Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms for the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods. In whose hand are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are his also. The sea is his for it was he who made it and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you would hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me. They tried me, though they had seen my work. For 40 years, I loathed that generation and said, they are a people who err in their heart and they know not my ways. Therefore, I swore in my anger, truly, they shall not enter into my Sabbath rest. Well, today as we continue our study on the law, that the law is love, we will be discussing the instruction, the command to love God with your time. So we said love is willing the good of another. The will is the final human act Our mind knows. We have affections that affects our will, our heart, what we determine to do. And our conscience serves as a witness to these things, whether they're done properly or improperly. And all of these different ways are the good of another. So it is good for God to be worshipped with our time. It is good for God to be worshipped as the exclusive soul divine being. It is good for God to be worshipped with our speech. It is good for God to be worshipped in spirit because he cannot be contained by any image or idol. So all of these are the good in which God exists. So our following the law doesn't bring God any goodness. He is good in and of himself, yet it displaces goodness within us. So this is how we will the good of another. And we talked about also different uses of the law, one of them being the pedagogical use or like a schoolmaster holds in possession somebody and teaches and directs. There's also the normative use, it shows the standard of righteousness that we should carry out and obey. And we also noted that there is a political use of the law, it relates to our neighbor and our society as we come together as citizens in a local place. And we'll deal with that last one here hopefully if we have the time to get to it as we move on. So first we want to ask what is the Fourth Commandment? The fourth commandment is to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor the stranger that 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. Wherefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. So, we've already spent a little bit of time with the Fourth Commandment if you remember a few weeks ago before we even got into the details of the first four commandments. We wanted to demonstrate the idea of general principles or common notions that can be known by all men. If the law is written on the hearts and consciences of all men, these general principles can be known and can be seen even among the unbelieving world. But we also noted that there is an aspect where God gives further revelation and gives a more sure conclusion than just a general principle. He actually gives us greater clarity on the specifics of the different moral principles of the law. So we noted the idea of the general principle under the light of nature, and then as we move on in the state of nature, the state of sin, the state of grace, and the state of glory. We saw that these general principles exist in all these, but God gives further revelation to help us as we're in these different states of sin, grace, and ultimately glory. So just a reminder here, we also were trying to connect the idea of positive law as that being that which God has commanded in addition to. It's not a moral principle that is found within God himself as eternal, but it has a temporary nature to it. It's given for a particular time, a particular place, for a particular people. And God, as God, as the law giver, is free to do so. He always roots it in his nature and character. So it's not completely arbitrary, but there is a sense in which God is the arbiter of what is just, can and does add law, and it doesn't violate the moral principles of the law. And you see that in the fourth commandment itself after creation. God institutes which particular day he is to be worshiped. And before Christ, it was the last day of the week, and after Christ, it is the first day of the week. So God is free to adjust which particular day. So there's no morality in the seventh day, except that if God institutes it, then that's how it ought to be carried out. but if God abrogates it or takes it away because that for which it was given has been fulfilled, then he's free to add which particular day, and he does that in Christ. And so we see at God's work of creation, right, he worked, and then he rested. Right, he worked the work of creation. Christ worked. What was his work? To seek and to save that which was lost. What's one word that encapsulates that whole thing? Atonement, redemption. And redemption comes by atonement. There's no redemption apart from Christ taking on the curse of the law. So he worked his work of redemption. He rested on the first day of the week. He rose again, he ascended, and he gave gifts to men. And on the first day of the week is when the Christians when God changed the day of worship to the first day because the work of redemption was complete and Christ has rested from his work. He cried out, it is finished on the cross. He died, went to the grave, rose again to show his power over sin and death. So we see that's how the moral law has the positive law related to the seventh day. It's not just by way of example. There is a very close relation between God's work of creation and as Christ is God with us in the flesh, his work of redemption was completed and therefore he rested on the seventh day. Okay, to back up just a little bit more, we said the general principle or the common notion has to do with setting apart a day, not just for rest. Did God need to rest? Was there something within his character that wore him out on six days and he needed to rest? No, God was still upholding all of creation by the word of His mouth, by His providence, by His speaking things into existence and upholding all things. There's nothing that comes apart from