The following is the substance of a sermon preached by one of the well-known ministers of the past — the Rev Gavin Parker. He was a minister in Aberdeen. His text was: “Will a man rob God”. Malachi 3: 8.
To rob a person, is to deprive him unjustly of his property. In some instances, time becomes property. The time during which a servant is engaged to labour for his master, is the master’s property. If the servant appropriates this time to his own use, or waste it in idleness, he robs the master of his property.
The whole human race are bound to serve God: He is the universal Lord; and has an unlimited right to their service. All time is His: He measures out a portion to each of us, according to His own will. This God is served by the love and obedience of His intelligent creatures: he has authority to prescribe those services that are pleasing to Himself, and to appoint and arrange the times for performing them.
He has said to each of us, “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God: In it thou shalt not do any work. Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh, there shall be to you a holy day — a Sabbath of rest to Jehovah. Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.” The words of God, by the prophet Isaiah, chap. 58: 13, have also all the authority of a Divine injunction — “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 and honourable, and shalt honour him — not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words,” &c.
He who determines the bounds of our habitation has an unquestionable right to dispose of our time. He claims our time upon earth as His property. He has clearly and forcibly revealed the manner in which it ought to be employed. He demands that the Sabbath be set apart for Himself, to be employed more immediately in the exercises of religion. To appropriate any part of the holy Sabbath to ordinary or common purposes, any further than duty requires, or to waste any part of it in idleness, is to rob God.
In the sequel of the discourse, it is intended to consider the evil of profaning the Sabbath by worldly or common conversation, and to show that this violation of the Divine law is more criminal than common robbery.
Duty requires that some words be uttered respecting common objects and events, even upon the Christian Sabbath. But the worldly conversation by which the Sabbath is profaned, is occasioned neither by duty nor necessity: It is a voluntary or deliberate prostitution of holy time, to common, and, in many instances, to trivial and useless purposes. Those who trifle away any of the sacred hours of the Sabbath in this manner, are chargeable with robbing God. This, we say, is a crime more aggravated than common robbery.
It is readily admitted, that there may be instances of robbery more aggravated than the other crime in certain circumstances. But the comparison is not to be made between flagrant cases on the one side, and more ordinary cases on the other, but between the sins in themselves.
It is a very heinous crime even to rob a man: it betrays a mean sordid disposition — a hateful excess of selfishness, and a vile contempt for the right of others. It evinces a mind dark, envious, malignant, and ferocious: it discovers a heart deeply depraved and awfully hardened by long-continued habits of impiety and wickedness. The man who can perpetrate such a crime is an object of abhorrence to the wise and the virtuous, and a source of general fear and anxiety: he attempts to nullify those useful regulations which connect society together; and to disseminate sorrow, disorder, and misery, among men. The crime he commits is very daring rebellion against the Most High: it brings disgrace upon his own character, renders him wretched upon earth, and it brings everlasting ruin upon his immortal soul. We cannot depict a character so base, in all its blackness, and all its horror: we cannot describe all the miseries to which such a transgressor may give rise: he may spread calamity, desolation, and destruction, wherever his influence extends: he may be a terror to thousands, and ultimately a terror to himself; for the way of such transgressors is hard. But to rob God is a crime still more aggravated: And this greater crime is committed by those who voluntarily, and in opposition to the revealed will of God, take part in secular conversation on the Christian Sabbath.
This crime is direct rebellion against God, and an avowed contempt of His law. The command is explicit — “Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy.” The words were uttered by God Himself. They form a part of that law which shall remain in force after the heavens and earth shall have passed away. This law, all of us are bound to observe: by it we must be judged. The meaning of this part of it is easily understood. “Remember” — be attentive, be careful — “to keep the Sabbath holy;” set it apart from common exercises to the exercises of religion. It is God who issues the mandate: He attends to the manner in which it is received. “God looks upon man. His eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” Disobedience to this mandate is rebellion against Himself. The rebellion is direct, and peculiarly daring. The transgressor says, by his conduct, “I know the words of the law, but I disregard their meaning, and their authority. No, I will not sanctify the Sabbath; I will make a part of it common: I will speak about the trifles or business of the world; I will please myself, and endeavour to please others. I know that awful threatenings are denounced against those who profane the Sabbath; but I fear them not; I know that God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, but I will compel Him to look on my rebellion; I will do what is pleasing in mine own eyes, in contempt of all that God has commanded or threatened, and in defiance of all that He can do.”
