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This will be our last Sunday School lesson on Chapter 22, Paragraphs 7 and 8 on the Christian Sabbath. So, previously we've looked a lot at the principle of the Sabbath day or the doctrine of the Christian Sabbath. Now, we're going to dive into some of the practical applications that come from that teaching. So, Paragraph 8 is all about the practice of the Sabbath day. Maybe this is where most people have all kinds of questions. I've got a lot of material to go through. I don't want to skip out on a lot of this practical stuff. So we may have some time for questions. If not, feel free to contact me, talk to me after service. So before we begin, let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you. for gathering us together again this Lord's Day. We thank you for this clear and concise teaching in the Confession concerning the Christian Sabbath. We bless you for the Sabbath day just in general and we ask that you would give us wisdom, understanding in the Word of God concerning this blessed day. and that you would help us to be better Sabbath keepers, better Sabbath observers, that we would see the delight of it, the beauty of it, the blessing of it. Help us, Lord, not to see it as drudgery or slavery, but Lord, help us to look forward to the Lord's day. And may this teaching, even this morning, help us this very day to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. So bless us, we pray, oh Lord, we look to you in Jesus' name, amen. So the practice of the Sabbath day. So we've looked at the doctrine, but now we need to ask ourselves the question, how are we to keep the Lord's day as the Christian Sabbath holy to the Lord? Paragraph eight, in our Confession of Faith, chapter 22, I think lays this out in two key ways. So let's look at those two ways now. The first is this. Due preparation. Due preparation. Paragraph 8 begins in this way. The Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts and ordering their common affairs aforehand." So keeping the Sabbath day holy to the Lord actually starts before the Sabbath begins. You see that clearly here in this paragraph. We shouldn't stumble or sleepwalk into the Sabbath. We shouldn't wake up and be surprised that it is Sunday. Instead, our hearts and our homes should be well prepared for that great day. We should be prepared before we go to bed Saturday night, but I really think this preparation should initially begin Monday morning. Immediately after the Sabbath day is over, we should start preparing for the next Sabbath day to come. So here's an illustration. Prepare for the Lord's Day like athletes prepare for game day. Maybe some of you guys know who this guy is. Tim Tebow, one of the greatest college quarterbacks of all time. But think about probably how he prepared from Saturday to Saturday. Big time college athlete. His week probably revolved around Saturday. So you play the big game on Saturday, then comes Sunday, hopefully he was in church, he's a professing Christian. But in terms of getting prepared for the next game, on Sunday he rests, maybe some light stretching and some film from the previous game. Monday comes along, you start weightlifting, watching film. Tuesday comes along, watching film for the next game, practicing. Wednesday comes along, practice, weightlifting, maybe getting in an ice bath or two to rest his muscles. Thursday comes along, still you've got practice and film, preparing for that next game. Friday comes along, you do your walkthroughs, you have your meetings, you check all your equipment, make sure everything's good to go for the next day, lay out your uniform, get plenty of water in your system, and get a good night's sleep. And then Saturday comes along. Have a good breakfast, get together with the guys, maybe do some more walkthroughs and warmups, hear a motivational speech or two, do some meditation on the game that's about to begin, and then you go out and play. And then after that, you repeat it all over again. Well, the point is, a college athlete like this will live his life Saturday to Saturday. Game day to game day. Well, in a similar way, Christians must schedule their entire week around the Lord's Day. Instead of living Saturday to Saturday like college football players, or Monday to Monday like most American workers, as a Christian, we must live our lives Sabbath day to Sabbath day. That's how we need to view each and every week. Just think about this. If the Lord's Day is the greatest day of the week, and the corporate worship of God is the greatest event on earth, then everything else we do throughout the week should be done in preparation of it. And that's true. The Lord's Day is the greatest day of the week. The corporate worship of God is the greatest event on earth. There's nothing that parallels or compares to it. And if that's the case, then our lives need to always be in preparation of that one great thing. So plan to do your vocation, commerce, grocery shopping, home projects, yard work, school work, hobbies and recreations, and family celebrations on other days so there will be no distractions or hindrances to observing the Christian Sabbath and keeping it holy to the Lord. We've