Him. All things are from Him, through Him, and to Him. So we still rely upon God on the day of rest. But what was special about that was was God made man on the sixth day, and then he set the seventh apart for worship, for communion, for fellowship with God, to have a public assembly. There is a private nature to it as well, but the general principle is a setting apart from common labor to the public worship and communion with God and God's people. Now it takes different forms in the Gentile nations. We noted that there are festivals. It typically takes place on a day. You don't see it one in seven frequently, but you still have the general principle that there is, public worship is a good that ought to be commended and it is practiced. So it does take different forms among the Gentile nations, but the general principle is that we set apart one day from common labor to the public worship of God. One 18th century Dutch pastor put it this way, with these general principles, there are two primary reasons why God has prescribed the observance of Sabbath day. One pertains to God, the other to us. It is his will that we should set apart a specific day each week for his holy service, or public worship, so that we would exclusively devote ourselves to him by setting aside all other labor and activity. Even the blind heathen have readily and easily recognized how entirely appropriate it is to do this, doing so as a result of the glimmer of light yielded by natural reason which is still present in the human soul after the fall. The heathen too had their set times of public and private worship during which they would devote themselves to the service and worship of their gods, a practice they still engage in. Therefore they who are of the opinion that no moral imprints of the fourth commandment are to be found in the soul of man are most certainly misleading themselves and others. The other reason, so there are two reasons, the other reason that God has prescribed the observance of Sabbath day is for the benefit of man doing so on the one hand for our spiritual benefit and on the other for our physical benefit and advantage. So what this Dutch pastor is saying with that first one, related to those who would deny that no moral imprint of the fourth command still exists, not only violates scripture, but it violates natural reason as well. So anybody who would take the first four, so we've got, we're to love God exclusively, we're to love God, spirit, also called the regular principle of worship. He cannot be contained in any images or idols, so we worship Him in spirit and truth. We worship God in conversation, Conversation is just another way to talk about speech and act, all that we say and we do. Worship God in time. So anybody who would say that only these three are binding are missing a moral fabric that that general principle that if we're to worship God exclusively in spirit and in our conversation, we as temporal creatures have to do it at some point in our lives. So there is a moral aspect to worshiping God and loving God with our time. Also related to that is scripture. In Deuteronomy 6, We have Moses sums up the law as loving the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength. That's the first table of the law. The first four commandments. There's not an exclusion of that. Jesus affirms that again in Matthew 22 when they ask what is the first and greatest commandment? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Jesus is going back to Leviticus and Deuteronomy in that. And Jesus is saying there that the summary of the moral law to love God is found in the first four commands. So he's not, there is a repetition of the fourth commandment in the New Testament. So people would say, there are some who would say it has to be explicitly commanded in the New Testament for us to follow it. But the fourth commandment is not explicitly given in the New Testament, therefore we don't have to follow it. It says in certain places that there are now no more new moons and Sabbaths. But the moral principle still exists because Jesus does explicitly repeat it in the New Testament when he goes back to Moses and God's revelation of the moral law in Moses. So we don't do this, segment it off, It's an entire unit. It is one entire unit. So God commands us to love him in our affections, in our minds, and our will exclusively, in the way in which he regulates in spirit and in truth, and to keep our conversation free from empty and frivolous use, but to call upon him in order to witness to the truth of the matter, and to love him by properly managing our labor and rest. Okay. Those are the good summary there of the entire first table of the law. Peter van Maastricht gave an important maxim. He was dealing with the providence of God in creation and then eventually he's gonna get to the law. But all of this, he starts from the decree to God's providence in creation all the way to the creation of man and the moral law. And he gives a maxim. Shouldn't be there. Okay. What is first in intention is last in execution. All he's saying is that when you set out to do something, you have an end in mind, and it's the last thing you do. It's the destination. So you say, I'm going to go on a trip. I'm going to go to this place. I have a general idea of how to get there, but I want to take out a map. Who's going with me? What are their ages? We're going to need to stop and eat somewhere. Do we need to stay overnight? Do I have enough gas in my car? Do I have good time? There's so many things involved in getting to that final destination. So in the law, the first table ends with the Sabbath. God's primary intention in loving God His first and intention to love God with our time is the final execution in the law. In the work of creation, what is first and intention is that day of rest. It's that Sabbath day. It's that day that is set apart unto public worship of God. That is God's primary intention. in the act of creation, that man and God would have fellowship in the fruits of God's work of creation. Man would give thanks. God would come down and be present with man in a special