The Forth Commandment
The Forth Commandment
“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any
work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or your sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Exo 20:8-11
God tells us that we are to rest on the seventh day. He did not need to rest, but he rested to show us we are to rest.
That is a very human way of looking at this commandment: God is telling us to rest up, but there is a moral issue at stake here.
Now firstly, the question that immediately arises, when talking about this commandment, is that the seventh day is Saturday, not Sunday. While the question of Saturday verses
Sunday is very important, I will not address it in this Blog; in this Blog I am only talking about the following:
1) This is a commandment
2) The basis of this commandment is what God himself did at creation
3) It is tithing of time
4) It is a day, not an hour
5) It is all about worship
6) It is to be obeyed with joy
1) This is a commandment, equally as important as each of the others. Commandments are not optional. It is given to those in authority, telling them to make sure those under
them rest. The intent of this commandment is to confess our trust in God, that we can rest one day, and our food will still be there. Worship and trust are linked together, and
like all commandments, to disobey is sin. This is the moral aspect to this commandment.
We worship God by trusting him in this way. We are saying to him, “I trust you to provide me with the food I need, even if I don’t work every day. You are good, you are
my father, you will provide for me. I trust you.”
It is an act of trust / faith to not harvest the field on a beautiful day, especially when rain is forecast for the following day! It is an act of trust / faith to close your store when you
competitor is open, and all around people are out buying, knowing they will not be out the next day, they will be at work. Obeying this commandment does cost you; it loses
you money. Obeying this commandment is a test of trust / faith.
2) This commandment is binding on all men, in all countries, at all times. That is the force of the appeal to Creation. Of course you can chose to not obey, but you are doing it
with full knowledge of what God wants. Sinning is ignorance is one thing; sinning when we know is another.
In America today, we honor important people with National Holidays to remember them; yet we dishonor God who said “Remember the Sabbath”.
Athletes who claim to be Christians, yet disobey this commandment are not only breaking this commandment, but taking God’s name in vain, as I wrote about in the Blog
on the Third Commandment. Sports have become our god, and we worship sports and athletes and not God.
3) It is tithing our time! God is more interested in our time, than he is in our money. Giving money is not as hard as giving time!
We are told to tithe money at 1/10th; we are told to tithe time at 1/7th !
Remember, God established the 7 day week. He could have created over the course of any number of days he wanted! He set up the 7 day week, and wants us to set aside one
day for him, showing time is more important than money.
4) It a day, not an hour. God says “keep the day holy”.
5) It is an act of worship to obey this commandment, and it results in joy.
The Hebrew for “worship” is shâchâh, to bow before.
There are two Greek words for “worship” proskuneō which means to prostrate, bow before; and latreuō which means to serve.
When we bow or bend our desires to God’s desires, by obeying him and not doing our own desires one day a week; we are worshiping him, and it leads to joy.
“If because of the Sabbath you turn away your foot from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, and honor it,
not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride upon the high
places of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.” Isa 58:13-14
“ … then you shall delight yourself in the LORD …” First we obey, then delight in the Lord appears and grows.
How opposite this thought is to the general thinking of both the non-Christian world, and most of the Evangelical Christian Community in America!
It is a visible evidence that we have forsaken God.