Ten Rules for Living (Not Just Another Day)
EXODUS 20:8-11
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, 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, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the 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 the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.[1]
Just another day; that is all that Sunday is. The statement was shocking, and the more so because the speaker was W. A. Criswell, pastor of the justly famed First Baptist Church of Dallas. It was late in the decade of the 70s and he had just returned from a trip to India; he was describing how on a Sunday all the markets were open and throngs of people crowded every street. In pagan India, in Hindu India, in anti-Christian India—Sunday was just another day. Dr. Criswell then looked about him at the situation which was then only beginning to prevail in his beloved Dallas and he lamented the growing attitude in America which insisted on treating Sunday as just another day.
The busiest shopping day for modern Canadians is Sunday. The day most packed with sporting activities, with recreational activities, with cultural activities, is the Christian day of worship, Sunday. Though an argument may be presented that Christians who preceded us in the faith were extreme in their insistence for Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, an even stronger argument could be advanced that we now err in the opposite direction. For our contemporaries, as for us, Sunday has become just another day.
Modern Canadians cannot be accused of being a religious people; we are openly irreligious. Our national religion is a mad pursuit of personal amusement and the exaltation of our own individual interests. God has been reduced to a convenient source of aid when we feel the need for deliverance because our own resources have failed us for one reason or another. Otherwise, we are content to move the Living God to the deep recesses of our mind where the old adage holds—out of sight, out of mind.
However, we cannot escape the sense that all is not well with our mindless pursuit of self-interests and that we are the poorer as result of our single-minded focus on the matters of this life, the whole of which shall surely pass away. We need to be awakened to what we have done and to be reminded of our responsibility to worship the Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth. Perhaps that is one reason our contemporaries and we are uncomfortable reading the Ten Commandments—no one likes to be reminded of responsibility and we don’t enjoy wrestling with the expression of holiness.
Nevertheless, the Ten Commandments stand firm and unchanging after these many millennia, and we are yet responsible to work out how we can please God through submission to His commands. With that in mind, and with the challenge to regard our day of worship as something more than just another day, join me in exploration of the Fourth Commandment that we may discover the will of God for us. Rediscover with me the awe of worshipping the true and living God.
The Divine Precept to Remember — My ability to forget is the stuff of legend. However, some things must not be forgotten, for instance, the matter dealt with in our text. The text is a call to remember—Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. God instituted one day in seven as a day which His people were to maintain above all other days as peculiar, holding that day as special for service to the Lord. In fact, this command appears less concerned about designating a particular day than about remembering holiness.
Technically, one could advance the argument that no one ever forgets an event; but in the strictest sense, we do forget, and we need to be reminded. For me, it is less a matter of forgetting than it is an issue of confusing issues competing for my attention. Some matters I forget on purpose—their memory annoys me and I conveniently forget. In some instances it is to one’s advantage to forget, if not to overlook an issue. Other issues are overlooked because I become busy and push the matters away from the forefront of my mind. In the press of daily life, those matters are eventually forgotten. Other matters are forgotten, being dimmed by the passage of time. All of us forget, and therefore all of us need to be reminded of those issues of greatest importance so that we will not forget.
We forget privileges and opportunities. We forget vows and pledges. We forget responsibilities and obligations. We forget names and faces. We forget friends, and sometimes we forget foes. One of the saddest of conditions to afflict mankind is Alzheimer’s disease, where the one stricken even forgets loved ones. We forget the things which are seen, and we are especially prone to forget those things which are not seen; and thus we even forget God in whose hands our breath is, and whose are all our ways.
If we can so easily forget God, should it be any wonder that we can forget holiness? Maybe one reason many, even some among the faithful, neglect holiness is that we are uncertain what it is to be holy. We lack a definition, and so we are unclear what is holy. That concept, so conspicuous by its absence from contemporary religious argot, is essentially ubiquitous in the Word of God. One example of the command for holiness is that penned by Peter. As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” [1 Peter 1:15, 16]. Likewise, in an early letter Paul reminds us that God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness [1 Thessalonians 4:7]. Christians, we may conclude, are to be holy. What is it to be holy?
