Okay, who can tell me what we've learned so far from the Westminster Confession looking at scripture about worship? How are we supposed to worship God? As he commands us to. Okay, so are we allowed to be innovative and come up with things that make us feel good and that we get excited about? Okay, we're not allowed to do that. Okay, and remember, what is the great Old Testament example of that that we usually cite from? Nadab and Abihu, okay, who offered unauthorized fire and God struck them dead when they did that. Remember that phrase that we heard over and over again in Leviticus 8, 9, and 10? As the Lord commanded Moses, as the Lord commanded Moses, as the Lord commanded Moses. And then Nadab and Abihu did something which the Lord had not commanded Moses, and then they both get killed for it. So we'll scoot back a little here. Okay, so then we started looking at the elements of worship versus the circumstances of worship. Does anyone remember, what's the difference between those two things? It's a really important distinction that the confession makes, that scripture makes. What are some of the circumstances of worship? Yeah, Michael. Yeah, go ahead. Yes, exactly, exactly. And very often people have a hard time maintaining that distinction. If they're not used to the regulative principle, they'll often come at us. Remember I told you, I actually, I hammered that as hard as I possibly could in the sermon. And right afterwards, the young lady is like, well, you have pulpits and red carpet and that's not in scripture. And I was like. Those are circumstances, not elements. So the elements of worship, those have to be present for it to be Christian worship. So you could have a real worship service in a cave somewhere. You could have a worship service out in a field or in the woods, because you're hiding from persecutors. As long as you have what? What constitutes Christian worship? What are the things that God tells us to do that we know we're supposed to do in worship? Prayer, okay. If you went to a Christian worship service on the Sabbath and nobody prayed, that's a problem, right? Okay, what else? What else has to happen for God to be pleased with it? Reading scripture. You gotta read the Bible and what else? Preaching. Preaching. And what goes along with preaching, which is every bit as much worship as preaching, what else? Teaching. I'm sorry? Teaching. And what is the congregation supposed to do when that's going on? Listening, okay? I mean, you've all heard, have you ever heard people say, yeah, in our church, we get together and we worship for 20 minutes and then we got to sit through a sermon. What do they mean? They mean we sang hymns and praise songs for 20 minutes and then we have this kind of necessary evil. This guy goes up there and talks at us for all this time. But listening to a sermon, listening to scripture as it's read and taught is just as much worship as singing is, right? Okay, so prayer, reading scripture, teaching, listening. What else does God tell us to do that he's pleased with, that we know there's safety there? The sacraments. Okay, baptism, Lord's Supper, anything else? What was that? Giving, for sure. They took up offerings. You see that practiced on the Lord's Day in the New Testament churches. What were we gonna say, Ryan? Did we say singing? Yeah. Actually, no, no, we didn't say singing yet. Yeah. So those are the elements. And that's what after the Westminster Confession goes through the the regulative principle of worship, which is the acceptable way of worshiping God is instituted by God and is limited by what he says so that we're not to add anything to it. We're not allowed to come up with new elements of worship, whether by new revelations or traditions of man or whatever. We're not allowed to do that. Okay, so those are the elements of worship, and the circumstances are, you know, we have pews, not chairs. We have a pulpit, not a stage. We have a building. You know, we worship at a certain time. Those are circumstances, not elements. Okay, so does everyone understand the difference between those two things? Yes, sir? Roger? You don't understand it? Thank you, yeah. We don't have an altar. Okay. Why is that significant, Roger? Would you elaborate on that? Exactly. Yeah. Which is why I'm not a priest. Okay. I'm just a pastor. And when people are like, well, you know, I know I'm going to hell. Can you help me? No. I can't, but I know someone who can. You have a high priest, Jesus Christ, you can go to him, he can help you. God help you if you're dependent on me to forgive you or to do anything. All I can do is declare what the scripture says to you and who Jesus is and what he can do to save you. So... Exactly. Yeah, we remember the one sacrifice that actually did remove all of our sins. We don't have a place where a sacrifice is offered or anything like that. Has anyone here ever studied the Roman Catholic Church's doctrine of the mass and what it teaches and what it is? Some people are nodding their heads. What do we know about that? What is the mass in Catholicism? They really believe that the elements are transubstantiated into Jesus Christ. They say it is Him. And that's why they, when the