got six days to schedule all that sort of stuff and get it done so that we might have no distractions and no hindrances when it comes to the Lord's Day. This is what the Westminster Larger Catechism says about it. We are to prepare our hearts, and with such foresight, diligence, and moderation, to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of that day." Maybe some of you think, there's no way I can do that. There's all kinds of stuff that I have to do on the Lord's Day. Well, let me just encourage you, as the Westminster Catechism encourages us, that with foresight, diligence, and moderation, I think we're able to do everything that God calls us to do in six days, so that none of these other things bleed over into the Lord's day. I think a lot of the times we just are, and sometimes we're a bit lazy. And we like to push off things and procrastinate and then all of a sudden the Lord's Day is here and I still got to do this and this and this and this and this. Quite frankly, we probably could have got those things done throughout the week. So again, with foresight, with moderation, with diligence, with thoughtfulness, we can get most, if not all, of the things done that God calls us to in six days of the week so that our Lord's Day, our Sundays, can be free. so that we might come here and worship God and fellowship and we don't have anything else on the schedule except observing the Sabbath day to keep it holy. So I think our calendars should look something like this. We need to circle our Sundays and mark them off as the Lord's Day. The rest of the week We do what God calls us to do in terms of work, vocation, hobbies, recreations. But the Lord's Day is special. And we live Lord's Day to Lord's Day. Again, not Monday to Monday, not Saturday to Saturday, but Sunday to Sunday. I think there's people here who could testify that when they first got here, maybe this was a challenging doctrine to them and they were used to doing all different kinds of things on Sunday. But when they really began to order their schedules and think about the things they did, they were able to make real changes in their lives to where they were able to do some of those other things throughout the week or on Saturday and leave their Sundays entirely open. And God has greatly blessed them for that. So we need to prepare ourselves for the Lord's Day. Not just stumble into it, but get ready for it. And start at the very beginning of the week. Here's some other applications. Go to sleep on time on Saturday night. Maybe you're used to staying up and doing certain things throughout the week. Well, when Saturday night rolls around, try to get some sleep. Get some rest. Wake up early on Sunday morning. I mean, probably don't set your alarm clock for 8.30. So you're getting out of bed, you're rushing, putting on your clothes, and you're speeding your way here to church. You know, wake up early. Give yourself some time. Eat a filling, nutritious breakfast. So when you get here, you're not snoozing off. You know, you got no energy, you got nothing in the tank, right? Put something healthy inside of you. Get ready for the Lord's Day. Spend time reading the scriptures, meditating, and praying before leaving the house. Prepare your soul. Feed your soul with the Word of God and communion with Christ so that you can come here and you're excited. You come here with joy. You come here with sobriety. Ready yourself for the corporate worship of God. Think upon the works of God, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the presence of God and the eternal rest to come in the new heavens and the new earth. This is the day, brethren, that we can truly set our minds upon the glorious works of God. Undisturbed, unhindered. Works of creation, works of redemption, works of judgment. It's good and right to think about those things all the time, but especially on the Lord's Day. Repent of any known sin and be reconciled to others who have something against you. How many of us have wasted Lord's Days because we're holding on to sin? We waste it. We profane it. We've got something against another brother and sister in Christ, and instead of squashing it right then and there, we hold on to it, and our whole Lord's Day is ruined. It's a day that we need to think about our sin, repent, so that we might have true joy on this day, and delight in this day, because that's what it is for us. But who wants to come into the corporate worship of God with a guilty conscience, knowing that we've sinned against God and sinned against another person, and we haven't repented of it just yet? Sing hymns with your family as you drive to church. We've kind of made it a practice in our family to sing Psalm 67 as we drive to church in the morning, and then sing part of Psalm 72 when we drive to church Sunday evening, verses 17 through 19. You don't have to sing those particular psalms, but it's a good practice. It prepares your family to come into the worship of God. If you just sing some hymns with them, or some psalms when you come to church, or while you're driving to church. Put down social media, or at least greatly limit it. I mean, how many of us get on social media on Sundays, maybe just to check a few things