Part 3

"Believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."

Third Commandment

"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain."

I was greatly amazed not long ago in talking to a man who thought he was a Christian, to find that once in a while, when he got angry, he would swear. I said: "My friend, I don't see how you can tear down with one hand what you are trying to build up with the other. I don't see how you can profess to be a child of God and let those words come out of your lips."

He replied: "Mr. Moody, if you knew me you would understand. I have a very quick temper. I inherited it from my father and mother, and it is uncontrollable; but my swearing comes only from the lips."

When God said, "I will not hold him guiltless that takes My name in vain," He meant what He said, and I don't believe any one can be a true child of God who takes the name of God in vain. What is the grace of God for, if it is not to give me control of my temper so that I shall not lose control and bring down the curse of God upon myself? When a man is born of God, God takes the "swear" out of him. Make the fountain good, and the stream will be good. Let the heart be right; then the language will be right; the whole life will be right. But no man can serve God and keep His law until he is born of God. There we see the necessity of the new birth.

To take God's name "in vain" means either (1) lightly, without thinking, flippantly; or (2) profanely, deceitfully.

USING GOD'S NAME IRREVERENTLY.

I think it is shocking to use God's name with so little reverence as is common nowadays, even among professing Christians. We are told that the Jews held it so sacred that the covenant name of God was never mentioned amongst them except once a year by the high priest on the Day of Atonement, when he went into the holy of holies. What a contrast that is to the familiar use Christians make of it in public and private worship! We are apt to rush into God's presence, and rush out again, without any real sense of the reverence and awe that is due Him. We forget that we are on holy ground.

Do you know how often the word "reverend" occurs in the Bible? Only once. And what is it used in connection with? God's name. Psalm cxi. 9: "Holy and reverend is His name." So important did the Jewish rabbis consider this commandment that they said the whole world trembled when it was first proclaimed on Sinai.

USING GOD'S NAME PROFANELY.

But though there is far too much of this frivolous, familiar use of God's name, the commandment is broken a great deal more by profanity. Taking the name of God in vain is blasphemy. Is there a swearing man who reads this? What would you do if you were put into the balances of the sanctuary, if you had to step in opposite to this third commandment? Think a moment. Have you been taking God's name in vain to-day?

I do not believe men would ever have been guilty of swearing unless God had forbidden it. They do not swear by their friends, their fathers or mothers, their wives or children. They want to show how they despise God's law.

A great many men think there is nothing in swearing. Bear in mind that God sees something wrong in it, and He says He will not hold men guiltless, even though society does.

I met a man sometime ago who told me he had never sinned in his life. He was the first perfect man I had ever met. I thought I would question him, and began to measure him by the law. I asked him: "Do you ever get angry?" "Well," he said, "sometimes I do; but I have a right to do so. It is righteous indignation." "Do you swear when you get angry?" He admitted he did sometimes. "Then," I asked, "are you ready to meet God?" "Yes," he replied, "because I never mean anything when I swear."

Suppose I steal a man's watch and he comes after me.

"Yes," I say, "I stole your watch and pawned it, but _I did not mean anything by it_. I pawned it and spent the money, but _I did not mean anything by it_."

You would smile at and deride such a statement.

Ah, friends! You cannot trifle with God in that way. Even if you swear without meaning it, it is forbidden by God. Christ said: "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment; for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." You will be held accountable whether your words are _idle_ or _blasphemous_.

A SENSELESS HABIT.

The habit of swearing is condemned by all sensible persons. It has been called "the most gratuitous of all sins," because no one gains by it; it is "not only sinful, but useless." An old writer said that when the accusing angel, who records men's words, flies up to heaven with an oath, he blushes as he hands it in.

When a man blasphemes, he shows an utter contempt for God. I was in the army during the war, and heard men cursing and swearing. Some godly woman would pass along the ranks looking for her wounded son, and not an oath would be heard. They would not swear before their mothers, or their wives, or their sisters; they had more respect for them than they had for God!

Isn't it a terrible condemnation that swearing held its own until it came to be recognized as a vulgar thing, a sin against society? Men dropped it then, who never thought of its being a sin against God.

There will be no swearing men in the kingdom of God. They will have to drop that sin, and repent of it, before they see the kingdom of God.

HOW TO KEEP FROM SWEARING.

