If Your Job Requires Sabbath Work
Living by what we believe will carry consequences.
Throughout history, God's people have been caught in a conflict:
They've had to choose between obedience to what they believed was their
Sovereign's will on the one hand, and the demands of the physical culture in
which they lived, on the other. Today, Christians who espouse the seventh-day
Sabbath, face the same dilemma. Many jobs require work on Saturday. Many
social, athletic, and academic events occur on Friday night or Saturday — the
day Sabbatarians believe God set aside at Creation for humanity, the day
sanctified in the fourth commandment, the day upheld by the teaching and
example of Jesus and the Apostles.
The root issues are these: Do we really believe our Father's will
is for us to rest on the seventh day? And if we do, is our desire to please Him
the guiding force in our lives?
Christians are called to take up the cross of Christ, to put His
will ahead of everything, to love Him more than they love even their own lives
(Luke 6:46, 14:26). But when it comes to financial loss, reduced
lifestyle, or fewer social opportunities, we often bend the Sabbath to conform
to our culture. Perhaps the truth is that we believe in the Sabbath merely as a
nice theological concept, but not as something to suffer for. Perhaps what we
really believe is that the Sabbath makes more Biblical sense than observing
Sunday, but that it's not a big deal to God.
As for people who are not convicted that God wants them to observe
the seventh-day Sabbath, while I think they are wrong, the following
exhortations apply in a general way, not specifically to the Sabbath. A person
can only be expected to live according to what he believes.
Bible Witnesses
From the time the serpent tempted Eve until now, individuals and
groups have been severely tested on their beliefs. Would they put their faith
in, and love for, God ahead of all else? Consider a few examples of people
willing to make great sacrifices to obey God's will.
·
Joseph refused to commit
adultery, though it meant displeasing his employer, losing his job, and ending
up in jail. What if he had said, "I'd better go along with what my
mistress wants, or I could lose my job"?
·
Moses chose to stand up
for his people rather than live in the luxury of Egypt. He spent the rest of
his life (80 years) in the wilderness herding sheep, and then
"herding" people, who frequently did not appreciate him.
·
Daniel could have gone
to a private room to pray where his enemies couldn't see him, but he was not
about to let them think he was compromising his devotion to Yahweh.
·
Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego could have said, "Boy, we won't be any good to God if we're dead!
Think of all the people we can influence for Him if we live. We can just pray to Him while we're bowing
down before Nebuchadnezzar's statue."
·
John the Baptist
proclaimed the sins of the people — even of the king. He wasn't popular with
the royal court, ended up in prison, and then lost his head. What if he had said "I'd better tone
down a bit because I can't do any good for God in prison." Jesus said there was none greater than John.
·
Peter refused to stop
preaching the name of Jesus, though he was jailed and eventually martyred. What if he had said, "I've got a family
to support. Surely God wouldn't want them to suffer"?
Post-Bible Witnesses
In post-Biblical days, many groups of people and countless
individuals have paid dearly to be true to their convictions. Consider:
In 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella ordered all Jews out of Spain
unless they converted to Catholicism. Many left, never to return to their
homeland.
John Hus, a Bohemian priest, refused to retract his views against
transubstantiation, papal primacy, and praying to saints. He taught that the Bible alone should be
relied on in matters of religion. Brought before the Council of Constance, John
was convicted of heresy and burned at the stake in 1415.
Exactly 120 years later, death came to another Catholic for what
he believed. Sir Thomas More — member of the English Parliament, lawyer, member
of Henry VIII's Privy Council, knight, speaker of the House of Commons, and
Lord High Chancellor — resigned from his positions rather than approve the
divorce of Henry VIII from his first wife. He was ordered to sign an oath
acknowledging the king as the head of the church in England. Though his family
begged him to sign, he refused, and was beheaded.
Eleven years later, a young English woman, Anne Askew, was
arrested for refusing to profess the Real Presence (of Jesus in the communion
host) doctrine. She was mercilessly questioned for five hours, tortured till
nearly dead for names of others who shared her belief, and was sent to the
stake.
Four years after that, things took a more Protestant turn in
England, and people who didn't conform (whether Catholics or Protestants) were
persecuted. Joan Bocher of Kent went to the stake for refusing to retract her
questions about the Incarnation. She
pointed out that her persecutors had come to believe the very doctrine for
which they had burned Anne Askew just a few years before.
About the same time, in the city of Geneva dominated by John
Calvin, Michael Servetus was condemned for two heresies: Unitarianism, and
rejection of infant baptism. Refusing to recant, he was chained to a stake and
burned alive.
