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The Fourth Commandment



 

“Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8-11

 

As Seventh-day Adventists we, by our very name, show how highly we value this particular commandment. From our name one can learn that we are looking forward to the second coming of Jesus and, they can also know that we believe in all His commandments, including the command to rest on the seventh day. So why does this seem to be the one commandment we have the most trouble keeping? Yes, we understand that we don’t go to work on the Sabbath, we don’t go to school or study on the Sabbath, we go to church on the Sabbath, and fellowship with other believers on the Sabbath, but that’s about where most of our understanding of keeping the Sabbath holy ends. When we get together in fellowship on Sabbath our conversations drift to work, school, entertainment, news, etc., we make plans for all manner of amusements and the most far reaching violation of the Sabbath is all the “good” works we plan for the Sabbath (Isaiah 58:13, 14).

 

Fellowship conversations, to overcome this requires prayer and great discipline. This is a struggle of mine and recently I was told to plan conversation topics in advance of the Sabbath. This may be easy for some but a little more difficult for me. What I know helps is limiting my secular exposure during the week, because my experiences during the week tend to inform my conversations on the Sabbath (Luke 6:45). Our conversations on the Sabbath should all point to God. This is a day of rest from our daily lives, on which we come together in holy convocation for particular bonding with our heavenly Father (Leviticus 23:3). It is a day to decompress from the week’s work and realign our priorities in proper perspective to our Creator.

 

A friend presented an issue to me about keeping the Sabbath, that I believe most of us have faced. Our parents lay down rules about what may or may not be done on the Sabbath with limited explanations as to why or why not. The issue with which I was presented is swimming in a pool or river or even the ocean on the Sabbath, but may be applied to museum touring, amusement parks, rock climbing, skydiving, etc. These are not activities I engage in on the Sabbath, because they are more about self-gratification than about appreciation of God. Isaiah 58:13 makes this clear to honour God’s Holy Sabbath day we are to turn away from doing our own will. Being in nature is an excellent way to spend the Sabbath. Viewing all that God created and building hope for the day that He will make all things new again is an excellent way to be drawn closer to the Creator and thereby becoming renewed for the new week ahead (Revelation 21:1-8).

 

The good works… ah the good works. After being accused of desecrating the Sabbath by healing a man Jesus asked His accusers: “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? To save life, or to kill?” to which they could not reply (Mark 3:1-5). We hold on to this statement of Jesus to justify piling every good deed that needs to be done on the Sabbath. This is not what Jesus meant! Some of us come to church and we wear so many hats we have no time to sit and hear the Word being preached (Luke 10:38-42). A friend of mine told me once that after all the things she does on Sabbath (Clerk, SS Superintendent, Teacher, Choir member, etc.) Sunday is now her day to rest. This is a very serious matter. The Sabbath was originally lost in a similar manner – Roman leadership made the seventh day a burden, with fasting and the first day a delight, with feasting. We need to end this over scheduling and over burdening of the Sabbath and truly rest in the Lord. Help those in dire need that you happen upon in your day, like Jesus did, but don’t go seeking “good” works to fill the hours meant for rest and bonding with our Creator.

 

In Love

 

Under the Deep Blue Sky

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