way. Work, labor, has been done for six days, and rest, thanksgiving, not contributing to the fruits of our labors, but enjoying the fruits of our labors were the final intention of God's act of creation. because it's from God that all of the fruits of our labors come, and it is to God that the fruits of our labors are given in thanksgiving. And so you remember last week we talked about the idea of the tithe and the offering was seen even among the Gentile nations. was rooted in the third commandment, to with our conduct and with our speech, give thanksgiving to God. Our tithes and offerings are found in the third commandment, but they're carried out in the fourth. So not only do we cease from our labors, we bring the firstfruits and we give back to God in thanksgiving in our public worship. So that's where the offering and the tithe, the idea of the tithe comes from. So even in the state of nature, man's felicity was to be found in worship of God. Even in the state of nature, man's felicity or happiness was found in the worship and thanksgiving of God. Obviously in the state of sin, that is marred, We do not give God thanks as we ought. We labor as we think is best. We worship whatever gods we come up with in our minds, and we will contribute. something of our labor and our time to that which we worship. So this general principle still exists under the state of sin. Under the state of grace, God is conforming us more to the image of Christ and pointing us to that normative use. law. And so, that preface to the Ten Commandments exists for the people of God. We were in bondage and slavery, not to Egyptians, but to sin. We've been set free from that. That's no longer, our conscience is no longer bound to sinful actions, but now our conscience is free to do that which we ought to do. It still serves as a witness and a guide informed by the not only by the light of nature, but more specifically, by the light of scripture, and that is our more sure guide for the people of God. Okay, so the conscience helps us to ask the question, Since this is related to our ethical model of decision making, the legal model of decision making, we have to ask, should I do this thing? Is it lawful for me to do this thing? And so the conscience directs us and the law directs and binds or frees the conscience to answer appropriately. So question 117 in the Westminster's larger catechism, sort of saying, should I do this thing or how should I do this thing? How is it to be set apart or sanctified? It's to be sanctified by a holy resting all the day, not only from such works as are at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful. and making it our delight to spend the whole time, except so much of it as is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy in the public and private exercises of God's worship. To that end, we are to prepare our hearts and with such foresight, diligence and moderation to dispose and seasonably dispatch or carry out our worldly business that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of that day. I do know of some Sabbatarians who practice what's called the day of preparation, and I think that can be a very helpful thing to do, but I would say that Your first order of preparation is setting apart in your mind and your affections the Sabbath day and resolving your will to do everything you can to make the rhythm of your life revolve around the Lord's day. So in a sense, we're always having to prepare our minds and our hearts for worship. But as the day draws near, we see God's command, positive command to the Israelites as they're in the wilderness to prepare a little extra the day before the Sabbath. So what that is is we're laboring all six days and we're making every effort to ensure that there's no need on the seventh day. But sometimes things come up out of the blue, such as an ox gets in the ditch, and we need to go take care of that thing. So there is a general equity that still remains for the people of God to think about. In those days, the ox was an agricultural symbol for those who had oxen and cared for them, that if their ox got out and got into a ditch, that was the idea of The things that God has put under my care, I should take care of. And if something happens that could harm the life of what God has put under my care, I have a duty and responsibility to ensure for its safety. So things come up and we have to carry out certain duties that God willing, we had prepared for throughout the week, yet things come up and we have to go take care of them. Some of us have jobs where the act of mercy is a part of what it is that we do. And so it is a good thing for nurses to be active, for police and for firemen to be active in caring for the lives of the common citizenry. So those are, Those are good things. So we've got a general equity. And general equity just means the general justice. So the ox in the time of Moses would be something like our own economic activities, whatever it is our job is. There is a general principle of morality, justice, that exists. It's not rooted in the Mosaic administration. It's rooted in what we would say is the law, the moral law itself, related to the Fourth Commandment. So we've got the ox. That's not where that goes. Jesus at one point was walking through the grain fields. And he and his disciples picked grains of wheat. They rubbed them together to make bread, to eat something. Well, the law said you can't work on the Sabbath. That was work, that was effort. But the purpose of that was, as Jesus said, what David did in the temple, he broke the law that he shouldn't have eaten from the showbread because he and his men were hungry. So the purpose was physical nourishment. So there are times where it is appropriate to procure effort in order to eat. If something comes up and you don't have enough physical nourishment, it is permissible to make provision for your physical nourishment. You wanna prepare for that beforehand, but if something comes up, it is permissible to do that. Elsewhere, Jesus is taken to task because he healed on the Sabbath. And he said, which is more appropriate, to