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The Repairing of Sam Brown

 

Chapter 3 - part 2

         "But, my dear man," expostulated the minister, you are under the old covenant when you keep the law, but I am under the new covenant which frees me from the bondage of the law.
          "I beg your pardon, but you are mistaken," went on Richards. "The covenant is a promise concerning the law, and are not the law itself. Covenant means promise, not law. The old covenant was Israel’s agreement to keep the law in their own strength, by works. They failed, as they were sure to. The new covenant is God’s promise that the Christian is able to keep the law, the same law, through the strength of Christ. I am under the new covenant when I keep the law by the power of Christ. I will keep the Sabbath command, as I will keep the command against murder. Both are in the same law."
          "Speaking of the Sabbath," said the preacher, you should know that it doesn’t make any real difference which day of the week you keep, just so you observe one day in seven."
          "Then why do you insist that we ought to keep Sunday?"
          "Well, to be in harmony with our surroundings. Everybody else does, you know."
          "But everybody else doesn’t. More than half the people in America do not even profess to keep Sunday. And Jews keep Saturday and Moslems keep Friday, and the heathen keep all sorts of days. If you were in a Mohammedan country would you keep Friday to be in harmony? The very essence of Christianity is in standing for principle, no matter what others do. I prefer to be in harmony with God rather than men."
         "But why make so much of a mere day? Every day looks alike to me."
         "Because God does. God said in the most definite language He ever used, ‘The seventh day is the Sabbath,’ and these words are in the very center of His law. God is particular, regardless of whether we see the reason for it or not. If He had meant any day in the week He would have said so. If nothing else, the definite Sabbath day is a test to us to see if we will do just as God says, or insist on having our own way.

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