Tag: Teaching

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Sabbath, More than a Day?

There are two prevalent attitudes that I have witnessed amongst Sabbatarians that can lead to neglect of the teaching, learning, and living the Sabbath.

Nothing Else To Learn

The first of these attitudes is the belief that we have learned all we need to learn about the Sabbath. Those who accept such a position feel the need to move on to other doctrines after they have learned that the seventh day is the Biblical Sabbath. After they discover this, they totally set it aside as the day in which “we go to church.”

When we accept such an idea, the doctrine goes into hibernation until it is time to prove to someone else that they need to “go to church on” the Biblical Sabbath. The problem with such a view is that it does not recognize that the Sabbath is not merely to teach us the day to assemble. It also includes a prophetic portion of looking forward to the ultimate fruition of all things. This can be seen in the Prophets including Isaiah who said from one Sabbath to another shall all flesh come to worship(Isaiah 66:23).

The Look Back

But more than the future look, the Sabbath provides a look back at creation. We can look at creation and catch a glimpse of how we should live today, on the Sabbath, and will live in the world to come. Our brothers and sister who “already know everything” about the Sabbath will not learn of the way that the Sabbath trains us to live today and in the coming kingdom.

Looking for the Sunday Law

However, there is another prevalent view of the Sabbath that forever looks for manifestations of the coming Sunday law. Here the Sabbath is reduced to a mile-marker on the way to the second coming. We look for this “Sunday law” in every bill that comes around. We find non-existent bills that are very close to bringing in the second coming, however, just like the other view, we end up with a lack of understanding of how the Sabbath provides a glimpse of the coming kingdom and thus has a strong ethical component that directs our living. But even more than that, the Sabbath also provides strength for living the life of Christ. All of these themes are tied up in the doctrine.

Proclaiming the Sabbath More Fully

It is true that some reduce the teaching to simply the day we assemble for worship and others reduce it to a discussion of a coming Sunday Law, but there will be some who will preach the “Sabbath more fully” as Ellen White predicted.

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When You Can't See What You Should

When I was about to begin college, I had to take a vision test. I remember like it was yesterday going to take a routine vision test at Oakwood College. It turned out that my vision was so poor that even this perfunctory test showed that I had some real problems. The one who took the test told me that I need to go see a vision professional as soon as possible.

I went to the optometrist and they gave me a full scale test and gave me glasses. I will never forget when I put on those glasses how sharp everything looked. I could see!!! Well I wasn’t blind, but everything was blurry before. It had happened so slowly that I didn’t realize that I was having problems. I learned to live with this hampered vision until someone gave me some glasses to put on. Immediately I realized I couldn’t see before.

Vision Loss in the Church

I think that many of us today are working with the same kind of vision loss. We have lost our reason for being. We have lost what we are here to say. I think it is interesting that one can now attend some of our churches and never hear the unique call of God to remember the Sabbath. Many of us no longer emphasize that Jesus is coming again. Even though these two doctrines are etched into our very name as Seventh-day Adventists, we have slowly come to the point where we are trying to live without the vision that the Sabbath brings. We are slowly trying to live without the perspective that the second coming gives to us. We no longer are hampered by the demands of a high priest who is seeking to bring this era to a conclusion. We have slowly lost our ability to see clearly.

And just like me, we don’t even miss it. We listen to sermons that could be preached anywhere at any time. We sing songs that have lost any connection to the principles of the movement that we all know and love. We no longer say, “if time will last” when we speak of our plans and hopes. We have lost our vision!

Is Regurgitation the Answer?

And just as in my case, it is easier to see the problem than to promote the solution. One of my teachers told me once that I need to stop cursing the darkness and turn on a light. How do you turn on the light? Is it simply a regurgitation of sermons from greats in the past? Will our vision problem be solved by simply reading the sermons of yesteryear and singing the songs of yesterday?

While there is a time to remember and to go back, we cannot go back to those times. I think we must take the principles that our great forefathers have given to us and seek to apply them to this world at this time. We need to preach the Sabbath, but a simple regurgitation of previous sermons will not help our vision problem.

Are the Doctrines Relevant?

What we need to do is dig into the Sabbath, dig into the second coming. Do some hard work. What are these doctrines telling us? Does the Sabbath have something to say to a United States that is bent on acquisition and has an economy built on obtaining what one may need or not need? Does the Second Coming have something to say to the nihilism that one finds in so much of the world today? Does the message of our High Priest have anything to say to us today at this time? It is time for work. It is time to Re-Hear. It is time to preach again.

But thanks be to God, that we have a prophecy that this message will not die out. Somebody will pick up the message that we have allowed to lay fallow while we copy the offerings of popular media ministers. The Bible says that there will be another angel who will should with a loud voice. That angel will have her voice to join the three angels messages as it crescendos into a loud cry. Let’s put on our glasses so that we can see where God is leading us.