priest says in Latin, hoc est corpus meum, which is Latin for this is my body, they believe a miracle, an unverifiable, unseeable miracle just took place. And now Jesus Christ is present. The way they put it, body, soul, blood, and divinity. And what does everybody, if you ever see a video or have ever been to a Catholic church, once they do that and they ring a bell, what does the whole congregation do? They all bow. Why? They think Jesus is actually there. Which is why, what do they do with the leftover elements? They what? They worship them. Go into a Catholic church and you can go throughout the week and worship Jesus who is in a little box up there by the altar. Yeah, they keep what's left because they think it would be a sin to dump it down the drain. The thing is, a lot of our little kids here like the little unleavened bread things, and they'll come and ask me, is it okay for me to eat that? And I'm like, yeah, we're not Catholic, go eat it, okay? It's just gonna get thrown out, so it's not like it becomes magic bread or something like that. It's set apart by the words of institution for a holy use, but it doesn't turn it into some superstitious thing, okay? So that's not Christian worship either, so that's really important to remember that. Okay, so those are the things that have to be there for us to have true worship that is pleasing to God, and there's safety in that. If we do what God tells us to do, there's safety there, we don't need to worry. And that's one of the things I've always tried to emphasize when I've taught on this, is one of the things that elders and ministers are supposed to do is you're supposed to protect the consciences of the people there, meaning they should not be wondering, man, should we really be doing that? You know what I mean? Like, wow, should he really have a DVD illustration as a thing? Or should we really have a puppet show as part of the worship service? You shouldn't ever be thinking that. They're doing what's taught in scripture. They're not going to deviate from it. Okay, so if you hold to the Westminster Confession, if you really do believe it, you're not gonna deviate from that. We are required by our vows to hold to that position, to the regulative principle. We're not allowed to add new stuff to worship, okay? Which is why we believe in strict subscription. You're supposed to believe this confession. This is our creed, what we believe scripture teaches. Okay, so now let's talk about the Sabbath day itself and the Lord's day and why we worship on Sundays and not Saturday. So if you have your copy of the confession, look at chapter 21.7. Chapter 21.7. Chapter 21.7. Okay, it says this. as it is the law of nature that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God. So in his word, by 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. Now, does anyone know, what is the word Shabbat in Hebrew, where we get the word Sabbath? What does it mean? Rest, it means to stop or rest. So when God got done creating, it says that he stopped creating. Often we think of rest, when we think of the word rest, what do we typically mean when we rest? Yeah, because we're tired, right? So was God worn out after six days of creating? It just means he stopped. He stopped working. And that's the pattern that we follow. We're supposed to have one whole day that, if at all possible, as long as it's not a work of necessity or mercy, we stop working. Now, what are some vocations that might need to be at least available to work on Sunday? Medical professionals. What was that, Jim? Yeah, we know that by experience. We're glad that hospitals are open on Sundays. OK, right, Paul? Yeah. So one whole day in seven, unless it's a work of necessity or mercy, like it'd be good. You'd need to have like a gas station here or there that would be open. You would need to have maybe a grocery store here and there. But in general, everything should close down, except things that are needed for the good of man and for man's health and things like that. Okay, so the Sabbath day means a day that we stop what we normally do and give our bodies and our souls a rest. Okay, look at the rest of point seven there, 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 in scripture is called the Lord's day. And it's to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath. By the way, everything that I've ever put on YouTube about Sunday being the Sabbath, it's like every Seventh-day Sabbatarian in America leaves a comment on it. Anyone here ever talk to someone who's a hardcore Seventh-day Sabbatarian? Wow, you guys are, we've all talked to the same guy, haven't we? In downtown Kingsport, there's a guy, myself, both of the Dotsons, Neil, did you, Neil's not here. Did your dad talk to him too? I know John O'Rourke talked to him. I talked to him for like two and a half hours. Lily, Lily, are you here? Is Lily here? Oh, she's not here, okay, she's up there. She was there for that. That conversation was so frustrating. Eventually, I just told the guy after two hours, we got to go. And I grabbed Lily, and we're walking away. As we're walking away, I turned around. He was still talking. He was still going. I'm like, conversation's