out, and then we end up just scrolling through our news feeds. Minutes, 30 minutes goes by, hour goes by, and we're really not doing anything holy with that time. We're just wasting the day away. Be careful, brethren, about social media in general, because we always need to redeem the time for the days are evil, but especially on the Lord's Day. It is so easy to get on Twitter, to get on Facebook, to get on Instagram, to get on TikTok, and really be doing nothing that's spiritually profitable for us. So Sunday may be a great day to just simply put down social media completely. Put down all sort of things where you might use a computer or a TV or a phone. Not making that a law at all, but you know your own hearts. You know your own temptations. You know your own weaknesses. Maybe it's just a good day to walk away from all of those things. Pick up a real physical book, a real physical Bible. Separate yourself from some of that stuff. Get some fresh air in your heart and soul. So do preparation. That's the first part of paragraph eight. But secondly, we're told about the right practice. What should our Sabbath day observance look like? How do we properly keep it? So we're to prepare for it, but when we actually get to that day, like today, what does God call us to do? Well, negatively, we are not to profane it, meaning we're not to treat it as a common day like the other days of the week. To profane something means to treat it as common. It's no longer holy, it's no longer sacred, or special, or unique. It's just like everything else. Negatively, we're not to keep the day like that. The holy day. So positively, we're to keep it holy, meaning we are to set it apart from the other days of the week as a special and sacred day. This certainly involves resting. Literally, Sabbath means rest, but it doesn't mean that we rest from all activity. The Bible doesn't tell us that we need to just completely be inactive on the Lord's Day. Remember, God is our great example in Sabbath keeping. On the seventh day, we are told that He rested, but this does not mean He was inactive. His rest meant He finished the initial work of creation. It also meant He delighted in all the works of His hands and He sat enthroned as King over His creation. But He did not put Himself on sleep mode. Even on the seventh day, God as the providential governor was upholding and sustaining the universe by the word of His power. Jesus affirms this for us. On the Sabbath day, Jesus says this, My Father is working until now, and I am working. What do you think the Jews and the Pharisees thought about that when Jesus said that to them? The Father is working, the Son is working, they're busy at work on the Sabbath day, and brethren, so should we. It's not a day to be completely inactive. But we must put down a certain kind of work in order to take up another. So paragraph eight goes on to tell us what exactly we are to rest from and what exactly we are to be doing in order to fulfill the requirements of the fourth commandment. So let's look at those two things, what we're to rest from or put down and what we are to actively do or what we are to take up. So first, what we are to put down. So after this due preparation of our hearts and our homes and our lives, the confession goes on to say this, I do not only observe a holy rest all day from their own works, words and thoughts about their worldly employment and recreations. It's telling us what we ought to put down, what we are to rest from. The holy rest we are to observe on the Christian Sabbath entails resting from our worldly employment and recreations. Confession tells us resting from thinking about them, speaking about them, and actually doing them, right? Their own works, words, and thoughts. Well, what are worldly employment and recreations? Well, worldly here doesn't mean sinful. Remember, we are always to abstain from sinful things, not just on Sundays. So it's not just saying, well, sinful employments and sinful recreations we're to rest from. No, we're to rest from those things all the time. Worldly here means things that pertain to this world or to this present age. It includes lawful things having to do with our employments or jobs and recreations or hobbies. In other words, secular work and play. God gives us six whole days to do these things. But on the Sabbath day, all needless works, words, and thoughts about them must be put down. The Westminster Larger Catechism uses that word needless, which is important. Sometimes it's needful as a work of necessity. We'll look at that in just a little bit. But all needless works, words, and thoughts about these sort of things must be put down. Here are some passages which teach us to rest from our worldly employments. I'm not going to read them. It's kind of the main emphasis of what the Old Testament teaches on the Sabbath day that we shall not do any work. There are several verses there that teach us that. Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5, Leviticus 23, Nehemiah 13. There's a question that a lot of people have. What about worldly recreations? It might be obvious that, hey, let's put down our worldly employments and jobs for Sunday, but what about worldly recreations? Hobbies, we might say. In our particular culture, sports would be a worldly recreation. It's lawful, it's good. God doesn't say it's inherently sinful to do these things, but on the Lord's Day, He tells us to put them down. Where in the scriptures do we read of putting down or resting from worldly recreations? Well, I think the classic passage which touches on this is Isaiah chapter 58, verses 13 and 14. And this is what it says. If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy day of the Lord honorable, if you honor it not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly, Then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth. I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." This is giving us the moral principle of the Sabbath day. This wasn't just given to the Israelites. This is for all of us to understand. And here, God is very clear. We are told not to go our own ways and not to seek our own pleasure and not to speak our own words on the holy day of the Lord. In essence, this means to refrain from doing what we want to do and what pleases us. In fact, the Greek Septuagint here literally reads, not to do your will in the holy day. So this is like a broad injunction. It's wide ranging. It includes work, but it also includes pleasure. I mean, the very word for pleasure or delight is used here in this passage. And certainly we all get delight and pleasure from the worldly recreations that we are involved in. I mean, part and parcel of us having hobbies is that we really, really enjoy them. we get pleasure out of them. But God is telling us here not to go our own way, not to speak our own words, not to do our own pleasure on the holy day of the Lord, not to do our own will. So it involves both work and play. But the point is on the Lord's day we are to turn back our feet from doing even permissible things that give us delight and pleasure and only do what God tells us to do. This means our Christian liberty is more restricted on the Lord's Day than other days of the week. In some sense, six days of the week we can live by what we could probably call the normative principle, where if God doesn't forbid us to do certain things, then we have freedom and liberty to do it. But when it comes to the Lord's Day, it's much more restrictive. We can't go and do our own pleasure. We can't go and talk about whatever we want to talk about. We can't do our own will. God gives us certain prescriptions and injunctions that kind of box us in to tell us what we can do and what we cannot do on the Lord's Day. This is not only true during corporate worship, but also throughout the whole day. D. Scott Meadows says this, and this was just from a personal correspondence with him. The point is that the Sabbath does not offer us the liberties we have on the other six days to do what we please in terms of innocent things like business or recreation. Rather, the Lord claims His right to set the agenda for our Lord's Day activities and as it is His holy day and not an ordinary day like the others. So brethren, the Lord sets the agenda for His day. He tells us what to do. He tells us what to do every day. But again, there are other days of the week we have a lot of liberty, freedom to do certain things. But it's restricted on the Lord's Day. He sets the agenda and He's very specific about what we ought to be doing on this day. Since the day belongs to Him, it's called the Lord's Day. And since we belong to Him, we are His people, we are His servants, we are His slaves, He tells us what to think about, what to speak about, and what to do. As the Westminster Larger Catechism says, on this day God restrains our natural liberty in things at other times lawful. So that's what we are to put down. Worldly employments, like our jobs, and worldly recreations, things that bring us pleasure and delight. It doesn't mean we can have no delight on the Lord's Day, but it means the things, you know, again, sports, hobbies, things of that nature that we don't have to do on the Lord's Day. These are the things we're to put aside. But we're also to take up certain things, and the confession goes on to say this, 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. This is the positive element of what we ought to be doing on the Lord's Day. Our whole time should be taken up in the public and private exercises of God's worship and in the duties of necessity and mercy. Well, instead of a specific list of do's and don'ts, the confession here gives us three categories or kinds of duties or works that must fill up our time on the Sabbath day. Works of piety, works of necessity, and works of mercy. Now we see these three kinds of works perfectly displayed in the example of our Savior, Jesus Christ. As the Keeper and Lord of the Sabbath, what He did in the days of His flesh on the Sabbath day carries divine authority and sets a good example for us to follow. Edmund Clowney says this, Jesus authoritatively defines what may and may not be done on the Sabbath. Jesus defines Sabbath service. So, I think we see these three kinds of works in the life of our Savior. Works of piety, works of necessity, works of mercy. So first, works of piety. Public and private exercises of His worship. Remember, what