Gospel Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. SmithSmith, Joseph F. (Joseph Fielding)
Religion
Gospel Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith
Smith, Joseph F. (Joseph Fielding)
Latter Day Saint churches
The Sabbath is a special day for you to worship, to pray, and to show
zeal and ardor in your religious faith and duty--to pay devotions to
the Most High.
{308} The Sabbath is a day when you are required to offer your time and
attention in worship of the Lord, whether in meeting, in the home, or
wherever you may be--that is the thought that should occupy your mind.
The Sabbath day is a day when, with your brethren and sisters, you
should attend the meetings of the Saints, prepared to partake of the
sacrament of the Lord's supper; having first confessed your sins before
the Lord and your brethren and sisters, and forgiven your fellows as
you expect the Lord to forgive you.
On the Sabbath day you are to do no other thing than to prepare your
food with singleness of heart, that your fasting may be perfect, and
your joy may be full. This is what the Lord calls fasting and prayer.
The reason for this required course upon the Sabbath day is also
plainly stated in the revelations. It is that one may more fully keep
himself unspotted from the world; and to this end, also, the Saints are
required to go to the house of prayer and offer up their sacraments on
the Sabbath day.
Now, what is the promise to the Saints who observe the Sabbath? The
Lord declares that inasmuch as they do this with cheerful hearts and
countenances, the fulness of the earth is theirs: "the beasts of the
field and the fowls of the air, and that which climbeth upon the
trees and walketh upon the earth. Yea, and the herb, and the good
things which cometh of the earth, whether for food or for raiment,
or for houses, or for barns, or for orchards, or for gardens, or for
vineyards." (Doc. and Cov. 59.)
These are all made for the benefit and use of man to please the eye and
to gladden the heart, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul.
All are promised to those who keep the commandments, and among the
commandments is this important one, to observe properly the Sabbath day.
{309} The Lord is not pleased with people who know these things and do
them not.
Men are not resting from their labors when they plow, and plant and
haul and dig. They are not resting when they linger around the home all
day on Sunday, doing odd jobs that they have been too busy to do on
other days.
Men are not showing zeal and ardor in their religious faith and duty
when they hustle off early Sunday morning on the cars, in teams, in
automobiles, to the canyons, the resorts, and to visit friends or
places of amusement with their wives and children. They are not paying
their devotions in this way to the Most High.
Not in seeking pleasure and recreation do they offer their time and
attention in the worship of the Lord; nor can they thus rejoice in the
spirit of forgiveness and worship that comes with partaking of the holy
sacrament.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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