsboys selling the paper on
Sunday. Would you like to have your boy one of them? Men are kept
running trains in order to distribute the papers. Would you like
your Sabbath taken away from you? If not, then practice the Golden
Rule, and don't touch the papers.
Their contents make them unfit for reading any day, not to say
Sunday. Some New York dailies advertise Sunday editions of sixty
pages. Many dirty pieces of scandal in this and other countries are
raked up and put into them. "Eight pages of fud"- that is splendid
reading for Sunday, isn't it? Even when a so-called sermon is
printed, it is completely buried by the fiction and news matter. It
is time that ministers went into their pulpits and preached against
Sunday newspapers if they haven't done it already.
Put the man in the scales that buys and reads Sunday papers. After
reading them for two or three hours he might go and hear the best
sermon in the world, but you couldn't preach anything into him. His
mind is filled up with what he has read, and there is no room for
thoughts of God. I believe that the archangel Gabriel himself could
not make an impression on an audience that has its head full of such
trash. If you bored a hole into a man's head, you could not inject
any thoughts of God and heaven.
I don't believe that the publishers would allow their own children
to read them. Why then should they give them to my children and to
yours?
A merchant who advertises in Sunday papers is not keeping the
Sabbath. It is a master-stroke of the devil to induce Christian men
to do this in order to make trade for Monday. But if a man makes
money, and yet his sons are ruined and his home broken up, what has
he gained?
Ladies buy the Sunday papers and read the advertisements of Monday
bargains to see what they can buy cheap. Just so with their
religion. They are willing to have it if it doesn't cost anything.
If Christian men and women refused to buy them, if Christian
merchants refused to advertise in them, they would soon die out,
because that is where they get most of their support.
They tell me the Sunday paper has come to stay, and I may as well
let it alone. Never! I believe it is a great evil, and I shall fight
it while I live. I never read a Sunday paper, and wouldn't have one
in my house. They are often sent me, but I tear them up without
reading them. I will have nothing to do with them. They do more harm
to religion than any other one agency I know. Their whole influence
is against keeping the Sabbath holy. They are an unnecessary evil.
Can't a man read enough news on weekdays without desecrating the
Sabbath? We had no Sunday papers till the war came, and we got along
very well without them. They have been increasing in size and in
number ever since then, and I think they have been lowering their
tone ever since. If you believe that, help to fight them too. Stamp
them out, beginning with yourself.
PUNISHMENT OR BLESSING?
No nation has ever prospered that has trampled the Sabbath in the
dust. Show me a nation that has done this and I will show you a
nation that has got in it the seeds of ruin and decay. I believe
that Sabbath desecration will carry a nation down quicker than
anything else. Adam brought marriage and the Sabbath with him out of
Eden, and neither can be disregarded without suffering. When the
children of Israel went into the Promised Land, God told them to let
their land rest every seven years, and He would give them as much in
six years as in seven. For four hundred and ninety years they
disregarded that law. But mark you, Nebuchadnezzar came and took
them oh into Babylon, and kept them seventy years in captivity, and
the land had its seventy sabbaths of rest. Seven times seventy is
four hundred and ninety. So they did not gain much by breaking this
law. You can give God His day, or He will take it.
On the other hand, honoring the fourth commandment brings blessing:
"If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy
pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of
the LORD, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways,
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words [thine
own as contrasted with what God enjoins]: then shalt thou delight
thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high
places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy
father, for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it" (Is 58:13-14).
I do not know what will become of this republic if we give up our
Christian Sabbath. If Satan can break the conscience down on one
point, he can break it down on all. When I was in France in 1867, I
could wt tell one day from the other. On Sunday, stores were open
and buildings were erected, the same as on other days. See how
quickly that country went down. One hundred years ago France and
England stood abreast in the march of nations. Where do they stand
today? France undertook to wipe out the Sabbath, and has pretty
nearly wiped itself out, while England belts the globe.
A FIRM STAND
We have a fighting chance to save this nation, and what we want is
men and women who have moral courage to stand up and say:
"No, I will not touch the Sunday paper, and all the influence I have
I will throw dead against it. I will not go away on Saturday evening
if I have to travel on Sunday to get back. I will not do unnecessary
walk on the Sabbath. I will do all I can to keep it holy as God
commanded."
But someone says: "Mr. Moody, what are you going to do? I have to
work seven days a week or starve."
Then starve! Wouldn't it be a grand thing to have a martyr in the
nineteenth century? "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
church." Someone says the seed is getting very low; it has been a
long time since we have had any seed. I would give something to
erect a monument to such a martyr for his fidelity to God's law. I
would go around the world to attend his funeral.
We want today men who will make up their minds to do what is right
and stand by it if the heavens tumble on their heads. What is to
become of Christian Associations and Sunday schools, of churches and
Christian Endeavor societies, if the Christian Sabbath is given up
to recreation and made a holiday? Hasn't the time come to call a
halt if men want power with God? Let men call you narrow and
bigoted, but be man enough to stand by God's law, and you will have
power and blessing. That is the kind of Christianity we want just
now in this country. Any man can go with the crowd, but we want men
who will go against the current.
Sabbath-breaker, are you ready to step into the scales?
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