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Word of God to Hebrews 4 and
verse 9. There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. As your margin indicates, it
is a Sabbath rest. There remains a Sabbath to the
people of God. And our subject this morning
is entitled, The Olympics, Public Defiance of God. The Olympics, Public Defiance
of God. In 1617, James I, returning from
Scotland, travelled through Lancashire and became involved in a dispute
between the Puritans and the local gentry, many of whom were
Papists and Anglicans, and the issue was over the observance
of the Lord's Day. Now James, as king, took it upon
himself to issue a declaration stating that sports were permissible
on the Lord's Day. awfully kind of the King to make
such a declaration. It was known as the Declaration
of the Book of Sports and shortened to simply the Book of Sports. So pleased was he with this local
resolution, he made it a national declaration in 1618. It was to
be applied throughout all his realms and dominions. It was
a public rebuke to the Puritans who believed and taught that
the whole day was given over to spiritual things alone. The Papists and the Prelates,
supported by the King, said no. The Declaration of the Book of
Sports states that sports such as archery, dancing, leaping,
vaulting and anything else along with May games, Morris dancing
and setting up May polls and so on were all permissible on
the Lord's Day. In 1633, Charles I reissued this declaration, but
this time ordering that all ministers publicly read the Book of Sports
to their congregations and any who failed to do so would be
ejected. Well, of course, all Puritan
ministers refused to read such a dreadful thing. and were punished. It was, in fact, the first ejaction
often forgotten. For example, William Greenhill,
whose name I trust is familiar to all of us, refused not only
to read the Book of Scores, but he preached instead upon the
Four Commandments, for which he was duly removed from his
pulpit. Well, today, and throughout all
of August, every Lord's Day, the City of London will be host
to a public display of openly defying God. In the name of sport,
millions will be involved in this open defiance of God. And there's a certain irony,
isn't there, that after almost 400 years, what James I and Charles
I wanted, what the Papists wanted, what the Prelates wanted, is
now being done on a vast scale, costing millions and millions
of pounds so that millions of people can participate and billions
of people on television and on the radio become participants
as well in this open public defiance of God and trampling upon the
Lord's day and the Lord's command. So we're going to look afresh
today at this fourth commandment. This particular statement made
by Paul, there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. First of all, the ordering of
time. I picked the word time simply
because it's so crucial to the Olympics and Olympic sports and
also to remind you of Eric Liddell of past days for whom time was
important two-fold. But the ordering of time. God
who owns all because he made all is in charge of time. That is demonstrated in the following
ways. First of all, the division of
time into night and day. Genesis chapter 1 verse 3, and
God said, let there be light and there was light. and God
saw the light that it was good and God divided the light from
the darkness and God called the light day and the darkness he
called night. And the evening and the morning
were the first day. So here we have the division
of time into night and day. And secondly, the grouping of
days into weeks. or a period of seven days. Our English word week and seven
are the same. So in Ezekiel 45, 21, we have
the phrase, a feast of seven days. That word seven is translated
in Daniel 9, 27, in the midst of the week. So God is the originator
of a week of seven days, that period of seven days called the
week So God's in charge of time. He divides time into night and
day, and then he groups days into periods of sevens. It's
called a week. And thirdly, the division of
the week into six plus one. Look again at Exodus 20 verse
11. In six days the Lord made the
heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested
the seventh day. In these three ways we see that
God is in charge of time. He orders time. He is the author
and the orderer and the governor of time, because he is the creator
of our time. Dividing the night from the day,
grouping the days into a week, and then making a distinction
within the days. Six plus one. Which brings me to the second
point, the filling of time. How is all this time to be spent? What are we to do with all this
time that God has given us? Well, there are three things.