That term holy in the two texts just cited is a translation of a Greek word which could also be translated by an even less well-known English word in this day, sanctification. Likewise, in the Old Testament text for this day, that word translated holy may be translated either by the English concept of holiness or sanctification. The thought lying behind sanctification—declaring a person or item holy—is the thought of setting that person or thing aside for a particular purpose, reserving a person or item for special use, usually religious or divine. The command before us instructed the readers to set aside one day in seven as a day reserved for the Lord—a day holy to the Lord.
The logical New Testament conclusion is that Christians are not to simply hold one day in reserve, but that Christians are to live a life reserved to service for Christ. The command to set aside a day as holy to the Lord has neither been rescinded nor set aside in the New Testament, but it has lost the force of common consent, even among contemporary churches. Thus, we are uncertain how to rest and even our worship suffers as the result of our mad rush to seize that which can never be seized—satisfaction.
One might be inclined to argue that in an earlier day, Christians went overboard in their observance of a day of rest. Without question, some of the actions appear extreme to us in this more enlightened day; but it may be that the observances of that day far removed from the rush of modern living only appears extreme because we no longer know how to rest. We must confess that in our day Christians have gone to an extreme in the opposite direction, and few if any professing believers hold a given day as peculiar to the Lord. Sacrificing a day set aside for the Lord, we also surrender every claim to rest and refreshment which was promised in that day. While it is true that any day can be held holy, a day must nonetheless be reserved if it will fulfil this rule for living. The concept of a day of rest, a day set apart for the Lord, is valid, even in this current dispensation.
Those who hold to the tenets of the cult known as Seventh Day Adventism, even other Christian groups such as Seventh Day Baptists, and assuredly our Jewish friends, all alike contend that if we will observe the Sabbath it must be on Saturday—presumably the seventh day. Actually, because of changes in the calendars during the years since the rise of the European powers, we are uncertain which of the seven days of the week is the Sabbath that Moses observed. Superficially there is a certain logic in the argument that the seventh day should be reserved as holy to the Lord. We could simply throw up our hands and say that since the seventh day was a day of rest for God in Genesis, then the seventh day—whatever its correspondence to that earlier time—will be now held sacred.
However, by the time the New Testament was written, early Christians were already setting aside the first day of the week as the day on which they gathered to worship the risen Christ. The transition was natural and accomplished quickly and without undue opposition, save from a few Jewish Christians who were intent on mixing law and grace. The basis for this transition is that Jesus rose on the first day of the week [Matthew 28:1; John 20:1, 19].
The first day appears to have been set aside as holy, especially to the Gentile Christians, and perhaps in part to distinguish them from the Jewish observances. Within a few short years of Jesus’ resurrection, Christians met together on the first day of the week to memorialise His sacrifice [Acts 20:7]. Apostolic Christians, especially Gentiles, appear to have regularly met for worship on the first day of the week [1 Corinthians 16:2]. Paul assumes that this is the day the Corinthian saints would meet and approves it through his lack of commentary on the act of worship on the first day of the week.
Later, when John, in exile on the barren isle we know as Patmos, saw the Risen Lord, it was as he worshipped on the Lord’s Day. Whichever day it was that John saw the Risen Lord, it was a day which appears to have been universally recognised as holy to the Lord among Christians by the end of the first century A.D. He felt no compunction to explain which day it was, assuming that all who read the account would know the day and make the appropriate association in their minds. That day, the Lord’s Day, is generally accepted among scholars as the first day of the week.
Though in later years, 321 A.D. to be precise, the first day of the week was declared to be a legal holiday by the corrupt and wayward Roman church, it does not negate the fact that the first Christians observed the first day of the week as a day of worship of the Risen Lord of Glory. For them, as for the church throughout long ages since, Sunday—the first day of the week—has been observed as the day churches hold sacred. It is the Lord’s Day, a day for worship, a day to be considered as holy to the Lord.