was Jesus' custom every Sabbath day? It was to go into the synagogue and to preach and to worship God. He even says this interesting thing in Matthew 12, 5, Well, they weren't actually breaking the Sabbath day. They had to work. They had to sacrifice animals. They had to lead the worship of God. They had to protect and keep pure the temple and tabernacle. They were guiltless in all of these things, but they were busy at work. These were works of piety that they were involved in. So works of piety are works pertaining to the worship of God and the edification of our souls or the souls of others. These are the main and primary works we are to do on the Lord's Day. Examples include private Bible reading, prayer, family worship, corporate worship, fellowship with the brethren, evangelizing, and Christian-themed activities. It's important to state that the observance of the Christian Sabbath is much more than resting from worldly labors. It also entails taking up sacred duties of worship. We rest from ordinary work precisely so we can worship God We see this combination of putting down ordinary work and taking up sacred work in the Old Testament observance of the Sabbath day. There are some people out there who try to argue that in the Old Testament, observing the Sabbath merely meant just resting from work. But the Old Testament is clear. It also involves actively worshiping God. So we can't be fooled by those sort of arguments. I don't have time to show this all to you, but take a look at Leviticus 23. which combines resting from ordinary work and gathering together to worship God. And then Psalm 92. The title is very interesting. It's a song for the Sabbath day. That's the inscription for the title. And the entire psalm is about praising and worshiping God and even there's references to coming into the courts of the Lord. So it's fitting to praise God on the Sabbath day. Not just rest from our worldly labors. So it's just teaching us that the main thing about the Sabbath day is doing works of piety. This is the day of corporate worship. This is the day where we can gather together and sing praises to our God. I'm just gonna skip through all of this. But secondly, works of necessity. We know that on the Sabbath day, Jesus fed His disciples from the grain fields. We even know on the Sabbath day from Luke 14, verse 1, that Jesus went in to dine, literally to eat bread at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees. So He's feeding His disciples on the Sabbath day. He's going in and having a meal with various other people at a Pharisee's house on the Sabbath day, which gives us Justification for having fellowship meals on the Lord's Day. Jesus had that on the Lord's Day. But works of necessity are works pertaining to the performance of duties that must be done every day or done on the Lord's Day. Works that are either for the upholding of our lives or fitting us for Sabbath services. Examples include getting dressed, taking a shower, eating food, driving to and from church, sleeping, working occupations that are essential to the fabric and well-being of our society. There's lots of jobs that have to be done on the Lord's Day as a work of necessity. Think of soldiers, police officers, nurses, power plant supervisors, even some forms of public transportation. If you live in New York City and the vast majority of people there don't own a vehicle, the only way you can get about is either by taxi or by the public train system. Maybe there can be various ways to go about from a place to place, but I'm sure a lot of people hop on the train in order to get to church. Maybe some forms of public transportation are necessary. Maybe there's some brethren who can come and pick you up and carpool to church and that would be a great thing. But there are some times where there are jobs that must be done on the Lord's Day. I'm thankful that power plants are open on the Lord's Day so that we can have electricity in this place and air conditioning. So we can't just say that all jobs are sinful to be done on the Lord's Day. Now there are some that are essential to the fabric and well-being of our society that we're thankful for. But here's a good rule of thumb. If the work can be done on other days of the week, it is probably not a work of necessity. If it can wait, then brethren, let it wait. Just ask yourself the question, do I really have to do this on the Lord's Day? Or can it be done on another day of the week? A lot of times that will solve a lot of our issues and problems when we think about what to do on the Lord's Day. But lastly, there are works of mercy to be done. We see this very often in the life of our Savior as He healed various people on the Sabbath day. He did this all the time. The Gospels are full of Jesus healing people on the Sabbath day. The man with the withered hand, casting out demons from people on the Sabbath day. Remember the woman who was bent over for 18 years because of Satan. The Lord healed her on the Sabbath day. The blind man, where he spit in that, the mud, mixed mud together and put it on his eyes so that he could see, that happened on the Sabbath day. Works of mercy are works pertaining to helping others with pressing