First of all, night is given for sleep and day is given for
work. That may seem pretty obvious
nowadays, but we must remember its origin. How do we fill the
night and how do we fill the day? We fill the night with sleep
and the day with work. Genesis 28 verse 11. Here is Jacob verse 10. He laid
it upon a certain place and tarried there all night because the sun
was set. And he took up the stones of
that place and put them for his pillows and lay down in that
place to sleep. Nice example of the purpose of
the night. Job speaks of the night when
sleep falls upon men. Job 4 verse 13. And when we turn to the book
of Psalms, Psalm 104, Psalm 104 verse 23. He speaks of the sun,
verse 22, arising. Man goeth forth unto his work and is labour until the evening. The sun rises, daylight has come. What do we do in the daylight?
We labour, we work until the evening. When the evening comes,
we retire for the night. we go to bed and we sleep. Perhaps one of the drawbacks
with electricity is that some of us tend to stay up later and
later because we're reading something that we find so satisfying and
we keep on reading. Maybe that's electric is not
always so wonderfully beneficial, but In God's kindness we have
it. So night is given for sleep and
the day is given for work. But then secondly, six days for
labour, one for rest. Again Exodus 20 verse 9 and 10. Six days shall thy labour and
do all thy work. Verse 10. But the seventh day
is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. everything that mankind needs
to do, God has said, I give you six days to do it. But I set
apart one day from the rest. God has given us out of seven,
six whole days to do all the work and all the jobs and of
all the recreation that we need. So if you want to do archery,
leaping and bolting and anything else along with all the other
chores that must be done, God has given us six days in which
to do it. But thirdly, under this filling
of time, a day of rest for spiritual things. a day of rest for spiritual
things. Leviticus chapter 23, and in
verse 3 we read, 6 days shall work be done, but the seventh
day is the Sabbath of rest and holy convocation, ye shall do
no work therein, it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. Notice In the first place, that
the Lord's Day is a day of rest from the labours of the other
six. A day of rest from the labours
of all the other six. So all the tasks and duties pertaining
to the other six days, they cease on this day. And secondly, notice
that the Lord's Day is specifically set apart for spiritual activities. A holy convocation. Holiness pertains to this day. And negatively, he says, no work
therein. And positively, a holy convocation. You see, whenever God says it
is a Sabbath of rest, he doesn't mean do absolutely nothing. That's not what rest means. No,
it means don't do that work, but do this worship. And this is to be a deliberate
act by the Christian there is to be a deliberate choosing by
the Christian of spiritual things on the Lord's Day in preference
to anything else. Even those things which in and
of themselves ordinarily you may like to do, and they are
lawful to do, but the Christian deliberately sets them to one
side. Isaiah 58, verses 13 and 14. If thou turn away thy food from
the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the
sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord honourable, and shalt
honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure,
nor speaking thine own words, Then shalt thou delight thyself
in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places
of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father,
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Here is a word, all
of scripture is spoken by God. But Isaiah draws our attention
to this specific word spoken by God, this specific word in
relation to the Sabbath day. Isaiah tells us, turn your feet
from doing the following on the Sabbath, from doing thine own
pleasure, from going thine own ways, from seeking thine own
pleasure, from speaking thine own words, from all these turn
your feet from, on the Sabbath, those things which are lawful
on the other six days of the week." That word pleasure that
Isaiah uses refers to that which is acceptable, to what is desired,
what is acceptable, in other words, for the other six days
of the week. There are many activities that
are wholly appropriate on all the other six days of the week,
quite acceptable to be done on the other six days of the week.