heal or to not heal on the Sabbath? Is it about keeping the law in a strict manner, or is it about having compassion and showing mercy? So this is about acts of mercy on the Sabbath. What apart from something like nursing or doctors and an ER or firemen or police, what else would be a way that mercy could be shown? I'm sorry? Working a storm for people to have electricity? Yeah. You feel that one. Yeah. What's that? Feeding them? Yeah, absolutely. Getting water to people in North Carolina because they don't have access to water or electricity or internet or food. That's perfectly acceptable. We would root that in the poor. That is giving alms, in a sense, to the poor. Going to the sick or the shut-in who can't attend the public of worship of God. Nursing homes are a way in which mercy can be shown. Visiting the sick and the poor would be in mind there. So we have to ask the question, is it a common activity when we're thinking, should I do this thing? on the Lord's Day? Or should I do this thing with my time? We have to ask the question, is this for my economic well-being? Is this something that I can accomplish the other six days? Is this an emergency? Is this an act of necessity? Is this an act of mercy? That should be a part of our ethical decision making. The next question on the larger catechism says, why is the charge of keeping the Sabbath more specially directed to governors of families and other superiors? So we saw in the command itself, not only to rest one day, but also that for mothers and fathers, for heads of households, children, Anybody who is under their care economically, employees, so thy manservant or thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger which is within thy gates. Anything that comes into your authority or you are the one directing and making the decision, then you have a responsibility to carry out the Sabbath properly? The answer is the charge of keeping the Sabbath is more especially directed to governors of families and other superiors because they are bound not only to keep it themselves but to see that it be observed by all those that are under their charge and because they are prone oftentimes to hinder them, those under their charge, by their own employments, the master or the boss. So they're able to take a day off, but they keep all their people working so that they can enjoy their day. That's not appropriate according to the fourth commandment. All of the things that you have under your care are also to be set apart and given a day of rest and enjoyment and refreshment. So I want to ask a question here. If that's the case, if those who are in authority are to keep a day set apart, What about emperors and kings and public officials? How do they ensure that time is managed properly and a day is set apart? What did we used to have? Blue laws. So blue law was just, it was a law that directed businesses and really any economic activity that they had to be closed in our nation on Sunday. Because we were generally a Christian nation, people generally went to worship on the Lord's Day. This command is exactly why I'm of the opinion we don't live in a Christian nation anymore. Because there's, I work for a Christian company, and we are open seven days a week. There is, all those under the charge of that public person, or public board, are supposed to be part of a Christian company. That business is humming seven days a week. So that's a violation of the Fourth Commandment. But if this exists in general principles, how are emperors, kings, and public officials to ensure that their people, the people in their society are getting rest and refreshment? It's just something to stir your thoughts and your minds. But we do have days in our society that we set apart. They're just, it's not weekly. We generally have some sort of public holiday, which we tend to call Thanksgiving and Christmas and Memorial Day and Labor Day, and there's all kinds of public holidays that exist. Do you have a question, Robert? Yeah, I wanna take you off on a tangent. Yeah. Can you briefly, concerning the Blue Lawn scenario, why is that not theonomy? Why is it not theonomy? So Robert's question is, why is a blue law not theonomy? That's why I asked the question, So theonomy is using the mosaic or the judicial law as the foundation of the laws of a society. I would say it's not because the blue laws are rooted in the moral law, which is known by the light of nature. It's a general principle known by the light of nature. Now it's applied. Let's just say we're in a Jewish community. Public officials are Jewish. The vast majority of the people that live there are Jewish. They carry out all of their economic activity according to a certain calendar. They could have a blue law, and their day off, their day to be closed, would be what? call it Shabbat or what we would call Saturday or the seventh day. And that wouldn't be theonomy because it's rooted in the general principle. Because they're also not carrying out the ceremonial aspects of the law and those, well, some of them are. But in a Jewish community, the idea of the blue law related to the fourth commandment is that the community typically worships on the seventh day. That's the day that they set apart for public worship. So I think the conclusion I really want you to arrive at is Depending on what kind of community you're in, a blue law is perfectly appropriate so that the community can carry out its labors and its worship. And to not allow for that or to run one's state of affairs in such a way is actually oppressive to the people in that community. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably getting a little too much into the weeds, Cindy. Yeah. Well, probably what they would say is you should have provided for that by having an extra set. Yeah, but yeah. Mark. So I think the question would be, then, how is that not favoring the Christian religion in our pluralist society, where we have a lot of Muslims who would prefer to worship on Friday. We have a lot of Jews who would prefer to worship on Saturday. Should they get blue laws too, or should we just have a blue law that gives Christians their day off? It almost seems like the opposite in our culture, that if you're a Muslim, there's an understanding, well, of course you're not going to work on Friday. If you're a Jew, of course you're not gonna work on Saturday, but if you're a Christian, you know, we'll give you the hour, but we're not gonna give you the day. Yeah, yeah. I would say that there's a lot behind that and a lot of why that is, and I would say generally blue laws are supposed to represent the morals of a certain people. And the smaller that group of people is, the more it can reflect the morals of that society. And so the larger you get your society, the more you have to kind of water down general principles. I would say that our nation still does have laws in effect that would allow for Christians to to carry out their public worship. And I think more litigation probably needs to happen to ensure that those laws are being carried out appropriately. There's a whole issue of, can't be an undue burden, whether you're Jewish, Muslim, or Christian. It can't provide an undue burden. Somebody needs to ask a little bit more, what's an undue burden? Sorry, that's getting into the weeds a little bit more as well. What I really want to get into, and we don't have a ton of time, I'll just say this. We need to ask the idea. So we talked about freedom. So we've already talked about the conscience. What should I do? What should I not do? The law directs. our freedom. The law directs our flourishing, so it gives us those six days of labor and that one day of rest and refreshment and public worship that's good for the soul as well as for the body, so that conduces to our flourishing. Giving back to the Lord a portion of what He has given to us as a reflection of our thanksgiving for Him, bringing about fruits from our labor is related to that. There is, I believe it's in Nehemiah where he says, where they're going through reinstituting the tithe and the offering, and Nehemiah says, just give the tithe and see what the Lord will do for you. So there's this idea of flourishing that comes from giving thanks to God in that manner at public worship. Friendship is another idea. We organize our friendships around public worship and our common economic endeavors. And remember we talked about a friendship of utility. So this is the lowest form of friendship. It's kind of a quid pro quo, this for that. You have this. You have that. I have this. Let's try to exchange. And this is usually an economic friendship. So we organize our economic friendships around the moral law, the public worship of God. This is also the friendship that is one, the most easily attained, and also the most easily disbanded. So you can actually pick this up every week. Attain the friendship, disband the friendship. Attain the friendship, disband the friendship. It's easy to do that, and the law directs how we should do those. It gets a little bit more challenging when you get to the other types of friendships, but I mainly wanna talk about The Friendship of Virtue. The New Covenant has also been called a Covenant of Friendship, and it's in that that God holds out the highest good for us. And in the New Covenant, God, in Christ takes our friendship from just a natural friendship into a friendship of virtue. So not only, we're now not just servants of God, creation, a creature that is to worship him in a certain way, which is our duty, but he also raises us up to a higher state. So if you remember that maxim, what was first an intention is last an execution, What's the last thing that's gonna happen for the people of God under the new covenant? What are we going to enjoy? An eternal Sabbath. All of our labors are going to cease. All of the fruits of the work of God through the word and spirit are going to be enjoyed. There's gonna be no more sin. There's going to be no more sorrow. There's gonna be no more need for economic activity. All the work is going to be complete and we're going to enjoy fellowship with God face to face. All that we have put our hope in and all that we have put our faith and trust in is going to become sight and our love for God is going to be complete, perfect. on the eternal Sabbath day, that final day of rest in which the sun's not going to go down, there's not even gonna be the need for a sun. There's no more rhythm of time of work, rest, work, rest, work, it's just rest. It's worship, it's communion with God. We also call it the beatific vision. The glory that God holds out for us, we're gonna be in the state of glory and perfect communion. That which was first in intention is last in execution for the people of God. So because of that, and because we still are waiting for that day of rest, there's still a day of rest that we have yet to enter into, as Hebrews says. We're now to order our lives around that day of rest. So all of our common labors are ordered toward that and around that. So our Sabbaths here are really just a preparation and a longing for that which is to come, that eternal day of rest. When we're in that state of glory and we have perfect friendship and love for God. We'll conclude with the words from Isaiah. If because of the Sabbath, you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and you honor it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own word, then you will take delight in the Lord. And God will make you ride on the heights of the earth. And I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. All right, let's pray, we'll dismiss. Our Father and our God, we give you praise and thanks through Christ Jesus our Lord, our elder brother, the one who has accomplished perfect righteousness for us, who obeyed your law perfectly, who loved you, God, and neighbor in a perfect way, accomplished salvation for us, brought us into a state of grace, and showed forth for us a state of glory. We pray that you would, by your spirit and your word, sustain us, preserve us, help us to persevere in your grace unto that eternal day of rest. And Lord, we ask as we wait that day that you would come quickly. Lord Jesus, Maranatha, come quickly. Amen.