LDS Quotes on the Sabbath Day
“Recently, living prophets have counseled us to ‘remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, and to live the law of the fast. Obedience to this prophetic counsel provides a way for us to be obedient to God’s commandment to love Him and our neighbor as we increase our faith in Jesus Christ and extend our hand to love and care for others.”
| “If Ye Love Me, Keep My Commandments,” Sunday afternoon session
The Lord expects us to keep the Sabbath Day holy. I can’t understand why anyone thinks that he or she has to shop on Sunday. We have refrigerators. . . . You don’t need to buy meat on Sunday. You don’t need to buy milk on Sunday. None of these things. You don’t need to buy furniture on Sunday. You don’t need to buy automobiles on Sunday. You don’t need to do any of these things on the Sabbath Day. The Lord, from the time of Sinai has declared unequivocally that we should keep the Sabbath Day holy. It is just that simple, but He has said again…that we will be blessed if we do so.
| Sandy Utah Central Regional conference, January 25, 1998. President Gordon B. Hinckley, Church News, March 14, 1998, p. 14
President Spencer W. Kimball cautioned, however, that if we merely lounge about doing nothing on the Sabbath, we are not keeping the day holy. The Sabbath calls for constructive thoughts and acts.
| (See Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball [2006], p. 170) — Gospel Principles, p. 141
“We call upon parents to devote their best efforts to the teaching and rearing of their children in gospel principles which will keep them close to the Church. The home is the basis of a righteous life, and no other instrumentality can take its place or fulfill its essential functions in carrying forward this God-given responsibility.
We counsel parents and children to give highest priority to family prayer, family home evening, gospel study and instruction, and wholesome family activities. However worthy and appropriate other demands or activities may be, they must not be permitted to displace the divinely-appointed duties that only parents and families can adequately perform.”
| Feb. 11, 1999; quoted in Handbook 2: Administering the Church (2010), 1.4.1.
“The first has to do with the physical need for rest and renewing. Obviously God, who created us, would know more than we do of the limits of our physical and nervous energy and strength. The second . . . is, in my opinion, of far greater significance. It has to do with the need for regeneration and the strengthening of our spiritual being. God knows that, left completely to our own devices without regular reminders of our spiritual needs, many would degenerate into the preoccupation of satisfying earthly desires and appetites. This need for physical, mental, and spiritual regeneration is met in large measure by faithful observance of the Sabbath day.”
| “The Lord’s Day,” Ensign, November 1991, 35.
It may be of interest when we think of the desecration of the Sabbath day in our own land – I speak of the land of America – a day that has been set apart by many people for their vacations and for their pleasures, notwithstanding there thundered down from Sinai one of the Ten Commandments that we should honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy. One of the first sermons that was preached in this valley was by President Brigham Young, and he warned the people to honor the Sabbath day and to keep it holy, and no matter how difficult their circumstances they were not to go out and do manual labor on the Sabbath day. From that time on, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has encouraged its people to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy because it is pleasing to our Heavenly Father that we do so.
| Conference Report, April 1948
“Another important doctrine that we should cling to is to observe the Sabbath day. This helps us remain unspotted from the world, provides us with physical rest, and gives each of us the spiritual refreshment of worshipping the Father and the Son every Sunday. When we delight in the Sabbath day, it is a sign of our love for Them.”
| “God is at the Helm,” Saturday morning session
There is no need for people to shop and desecrate the Sabbath day by buying things on Sunday. That is not the time to buy groceries. You have six days of the week and you all have a refrigerator. You do not have to shop on Sunday. Do not buy furniture on Sunday, buy it the other days of the week. You will not lose anything if you do your shopping the other days and do not do it no Sunday. Let this day be a day of meditation, of reading the scriptures, of talking with your families, and of dwelling on the things of God. If you do so you will be blessed.
| Jordan Utah South Regional Conference, 3/2/97
The Sabbath breaker shows early the signs of his weakening in the faith by neglecting his daily family prayers, by fault-finding, by failing to pay his tithes and his offerings; and such a one whose mind begins to be darkened because of spiritual starvation soon begins also to have doubts and fears that make him unfit for spiritual learning or advancement in righteousness. These are the signs of spiritual decay and spiritual sickness that may only be cured by proper spiritual feeding.
| Teachings of the Presidents of the Church, Harold B. Lee, p. 179
Sunday is more than a day of rest from the ordinary occupations of the week. It is not to be considered as merely a day of lazy indolence and idleness or for physical pleasures and indulgences. It is a feastday for your spirit bodies. The place of spiritual feasting is in the house of worship. . . .You who make the violation of the Sabbath a habit, by your failure to “keep it holy,” are losing s soul full of joy in return for a thimble full of pleasure.
| Teachings of the Presidents of the Church, Harold B. Lee, p. 178