Friday evening, as we watched the sun go down in glory, we were deeply thankful that we knew the holy Sabbath day was being ushered in.
It was 80 years ago that I was a pre-teen in Sunday School, listening to our teacher ask us to memorize the ten commandments so we could repeat them next Sunday. I was an obedient child and I did what she told us to do.
But I was struck by the term “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord.” Looking at the calendar on the wall, I was perplexed; Sunday was obviously the first day of the week!
I asked the teacher next Sunday “Why?” She said she didn’t know; but Dr. Campbell, our pastor who drove that beautiful new 1926 Buick, seemed to think it was all right and all the other churches were coming to church on Sunday—it had to be all right.
That satisfied me for a time.
Then someone told me that the reason why we observe the first day instead of the seventh was that the Roman Catholic Church had changed the day.
That did it for me—when I checked out the evidence, I found it was true.
To this day I thank the dear Lord for giving me the grace to say “Yes!” to the call of the Holy Spirit, to receive the Sabbath truth in my teenage years.
I became the only Sabbath-keeping boy in my public high school; I endured the snickering of my fellow classmates when they saw me walking through town on my way to the dinky little Seventh-day Adventist Church on Saturday morning dressed in my Sunday clothes; and the girl whom I secretly liked who played the piano so beautifully for me when I played Massenet’s Thais on the violin—of course she had no sympathy for “Saturday keeping.”
My trials in teenage Sabbath-keeping were not as severe as some teens have had to endure; but I thank the Lord today for His grace in leading me in my teenage years. My Presbyterian pastor offered to help me financially in college if I would forget this crazy “Saturday business.” In my senior year in high school I was offered two scholarships to universities (having won an academic contest); I turned them down, and went instead to a little tiny Seventh-day Adventist junior college where I began the process of working at 24 jobs to work my way through six years of college, training to be a missionary.
All I can say today is, “Thank the dear Lord for His much more abounding grace” (Rom. 5:20, 21). If any teen reads this, let me encourage you: give your heart and your life to that dear Lord who died for you!
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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