From Greenville, South Carolina, we present, Let the Bible Speak. Let the Bible Speak is the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America, preaching Christ in all His fullness. This is Alan Kern saying hello to you once again and welcome to this Let the Bible Speak program. Today we'll be looking at the fourth commandment, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. This is probably the most debated, rejected, controversial and misunderstood of all the commandments. Many Christians exclude it entirely and I believe they're wrong. Some people, such as Seventh-day Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, and Messianic Jews, deny that it has its fulfillment in the Lord's Day. I will argue from Scripture that the Lord's Day is the Christian Sabbath, and that it is still God's command that we sanctify it. So, stay with us. Before we turn to God's Word, let me encourage you to be in touch with us. We enjoy receiving your letters, emails, and telephone calls, so do keep them coming. You may contact us by mail at LetTheBibleSpeak, 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, SC 29615. You may email us at ltbs at freeprez, that is f-r-e-e-p-r-e-s, ltbs at freeprez.org, or you may call us toll free at 1-866-877-LTBS 1-866-877-5827. We look forward to hearing from you. I love to tell the story of unseen things above, of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and because I know it is true. It satisfies my longing as nothing else can do. I love to tell the story in glory to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love. I love to tell the story more wonderful it seems than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams. I love to tell And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee. Seem hungering and thirsting To hear it like the rest And when it sings of glory I sing a new, new song T'will be the old, old story so long. I love to tell the story. Twill be my theme in glory. To tell the old, old story. With radical Hindus fanning the flames of hatred against Christians, many parts of India have become very dangerous places in which to serve Christ. A few months ago I reported to you how militant Hindus had severely beaten a pastor and then threatened to burn his home with the 60 Christians who worshipped there. Thankfully the plan was thwarted, And the Lord seems to have brought about a beneficial result, for now the entire community knows that the people who profess Christ do so out of conviction and not from coercion, as the Hindus alleged. The fact that they were in church on the Sunday the Hindus were supposed to come and burn them alive proved that. There has been a string of similar incidents. Enraged Hindus have attacked missionaries, private property, and churches. They have maimed and killed people whose only crime was their allegiance to Jesus Christ. Now comes a report of what appears to be a murder that was carefully planned and brutally executed. According to reports, 35-year-old Pastor Jimendra Nayak conducted a New Year's service at Baradakia Church in his native town of Balaguda in the Kandamala district. At 8 p.m. on January 1st, after the service was over, Nyack took an auto rickshaw to return to his home in the Puri district, where he served as pastor of the Indian Church Assembly. He boarded the rickshaw near a bus stop, where witnesses later reported that strangers had been inquiring about Nyack's whereabouts, the time of his services, and other details of his movements. He never left the rickshaw alive. According to the local authorities, the pastor died as a result of a freak accident. But their explanation is implausible. First, Nayak had previously been singled out by Hindus for physical attack. Second, the driver of his rickshaw has been identified as a member of the radical Hindus. Third, the driver was uninjured. and the rickshaw suffered no serious damage in the alleged accident, yet Nyack was found in the cabin of the rickshaw with his head badly smashed. Fourth, though the police have announced their accident theory, both the investigating officer and the doctor who conducted a post-mortem on the body have remained unavailable for interview or even for comment. Finally, Police were not called to the alleged accident scene. Instead, the pastor's body was removed and dumped at Balaguda Hospital. All this adds up to pretty convincing evidence of murder. And the grieving thing is that the Indian authorities appear to be covering up for the killer or killers. India is a dangerous place for Christians these days. It's not alone. As I have pointed out before, China, North Korea, Iran, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and a host of other Islamic nations have serious campaigns of persecution against Christians. But Indian Hindus are particularly virulent in their hatred of the gospel of Christ. Yet the work of God goes on. We must admire those who stand for Christ in the face of life-threatening persecution. We have to wonder how we would react if there were a credible threat to burn us alive the next time we attended church. As it is, it takes very little to keep many of us back from church. I don't know how we would do in that situation. With our admiration must go our prayers. When we pray, we must seek to have a vision for God's work around the world, not just on our own little corner. and we must pray for the welfare of unseen brethren and sisters who are paying a huge price to be faithful servants of Christ. Let's not forget them, for they are in the front line of the battle as Christ extends the building of His Church throughout the whole world. I know a fountain where things are washed away. I know a place where light is turned to day. Land and I live there. My eyes made to see that a wonder worthy vow in the blood of Calvary. Saint, are you weary? Are you levy laden? Are you in bondage? Do you want deliverance? Come back with me. There is a new job that's there. I know a fountain where sins are washed away, I know a place where night is turned to day. Land that I lived in, my nightly to see, there's a wonder working far in the blood of Calvary. No one has ever trusted on a belly. No one has played on his wall. I know a place where night is turned to day. There's a wonder working in the blood of Calvary. There's a wonder working in the blood of Calvary. in the blood of Calvary. What I'm going to do will be simply to propose to you, and I want you to notice very carefully what I'm setting out to prove, That the fourth commandment is still in force. That it finds its proper observance in our sanctifying the Lord's day. Now that's what I'm setting out to prove tonight. And I think I'll be able to establish that quite clearly from Scripture, not from the opinions of men, but from the Word of Truth. And I'm asking you to give it your undivided attention. I'm asking you tonight to set aside your prejudices and what you've grown up thinking. I'm asking you to recognize that if, as I think I'll establish, this is the teaching of the Word of God, then it is an abomination beyond description, the way modern Christians treat the Lord's Day. Is it any wonder the glory of God has departed from the house of God, when