needs. This is what mercy means in the Bible. It is doing good to those who are suffering and are in need of great assistance. In the context of helping the hurting, Jesus said that it is lawful to do good, to heal, and to save life on the Sabbath. Examples include feeding the poor, healing the sick, visiting the imprisoned, sheltering the homeless, educating the ignorant, showing hospitality to strangers, bearing the dead, defending the weak and oppressed, and caring for your children and animals. Just some examples of works of mercy. The Pharisees understood that. They would save their ox from falling into a ditch on the Lord's Day or on the Sabbath day. But they continued to accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath day for healing people made in the image of God. Jesus condemns them for that sort of wicked approach to the Sabbath day. That you're willing to help out animals, but you're not willing to help out those who are made in God's image. Well, we're to do both, brethren. So, conclusion. Not everything good to do is good to do on the Lord's Day. The three categories of acceptable works to be done on the Christian Sabbath are works of piety, works of necessity, and works of mercy. Well, looking at the life of Christ, His Sabbath-keeping looked like this. He preached, He ate, and He healed. Pretty consistent of what Jesus did from Sabbath day to Sabbath day. He preached, worshipped God, He ate, and He healed. We see that very clearly in the Gospels. So, think about what your life looks like on a typical Lord's Day. Can you rightly place what you think about, what you say, and what you do in one or more of these three categories? Piety, necessity, mercy. Are your works pious? Are they necessary? Are they merciful? Well, if so, keep on doing them and excel still more. Even the greatest saint on earth can get better and better and better at observing the Sabbath day and keeping it holy. But that's how we need to think, right? Whatever activity comes up in your mind, filter it through these three categories. Ask yourself the question, is it a pious work? Is it a necessary work? Is it a merciful work? It'll help solve a lot of these issues. Or you say, can I do this or can I not do that? Well, here's the categories that the Bible gives us to think about these things. And hopefully you can solve them on your own. But if not, you can't run through your works on the Sabbath day and they don't fit these categories. You need to repent and stop doing your own pleasure on God's holy day. Make the necessary adjustments and changes to your Sunday routine that will enable you to perform the right kinds of works on the Lord's Day. Now, I'm a little bit hesitant about diving into this next topic, but I think it's relevant for us. And it's this, eating out on the Lord's Day. What should we think about that? It's important for us to think about that. Again, God is the one, Christ is the one who sets the agenda for the Lord's Day, not us. And so we need to seriously consider this subject of eating out on the Lord's Day. What should we think about attending restaurants or ordering from restaurants on the Lord's Day? even picking up food or having them deliver food to our houses. Well, let's run this activity through the three categories of acceptable works to be done on the Lord's Day to help us come up with a biblical and God-honoring answer. I think there's many ways to approach this subject, but one of them is let's just run eating out on the Lord's Day through the categories of works of piety, necessity, and mercy, and see where we come up. So first, is it a work of piety? to eat out on the Lord's Day. No. There is nothing spiritual or pious or sanctifying about eating a normal meal. The scriptures are clear about that. 1 Corinthians 8, 8. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat and no better off if we do. Romans 14, 17. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. I'm just saying inherently there is nothing holy or pious about eating a meal. Especially eating a meal at a restaurant. Well, is it a work of necessity? Normally, no. If you're on the road or far from home you may have to purchase food and drink from a restaurant on the Lord's Day. There may be certain exceptions. But usually eating and drinking at a restaurant is optional. I mean, there's a lot of people out there who never eat at restaurants. They don't have the money to even do it. So normally, it's not a work of necessity. How about a work of mercy? Again, normally, no. Again, there may be situations that arise where your only option to provide food for another who is hungry is found at a restaurant. Especially if the need is surprising and urgent and great. If it just comes upon you on the Lord's Day. There's a hungry person out there. I want to show mercy to this person. My only option in my own mind is to go through the drive-thru somewhere and pick them up some food. That may happen. But usually there are other options available to show mercy to the hungry. Like having meals available for them at the church or at home. Again, with a little bit of preparation, you can have these things ready for them on a moment's notice. If we think, if we prepare, if we're