Manuscript Releases, vol. 12 [Nos. 921-999]

MR No. 958—Sabbathkeeping in Arctic Lands

God rested on the seventh day, and set it apart for man to observe in honor of His creation of the heavens and the earth in six literal days. He blessed and sanctified and made holy the day of rest. When men are so careful to search and dig to see in regard to the precise period of time, we are to say, God made His Sabbath for a round world; and when the seventh day comes to us in that round world, controlled by the sun that rules the day, it is the time, in all countries and lands, to observe the Sabbath. In the countries where there is no sunset for months, and again no sunrise for months, the period of time will be calculated by records kept. But God has a world large enough, and proper and right for the human beings He has created to inhabit it, without finding homes in those lands so objectionable in very many, many ways. 12MR 159.1

The Lord accepts all the obedience of every creature He has made, according to the circumstances of time in the sun-rising and sun-setting world. Obedience is the test; and all this plowing into the intricacy of the precise minutes and hours of the Sabbath—it is the test of man's obedience to honor and glorify God. To sin, or transgression of His law, God will prove a consuming fire. The Sabbath observance is “a sign between Me and you throughout your generations forever.”—Letter 167, 1900, pp. 1, 2. (To G. A. Irwin, March 23, 1900.) 12MR 159.2

White Estate

Washington, D. C.,

December 2, 1982.