Living In The Light

April 8, Two Proofs Of Friendship With God

“Cry aloud, spare not;
Lift up your voice like a trumpet;
Tell My people their transgression,
And the house of Jacob their sins.”
—Isaiah 58:1 LL 107.1

The first part of the chapter [Isaiah 58] brings to view a people who apparently delight in the service of God; they seek Him daily, “as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God. “Yet their lives are not right before the Lord; for He commands His prophet, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” He declares that if they will return unto the Lord with all the heart, they shall be called repairers of the breach, the restorers of paths to dwell in. Then He distinctly shows them what this breach is. “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath,“—for they had been trampling it under their feet as a thing despised—“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 ofJacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” LL 107.2

This prophecy reaches down the centuries to the time when the man of sin attempted to make void one of the precepts of God’s law, to trample underfoot the original Sabbath ofJehovah, and in its stead exalt one of his own creation. And when the Christian world set aside God’s holy Sabbath, and in its place accept a common working day, unsanctioned by a single “Thus saith the Lord,” they are encouraging infidelity, and virtually acknowledging the supremacy of that power by whose authority alone the change has been effected. The rejection of the Sabbath has led to the rejection of the whole law, and thousands of professed Christians now boldly declare it void. . . . LL 107.3

There were two institutions founded in Eden that were not lost in the fall—the Sabbath and the marriage relation. These were carried by human beings beyond the gates of paradise. The one who loves and observes the Sabbath, and maintains the purity of the marriage institution, thereby proves himself the friend of humans and the friend of God. The one who by precept or example lessens the obligation of these sacred institutions is the enemy of both God and humanity, and is using his influence and his God-given talents to bring in a state of confusion and moral corruption.— Signs of the Times, February 28, 1884. LL 107.4

Further Reflection: Why does God link Sabbath and marriage to friendship with Him? LL 107.5