diligent. And here's the thing, it can actually be very unmerciful to those who have to work to cook your food and wait your table instead of resting from their labors. Maybe they choose to work because they don't want to go to worship, but that's only part of what their Sabbath observance must look like. Another part of their Sabbath observance is resting from their worldly labors and their worldly employment. We don't want to contribute to them sinning against God by working their worldly employment. It's not much rest for the waiter or the server or the cook to prepare your meal and your food while you enjoy fellowship at a restaurant. It's not very merciful. It's in some ways keeping them enslaved. We don't want to do that. So again, there may be some exceptions. I'm not sure we can use the I'm being merciful card when there's other options available. So here's my conclusion. There may be exceptions, but most of the time, eating out on the Lord's Day is not permissible and is the result of poor planning or doing your own pleasure on God's holy day. And I'm not the only one who thinks this. There's actually an excellent article written by Jeff Johnson from the church up in Grand Rapids. Tom, I don't know if you've seen that. But he addresses this very specific issue of eating out on the Lord's Day. And I think my conclusions are pretty similar to his. We just have to think seriously about these things. We can't just mindlessly go about our day on the Lord's Day and act like everything's okay. Again, our liberties are more restricted on this day than any other day of the week. And so we have to think about these things. And what is honoring to God? I think most of the time the fact that we feel like we have to go out to eat is either because we just didn't plan properly throughout the week or we just want to do it. We just want to do it. And that's not a good enough reason, brethren, to go and do those sort of things. Here's some final applications. First, The Lord's Day shows the world we are Christians. There are many things that display our Christianity to a watching world, but a major badge is our observance of the fourth commandment. It is a distinctive sign that marks us off as the people of God. This was true for the early church. It is said that early on Christians were made known to their Roman persecutors because of their observance of the Lord's Day. There's a big quote from Justin Edwards. Hence the fact that their persecutors, when they wished to know whether men were Christians, were accustomed to put them to this question, Dominicum servasti, hast thou kept the Lord's day? If they had, they were Christians. This was the badge of their Christianity, in distinction from Jews and pagans. And if they said they had, and would not recant, they must be put to death. And what, when they continued steadfast, was their answer? I am a Christian. I cannot admit it. It is a badge of my religion. And the man who assumes it must, of course, keep the Lord's Day because it is the will of his Lord. And should he abandon it, he would be an apostate from his religion." Voltaire, 18th century French Enlightenment philosopher, He knew how important the Christian Sabbath was to the Christian religion. This man hated Christianity. This man wanted to destroy Christianity, but this is what he says. There is no hope of destroying the Christian religion while the Christian Sabbath is acknowledged and kept by men as a sacred day. Once you get rid of the Lord's Day, this badge of Christianity, there goes the Christian religion. And this is true of Christians today, especially for us living in Owensboro, Kentucky. In a culture that has been deeply influenced by Christianity for generations, there may not be a whole lot of differences between your life and the lives of your unbelieving neighbors. You may have some pretty good moral neighbors who live right beside you, but are not Christians. Your neighbor may be a faithful husband, loving father, an honest employee, a social conservative fighting against the evils of homosexuality and abortion, and one who always lends a helping hand to someone in need. One of the key differences may be what your lives look like on Sundays. While you're getting into the car to drive to church, he is mowing his lawn. While you're giving God spiritual sacrifices in corporate worship, he is sitting on his couch watching the football game. While you are fellowshipping with the brethren about the things of the Lord, He is hanging out with His buddies, talking about work and sports. While you sup at the Lord's table, He is eating at the sports bar and grill. Your observance of the Lord's Day matters. It shows the world that you're a Christian. For observing the Lord's Day properly, people may look at you like you're an alien from another planet. Maybe that's happened to you. I know it's happened to me. I think Jim Savasio told me that people look at him like he's got two or three heads. But brethren, this is the very thing that identifies you as a follower of Jesus Christ. So it's a badge. Secondly, the Lord's Day tests our sanctification. God tells us that one whole day is to be completely devoted to Him. He tells us to clear our