All right, Brother Jimmy, would you open us in a word of prayer this morning? Amen. So two weeks ago, we looked at the first six paragraphs of chapter 22 of our Baptist confession of faith, and we focused on the regulative principle of worship. The paragraph consists, I mean, the chapter consists of eight paragraphs, and we looked at the first six. Today, we're gonna focus on paragraph seven and eight, which deal with the topic of the Sabbath day. The various ways the Sabbath is understood among different traditions within Christianity, and this is largely due to the distinctive ways these traditions understand the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament. So there's not a monolithic Christian view of the Sabbath, at least not in these days. We would all agree that what God commands us, we are obligated to obey. This is pretty straightforward. A difficulty arises, though, when we realize that not what all or not all of what God has commanded to his old covenant people, Israel, directly and in the same way applies to us, his church, in the new covenant. As Christians, we understand that Christ, as the true prophet, priest, and king, fulfilled the shadows and types of the Old Testament. That form of worship was abolished with the institution of New Testament worship and all the laws pertaining to its function no longer have commanding power. They now serve a teaching role as we understand Christ to be their fulfillment. So they're not meaningless to us but they don't apply to us in the same way that they did in the Old Covenant. The Sabbath is one institution that played a central role in the life of Old Covenant Israel and it took on the nature of that covenant as it carried with it the curse of death for disobedience. That's something that seems foreign to us in the New Covenant. So let's dig in a little. and try to understand what significance the Sabbath carries for Christians as we have been transferred into a new covenant with greater promises and a different emphasis than that of the old covenant. But first I want to start in differentiating two concepts of law, positive law and moral law. But let's read paragraph seven of our confession as we begin to think about this topic of the Sabbath day. It says, as it is the law of nature, that, in general, a proportion of time, by God's appointment, be set apart for the worship of God, so by his word, in a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him, which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week being abolished. It's paragraph seven. First thing I want to draw our attention to are the opening words of this paragraph where it says, as it is the law of nature that in general a proportion of time by God's appointment be set aside or set apart for the worship of God. What is meant by law of nature? It's an interesting phrase. I'm sure most of us have heard the phrase natural law, which is the law of God revealed to us through nature and conscience, and is universal in that all men are aware of good and evil, even apart from the written word of God. We all have a sense in our conscience of right and wrong. Natural law is an awareness in mankind that there are oughts and ought nots instilled in us as image bearers of God. Romans chapter 2 verses 14 and 15 explains natural law. It says, for when the Gentiles, which have not the law, that is the written law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts, the meanwhile, accusing or else excusing one another. So all men have a moral compass being evidenced by the fact that they judge one another and this moral compass is given by God as we're made in His image. Even though we've been affected by the fall, we still have a moral compass and we still know what good and evil are. So there is There's another phrase which is often used to describe this law of nature or natural law, and that is the phrase moral law. So moral law, law of nature, natural law, we're talking about the same thing. Notice in Romans 2, 14 and 15 that the Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the law. And what law is being referred to here? It's the written law that's being referred to. They're doing by nature the things that are contained in God's law. So there is a written expression of the law of nature, which more precisely shows us what good and evil are, because in our consciences and in our fallen estate, we can be mistaken about what good and evil are. We have a general idea, but we don't know necessarily the particulars. But scripture contains much more than is accessible to the conscience of man. And so there is another distinction that we need to talk about. We see it if we read a little further in our confession. It says, as it is the law of nature that in general a proportion of time by God's appointment be set apart for the worship of God, so by his word in a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him. I want to draw attention to two words are two of the words which describe the Sabbath commandment, and these two words are positive and moral, positive and moral. By these words, the framers of the confession are distinguishing two aspects of the law of the Sabbath in particular, and more broadly, two classes of law in scripture, positive law and moral law. When they talk about a moral commandment, They are referring to the law of nature as it is written in scripture. That is, there is a class of law which is codified for us in scripture to which all men have some knowledge, and this is called moral law. But there is another class of law of which men are ignorant without special revelation. This class of law is designated positive law. To demonstrate the difference between positive and moral law, think of Adam in the Garden of Eden. As a man, Made in God's image, he would intrinsically know, instinctively know, that committing violence against his wife and murdering her would be evil. He would know that without being told. In fact, God expected Cain to know