We can get tangled and trapped and mired in the minutiae of the Word, but if we will honour God we will hold in our minds this truth, we are to hold a day as holy to the Lord. The focus of our worship is to endeavour to draw near to God in holiness. Any benefits which may flow from that worship are solely for those willing to submit to the Lord of Glory. Whatever else may be garnered from this rule for living, I urge you to glean this singular truth: worship is to be in holiness. Among my favourite psalms is one which includes this admonition for the manner in which we are to worship the Lord God.
…worship the LORD in the splendour of holiness.
[Psalm 29:2]
We fulfil this injunction as we reserve a day as holy to the Lord, when we set aside time to worship, when we give ourselves to obey Him and His command. It lies less in the precision with which we observe that given day than it is in how we observe the day—remembering God and His glory, drawing near Him in holiness and in purity of heart.
The Divine Provision for Rest — Man is a tripartite being. That is, man is a living soul possessing a body and a spirit. Accordingly, any attempt to obtain rest must take into account this trichotomy. We are confident that we know how to obtain rest for the physical. We insure that we sleep uninterrupted. We pull the shades at night, perhaps we drink a warm glass of milk, we rid our minds of the cares and pressures of the day, and then we simply resign ourselves into the arms of divine love and drift off into sweet slumber. Christians perhaps have an advantage in this area since,
[God] gives to his beloved sleep.
[Psalm 127:2]
However, we also need rest for our soul. The requirement for rest of the soul is different from the requirement for rest of the body. All the mad pursuit of amusement, all the dedicated attempts at distractions, are doomed to failure if we expect them to provide rest for the soul. The soul is at the mercy of the moment, subject to the press of emotions and thus cannot be rested through the efforts of man.
According to Christ’s revelation, the demons are restless spirits [cf. Luke 11:24]. Likewise, those who give themselves to evil, to stupidly and blindly fulfilling the will of the wicked one, find no rest, neither now nor in the future [see Revelation 14:11]. Yet there ever stands this sweet invitation to rest for all issued by the gracious Son of God. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls [Matthew 11:28, 29]. To the wearied soul, Christ stands offering rest for your souls.
There is an extended passage dealing with rest in the Book of Hebrews. In the Third Chapter of that book the author reminds his readers that though God offers a rest, He swore an oath that those who rebelled in the wilderness, despite being delivered from bondage, would never enter His rest. A wicked heart of unbelief can never have rest. However, that author continues with an insightful consideration of God’s rest, reminding readers that there remains a rest for all willing to receive it. Listen to His words.
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
“As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest,’”
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage he said,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account [Hebrews 4:1-13]
There is a rest for the soul, a rest which is attained as we renounce every effort to accomplish what the strength of man can never accomplish and as we submit ourselves to the power of God to do what man can never explain. The wicked think they shall obtain through their efforts what puny man’s strength can never obtain—rest for the soul. Even we who have been delivered from death and into life are prone to attempt to rely on human strength and we always fail, losing any claim to divine rest for the soul.
When we imagine that the polished orator, the poised and self-confident minister, well-versed in high-power techniques of salesmanship and well-trained in theological sophistry, is better suited to do the work of God than is the quiet, humble servant of God who loves Christ supremely and who longs for nothing less and nothing more than the glory of God, we are in error. A revered Texas divine has said of God’s workmen that God can hit some mighty straight licks with some mighty crooked sticks. This is not a rejection of diligence in ministry, nor a repudiation of study and the exertion of effort for service; it is a word of caution that there is no substitute for dependence upon God Himself.
By the same token, we need rest for the spirit. Augustine, the ancient divine, wrote of this longing for spiritual rest when he wrote, our spirits are restless until they rest in Thee. The spirit of man can find no rest outside of that which is offered in Christ. We shall never be rested, neither in body nor in soul, if we are not rested in spirit. This vital truth is woefully neglected among modern Christians—rest for the spirit is required if we will find rest for our souls and bodies.
How can we discover spiritual rest outside the God who gives rest? Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath [Mark 2:27]. The Sabbath is a gift from God, a day of rest when man is invited to step back from the daily grind and reflect on the goodness of God and invest himself in worship of the true and living God. A gift may be accepted or rejected, but nobody can give us what we are unwilling to receive.