the very people of God count what God says is one of His most precious gifts as a vile thing, as an item of bondage, as something they will have nothing to do with? So let's give her attention. as we set out to show from God's Word that the fourth commandment is still in force and it finds its proper observance in our sanctifying the Lord's Day. And we will deal with the objections then as we go along. First, let me make this remark that the Sabbath is divine in its institution. The Lord specifically claims this day as His own peculiar day. Nehemiah 9.14 says, "...Thou madest known unto them Thy holy Sabbath." The Sabbath belonged to God. In the Old Testament, the Sabbath was the day He said is My day. Exodus 31, verses 13 and 14, "...Verily, My Sabbath ye shall keep, For it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore for this holy unto you." It is the day that God claimed as His own. When you go back to the book of Genesis, you read the creation story, one thing hits you immediately, something we take for granted. God worked through a creation week. Six days of labor and then the seventh day He rested. But I want you to notice that God set up the management of human time on a week of seven days. The seven-day week was not the invention of man. It was not the institution of a church. It was not the enactment of a parliament. It was not something arrived at after trial and error. There have been occasions in history where various other nations tried other divisions of time. But the reality is that at the very beginning of the world, God laid down the seven-day week. He set the pattern in creation, and in setting that pattern, That is when He instituted the Sabbath. Genesis 2, verses 2 and 3. On the seventh day, God ended His work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made. I think that is very clear. that that's the institution of the Sabbath. And yet there are some people who immediately object and say, it doesn't say the word Sabbath there, doesn't mention a Sabbath. Then they go on to say it talks about God resting, doesn't say a word about man resting. They go even further and say, if you read the whole book of Genesis, there's no mention of the Sabbath. throughout all the ages of the patriarchs. There's not a mention of the Sabbath until the time of Moses. So they raise this formidable argument to say the Sabbath was not instituted at creation at all. Now, why is this important? Because obviously, whatever God instituted at creation, even prior to the fall of man, is obviously not ceremonial, it is not transient, it is moral and it is permanent. Thus you have the attempt to remove the institution of the Sabbath from the creation. But the Scriptures won't allow it. It's beyond all doubt that Genesis 2 was speaking of the Sabbath. The text we read this evening in Exodus chapter 20 makes that very clear. The Lord is referring back in this fourth commandment to the creation week, and He's drawing the direct parallel, the direct identification between the day that He rested and the day that they are to rest. It was the Sabbath that He set up. We've read in Exodus 31, 17, the Sabbath is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever. Why? Because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed. Furthermore, we read the Lord sanctified this day. And then we read the Lord blessed this day. Now, the question is, sanctified it to whom? Set it apart to whom? Blessed it to whom? Certainly not to himself. Obviously, when he set apart this day, he sanctified it for man, and he blessed it to man. And the fact that the, and it's quite true, the Scripture is silent on the Sabbath day from the creation right through to the time of Moses, the fact that there is no mention of that doesn't prove that the Sabbath, A, wasn't given, or B, was never known. It may prove that apostasy had set in. I mean, how many churches will you go to in America today to hear any mention of the Sabbath day? Does the silence of the pulpit indicate that God has abrogated the law? No, it doesn't. It just indicates backsliding. And it may do that in the book of Genesis too. But it's equally true, this is an inconvenient fact for those who make this argument, that between the time of Moses and the Kings, the book of Kings, there's no mention of the Sabbath day either. But nobody in his right senses believes that there was no Sabbath day between Moses and that period. For all those centuries, there certainly was a Sabbath day, whether it was strictly observed or not. You see, the silence of the book of Genesis does not prove that there was no Sabbath. When you turn to Exodus 16, you have an interesting thing. From verse 23 to verse 30, you have Moses, and this is before the giving of the law, You have Moses regulating how the children of Israel were to collect the manna. You remember they were in the wilderness, and the Lord fed them with manna from heaven. Moses gave them this command, you collect manna every day, fresh every morning. Furthermore, if you collect more, if you try to get two days at once, By the time the next day comes, it will be stinking and it will be breeding worms. You must collect your man a day by day. I'm very tempted to step off there and start preaching another little sermonette. For every Christian should remember that. You need the bread of God day by day. What a tragedy for Christians to be trying to get through today on last week's Bible study. Take the manna day by day." But then he said, when you come to the seventh day, you're not to go out at all. On day six, you gather twice as much, and God will keep it fresh. We read very clearly that they could not go out that seventh day, notwithstanding verse 20, Some of them hearkened not unto Moses, and so they went out. And you read on down through verse 23, they tried to get some of this manna on the seventh day, but it didn't work. Why? Because that was the Sabbath day. But hold a second. These people who don't believe that the institution of the Sabbath was at creation, they believe that it was a new law on Mount Sinai. But this is before Mount Sinai. And Moses is already talking about the Sabbath day as if it were something that was already well known, as indeed it was. And when he did come to give the law on Mount Sinai, the Lord said, as we have read, remember the Sabbath day. Why? Because it had already been instituted and enacted. So, I think you can see very clearly that there is here the truth that the Sabbath is a divine institution that reaches right back to the dawn of creation. You've been listening to Let the Bible Speak, the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America. I hope that you found today's broadcasting a blessing to your heart. If you'd like to email us, our email address is ltbs at freeprez.org. 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There you'll be able to listen to and download our programs, visit our online bookstore, and read a text version of each day's commentary. So visit us today at LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com. This is Alan Kern saying, thank you for listening. I trust that you'll join us each day at this time, Monday through Friday, as we let the Bible speak.