And if you like archery, as some do, well you have Monday and
the rest of the week to do it, but on the Lord's Day you hang
up your bow and arrow for the next week. And if you like, vaulting,
maybe it's pole jumping or whatever. Some of these things are acceptable
at other times, but not on the Lord's Day. He tells us that
time is to be spent in honouring God and shall honour Him. So what we do on the Lord's Day
is out of honour to God, We want to honour Him who is our Creator. And if we're Christians, Him
who is our Saviour and Redeemer. If you want to honour God, then
you will use God's day as God requires. We are to give ourselves wholly
unto God. We are to be quite determined
about this. turning our feet from all these other things on
the Sabbath day, and to give ourselves wholly unto God. So in these ways, all the time
that God has given us is being filled. We fill the night time
and we fill the day time. We fill the days of the week,
six for work, and we fill the Lord's day with worship. We are
filling the time that God has given to us. In other words,
we are redeeming the time. We are filling it as God gives
it to us. But then thirdly, the defiance
of time. You know, man as a sinner hates
giving God time. hate giving God one whole day
for God. They hate the thought of being
commanded and ordered by the Great Being, God Himself, that
one day is to be set apart for God. Sinners hate that. And they find it irksome. And
they're constantly fighting against it. The gentry in Lancashire
in 1670 fought against this principle. King James I and Charles I with
their archery, their leaping and their vaulting and amorous
dancing and so on hated the thought of giving God one whole day and
they acted in defiance of God. In the Olympics Under the International
Olympic Committee, our present monarch, Prime Minister and Lord
Mayor are equally acting in defiance of God. That's what they're doing,
they're defying God. They're saying, we are taking
the day and we are going to use it as we want to use it. We want
to use it for our pleasure, We want to use it for the interest
of certain businesses. We want to use it in our own
interests. Let's look at some examples of
sinful defiance. of time. Exodus chapter 16 verses
27 and 28. For context we would need to
read from verse 22. And it came to pass that on the
sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for
one man. And all the rulers of the congregation
came and told Moses, And he 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 ye will bake
today. See that ye will see. And that which remaineth over,
lay up for you to be kept until the morning. And they laid it
up till the morning, as Moses bade. And it did not stink, neither
was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that today. For today is a Sabbath unto the
Lord. Today ye shall not find it in
the field. Six days ye shall gather, but
on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall
be none. And it came to pass that there
went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather,
and they found none. The Lord said unto Moses, How
long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? You see, sinful
defiance, God said, Here are six days. Every one of those
days I will give you manna. And on the sixth day gather twice
as much as every other day, because on the Lord's day I will send
you none. and what you hold over until
the Sabbath day, it will be fine to eat. Don't bother going out
to look for any on the Lord's Day. In fact, don't go at all. There won't be any. But you see,
there's always some. Those who say, well, we know
what God said, but we're going to go anyway. We're going to
do it anyway. And they went out to gather.
They went deliberately Out to do what God told them not to
do. Even though nothing was sent
by God, yet still they went out. Oh, the defiance in the human
heart. Wanting to do what God says should
not be done. Numbers 15, verse 32. Numbers 15, 32. And while the
children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man
that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. Here again, God
had already told them what to do. Six days for labor, seven
days for rest. All the things that were lawful
on the other days of the week, don't do it today. But here was
a man, wanted to do his own thing. And he went out. And of course,
God said in verse 35, the Lord said unto Moses, the man shall
be surely put to death. All the congregation shall stone
him with stones without the count. And all the congregation brought
him without the count, stoned him with stones any time, as
the Lord commanded Moses. The law of God was clear. Six
for labour, one for worship. But the sinner will defy God. And then in the book of Nehemiah,
Nehemiah 13, verses 15 and 16. Nehemiah says, In those days
saw I and Judah some treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and
bringing in sheaves, and leading asses, as also wine, grapes,
and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem
on the Sabbath day. And I testified against them
in the day wherein they sold vittles. There are dwelt men of tar also
therein, which brought fish, and all manner of wear and soles
on the Sabbath, unto the children of Judah and in Jerusalem." So
here you have the Israelites themselves doing all these activities,
all this work. They were making wine and gathering
grapes and all other kinds of burdens on the Sabbath day. And
they not only gathered all these things, but they proceeded to
sell these things on the Lord's Day. And then you have the foreigners,
the men of tar, these immigrants who came in. They came to trade
on the Sabbath day. It was a day of business. They were treating it like any
other day. And Nehemiah says, I testified
against them. I protested. I denounced them,
I preached against them, and I warned them and threatened
them. This should not be done on the Lord's Day. Now let me
turn to Jeremiah chapter 17. Jeremiah 17 verses 21 to 23. Thus saith the Lord, Take heed
to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring
it in by the gates of Jerusalem. Neither carry forth a burden
out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do ye any work,
but hallow ye the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.
