Daily Devotional

April 16, 2019

Do Soul-saving Work on the Sabbath

I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir. Isaiah 13:12, NKJV.

If it was right for David to satisfy his hunger by eating of the bread that had been set apart to a holy use, then it was right for the disciples to supply their need by plucking the grain upon the sacred hours of the Sabbath. Again, the priests in the Temple performed greater labor on the Sabbath than upon other days. The same labor in secular business would be sinful; but the work of the priests was in the service of God. They were performing those rites that pointed to the redeeming power of Christ, and their labor was in harmony with the object of the Sabbath. But now Christ Himself had come. The disciples, in doing the work of Christ, were engaged in God’s service, and that which was necessary for the accomplishment of this work it was right to do on the Sabbath day.

Christ would teach His disciples and His enemies that the service of God is first of all. The object of God’s work in this world is the redemption of humankind; therefore that which is necessary to be done on the Sabbath in the accomplishment of this work is in accord with the Sabbath law. Jesus then crowned His argument by declaring Himself the “Lord of the Sabbath,” One above all question and above all law. This infinite Judge acquits the disciples of blame, appealing to the very statutes they are accused of violating….

Upon another Sabbath, as Jesus entered a synagogue, He saw there a man who had a withered hand. The Pharisees watched Him, eager to see what He would do. The Savior well knew that in healing on the Sabbath He would be regarded as a transgressor, but He did not hesitate to break down the wall of traditional requirements that barricaded the Sabbath. Jesus bade the afflicted man stand forth, and then asked, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?” It was a maxim among the Jews that a failure to do good, when one had opportunity, was to do evil; to neglect to save life was to kill. Thus Jesus met the rabbis on their own ground. “But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other” (Mark 3:4, 5). – The Desire of Ages, 285, 286.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 144.

Daily Devotional

April 15, 2019

Do Good on the Sabbath

“For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” … “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Matthew 12:8-12, NKJV.

Jesus had lessons which He desired to give to His disciples, that when He was no longer with them, they might not be misled by the wily misrepresentations of the priests and rulers in regard to the correct observance of the Sabbath. He would remove from the Sabbath the traditions and exactions with which the priests and rulers had burdened it.

In passing through a field of grain on the Sabbath day, He and His disciples, being hungry, began to pluck the heads of grain and to eat. “But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.” To answer their accusation, He referred them to the action of David and others, saying: “Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.”

If excessive hunger excused David from violating even the holiness of the sanctuary, and made his act guiltless, how much more excusable was the simple act of the disciples in plucking grain and eating it upon the Sabbath day! Jesus would teach His disciples and His enemies that the service of God was first of all; and if fatigue and hunger attended the work, it was right to satisfy the wants of humanity even upon the Sabbath day….

Works of mercy and of necessity are no transgression of the law. God does not condemn these things. The act of mercy and necessity in passing through a grainfield, of plucking the heads of wheat, of rubbing them in their hands, and of eating to satisfy their hunger, He declared to be in accordance with the law which He Himself had proclaimed from Sinai. Thus He declared Himself guiltless before scribes, rulers, and priests, before the heavenly universe, before fallen angels and fallen men. – The Review and Herald, August 3, 1897.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 143.

Daily Devotional

April 14, 2019

The Spurious Sabbath a False Signpost

Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: “Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.” Exodus 31:13, NKJV.

The Lord has clearly defined the road to the City of God; but the great apostate has changed the signpost, setting up a false one – a spurious sabbath. He says: “I will work at cross-purposes with God. I will empower my delegate, the man of sin, to take down God’s memorial, the seventh-day Sabbath. Thus will I show the world that the day sanctified and blessed by God has been changed. That day shall not live in the minds of the people. I will obliterate the memory of it. I will place in its stead a day bearing not the credentials of heaven, a day that cannot be a sign between God and His people.