over. Like, see ya. So real hardcore Seventh-day Sabbatarians can be very difficult to deal with. And there's this sense of, you know, we're on the biblical high ground. You show me a Bible verse that says that the day is officially changing from Saturday to Sunday. There's actually a very, very, very easy way of answering that objection. Listen, in the Bible, prior to Exodus 20, Exodus chapter 20, verses eight through 11, what's in that passage? What's Exodus 28 through 11? the fourth commandment, which is seventh day. God worked six days and rested the seventh day. Now, did the world before that know what the Sabbath was? And did the world keep the Sabbath before that? Isn't it a creation ordinance? And I had a question with respect to this, because I'm reading R.C. Sproul's Truth We Confess. Good. It addresses murder with respect to, it is addressed with Noah. Yep. Genesis 9, 6. That's right. So it's a creation ordinance. Yeah. And I'm going to go ahead and throw out my question. I think it's in Hebrews it talks about, or Romans or somewhere about, Even though they did not have the Ten Commandments until Moses and Sinai, death rang from Adam to Moses. And Romans 2, 14, 15, we all have God's law written on our heart. It may not have been in written form. Is this a good time to address that or address that with the law? Well, we did hit that a couple chapters. Chapter 19 is about the law of God. But yeah, they had the laws and ordinances Abraham did, those creation ordinances. And they knew God's laws were on the heart. Everyone has always known it's wrong to steal. It's wrong to murder. It's wrong adultery. It's wrong. And the creation ordinance, you're right. The Sabbath is a creation. Ordinance, just like the death penalties would be a creation ordinance, as in Genesis 9, after the flood is over, he says, anyone who sheds man's blood, by man his blood must be shed, because man's made in the image of God. So marriage is a creation ordinance, it can never be altered or tampered with, so is the Sabbath, it is a creation ordinance. And that really is why all mankind followed it, all the way up to the giving of the 10 commandments, because prior to that, God had never commanded anyone to keep the Sabbath. But notice, what is the first word in that commandment, in the fourth commandment? Remember. In other words, they all knew about it. He's telling them, it's not like when he said, okay, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. None of the Israelites were like, Sabbath, what's that? Never heard of that. No, the whole world kept the Sabbath before that, but God had never commanded it. They followed the divine example. Okay, they followed the divine example. Why do Christians, why have Christians always worshiped on the Lord's day, the first day of the week, And we call it the Lord's Day Sabbath. Why is that? Because it's the divine example, right? When did Christians meet for worship? The first day of the week. When do they take up offerings? First day of the week. When was Jesus risen from the dead? First day of the week. Okay, I have some notes here from my sermon on this subject from years ago. Exodus 20 verse 11 says that God rested on the seventh day, not that he blessed the seventh day. Remember in Genesis chapter two, therefore the Lord blessed the, rested on the seventh day, not that he blessed the seventh day. Okay. And our forefathers in the faith looked at that as just because one day God was going to change the Sabbath day from the seventh to the first day. Okay. From the time of the Protestant Reformation onward, our forefathers saw that as an indication that which day of the week would be the Sabbath would be changed by God eventually, and it was changed. Once again, listen, not with a direct divine command, but by divine example. This is what your Seventh-day Sabbatarian friends will not be able to answer, and I have asked many of them this question. Why did people keep the Sabbath day, the seventh day, prior to Exodus 20? The divine example, right? God works six days, rest of the seventh. All mankind for 2,400 years kept the Sabbath day on the seventh day. No divine commandment to do it, but they follow the divine example. Why do Christians worship on the first day? Divine example, okay? The fourth commandment says, remember the Sabbath day, not remember the seventh day, okay? Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. From creation week until the resurrection of Christ, the Sabbath was the seventh day. Why do we know the first and not the seventh day to be the Sabbath now? Listen carefully. Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, not Saturday. He appeared to his church on the first Sunday after his resurrection, not Saturday. He appeared to his church on the second Sunday after his resurrection, not Saturday. He baptized his church with the Holy Spirit on Sunday, the first day of the Feast of Pentecost, not Saturday. He commanded that the Lord's Supper be celebrated in his church on Sunday, not Saturday. He commanded his church to receive tithes and offerings on Sunday, not Saturday. He appeared to John on the island of Patmos in the book of Revelation on Sunday, not Saturday. Sunday is the day Jesus comes and rests and fellowships with his church. Five times in the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul uses the phrase, when you come together. When did the church come together? Sunday. Okay. There is no reason to think that the Sabbath day is still Saturday. Okay. The divine example and what the scriptures show us, the people of God have always gathered for worship on Sunday, not on Saturday. Okay. All right, 1 Corinthians 16 verse 2. On the first day of the week, let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come. So what day of the week were they supposed to get together and take up offerings? Is he seriously saying, yeah, get together again? after you've gotten together on the Sabbath, which is Saturday, and then take up offerings the next day? Of course not. That was the day that they all got together for worship. So you see how silly this is? It's easy to be like, we're on the moral high ground. We're the few, we're David against Goliath, and you know, misuse of that illustration. We're standing against the monster church, because Constantine made everybody worship on Sundays. Anyone ever heard that? Constantine is blamed for everything, right? Constantine wrote the Bible, Constantine voted on the books of the Bible. Constantine never did anything like that and Christians have been worshiping on Sunday for 300 years when Constantine was born. So very, very important stuff there. So the divine example is what we follow in the absence of direct commands and the entire earth, all mankind did that for a couple thousand years before the giving of the fourth commandment. They all kept the Sabbath day. All rights, with no divine command to do it. So what are you gonna ask if your seventh day sabbath day? You show me a Bible verse that says that God changed the sabbath day. Go look at anything I've ever got on YouTube and look at the comments. Show me where the Bible says this, what are you gonna say? Yeah, that's a good point. Not only the whole sacrificial system, but the day that they gathered was changed too. And there's a lot that hasn't changed with the coming of Christ. What are some things that have not changed with the coming of Christ? We still come together to hear the preaching of the Lord. Okay, that. Salvation is still by justification through faith alone. That's right. Justification is still by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. For us it's that he's already come, but for them it was anticipating his coming. Those are the things that cannot be shaken. Everything else, the outward way of worship, that's all been changed now. There's no temple, there's no tabernacle. We don't need to thankfully travel to Jerusalem to do anything. We can worship God here in America, in Tennessee, in the mountains, okay? All right, very good. Okay, this Sabbath then is kept holy unto the Lord. Look at point number eight there in the confession. This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe a holy rest all the day from their own works, words and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreation, 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. Okay, there's a lot there. How should we prepare for the Sabbath day as much as we can? How should we prepare for it? Pray, okay, pray, pray for the ministry of the word. Pray that the ministry of the word that I would do well or whoever's speaking would do well, that the Sunday school teachers would do well in ministering the word, that the people that hear it would be attentive to it, that the scriptures would affect their hearts and bring about change and that the lost would be saved, should pray. Sure, how else do we prepare for the Sabbath day? Yeah, make sure our work's done. Do as much as you can, you know, in your house as possible so that you don't have to spend the whole day cleaning stuff up and doing stuff. Now, obviously, you're going to have to do some things, right? In fact, I actually read, I read Exodus 12 this morning as part of my morning devotions. And it says, you know, do everything, get all your stuff in order on the day before the Sabbath day. Accept what you need to do preparing food and preparing to eat and things like that. So I used to wonder when I was first introduced to the biblical understanding that you're supposed to rest that day, I'm like, well, isn't brushing my teeth kind of working? And isn't changing diapers, isn't that a work that I shouldn't have to do on Sunday? But those are works of necessity and mercy, right? Necessity and mercy to your child and to yourself, too. So those are the things that we should prepare for Sunday so that we really can give ourselves a rest. Anytime man has tried to alter the work week to make it a different length of days, it's always failed badly. Does anyone know? There's been a couple times people have tried to do that in history. Does anyone know when those? Yeah, during the French Revolution, they not only redid the whole calendar, they tried to get rid of the work week. Every month was three 10-day weeks. You know why they did that? So that nobody would know when it was Sunday. Because they wanted to destroy Christianity. And