But they obeyed not neither inclined their ear, but made their necks
stiff that they might not hear nor receive instruction. What
was their greatest sin? They refused to keep the Lord's
Day. They disobeyed. They went further. They closed their ears to the
words of Jeremiah the prophet. They hardened their hearts against
the law of God. We will refuse, they said. We
will not even listen to you. It was, of course, for this sin
that God brought them destruction. Verse 27, But if ye will not
hearken unto me, to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear
a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the
Sabbath day, then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof,
and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not
be quenched." God says, I will burn your city. I will burn every
palace, every great building, I will
burn it all. I will burn the entire city."
And that's what he did. When the Babylonians came, they
burned the city. As God said, why? Why? Because they refused to keep
a day for God. I will bring ruin to your nation. When men and women are made to
stop work for the Sabbath day. You know what the sinful say?
In the words of Amos chapter 8 verses 5 to 6 they say, when
will the Sabbath be gone that we may sail and buy? That's what
the sinful say. We're tired of the Lord's day.
We can't wait to get back to work. You would think the sinful
really wanted to work. They don't want to work. Because
they hate getting out of bed to go to work. But on the Lord's
Day, they can't wait to do some work. They can't wait to get
into working, to get at something. They'll do anything on the Lord's
Day. But you couldn't drag the sinful to do the same activities
the other six days of the week. Because there is a hatred in
their hearts for God. A hatred for God's day. That
day set apart reminds them you are not your own. You are not
in charge. God is in charge and God orders
your life. He orders your time. You're answerable
to God. And the sinful hate that. They
hate the whole idea that they have to give God a count for
every second. So we have the Olympics. aided
and abetted by the state, openly and publicly defying God, insisting
on abusing the Lord's day for their own pleasures. Well, let's
come to applications. First of all, God is Lord of
time, not man. Matthew 12, verse 8. And you
know that is a public rebuke, is it not? That very statement
in Matthew 12.8 that tells us that Christ is in charge of this
day. Our nation And the Olympic Committee
are saying Christ is not in charge of this day. We are robbing him
of that power. We are taking away from him his
own authority. We are claiming this day for
ourselves. That's what they are saying. They're saying away with Christ
and away with this day. They are publicly defying King
Jesus. That's what they have done and
will do for as long as they remain in this country. But then secondly,
objections to time. Needless to say, there are always
objections to those against keeping a day for God. And there are
three kinds of objections. The first is, there are those
who say any day will do. As the Puritan William Twist
long ago pointed out, if such liberty is equally communicated
to each particular congregation, it will follow that the English
could have Monday, the French Tuesday, the Dutch Wednesday,
the Germans Thursday, the Danes Friday, the Swedes Saturday and
the Poles Sunday. What an intolerable scandal amongst
Christians. Thus our liberty opens the way
to revive the Jewish Saturday or to concur with the Muslims
who make it Friday. If the heathen see no agreement
amongst Christians What an intolerable scandal to them and will harden
them against the gospel. William Twist also reminds us,
to change the day now would be the greatest scandal of the church,
seeing that the church has kept this particular day since the
resurrection of Christ. But then there are those who
of late, a recent objection perhaps some might think, those who don't
just say any day will do, but they say in fact there is no
day at all. It's called New Covenant theology. Every Christian can decide for
himself which day, if any, they wish to keep. So here we have
these clever 21st century Christians who say, well, if you want to
keep a day, that's fine. If they don't want to keep a
day at all for God, that's fine too. And yet, this attitude contradicts
the Saviour who tells the disciples in regard to the destruction
of Jerusalem. Matthew 24, 20. Pray ye that
your flight be not in the winter or on the Sabbath day. In other
words, just as the Jews had winter and Sabbaths, so Christians will
have winters and Sabbaths. Yet here are these new Christians
who reject all this. They also reject what Paul tells
us in Hebrews 4.9, there remaineth therefore, in light of all that
I have told you from verse 1 of chapter 4 about the gospel, about
entering into this spiritual, eternal, heavenly rest in Christ,
in light of this there remains a Sabbath day of rest. In fact, it is fundamental and
crucial to you as Christians that you maintain this principle,
that you keep one whole day, a Sabbath day, to God. There remains to the people of
God. In other words, a Sabbath and
the people of God are so locked together, you cannot separate
the two. You cannot separate being the
people of God from the Sabbath day. And yet, that's not all the objections. There's one more. There are Christians
and congregations who today are teaching and practising the very
same view held by the Lancashire Gentry, shall we say, in 1617,
who teach, believe and practise that once you have worshipped
God on the Lord's Day, the rest of the day you may do as you
please. You may do what James I said.