If we flippantly say, “Every day should be holy,” we are rejecting what God offers. If Jesus’ words mean anything, they mean that one day should be different from all the rest. One day in the week should be unique; to refuse to accept it as such is to reject this precious gift. Without doubt, some do accept the gift only to misuse it. Such people divide quite naturally into two groups. The first group is composed of those who use the day for repression instead of expression. Jesus exposed the Pharisees as such repressors. For them, the Sabbath had been transformed from a day of joy to a day of gloom, from a day of rest to a day of worry. They had invented more than fifteen hundred ways in which an individual might break the Sabbath.
One could not kindle a fire on the Sabbath, according to their rules. Though they permitted a man to pull his ox out of a ditch on the Sabbath, the man himself would have to remain in the ditch should it be his misfortune to fall into the moat on that day. Should an individual take a draught of vinegar for food on the Sabbath, that was permissible. However, should the individual rinse with a draught of vinegar in an attempt to relieve his aching tooth, he had violated the Sabbath. Should one be bitten by a flea, he or she was compelled to permit the little pest to keep at his annoying work. To undertake to catch the vermin was to be guilty of the sin of hunting! You can well understand Jesus’ anger which flared up from time to time toward the Pharisees.
The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
…Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness [Matthew 23:2-28].
The other group misuses God’s gift of the Sabbath through ignoring the provisions of the day. If our forefathers, in an effort to obey the injunction to seek a day of rest and to draw near to the Lord in holiness, crafted artificial blue laws, then we have crafted a scarlet day. Sunday is for modern Christians the most hectic day of the week. The greatest efforts of amusement are reserved for Sunday. Christians appear determined that they need to rest by a retreat from the city and from their worship … on Sunday. Traffic is heaviest on Sunday and the greatest number of athletic contests are on Sunday.
Consequently, the greatest carnage on our highways and the greatest wounding of our citizenry resulting from drunken brawls and resulting from the thoughtless, selfish actions of drunken drivers attempting to negotiate the roadways occurs on Sunday. The hospital emergency rooms are fullest on Sunday. Surely Sunday has become for us a scarlet day and we need not fear that the day will be even remotely blue! Such attitudes as these both permit and approve of the misuse of the gift of God—the gift of rest for the weary soul. Is it any wonder that our souls are restless and that our spirits are exhausted and that our bodies are consequently quickly worn out when we are led by the world instead of leading the world toward righteousness?
The change of attitude witnessed in my lifetime did not come about because people reasoned through the issues and developed convictions on the matter. Indeed, we who are called by the Name of the Son of God appear to have taken our cue from the world. There was a day not so long ago when decent worldly people would not attend Sunday amusements; but now even the most dedicated of Christians seek to fill Sunday with every sort of activity. If all the church members of this northern community who are normally in attendance at various amusements were to come into the services of the churches, every church would be crowded to the doors and find it necessary to offer multiple services—both evening as well as morning worship!
Those who have led us into this new use of Sunday have not been motivated by high and noble motives. The twin gods of pleasure and profit have led us to sacrifice God’s gift on an altar of our own making. In the long run, we shall find scant pleasure, and no pleasure of a lasting sort, in misuse of the Lord’s day. Dare we think there shall be eternal profit for those of us who persist in misusing this day meant for divine rest?
In a futile effort to obtain rest, claiming that we seek only to refresh ourselves, even we modern Christians have destroyed Sunday as a day set apart for godly pursuit. Any who attempt to defend this modern misuse of Sunday for a vain pursuit of rest forget that the day was intended to minister to the whole man.