they knew the key to doing that was getting rid of the Sabbath. You see how important this is, that we know what the Sabbath day is? You know, they had these weird They replaced all the months with these weird names. Germinal and Thermidor and all this goofy wacko. You know who actually put the calendar back to the place it should be? Napoleon Bonaparte. He's like, this is stupid. We're not doing this anymore. This is inane. Plus, if you try to work people nine days and give them the tenth day to rest, what do people do? They wear out. Exactly right. It's like we're like computers that can't be upgraded. You can't replace the hard drive in it. It's like soldered to the motherboard. Okay, we need a day off. And if you work constantly, you just wear out. And I think ancient Rome tried to do five-day weeks. What happened when they did that? That's right. People are lazy as could be. It's just built into us. You got to have a seven day week and everything else. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yes. Working hard is very good for us. It's important for us. It's good for our mental health to do that. It's also something God wants us to glorify Him in and wants us to work hard at our calling and our vocation. We should be the best at everything we do. We should be the best at whatever, no matter what kind of work you do. Just like, always think of, you know, the kinds of things that Daniel and his friends did in Babylon, the kinds of things that Joseph did when he was a slave in Egypt. He took everything he did, all of his duties. It was very clear to everyone around him. Man, this guy, everything he does, he takes seriously. He doesn't see anything that's beneath him. Every task, every chore, he does it well. Right, kids? So when you're asked to clean stuff, you don't go with the minimum. I used to do that. My parents would tell me to clean my room. And I wanted to know, literally, what the absolute minimum was for it to be clean. what counts is clean and that we shouldn't be that way. Alright, I want you to look at Nehemiah 13. I want you to see Nehemiah 13. Here you have Nehemiah. Long ago, when I was still on Facebook years ago, there was a young feller. He was just blasting anyone that thought, you know, we shouldn't do more work than necessary on Sunday. We should try to, like, take the whole day off work and we shouldn't do anything. And he said, anyone that tries to say you can't do this or you can't do that is a legalist. And so I posted this passage about Nehemiah, Nehemiah 13, 15 to 19, and I wrote, Nehemiah, what a legalist. Look at verse 13 there, or excuse me, verse 15. In those days I saw in Judah some who were treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys, as well as wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads. And they brought them into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. So I admonished them on the day they sold food." Okay, so stop there. What were these guys doing? Yeah, that's right. Commerce, business as usual. You know, we're just gonna operate. Everyone around us does. The people that lived around Jerusalem at the time, they didn't care about the Sabbath day. They're ready for business. Hey, we can make money. We can make money for the Lord doing this. So, you know, who knows how they justified it. Look at verse 16. Also, men of Tyre were living there who imported fish and all kinds of merchandise and sold them to the sons of Judah on the Sabbath, even in Jerusalem. Then I reprimanded the nobles of Judah and said to them, what is this evil thing you are doing by profaning the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers do the same so that our God brought on us and on this city all this trouble? Yet you are adding to the wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath day. Okay, so Nehemiah, Nehemiah's not a legalist. He's not being legalistic here. What does the commandment say? When all else fails about the Sabbath, always go back to what it actually says. What does the commandment say in Exodus 20? In it you shall do no work. You nor who? Your son, your daughter, You have the sojourners, your male servant, your maid servant, you know? That's right. Even your ox and your donkey, you can't have them pulling plows on the Sabbath day. Even animals need a day of rest. Now, I don't know if my chickens are rebellious and laying eggs on Sunday, but probably. But they're just, they're all evil. They're evil chickens. Okay, verse 19. It came about that just as it grew dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the door should be shut, and that they should not open them until after the Sabbath. Then I stationed some of my servants at the gates so that no load would enter on the Sabbath day." So what's he doing? That's right. He's got guards down there. The gates aren't opening. You're not coming into Jerusalem to do business in here. Okay, so Israelites, the Jewish people that came back from the exile, isn't that amazing? God shows them all this grace and lets them come back from Babylon, and they're doing the very same things. Very same things that got them exiled in the first place. We all do that, don't we? We struggle with the