“I will lead the people who accept this day to place upon it the sanctity that God placed upon the seventh day. Through my vicegerent I will exalt myself. The first day shall be extolled, and the Protestant world shall receive this spurious sabbath as genuine. Through the nonobservance of the Sabbath God instituted, I will bring His law into contempt. The words ?a sign between me and you throughout your generations’ I will make to serve on the side of my sabbath. Thus the world will become mine. I will be ruler of the earth, prince of the world. I will so control the minds under my power that God’s Sabbath shall be an object of contempt.” …

The man of sin has instituted a false sabbath, and the professed Christian world has adopted this child of the papacy, refusing to obey God. Thus Satan leads men and women in a direction opposite to the city of refuge; and by the multitudes who follow him, it is demonstrated that Adam and Eve are not the only ones who have accepted the words of the wily foe.

The enemy of all good has turned the signpost round, so that it points to the path of disobedience as the path of happiness. – The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White Comments, vol. 4, 1171, 1172.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 142.

Daily Devotional

April 13, 2019

The Sign of God’s Authority

Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, the Restorer of Streets to Dwell In. Isaiah 58:12, NKJV.

The Sabbath is a golden clasp that unites God and His people. But the Sabbath command has been broken. God’s holy day has been desecrated. The Sabbath has been torn from its place by the man of sin, and a common working day has been exalted in its stead. A breach has been made in the law, and this breach is to be repaired. The true Sabbath is to be exalted to its rightful position as God’s rest day.

In the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah is outlined the work which God’s people are to do. They are to magnify the law and make it honorable, to build up the old waste places, and to raise up the foundations of many generations. To those who do this work God says: “Thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. 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” (Verses 12-14).

The Sabbath question is to be the issue in the great final conflict in which all the world will act a part. Men and women have honored Satan’s principles above the principles that rule in the heavens. They have accepted the spurious sabbath, which Satan has exalted as the sign of his authority. But God has set His seal upon His royal requirement. Each sabbath institution [both true and false] bears the name of its author, an ineffaceable mark that shows the authority of each. It is our work to lead the people to understand this. We are to show them that it is of vital consequence whether they bear the mark of God’s kingdom or the mark of the kingdom of rebellion, for they acknowledge themselves subjects of the kingdom whose mark they bear. God has called us to uplift the standard of His downtrodden Sabbath. How important, then, that our example in Sabbathkeeping should be right. – Testimonies for the Church 6:351-353.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 141.

Daily Devotional

April 12, 2019

Sabbath Truth Supported by the Word

Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. Exodus 31:16, NKJV.

The days in which we live are times that call for constant vigilance, times in which God’s people should be awake to do a great work in presenting the light on the Sabbath question. They should arouse, and warn the inhabitants of the world that Christ is soon coming the second time with power and great glory….

This is a time for the Lord’s servants to work with undiminished zeal to carry the third angel’s message to all parts of the world. The work of this message is spreading far and near; yet we should not feel satisfied, but hasten to carry to thousands more the truth regarding the perpetuity of the law of Jehovah. From all our institutions of learning, from our publishing houses, from our sanitariums, the message is to be proclaimed. The people of God everywhere are to be aroused to cooperate in the great, grand work represented by the first, second, and third angels’ messages. This last warning to the inhabitants of the earth is to make everyone see the importance God attaches to His holy law. So plainly is the truth to be presented, that no transgressor, hearing it, shall fail to discern the importance of obedience to the Sabbath commandment….

I am instructed to say to our people, Gather together from the Scriptures the proofs that God has sanctified the Sabbath, and let the words of the Lord be read before the congregations, showing that all who turn aside from a plain “Thus saith the Lord” will be condemned. The Sabbath has been the test of the loyalty of God’s people in all ages. “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever,” the Lord declares.

In giving the Word of God to the people, there is nothing to be argued. The Word of the Lord is given for the observance of the seventh day; let this Word be given to the people, and not the words of human beings. In so doing you throw the burden of responsibility upon those who reject it; and the arguments of opposers are arguments against the specifications of the Word. While you exalt a “Thus saith the Lord,” the controversy is not with the worker, but with God. – The Review and Herald, March 26, 1908.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 140.