Consider the implications of our actions. Buying gasoline on Sunday means I compel someone to sell it to me. Dining out on Sunday means that I compel someone to wait on my table and force someone to cook for me. Even my innocent pursuit of personal pleasures such as playing golf means that I likely keep some caddy from church services. Should I argue that the vast majority of people will absent themselves from church in any case and that I should therefore participate in these activities, then I argue that the battle for a holy life is already lost and I should resign from all attempts to change the world about me. We must remember: the Sabbath was made for man—the whole man and for all mankind. I have no right to use it in such a fashion to rob either myself or others of its highest purpose; and especially have I no right to abuse the intent of this day if I am called by the Name of Christ the Lord. To do so is to misuse the day.
The Divine Prospect of Refreshment — Lest someone should think that I am a drudge, I do not for a moment believe we should have no refreshment in our lives. I am not opposed to either rest or to amusements. If we agree that Sunday should be a day of rest, we must likewise realise that such a statement implies work. Man was intended to work. Adam, in Eden’s garden, was given work to do. If we work, we should anticipate that we will require rest. Even our Lord recognised the need for rest, for He invited His disciples, Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while [Mark 6:31]. They were rushed and pushed to the point of exhaustion and needed rest—the rest of being alone with Jesus.
Sunday should be a day for holy pursuit, a day of rest for our spirit and our soul. If our pursuit of amusement in the world about us refreshes the spirit, makes us better suited to discover the mind of the Lord, I would agree that such pursuit enjoys the blessing of the Father. If the pursuit of amusement and diversion refreshes the soul and gives rest to the mind, I would agree that such a diversion enjoys the rich blessing of God. However, the test is whether we are a more holy people because of our activities or whether we more closely approximate the world about us as result of our pursuits. The answer is self-evident to every perceptive and perspicacious individual.
In the southern United States the black Christians used to sing a song with the refrain: Every day will be Sunday by-and-by. The song arose from the days of slavery when the slaves were given one day in which the heavy burden of toil was loosed from their shoulders. To those slaves, Sunday became a day so sweet and restful that when they thought of Heaven, they thought of it as a place where this joyful and restful day would last forever. Therefore, they sang in plaintive fashion, Every day will be Sunday by-and-by.
Though I would not for a moment argue against refreshment for the body through a retreat from the press of daily care, I nevertheless caution that every effort to obtain refreshment for the body without refreshing the soul and the spirit are doomed to failure. We need to worship. Sunday began as a day of worship in the Christian calendar. Sunday became dear to early saints because they set aside the day to worship the risen Lord of Glory and to commemorate His love for sinners and to remember His conquest of death. If we will worship in a manner pleasing to God, we will heed this rule for living and insure that we pursue holiness through pursuit of God in a vigorous and dedicated fashion on one day in each week. We will endeavour to refresh our souls and our spirits with every bit of dedication with which we now endeavour to refresh our bodies.
We are a hurried people, and a hurried people find neither rest nor refreshment. Hurried as we are, we are thus robbed of God and all the rich benefits that He offers. Robbed of God, we discover that we cannot worship though we go through all the motions we once employed. It is as though we know the words to the song of life, but we have forgotten the melody. The song makes sense to our minds, but there is no pleasure in mouthing the words.
You see, it is as we worship that we are recommissioned and rededicated to the high purposes of God. It was as the disciples worshipped that Jesus commissioned them. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you [John 20:21]. While they worshipped, He empowered them for their great task; He breathed on them and said… “Receive the Holy Spirit” [John 20:22]. To worship is to obtain spiritual strength, to equip ourselves for the spiritual conflict which rages about us, to prepare ourselves for service and for spiritual labour.
The highest use of Sunday, then, and far the most rewarding use, is to set the day aside as a day of worship, a day of rest for the soul and refreshment for the spirit. Worship and rest go together, for we cannot remember to maintain holiness without rest, our minds grow too confused and we lose our spiritual perspective. When we cease to worship, the pull of the world is likely to rob us of our day of rest. When we cease to rest, we are likely also to cease to worship. Each of us needs this holy day, then. We simply cannot manage life properly without a Sabbath day. Forget this day, and we are on the way to forgetting God. When we forget God, we turn our backs on life and lose our very souls. Therefore, not as an end, but as means to the high end of being and doing that which honours God, our best, we must remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Amen.
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[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Ó 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.