go archery, vaulting, leaping, Morris dancing, but nowadays
they add shopping and going to restaurants. Who would have ever
thought that evangelicals would ever become papists? And yet
that's what they have done. Who would have ever thought that
evangelicals would have become Anglican in total? saying, well
we've done our bit, we've been, we've sung praise to God, we've
read the word of God and now let's all go shopping, let's
all go to the games, so to speak. Who would ever have thought that the 21st century evangelical
would have embraced the book of sports? and our purest and
forefathers were being punished, fined and imprisoned for daring
to say the Lord's Day is exactly that, it's the Lord's Day. And God will punish a nation
for not keeping it. God did punish the nation by
the way. But that's another story. How astonishing that any evangelical
would turn papist. And thirdly and finally, the
observance of time is a test of our submission to God. That's
what it is. Every Lord's Day that comes,
it's a test that stays to us What will you do today? Verse
13 of Isaiah 58. Call the Sabbath a delight. The holy of the Lord, honorable. Is this what you will respond
with in relation to the Lord's day? Shall we delight ourselves
in the Lord this day? It's a test of our submission.
What are we going to do today? Do you find it a delight? Let
me ask you quite bluntly, do you find the Lord's Day a delight
or do you find it all a bore? John Bunyan once found it a bore.
Every Lord's Day he hated it. Having to keep a whole day, he
struggled with it. It was such a bore. He fought
against it. What could he do, even secretly,
in order to try and pass the time until he was converted?
And then when he was converted, he suddenly changed. Oh, it's
a delight, he said. I love the Lord's Day. I long
for the Lord's Day. What about you? What's your response
to the Lord's Day? Is it a delight? Or a disaster? A drag? Oh, what a test of how
we stand before God. Will you whittle away this time
today? You know, we've got all these
gadgets and we can even use them to try and pass our time. And
what are we doing? We're being distracted from spiritual
things. God has given us a book and believers
from it have written many great books that we may Call the Sabbath
a delight so holy of the Lord and honourable, and shall honour
him. Will you honour God today? Will
you? Oh, as you have done, then I
urge you, keep on doing. The pressure is building. The
pressure is piling on Christians. Forget about Christ. Forget about
his day. But do you know what happens?
people cease to find rest. They no longer have rest because they're filling their
time all the time with all kinds of things and instead of the
Lord's Day bringing rest to their weary bodies and engaging in the worship of
God so that they are renewed and reinvigorated and refreshed Men and women are becoming weary,
tired. People talk about being depressed,
being unhappy, finding no fulfilment. Well, how can they find fulfilment
unless they find it in God? Unless they start by keeping
the Lord's day, then thou shalt delight thyself in the Lord. I will bring to you, he says,
renewal and refreshment and blessing. May we know this blessing that
God speaks of through the prophet Isaiah in verse 14. Amen. Thank you.
The Olympics' Public Defiance of God
| Sermon ID | 7301262093 |
| Duration | 43:08 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Hebrews 4:9 |
| Language | English |
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