same sins and the same old stuff. They're really not that different from us. Look at verse 20. Once or twice, the traders and merchants of every kind of merchandise spent the night outside Jerusalem. So, okay, stop there. So he's got the gate shut and guarded. So what are they doing now? They're camping outside of Jerusalem. So Nehemiah can tell, you know, their heart's not in it. They're not doing anything on Sunday, but they would if I wasn't forcing this. So look at verse 21. Then I warned them and said to them, why do you spend the night in front of the wall? If you do so again, I will use force against you. Some of your translations say, I will lay hands on you. Okay, that's lay hands on, not to pray. In other words, I will remove you myself. That's one thing. Does anyone know what was the real difference between Ezra and Nehemiah in terms of their diplomacy? When Ezra got mad, he pulled out his own hair. What did Nehemiah do when he got mad? He pulled out other people's hair. Nehemiah got in fights. He got in fist fights with people over this stuff. So I like him. I mean, that's probably not a good thing if you're a pugilist and always wanting to fight people. But seriously, you've got to love this guy's passion. He was real serious about doing what was in his power to promote that other people would be godly. Okay, I will use force again. I will lay hands on you from that time on they did not come on the Sabbath So they knew he was serious Okay at verse 22 and I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come as gatekeepers to sanctify the Sabbath day For this also remember me. Oh my god and have compassion on me according to the greatness of your loving-kindness In that quote, I love how all the way through Nehemiah. He's constantly throwing up these prayers and He would do something else that would get him in trouble, make him even more disliked by everybody. Remember me, Lord, I'm trying. I'm trying to promote righteousness, even though everybody hates me for it. Okay, so he had a real hard go of things, but he knew Israel's past, and he knew that they had been bad like this before, and that's what had gotten them in so much trouble. And so it really distressed him that they were doing this again. Okay, so there's Nehemiah. And of course, then what happens in the next passage? You see the heading over verse 23. What'd they start doing there? Yeah, they started marrying pagans again. And that's when he actually physically attacks people because their children could not speak the language of Israel. And he was very upset about that. What did God tell the people of Israel when they went into the promised land not to do? What did he tell them? Yeah, do not marry them. Why? That's right. The Holy See cannot marry with the pagan unbelief. People are like, that's so terrible. You guys are so self-righteous. God knows if you compromise your values and your convictions for things like that, you yourself, their idolatrous ways are going to infect you. Your righteousness is not going to affect them. What's contagious, health or sickness? sickness so whenever all the kids in the church are sick we don't say we'll take them over to someone's house is healthy maybe their health will rub off on them okay we can't be that way when it comes to righteousness and how we live our lives you can't be unequally yoked with a non-believer and not affect you okay so Nehemiah Nehemiah definitely understood that yes today to discount these Old Testament references to the Sabbath, and we've even had people, Christians, say to us, well, Jesus is our rest, which they're freeing themselves from the obedience to the Fourth Commandment, which is a whole nother discussion, because then we get to get rid of the rest of the commandments. But here, when we say this to the New Testament, when we bring out the Nehemiah, I think I know, but why is it that so many of the New Testament Christians have decided to take that one commandment and alter it and don't see that, well, then you must do the same with the rest of the commandment. Why has the church done that? I mean, is it just simply convenience? Just lifestyle choices or? Good question. I think dispensationalism is a part of it, having no use for the Old Testament at all. Yeah, and I see that. I definitely hear them talking as if the Old Testament at all, but how do they not see that you must get rid of the rest of the commandments? It's a blatant inconsistency, and I don't know where they're justifying it. Yeah, they can't justify it. You can't go to a text and justify it. But I think that we can, when people say things like that, we should go to places like Matthew 5, 17 through 20. Remember what that passage says from the Sermon on the Mount? What did Jesus say? That not one jot or tittle will pass away until all is confirmed or all is fulfilled. If you're going to say the Sabbath has been done away with, you better have a pretty devastating proof text or series of texts to prove that. Well Jesus specifically said he's Lord of the Sabbath. I'm sorry? They say that Christ is the Sabbath rest. So there's no set day. And they use that passage in Corinthians. And I say they because I used to be one of