Issued by the Sabbath Observance Committee, by order of the Synod, and instructed to be read in all our Congregations.
DEAR FRIENDS,
We live in a generation which shows little or no respect for the Sabbath of God. Its observance such as it is, is not in accordance with the Commandment, and therefore an offence and an insult to Him who is Lord of the Sabbath. As a plea for their profanation of the Lord’s Day, many advance works of necessity and mercy. But God will not be mocked. Among this class of hypocrites who are heading towards the Sabbath-breaker’s doom in a lost eternity, are all who cater on the Lord’s Day for godless hikers and tourists who trample underfoot the Sabbath Day. God in His holy commandment holds us responsible for the strangers within our gates. If they refuse to keep the Sabbath holy as God requires, God will hold us guilty if we keep them within our gates. Popular opinion may hold us innocent, but not the Judge of all. Better to be poor and honour the Commandment of God, than wax rich on Sabbath gain and go to hell. This also applies to all engaged in pleasure boats which run on the Sabbath, to the owners and employees of hotels, youth hostels, boarding houses, etc., catering for Sabbath tourists. When or where was a God-fearing man or women ever found so dishonouring the law of God? “If ye love Me,” said Christ, “keep My commandments.”
All engaged in the running of trains, trams, buses, cars, etc., for gain, in systematic disregard of the Lord’s Day, openly declare whose they are and whom they serve. The eminent Rev. Lachlan MacKenzie, of Lochearron, said, “Judas sold his religion and his soul for thirty pieces of silver, and many would sell their religion for a creel of sea-ware, for a stoup of whisky, and for a small pendicle of land. The man that takes money for the hire
of his boat upon the Lord’s Day sells his religion and his Saviour for a few shillings. Judas sought an opportunity to betray Him, and how small is the excuse that will make many turn their back upon Him. How trifling is the thing that will keep them from the precious means of grace. And we may notice that all these deviations from our duty to our Saviour are so many lesser species of the sin of Judas. As far as we are kept back by a covetous heart, we follow that unhappy traitor. When people give up the means of grace the language of their conduct is, What will I get and I shall desert my religion. And whatever profit or pleasure may be promised them, they have but Judas’s pennyworth at last” (Sermons, Vol. II, page 206). Let those who work on Sabbath on housing schemes, hydro-electric schemes, take solemn warning.
Another large class of Sabbath-breakers are those who neglect the means of grace. To neglect the means of salvation is tantamount to neglecting the salvation itself. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” We would lovingly urge our young people to give obedience to the command of Him who is our Maker and who will one day be our Judge. “Ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord” (Lev. xix, 30). We are warned not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together to the worship of God. It is in connection with the sin of forsaking the public means of grace that the following solemn warnings are given. “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries . . . It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews x, 26-31).
We would warn against the widespread evil of profaning the Sabbath by worldly or common conversation. Those who trifle away the sacred hours of the Sabbath in this manner are guilty before God. Such persons cannot be in earnest in seeking after God, nor can they have much concern about their soul’s salvation. “Sabbath profanation,” wrote the saintly Rev. Gavin Parker, of Aberdeen, “is a transgression of the First Table of the Law which prescribes our duty to God; robbery is a transgression of the Second, which prescribes our duty to man. The most able and judicious theologians agree with the standards of our Church, in affirming that sins committed more immediately against God are more heinous in their own nature than sins committed more immediately against man. All sin is committed against God; but Sabbath profanation is more directly against Him than robbery. He who knows the law, ‘Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy,’ and yet employs a part of the day in common conversation, offers a direct insult to God and provokes Him to anger. By persevering in this practice, the everlasting ruin of the soul is rendered inevitable. No rational hope of salvation can be entertained by one who voluntarily and presumptuously persists in violating any statute of God’s law. He who pollutes the Sabbath by habitually employing any part of it as a common day is chargeable with self-destruction.” In the light of the above, how terribly guilty before God of polluting the Sabbath and of destroying their own souls for eternity are the sellers and readers of the “Sunday” newspapers, etc., etc. As the Monday newspapers involve Sabbath labour, we would warn our people from buying the Monday papers. “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 honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: 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” (Isaiah lviii, 13, 14).
In conclusion, we would remind our people that while there are organisations and churches professing a regard for the Sabbath in Scotland, the Synod, after due deliberation, unanimously resolved that owing to the glaring inconsistencies between their profession and practice, it was our duty as a church to cease to co-operate with such. The glory of God and the honour of His Day leave us no other course to pursue on the matter.
May grace be given to each and all of us to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints in the light of the exhortation which says, “Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy” (Isaiah viii, 12).
Yours faithfully,
THE SABBATH OBSERVANCE COMMITTEE OF THE
FREE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
REV. D. R. MACDONALD, Tarbert, Convener.