The species of Sabbath-profanation is a rejection of offered grace. All mankind are guilty and depraved. All are justly condemned to perdition. None can save himself. “Jesus Christ came to seek and to save the lost.” The blessings of His salvation are offered to all: but, to obtain a personal interest in them, faith and repentance are indispensably necessary. Without the knowledge of God, and of salvation through Jesus Christ, there can be no saving faith. Without a change of nature, there can be no genuine repentance. All these are the gifts of God’s free grace. An earnest and humble waiting on God in all the ordinances of religion is the appointed means of obtaining them. The Sabbath is one of these ordinances. If any part of the Sabbath is wilfully squandered away in idleness or in worldly conversation, the person cannot be earnest in seeking after God; he cannot feel much concern about his own salvation. But Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth to everlasting life. Ask, seek, knock: Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” These injunctions require great concern and activity. But those persons who can profane a Divine ordinance, by common conversation on a Sabbath, show that the precepts and invitations of the gospel have had little influence on their minds. They neglect the appointed means of salvation; they also neglect salvation itself: and thus their trifling with the Sabbath amounts to a rejection of the offered grace of God.
This manner of profaning the Sabbath presents a strong resistance to the progress of Christianity. It is the opinion of many — and the opinion is well founded — that, were it not for the appointment of the Sabbath, a regard for God and for religion would soon be obliterated upon earth, and the great bulk of mankind would sink into atheism and utter profanity. But the great utility and excellence of the institution must be sought for in the strict and spiritual observance of its duties. When the practice of worldly conversation, during a considerable part of the Sabbath, becomes prevalent, the religious exercises performed on any other part of the day can do very little — perhaps nothing at all, perhaps even less than nothing — to maintain the honour of Christianity in this country, or to extend its influence to other countries. This manner of spending the Sabbath, by those who profess Christianity, is sufficient to prove that they know not the spiritual glory and excellence of religion — that they have never felt its power upon their own souls — and that they have no ardent desire to see its influence and its blessings extended to others. Thus it frequently happens, that much more injury is done to the cause of Christianity upon earth by its pretended friends than by its avowed enemies. The openly impious, the profligate, and the infidel, may habitually and daringly profane the Sabbath; but their practices and their example are not so pernicious to the progress of the gospel as the conduct of those who profess, on one part of the Sabbath, to reverence His sanctuary, and yet trifle away the remaining hours in common and useless conversation. The young and the ignorant are thus tempted to think that religion is a mere system of forms and of services, that have no influence upon the heart of conduct; and the openly profane are thus tempted to make vital Christianity and those who profess it the objects of contempt and derision. Thus the progress of Christianity is prevented and resisted by the hypocrisy and profanity of its pretended friends.
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.
This practice manifests a contempt for heaven. Sinners may speak and think of heaven, and express a feeble wish to enjoy its pleasures: But, by neglecting the duties of the Sabbath, they afford sufficient evidence that the exercises and enjoyments of heaven are not adapted to their taste. Heaven is an everlasting Sabbath: there God dwells: there His servants see His face, and enjoy satisfying communion with Himself. The same God is to be enjoyed upon earth. The exercises of the Sabbath are the means of communion between Him and His people. If these exercises be neglected the favour of God is not enjoyed, nor even desired. Communion with Him, which constitutes the highest felicity in heaven, is not esteemed; and thus heaven itself despised. The sinner thus prefers earth to heaven — the pleasures of the world to the enjoyment of God — an imaginary, transient, an unsatisfying good, to that magnificent and everlasting good which God has laid up for them that love Him. If it was an evidence of base ingratitude and aggravated wickedness in the Israelites to despise the pleasant land of Canaan, how much greater insensibility and wickedness must there be in despising heaven itself — that better country, of which the earthly Canaan was only typical!
These observations might suffice to prove that the species of Sabbath profanation already mentioned is a more aggravated crime than common robbery; but let us now attempt to bring the two in more direct comparison with each other.
Let us compare them according to those statutes of the law of which they are violations. Sabbath profanation is a transgression of the First Table, 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 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. The robber seldom thinks of God: what he intends chiefly is, to appropriate to himself, by injustice or violence, that which belongs to his fellow-creature. It is surely the more aggravated offence to violate the rights of Deity, and to prostitute his peculiar property to the purposes of self-gratification or of vanity.