Men often ask: "How can I keep from swearing?" I will tell you. If God puts His love into your heart, you will have no desire to curse Him. If you have much regard for God, you will no more think of cursing Him than you would think of speaking lightly or disparagingly of a mother whom you love. But the natural man is at enmity with God, and has utter contempt for His law. When that law is written on his heart, there will be no trouble in obeying it.

When I was out west about thirty years ago, I was preaching one day in the open air, when a man drove up in a fine turn-out, and after listening a little while to what I was saying, he put the whip to his fine-looking Steed, and away he went. I never expected to see him again, but the next night he came back, and he kept on coming regularly night after night.

I noticed that his forehead itched--you have noticed people who keep putting their hands to their foreheads?--he didn't want any one to see him shedding tears--of course not! It is not a manly thing to shed tears in a religions meeting, of course!

After the meeting I said to a gentleman: "Who is that man who drives up here every night? Is he interested?" "Interested! I should think not! You should have heard the way he talked about you today." "Well," I said, "that is a sign he is interested."

If no man ever has anything to say against you, your Christianity isn't worth much. Men said of the Master, "He has a devil," and Jesus said that if they had called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household.

I asked where this man lived, but my friend told me not to go to see him, for he would only curse me. I said: "It takes God to curse a man; man can only bring curses on his own head." I found out where he lived, and went to see him. He was the wealthiest man within a hundred miles of that place, and had a wife and seven beautiful children. Just as I got to his gate I saw him coming out of the front door. I stepped up to him and said: "This is Mr.--, I believe?" He said: "Yes, sir; that is my name." Then he straightened up and asked--"What do you want?" "Well," I said, "I would like to ask you a question, if you won't be angry." "Well, what is it?" "I am told that God has blessed you above all men in this part of the country; that He has given you wealth, a beautiful Christian wife, and seven lovely children. I do not know if it is true, but I hear that all He gets in return is cursing and blasphemy." He said, "Come in; come in." I went in. "Now," he said, "what you said out there is true. If any man has a fine wife I am the man, and I have a lovely family of children, and God has been good to me. But do you know, we had company here the other night, and I cursed my wife at the table, and did not know it till after the company had gone. I never felt so mean and contemptible in my life as when my wife told me of it. She said she wanted the floor to open and let her down out of her seat. If I have tried once, I have tried a hundred times to stop swearing. You preachers don't know anything about it." "Yes," I said, "I know all about it; I have been a drummer." "But," he said, "you don't know anything about a business-man's troubles. When he is harassed and tormented the whole time, he can't help swearing." "Oh, yes," I said, "he can. I know something about it. I used to swear myself." "What! You used to swear?" he asked; "how did you stop?" "I never stopped." "Why, you don't swear now, do you?" "No; I have not sworn for years." "How did you stop?" "I never stopped. It stopped itself." He said, "I don't understand this." "No," I said, "I know you don't. But I came up to talk to you, so that you will never want to swear again as long as you live."

I began to tell him about Christ in the heart; how that would take the temptation to swear out of a man,

"Well," he said, "how am I to get Christ?" "Get right down here and tell Him what you want." "But," he said, "I was never on my knees in my life. I have been cursing all the day, and I don't know how to pray or what to pray for." "Well," I said, "it is mortifying to have to call on God for mercy when you have never used His name except in oaths; but He will not turn you away. Ask God to forgive you if you want to be forgiven."

Then the man got down and prayed--only a few sentences, but thank God, it is the short prayers, after all, which bring the quickest answers. After he prayed he got up and said: "What shall I do now?" I said, "Go down to the church and tell the people there that you want to be an out-and-out Christian." "I cannot do that," he said; "I never go to church except to some funeral." "Then it is high time for you to go for something else," I said.

After a while he promised to go, but did not know what the people would say. At the next church prayer-meeting, the man was there, and I sat right in front of him. He stood up and put his hands on the settee, and he trembled so much that I could feel the settee shake. He said:

"My friends, you know all about me. If God can save a wretch like me, I want to have you pray for my salvation."

That was thirty odd years ago. Sometime ago I was back in that town, and did not see him; but when I was in California, a man asked me to take dinner with him. I told him that I could not do so, for I had another engagement. Then he asked if I remembered him, and told me his name. "Oh," I said, "tell me, have you ever sworn since that night you knelt in your drawing-room, and asked God to forgive you?" "No," he replied, "I have never had a desire to swear since then. It was all taken away."

He was not only converted, but became an earnest, active Christian, and all these years has been serving God. That is what will take place when a man is born of the divine nature.