During the twentieth century, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day
Adventists, and others who refused to go to war on behalf of Kaiser Wilhelm or
Hitler were imprisoned, put in concentration camps, and/or executed. Lutherans
and others who refused to accept the domination of the church by the Nazi party
were stripped of their jobs, imprisoned, and persecuted; many died!
Under Communist rule in the Soviet Union, Romania, and elsewhere,
Christians who tried to practice their faith had their children taken away.
Many were sent to prison camps; many died!
We may not agree with all the beliefs for which these people were
persecuted. The important fact is that they really lived what they professed
and were willing to suffer, gladly or not, for their convictions.
What price?
We live in a nation where freedom of religion is a fundamental
right. Consequently, most of us have suffered little for practicing what we
believe. But then there's the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, which is so
out-of-step with the mainstream of Christianity that dominates the Western
world. Do we who espouse the seventh day really believe it is part of God's
will for His people who have been saved by His grace? Do we really believe God
wants us to rest on the seventh day? Do we really believe we deny our love for
Jesus when we don't do what He says?
The people mentioned above were willing to pay an exorbitant price
for being out of step with the mainstream of their day. But far be it from us
to deprive our children of any opportunities because of our Sabbath conviction!
Far be it from us to risk financial hardship due to the seventh day! Far be it
from us to suffer economic or social loss to serve the Savior who gave His life
for us! And if we aren't willing to suffer a small loss for Christ, how do we think
we could ever suffer a great loss, as did those mentioned above?
I do not write this as one who has suffered great loss for his
faith. I've never gone to bed hungry because of my faith — but I hope I'd be
willing to. I've never seen my children in pain for lack of medicine because I
wouldn't take a job that required me to work on the Sabbath — but I pray I'd be
willing to. I've never gone through a
winter without heat because I wouldn't work on Sabbath — but I hope I'd be
willing to.
I realize that it's easy to pontificate about these things when
we're not faced with suffering. But that doesn't change the truth that, if we
really believe Jesus calls us to do something, we should be willing to suffer
for it. Unfortunately, I fear that too many of us (including me) are more
influenced by the values of this world — happiness, physical comfort, financial
security, pleasure, acceptance — than we are by the values of the world to
come.
Of course, Jesus said that acts of mercy and pulling oxen out of
ditches were entirely permissible on the Sabbath. Each individual must decide
for himself where working on the Sabbath leaves off, and taking care of an
emergency begins. The same principle applies to deciding how to obey every
other command of God: honoring parents, loving God above all, not coveting,
being merciful, loving one another, etc. Would we take a job to feed our hungry
children, if the job required us to lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, or sign
a confession to things we didn't believe? Then why would we take a job
requiring us to work on the day we say we believe is God's Sabbath?
Again, I address this only to those who believe God wants His
people to keep the Sabbath. If you don't believe the fourth commandment is for
Christians, be honest about it. If you believe it is optional, or if you
worship on the seventh day for family or social reasons, then be honest about
it. But if you believe that God created the Sabbath for humanity, that it was,
and is, part of His will for His people, that He is pleased when His people
observe His Holy day, then you must be willing to pay a price for that
conviction.
Most of us will probably never appear before a religious or
governmental body and be forced to choose between denying Christ, and death.
But in a real sense, we all appear before the world every day. And by our
actions we proclaim whether we love God more than anything else. We tell the
world whether we really trust Him to take care of us according to His will, or
whether we are willing to compromise what we believe, to avoid sacrifice and
pain in this physical realm.
The martyrs mentioned above were willing to suffer for theological
concepts, for prayer time, for bowing down in a certain time and place, for
signing a piece of paper. Oh that we who say we believe Jesus wants us to
observe the Sabbath, would count it joy to suffer some loss, some pain, some
missed opportunities in this life, because we are wholly committed to serving
the Savior who died that we might live for all eternity!
— written by Richard Wiedenheft
From The Bible
Advocate, December 1999, Ó
1999. Used by permission.
Richard Wiedenheft lives in Barrington, IL, and is a frequent
guest speaker in Church of God (Seventh Day) and other Sabbath-keeping groups.
He is a past President of the Bible Sabbath Association. This article appeared
in the December, 1999, issue of Bible Advocate.
Work and the Sabbath
Having worked in secular jobs the first 45 years of my life, this
situation came up many times. My answer was always the same: "I will not work
on the Sabbath. This includes from sundown Friday through sundown
Saturday." I lost three jobs as a result, but our God rewarded me by
providing better opportunities elsewhere. We must obey with faith, believing
God does provide for His children. When people ask me what they should do, I
discuss my history and encourage them to be the best employees on the job. That
goes a long way when asking for concessions of your employer. — Pastor Don
Rodgers