Compare the places they hold in the graduation of crimes. One sin leads to another; evil men become worse and worse; the first departure from comparative innocence is in many cases the most daring; the crime of our first parents in Paradise was perhaps the most aggravated that ever was committed upon earth; the sins that follow are partly the result of the former. Sabbath profanation is nearer the commencement of a course of sin than robbery; Sabbath profanation naturally leads to robbery; many who have brought themselves to a disgraceful death have made this acknowledgement; but who can say that robbery leads to Sabbath profanation? The robber’s heart has been hardened by profaning the Sabbath before he ventures to do such violence to man. Sabbath profanation has not become so common in Dundee because the town was formerly infested with robbers; but robberies have recently become more frequent, because the profanation of the Sabbath has long prevailed. Sabbath profanation is a radical crime; robbery is one of its remotest and wildest ramifications. Although the branches were lopt off, a root may remain in all its vigour, and may still send forth luxuriant shoots; but destroy the root, and all the branches will quickly fade, to revive no more. While Sabbath profanation abounds, it is almost vain to expect any considerable improvement in the observance of social duties; but were the sanctification of the Sabbath to become general, an act of robbery would seldom be heard of in our land.
An act of robbery may be done by an individual, and no other be concerned in the crime. Worldly conversation on Sabbath involves more than one in deeply aggravated guilt; it may bring whole families and communities under its corrupting influence.
Robbery occasions to the individual injured the loss of property of a worldly kind; the profanation of the Sabbath occasions the loss of souls. The robber, indeed, brings destruction upon his own soul; but he may do no injury to the souls of those whom he deprives of their property: they only sustain a temporal loss; their present misery is increased, but their guilt may not be augmented. But worldly conversation on Sabbath may ruin the souls of all who may take part in it, and of all who may give it encouragement and approbation.
We should also take into consideration the different circumstances of the parties. Common robbers, for the most part, are the very refuse of society: they have received little education, and have never been taught Christianity; they are ignorant of God and His laws — ignorant of their own guilt and danger — and as ignorant of the way of salvation. No man has cared for their souls. Perhaps they had no friend, no teacher of religion, to warn or admonish them; they are outcasts from the abodes of virtue and of decency. From them little good can be expected. But many of those who profane the Sabbath by common conversation, have been well educated — have enjoyed the advantages of friendly attention from the wise, the virtuous, and the good — have been taught the doctrines and duties of Christianity; not a few of them even call themselves Christians! These should know God and His laws: they ought to stand in awe of His judgments, and to believe that He is highly displeased with their crimes. How hateful to profess love to God, and to promise obedience to His commandments, and yet to mock and insult Him by a voluntary profanation of the Sabbath! Might not such hypocrisy, such wickedness, appear shocking even to the hardened mind of a barbarous ruffian?
In some instances, the comparative atrocity of crimes may be determined by the temptations which induced the different parties to commit them. From the habits of idleness acquired by the robber, it is difficult for him to submit to honest and regular industry; from his habits of dissipation, it becomes difficult to learn sobriety; his temptations to prodigality and dishonesty acquire a fatal influence; his propensity to live by plunder gathers strength by practice of injustice, and he ultimately appears the confirmed slave of vice: he makes his living by the wages of unrighteousness; he is thus entangled by the bond of iniquity: his present enjoyments and his future expectations upon earth, seem to him dependent upon his nefarious achievements. But little good of any kind is obtained by worldly conversation upon Sabbath: the temptations to this crime are comparatively feeble. Few individuals in this country can add anything to their riches, or honours, or respectability, by this practice — very little is added even to their pleasure — very meagre and sordid is the enjoyment it affords. The robber obtains a reward for his wickedness; the other is a volunteer in the service of sin. If, then, a person will not restrain himself a little, that he may keep the laws of God, he must surely feel very little regard for the Divine authority; his rebellion must be peculiarly daring. Very few sins are so easily avoided as worldly conversation upon Sabbath. Almost every one has this in his own power. If any deal unfaithfully toward God in this which is least, they will be unfaithful also in much. If they will not bridle the tongue during one day in the week, how can they be supposed to keep the heart every day, and with all diligence? How can they keep themselves in the love of God? How can they be in the fear of God all the day long? How can they resist, and obtain dominion over sin in the heart? How can they purify themselves as Christ is pure? If the easiest duties are habitually neglected, there is sufficient reason to conclude that the more arduous are never seriously attempted.
Let us also compare the influence of these crimes upon society. The moral consequences of robbery in this country must be very limited. Robbers are comparatively few in number; their character is not esteemed but deserted. Robbery can never become fashionable among us; it can never appear innocent; the practice of it can never become general; and those by whom it is committed will always be regarded with abhorrence. But secular conversation upon Sabbath is a common and a fashionable vice. The decent and respectable are not ashamed of it; many have the presumption to pronounce it harmless. In many families, the man would be accounted rude, or austere, or a hypocrite, or a fanatic, who would venture to reprove it; the impious practice has gained firm footing among us, and has extended its baneful influence over all ranks of society. The rich and the poor have been brought upon a level by this powerful destroyer; all classes are vitiated by this moral pestilence. Injustice, oppression, and violence, can never appear harmless; but it has been considered a trivial crime to rob God and to trample His glory in the dust. Misery, desolation, and destruction, may be spread far and wide by the unfeeling cruelty of the robber; but an evil more awful than all these has been disseminated among all ranks of society — the voluntary pollution of the Sabbath. This is the cause of many evils; it is more to be dreaded than misery in any form, in any degree. Sin abounds in our land; it rears its odious head in many terrific and disgusting forms, and it will continue to hold a conspicuous place as long as worldly conversation upon Sabbath prevails.