Is there a swearing man ready to put this commandment into the scales, and step in to be weighed? Suppose you swear only once in six months or a year--suppose you swear only once in ten years--do you think God will hold you guiltless for that act? It shows that your heart is not clean in God's sight. What are you going to do, blasphemer? Would you not be found wanting? You would be like a feather in the balance.

Fourth Commandment

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."

There has been an awful letting-down in this country regarding the sabbath during the last twenty-five years, and many a man has been shorn of spiritual power, like Samson, because he is not straight on this question. Can _you_ say that you observe the sabbath properly? You may be a professed Christian: are you obeying this commandment? Or do you neglect the house of God on the sabbath day, and spend your time drinking and carousing in places of vice and crime, showing contempt for God and His law? Are you ready to step into the scales? Where were you last sabbath? How did you spend it?

I honestly believe that this commandment is just as binding to-day as it ever was. I have talked with men who have said that it has been abrogated, but they have never been able to point to any place in the Bible where God repealed it. When Christ was on earth, He did nothing to set it aside; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath." It is just as practicable and as necessary for men to-day as it ever was--in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense age.

The sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. This fourth commandment begins with the word "remember," showing that the sabbath already existed when God wrote this law on the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?

I believe that the sabbath question to-day is a vital one for the whole country. It is the burning question of the present time. If you give up the sabbath the church goes; if you give up the church the home goes; and if the home goes the nation goes. That is the direction in which we are traveling.

The church of God is losing its power on account of so many people giving up the sabbath, and using it to promote selfishness.

HOW TO OBSERVE THE SABBATH.

"Sabbath" means "rest," and the meaning of the word gives a hint as to the true way to observe the day. God rested after creation, and ordained the sabbath as a rest for man. He blessed it and hallowed it. "Remember _the rest-day_ to keep it _holy_." It is the day when the body may be refreshed and strengthened after six days of labor, and the soul drawn into closer fellowship with its Maker.

True observance of the sabbath may be considered under two general heads: cessation from ordinary secular work, and religious exercises.

I.--CESSATION FROM SECULAR WORK.

A man ought to turn aside from his ordinary employment one day in seven. There are many whose occupation will not permit them to observe Sunday, but they should observe some other day as a sabbath. Saturday is my day of rest because I generally preach on Sunday, and I look forward to it as a boy does to a holiday. God knows what we need.

Ministers and missionaries often tell me that they take no rest-day; they do not need it because they are in the Lord's work. That is a mistake. When God was giving Moses instructions about the building of the tabernacle, He referred especially to the sabbath, and gave injunctions for its strict observance; and later, when Moses was conveying the words of the Lord to the children of Israel, he interpreted them by saying that not even were sticks to be gathered on the sabbath to kindle fires for smelting or other purposes. In spite of their zeal and haste to erect the tabernacle, the workmen were to have their day of rest. The command applies to ministers and others engaged in Christian work to-day as much as to those Israelite workmen of old.

WORKS OF NECESSITY AND OF EMERGENCY.

In judging whether any work may or may not be lawfully done on the sabbath, find out the reason and object for doing it. Exceptions are to be made for works of necessity and works of emergency. By "_works of necessity_" I mean those acts that Christ justified when He approved of leading one's ox or ass to water. Watchmen, police, stokers on board steamers, and many others have engagements that necessitate their working on the sabbath. By "_works of emergency_" I mean those referred to by Christ when He approved of pulling an ox or an ass out of a pit on the sabbath day. In case of fire or sickness a man is often called on to do things that would not otherwise be justifiable.

A Christian man was once urged by his employer to work on Sunday. "Does not your Bible say that if your ass falls into a pit on the sabbath, you may pull him out?" "Yes," replied the other; "but if the ass had the habit of falling into the same pit every sabbath, I would either fill up the pit or sell the ass."

Every man must settle the question as it effects unnecessary work, with his own conscience.

No man should make another work seven days in the week. One day is demanded for rest. A man who has to work the seven days has nothing to look forward to, and life becomes humdrum. Many Christians are guilty in this respect.

SABBATH TRAVELING.

Take, for instance, the question of sabbath traveling. I believe we are breaking God's laws by using the cars on Sunday and depriving conductors and others of their sabbath. Remember the fourth commandment expressly refers to "the stranger that is within thy gates." Doesn't that touch sabbath travel?