that, did he not? He was endowed with a moral nature and was made upright, as Solomon testifies in Ecclesiastes 729. On the other hand, Had God never said anything about the tree, the knowledge of good and evil, it would not have been a sin for Adam to partake of its fruit. He was given fruit. One of the things that Adam was given as food. And the fruit of this tree was also good for food, it tasted good, it looked good. The reason that eating of it was evil was only in the fact that God had specially forbidden it. He had issued what we would call a positive law. Don't eat of the fruit of that tree. He wouldn't have known that otherwise. In chapter 19 of our confession, we saw that the natural or the moral law was summarized in the Ten Commandments. Each of the Ten Commandments provides substance to what men already know in their conscience. Chapter 19, paragraph 2 says this on the law of God, it says that the same law that was first written in the heart of man. Think of Adam in the garden. He was made upright. This is the moral law. So the first the same law that was first written in the heart of man. Continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in 10 commandments and written in two tables, the first four containing our duty towards God and the other six, our duty to man. And we don't have time to develop this further, but this is what Paul was referring to in Romans 2, 14 and 15 when he compared the work of the law written in their hearts with the written law of Israel. Now, we see in our confession that the Sabbath is designated a positive moral law. Now, what does this mean, positive moral law? Very simply, it means that there's an underlying moral principle that has added or positive stipulations which can only be known through special revelation. The moral principle is that there exists the necessity of holy time. Think about that, holy time. That is, there must be time designated to cease from our ordinary work and be dedicated to God. It's indisputable that this knowledge is inborn in all the sons of Adam. Though this inclination is twisted by man's fall into sin, we do see that all men are religious in nature and go about to worship their God, whatever God they have imagined. Religions inevitably have holy time dedicated to this kind of worship, to ceasing from their ordinary work to worship their God. This is something that is in the heart of man to do, to worship. This is the moral principle. God is to be worshipped. Even though it's twisted in fallen man, the inclination is still there. And there must be time designated to this end, and we all know this. The positive aspect of this moral law is the amount of time, the particular day, and the manner of keeping it. And under the Mosaic law, sanctions for breaking it. Now some may doubt that Some may doubt that a Sabbath is a moral principle. Aside from the Ten Commandments and the natural impulse for holy time, there's another foundational reason that the Sabbath should be considered a moral and perpetual commandment in this world. This is alluded to in the Ten Commandments themselves. Exodus 28 through 11 says this, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor 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. And this is the key verse. 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. There is a reason given in this commandment as to why the Sabbath was to be kept, and this is verse 11, which states that it is God's own example in the creation week of resting the seventh day. This is the paradigm that was given in the Mosaic law in the Ten Commandments. In the same, excuse me, in the same way that Jesus referred to the marriage of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as the prototypical marriage to which all marriages are subject to follow. And Jesus referred to this when he was teaching on marriage. God is using his own example in creation of resting as a prototypical principle which they are obligated to follow. These principles that are rooted in creation are called creation ordinances. Thank you. Appreciate that. and have authoritative significance for all men at all times. All men are obligated by the prototypical marriage. In violation of this ideal, God takes very seriously, not only for his covenant people, but for all men. Aren't all men obligated to follow the laws of marriage, not to commit adultery? Fornication, polygamy, adultery, and homosexuality are all perversions of God's design and God's design for marriage is violated at our own risk. Think about the Canaanites and their perversions. They didn't have the written law and yet God punished them for breaking some of these very laws like homosexuality, adultery, things like this. In the same way, the divine example in creation of six days of work and one day of rest was intended for all men to observe. The very fact that the fourth commandment begins with the phrase, remember the Sabbath day, indicates that God wasn't establishing something new in the Mosaic covenant, but was reminding them of what they already knew. The first mention of the Sabbath to the Israelites in Exodus 16, 23, when they were instructed on how to prepare the manna, presupposes prior knowledge of the Sabbath principle. It says this, And he, that's Moses, said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said. Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. Bake that which he shall bake today and see that he will see and that which remaineth overlay up for you to be kept until the morning. Moses is here reminding them of the Sabbath as something they're already familiar. And he instructs them on how they were to prepare their meal. Both here and in the fourth commandment, prior knowledge of the Sabbath is assumed. The Mosaic law deals with the Sabbath much like it deals with marriage. It is already assumed that marriage was established. And the Mosaic law frames these creational institutions according to God's will for them, for the Israelites in the land of promise. One further evidence that the Sabbath principle is universal is found in the words of Jesus. as he defended his disciples from the Pharisees when they plucked the grain to eat when they were walking through the fields on the Sabbath day. He said in Mark 2, 27, the Sabbath was made for man. And not man for the Sabbath. He didn't say that the Sabbath was made for Israel. It did have a special purpose for Israel, but it wasn't made for Israel. It was made for man. And when was it made for man? all the way back at the beginning when God blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. So this is the basis for the Sabbath principle being a moral law and not merely a mosaic institution that passed away with the end of the old covenant. Now remember that the framers of our confession called the Sabbath a positive and a moral commandment. The positive aspect of the Sabbath are all the stipulations concerning it that cannot be known naturally through conscience. We all know in our conscience that God requires worship and that we must set aside time for this holy activity. But the Sabbath took on positive commandments under the Mosaic covenant, which included prohibitions on kindling a fire or even gathering sticks upon the pain of death. God even commanded them to execute a violator of the Sabbath. under Moses, put to death for gathering sticks. These stipulations were unique to the Mosaic covenant as the Sabbath took on the character of that covenant. God, for good reason, weighted the Mosaic covenant with strict regulations and curses. It was, in a sense, a republication of the Adamic covenant of works or a type of the covenant of works. designed to cause the people of God to see the holiness of God and their own sinfulness to prepare the way for Christ and that they might be driven to him for mercy. It pronounced a curse on everyone who didn't continue in all things that are written in the law to do them, just as God had promised death to Adam for a breach of the covenant of works. Look at how Paul characterizes the old covenant and its temporary function in Galatians He says this, but before faith came, that is referring to the new covenant, before faith came, we were kept under the law. He's referring to the old covenant here. Shut up under the faith, which should afterward be revealed. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. In another place, Paul characterizes the Mosaic Covenant as a ministration of death, and Peter calls it a yoke that they were not able to bear. 2 Corinthians 7, or 3, part of verse 7 and 8, it says, but if the ministration of death, he's speaking about the Old Covenant here, but if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, that is the Ten Commandments, which was the cornerstone of the Old Covenant, was glorious, if the ministration of death, written and engraved in stones, was glorious, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? He's referring to the New Covenant here. You see, there's a distinction between the Old and the New. One is referred to as the ministration of death, and the other as the ministration of the Spirit. Acts 15.10, Now therefore, why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear. He's speaking about circumcision here, which was a sign, the sign of the old covenant. And he refers to it as a yoke that they weren't able to bear because the circumcision obligated them to continue in all things that were written in the book of the law to do them upon pain of death. And as such, it was a yoke upon their necks. So when we as Christians are faced with the Sabbath in its mosaic form, with strict regulations and the curse of death. We rightly resist being brought again under the old yoke of bondage. The complete system of positive law contained in the old covenant has passed away including all of its Sabbaths and holy days and all of the curses associated with them. Colossians 2, 16 and 17 says this, let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of in holy day or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. And Romans 14, 5 and 6 is this, one man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike, that every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord, and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. So as I cite these verses, what is sometimes missed when interpreting these verses is that they are speaking of the old covenant positive laws and have nothing at all to do with the moral law or new covenant practice. This is an important point. Matthew Henry is very helpful in his comments on this verse in Romans chapter 14, verse five. He says this, those who thought themselves still under some kind of obligation to the ceremonial law, those are the old covenant positive laws, esteemed one day above another, kept up a respect to the times of the Passover, Pentecost, New Moons, and Feast of Tabernacles, thought those days better than other days, and solemnized them accordingly with particular observances, binding themselves to some religious rest and exercise on those days. Those who knew that all these things were abolished and done away by Christ's coming esteemed every day alike. We must understand it with an exception of the Lord's day, Matthew Henry says, which all Christians unanimously observed, but they made no account, took no notice of those antiquated festivals of the Jews. You see he's making a distinction here between old covenant worship and new covenant worship. Here the apostle speaks of the distinction of meats and days as a thing indifferent when it went no further than the opinion and practice of some particular persons who had been trained up all their days to such observances and therefore were the more excusable if they with difficulty parted with them. So there's grace being extended here in the book of Romans to these Romans who were brought up under this system, the old covenant system. But in the epistle to the Galatians where he deals with those