Are not these observations conclusive? Do they not sufficiently prove, that the profanation of the Sabbath, in the manner already stated, is a more aggravated crime than common robbery?
The voice of conscience, if not corrupted, would decide in favour of these statements: For, if there is a God at all, He is infinitely great and glorious; He is to be feared more than man; His rights are more sacred than those of man. Is not sacrilege pronounced the most aggravated species of robbery? If to rob a temple of God be reckoned more criminal than common robbery, must it not be still more criminal to rob God Himself? Conscience attests that God ought to be honoured and esteemed and feared more than man; conscience will also pronounce an insult offered to God, that it is more criminal than any insult offered to a fellow-creature.
God is good: His mercies and His benefits are great and numerous, even to the evil and unthankful. Never can one man do so much good to another as God has done to each of us. Conscience attests that we should feel and express gratitude to this God; it also pronounces ingratitude towards the greatest benefactor upon earth a crime not nearly so base and wicked as ingratitude towards God; but when God receives direct insults and avowed rebellion from the objects of His compassion and kindness, conscience must attest that such wickedness is peculiarly aggravated.
But let God Himself decide. Let us listen to His voice; His words must be conclusive. In the text the prophet asks, with a feeling of astonishment at one man robbing another — the act is not uncommon — the crime is not too great to shock a depraved heart — the person injured may be nearly on a level with the robber. But will a man, a feeble, dying man, venture to rob the omnipotent, the immortal God? Can there be so much ingratitude and so much wickedness in a human being as will permit him thus to mock and insult his great Creator, his bountiful benefactor?
The words of divine inspiration uttered by Eli convey the same idea. “If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him; but if a man sin against Jehovah, who shall entreat for him?” It is possible to make up the loss to an injured individual, and to inflict a punishment upon the offender commensurate to the evil done against man; but sins against God are so great that no earthly judge can inflict a punishment adequate to their guilt.
The same doctrine is taught by the great Founder of Christianity. Jesus said to an impious and insidious lawyer, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind: this is the first and great commandment.” The duty of the first and greatest importance is to love God; the neglect of this duty is a greater crime than the neglect of any other. It is a great evil not to love man — it is a greater evil to do injury to man; but it is a greater evil than both not to love God, and still greater to violate His laws, to rebel against His authority. To profane the Sabbath by worldly conversation is rebellion against God. All who voluntarily and deliberately do so give sufficient proof that the love of God is not in them. The thing is impossible. All who love God love His commandments and keep them. It is their aim, it is their pleasure, to do whatsoever He hath commanded them. But if one of the easiest commandments is habitually violated, it is quite impossible that the same persons should even attempt to keep the whole law. The Scriptures and the dictates of reason direct us to say, “The love of God is not in them. They have therefore violated the first and great commandment. They have not loved — they have offended, they have insulted — the Lord their God.”
The respective punishments which God, as the legislator of Israel, adjudged to the two species of crime under review, may also assist us in deciding upon their comparative aggravations. “If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep. Ye shall keep the Sabbath; for it is holy unto you. Every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from amongst his people.” The greater punishment was adjudged to the profaner of the Sabbath. Nor was this an unmeaning or empty threatening, intended only to alarm. The punishment was actually inflicted. A man was found near the camp of Israel, in the wilderness, who had gathered sticks on the Sabbath day. He was brought to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation. He was kept in ward till the divine will should be ascertained. Jehovah said to Moses, “The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.” And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as Jehovah commanded moses. Although these laws were given to the people of Israel while under a theocracy, the holy God could not be more severe in punishing moral evil while He acted as King over a peculiar people, than while He acts as “the Judge of all the earth”. Whatever changes have taken place in the dispensations of God upon earth, there is no change in His nature, in His law, or in His counsel. The precept concerning the Sabbath belongs not to the ceremonial but to the moral law — even to that law which God hath “founded for ever”. Jesus, the Son of God, that infallible teacher from heaven, confirmed the authority and the permanent obligation of this precept when He said to His followers, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.” These words assure us the sins against the moral law, which God punished with the greatest severity during the Jewish dispensation, must still be the most heinous in His sight.
(To be continued in next issue)