Exodus 20:8-11 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.… There is no one thing that kills, exhausts, or sends to the lunatic asylum more of the active and strong men of this country (United States) than the breach of the Fourth Commandment. 1. "He kept no Sunday." You may safely write that epitaph over hundreds of graves that will be dug this year for ambitious, prosperous, influential men, cut off in the midst of the race of life. There are suicides in scores where no apparent cause exists for what the newspapers call "the rash act." The man was doing well; his business was prospering; his family relations were pleasant and affectionate. 2. No law of God is arbitrary. It is for man's good that God has established all His statutes. Clear as that truth is about them all, it is especially clear about the day of rest. 3. As a matter of fact, there is no rest, no relaxation, so utter as that offered by a well-kept Sunday. There is perfect rest and quiet for the body, and, to the worker with his hands, that may be the main point. But there is far more than this. The mind is called away from all its cares and all its common vulgar interests. The man is called to rise out of the changing into the unchanging, out of the temporary into the eternal, out of the low into the infinitely lofty, out of the strife into the deep calm of the eternal peace. 4. It is the neglect of this provision of God that is the root-cause of the deaths and suicides from overwork, which shock us almost daily in the current items of news. 5. We are not placing this thing on the highest motive, because the highest motive is powerless to touch the transgressors. We only say the transgression does not pay. And by working on Sunday we do not mean only the formal going to the office or counting-room. We mean the carrying a man's business about with him on that day; the taking it home and poisoning the fireside with it; the taking it to church and poisoning the church with it. (Bp. H. M. Thompson.) Parallel Verses KJV: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. |
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