But you ask, "What are we to do? How are we to get to church?"

I reply, on foot. It will be better for you. Once when I was holding meetings in London, in my ignorance I made arrangements to preach four times in different places one sabbath. After I had made the appointments I found I had to walk sixteen miles; but I walked it, and I slept that night with a clear conscience. I have made it a rule never to use the cars, and if I have a private carriage, I insist that horse and man shall rest on Monday. I want no hackman to rise up in judgment against me.

My friends, if we want to help the sabbath, let business men and Christians never patronize cars on the sabbath. I would hate to own stock in those companies, to be the means of taking the sabbath from these men, and have to answer for it at the day of judgment. Let those who are Christians at any rate endeavor to keep a conscience void of offence on this point.

SABBATH TRADING.

There are many who are inclined to use the sabbath in order to make money faster. This is no new sin. The prophet Amos hurled his invectives against oppressors who said, "When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?"

Covetous men have always chafed under the restraint, but not until the present time do we find that they have openly counted on sabbath trade to make money. We are told that many street car companies would not pay if it were not for the sabbath traffic, and the sabbath edition of newspapers is also counted upon as the most profitable.

The railroad men of this country are breaking down with softening of the brain, and die at the age of fifty or sixty. They think their business is so important that they must run their trains seven days in the week. Business men travel on the sabbath so as to be on hand for business Monday morning. But if they do so God will not prosper them.

Work is good for man and is commanded, "Six days shalt thou labor;" but overwork and work on the sabbath takes away the best thing he has.

NECESSARY AND BENEFICIAL.

The good effect on a nation's health and happiness produced by the return of the sabbath, with its cessation from work, cannot be overestimated. It is needed to repair and restore the body after six days of work. It is proved that a man can do more in six days than in seven. Lord Beaconsfield. said: "Of all divine institutions, the most divine is that which secures a day of rest for man. I hold it to be the most valuable blessing conceded to man. It is the corner-stone of all civilization, and its removal might affect even the health of the people." Mr. Gladstone recently told a friend that the secret of his long life is that amid all the pressure of public cares he never forgot the sabbath, with its rest for the body and the soul. The constitution of the United States protects the president in his weekly day of rest. He has ten days, "Sundays excepted," in which to consider a bill that has been sent to him for signature. Every workingman in the republic ought to be as thoroughly protected as the president. If workingmen got up a strike against unnecessary work on the sabbath, they would have the sympathy of a good many.

"Our bodies are seven-day clocks," says Talmage, "and they need to be wound up, and if they are not wound up they run down into the grave. No man can continuously break the sabbath and keep his physical and mental health. Ask aged men, and they will tell you they never knew men who continuously broke the sabbath, who did not fail in mind, body, or moral principles."

All that has been said about rest for man is true for working animals. God didn't forget them in this commandment, and man should not forget them either.

II.--RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

But "rest" does not mean idleness. No man enjoys idleness for any length of time. When one goes on a vacation, one does not lie around doing nothing all the time. Hard work at tennis, hunting, and other pursuits fills the hours. A healthy mind must find something to do.

Hence the sabbath rest does not mean inactivity. "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." The best way to keep off bad thoughts and to avoid temptation is to engage in active religious exercises.

As regards these, we should avoid extremes. On the one hand we find a rigor in sabbath observance that is nowhere commanded in Scripture, and that reminds one of the formalism of the Pharisees more than of the spirit of the gospel. Such strictness does more harm than good. It repels people and makes the sabbath a burden. On the other hand we should jealously guard against a loose way of keeping the sabbath. Already in many cities it is profaned openly.

When I was a boy the sabbath lasted from sundown on Saturday to sundown on Sunday, and I remember how we boys used to shout when it was over. It was the worst day in the week to us. I believe it can be made the brightest day in the week. Every child ought to be reared so that he shall be able to say, with a friend, that he would rather have the other six days weeded out of his memory than the sabbath of his childhood.

PUBLIC WORSHIP.

Make the sabbath a day of religious activity. First of all, of course, is attendance at public worship. "There is a discrepancy," says John McNeill, "between our creed about the sabbath day and our actual conduct. In many families, at ten o'clock on the sabbath, attendance at church is still an open question. There is no open question on Monday morning--'John, will you go to work to-day?'"

A minister rebuked a farmer for not attending church, and said, "You know John you are never absent from market."

"O," was the reply, "we _must_ go to market."