schedules, cancel our appointments, put down the remote, turn back from doing our own pleasure, and leave the day entirely open to Him. Wow. Does this not test our love and commitment and trust in the Lord our God? One whole day. You may be tempted with questions like these. Will God take care of me if I can't work one day a week? What will I miss out on if I have to put down ordinary things once a week? Will I waste a seventh part of my life? What am I going to do all the time I have on Sundays? What will others think of me if I tell them I can't work on that day or do recreational activities on that day? John Calvin, I think, points out where all these questions might come from. Strange and monstrous indeed is the license of our pride. The Lord demands nothing stricter than for us to observe His Sabbath most scrupulously, that is, by resting from our labors. Yet there is nothing that we are more unwilling to do than to bid farewell to our own labors and to give God's works their rightful place." We're full of pride, brethren. We want to do our own thing and go our own way, especially on the Lord's Day. And this tests our sanctification. Jeff Johnson says this, Keeping the Sabbath represents true freedom. The person who is unable to put aside his or her regular labors just one day a week is, by definition, a slave. The inability to lay aside sports and entertainment for a day means you are not free. Those things are your gods before whom you bow. They control you. When you have the ability to set those things aside and do so with delight, to give yourself wholly to the purpose, of the day you have true freedom." It's a good test. Can I really put this thing down? If not, it's probably an idol in my life. If I feel like I have to do it, I must do it, and yet the Lord commands me not to do it, that's a God that we've set up. And we're enslaved to that God. So brethren, instead of viewing the Sabbath as a day of drudgery and sacrifice, saying, look at all the things I have to give up and a burden to get rid of, may we see it as a day of blessing. May we say to ourselves, look at all the things God promises to give me and call it a delight. Remember Jesus' words, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. God has designed the Christian Sabbath to be a means of grace for us to draw us close to Himself, empower us to defeat our enemies, and fill our souls with the good and nourishing words of the Gospel. Truly, it is the market day of the soul. The Puritans used to call the Sabbath day, the market day of the soul. I don't have time to read these quotes from Albert Barnes and Philip Schaff, just talking about how blessed the Lord's Day is not only to ourselves but even to our society. But lastly, the Lord's Day prepares us for the glory to come. This day is also a day designed by God to get us ready for heaven. The ancient Jews supposedly described heaven as the day which is all Sabbath. It is a continuous, eternal Sabbath day. That doesn't mean we will never do any work in heaven, but it does mean we will experience in full the peace, enjoyment, and rest that we only partially receive on the Sabbath day here on earth. Therefore, each Sabbath day in this age functions as a sneak peek of heaven and foretaste of glory. We should live Sabbath day to Sabbath day in anticipation of the eternal Sabbath age to come. Observing the Sabbath will help us stay on track in our pilgrimage. It will remind us that our eternal Sabbath rest has been won by Christ when He defeated death at His resurrection on the first day of the week. Since He has entered into God's eternal rest, so will we. And it will make us long for the day when Jesus returns and brings us as well and all creation with Him into that rest forever. And then lastly, just think about this. Those who find no delight in the Sabbath day now would be absolutely miserable in the Sabbath age to come. Albert Barnes has a very good quote on this. If you don't like it now, if you find no delight in it now, how are you ever going to find delight in glory? You will hate it. It will be hell to you. If you do not find delight in it now, why would you even want to go to heaven? Why would you want to be in the new heavens and new earth when Christ comes again if it's all Sabbath? If you hate the Sabbath day now? Well, to conclude, are you ready for the one long unbroken Sabbath to come? The day which is all Sabbath. The day when you will purely and sinlessly take delight in the Lord, when you will ride on the heights of heaven, and when you will feed on all the blessings in the new heaven and the new earth. then remember the Christian Sabbath day to call it a delight and keep it holy. Amen. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, may you imprint these things upon our hearts and souls. Help us, Lord, to pass the test. Help us, Lord, to prepare our lives for that eternal Sabbath day to come. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
The Lord's Day part 4
Series 1689 Confession of Faith
Sermon ID | 82822146565842 |
Duration | 53:48 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday School |
Bible Text | Isaiah 58:13-14 |
Language | English |
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