that were originally Gentiles but were influenced by some Judaizing teachers, not only to believe such a distinction and to practice accordingly, but to lay a stress upon it as necessary to salvation, and to make the observance of the Jewish festivals public and congregational, here the case was altered, and it is charged upon them as the frustrating of the design of the gospel falling from grace. The Romans did it out of weakness, The Galatians did it out of willfulness and wickedness and therefore the apostle handles them thus differently. The epistle is supposedly, this epistle is supposed, the epistle of Romans, is supposed to have been written sometime before that to the Galatians. The apostle seems willing to let the ceremonial law wither by degrees and to let it have an honorable burial. Now these weak Romans seem to be only following it weeping. to its grave, but those Galatians were raking it out of its ashes. And I think that's a helpful, I think Matthew Henry is very helpful in that verse, distinguishing between old covenant worship and the dying of the old covenant system and new covenant worship, which we are obligated to because we live in the new covenant. Notice that Matthew Henry did not see Romans 14.5 as pertaining to new covenant practice at all. I think he's correct. As these passages speak about things pertaining to the Mosaic Covenant, we can conclude that they do not apply to the holy things of the New Covenant. For instance, baptism is a holy ordinance of the New Covenant and is not an ordinary common dip in the water. It is done to believers in the holy name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Lord's Supper is a holy supper that transcends the purpose of a common meal. It represents the body and blood of Christ. It is so holy that some of the Corinthians had died as a result of violating the Lord's Supper or abusing it. We're not free to be indifferent about the holy things of the new covenant. This brings us now to John's mention of the Lord's day in Revelation 1 10. This was the day that he was in the spirit And the Lord gave him the visions that we see in the book of Revelation. He said this in verse 10, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day. This may seem like an insignificant comment by John, but this is far from the case. By acknowledging a day called the Lord's day, he has recognized a holy day in the new covenant. The phrase Lord's Day indicates a day that particularly belongs to the Lord. He has acknowledged a day that unlike the other days is set apart as holy. It is the Lord's Day. This implies that this day is intended for a holy usage. It is distinguished from common days. Further evidence of this is the fact that John was in the spirit on the Lord's Day. He was engaged in spiritual activity rather than mere ordinary work on the Lord's Day. Just like the Lord's Supper is no ordinary supper, the Lord's Day is no ordinary day. Through the example of Christ himself rising from the dead and appearing to the disciples and meeting with them on the first day, to the transition from seventh-day worship to first day worship through apostolic direction, which we see in the book of Acts and in some of the epistles. From its infancy, the church recognized Sunday as this holy day. In the New Testament and in the writings of the early church fathers, as far back as the Didache in the first century and the writings of Justin Martyr in the second century and others. Sunday has always been the Lord's day. Now there's more theological development that needs to be done to make the case that the Lord's Day is the Christian Sabbath and also how the Christian Sabbath should be observed in the New Covenant era where we are free from this yoke of bondage of the exacting and rigorous practice of the Old Testament worship. But we are out of time for today, we can't really look into that much, but let it be said that the Sabbath and the new covenant takes on the character of the new covenant in its observance, just as it took on the character of the Old Testament, which was appropriate to lead them by the hand as little children to Christ himself, who delivers us from the curse of the law and sets us into the spiritual realities that are signified thereby. So if you are interested, if you want, more information or a fuller treatment of this topic of the Lord's Day. I've written a small book that's available through Free Grace Press. I know some of you have this. It's called Anticipating God's Rest and it's the theology and celebration of the Lord's Day. In that book I expand upon these arguments that I talked about today and deal with several more compelling reasons why the Sabbath which reaches its fulfillment in heaven still retains a weekly reminder here on earth. And in the bibliology of this book, there are other books and resources that are mentioned that would also be helpful to you if you want to study this on your own. I know there's some of these available in Jeff's bookstore at the seminary if you would like to get one. We'll finish today by reading the last paragraph in chapter 22 of our confession. which indicates the purpose of the Lord's day, which is ceasing from our daily encumbrances and engaging in the worship of God. And that's, if I can leave you with anything today, what is the Lord's day for? It's for the worship of God. It's holy time for the worship of God. And more than that, it's for the worship of God together in the church. Let's read that last paragraph. It says, the Sabbath is then kept holy under the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts and ordering their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe in holy rest all day from their own works, words and thoughts about their worldly employment and recreations, but are also taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship and in the duties of necessity and mercy. And that could be fleshed out. but we don't have time. So I'll leave you with that. Amen.