these people. that says there's no holy days, that's obviously a misinterpretation, but it's very much preached in that way. Yeah, that's a category error. Christ is our rest or Christ is our salvation. It's through believing the gospel that we come into a position of rest to say that he... To say that Paul has reiterated all the other commandments in the indicatives in the epistles, but not that one, that one. Well, neither is the prohibition against bestiality, but we all know that that's still... That's right. If God doesn't abrogate it, you've got to hold to it. Yes, sir? That's why studying the Confessions and the Catechisms is so vital. Because a lot of those different denominations, their fundamental belief that happened was the founder of those groups. I was part of the Church of Christ for a couple of years. The founder of it, I'm pretty sure, was a Presbyterian minister that hated the catechisms. So their whole thing is there is no queen but the Bible, or whatever. It's just they're running away from doctrine. So then they could deceive their congregants into believing whatever they want. Because if you don't have a written, written down doctrinal, systematic way of going through all this stuff, and entire scriptural, it just is too confusing to the layman that is spending, you know, 40 to 60 hours of the week in the labor or the vocation that they have been called to do by God, instead of in the Lord, and they're trying to trust somebody that their vocation is to go through the Bible and do that. And that's why teachers get a stricter judgment, because there's a transfer of credibility to you. If you are going to teach something, you better be able to demonstrate it from Scripture. And the thing is, you have no obligation to believe anything I say, unless I show it to you from the Bible. But yes, Ryan. A lot of the issue is that most of these people treat the Fourth Commandment as ceremonial. Yeah. That's the big issue. That and, as you said, the rise of dispensationalism. There is this view that New Testament Christians followed Jesus Christ, whereas the Old Testament followed the Old Testament law. But there's a real, if taken to its conclusion, that's a Trinitarian heresy. Because you're saying that the Old Testament law is not the law of Christ. It is. There's one God. Yeah, for sure. Yes sir, Luke. Wouldn't saying that, wouldn't the argument necessitate that saints in the Old Testament were saved in a different manner than they do? What, what argument? That Jesus is our rest. Oh. That's absolutely what he's saying. If you, I mean, the New Testament explicitly says Jesus is our righteousness. Okay, so I don't need to keep any of the commandments now. Right, right. And I agree with that, but wouldn't someone who is saying Jesus is my rest, therefore I don't have to rest on the Sabbath, wouldn't that also, by necessity, they would have to believe that saints in the Old Testament didn't rest in Christ? Yeah, that they didn't actually believe the gospel. That was the way, it was like a revelation to me to understand that the Old Testament saints were saved by grace through death. Because it was not taught that way. And the thing is, the death knell to all forms of dispensationalism, if you have that in your background, Romans chapter 4, you cannot believe Romans 4 is true and be a dispensationalist. You can't. Because how was Abraham justified? by faith alone. That's before the law. And David. David was also justified by faith alone. When does he come in relationship to the law? After it. And Paul says, and it was not for their sake only, but for ours as well, to whom it shall be imputed, who believe in Jesus Christ. So everyone that was ever saved was saved in exactly the same way. And it's not a different rule of righteousness either. It's the same exact laws. The same laws that condemn. That's right. We are the true Jews. We are the true Israel of God. That's right. Yeah, exactly the same way. That's right, with the animal skins prefiguring the death of Jesus and the covering of righteousness. Yeah, and by the way the statement no creed but Christ or no book with the Bible is a creed itself It's just a really short one. Okay, and we have a much longer one But but the thing is one of the reasons that what I always tell people if they're not used to you know The Westminster standards. I mean, that's a long very detailed doctrinal statement it's really it's humble to look at that because we believe that Jesus has been sanctifying his church all these centuries and Many battles against false doctrine have been fought and won by our forefathers. And if we don't learn from those victories, we would be fools. You know, John Calvin says, you know, you could start over with the Bible all by yourself, but you're probably just going to reinvent every heresy that's ever been taught in church history. He said, we have to look at the church. We have to look at the victories that have been won. In fact, one of the best commentaries that I've ever purchased on the Westminster Confession was by a Scottish Presbyterian named David Dixon. It's called Truth's Victory Over Error. And he goes through every line of the confession that's addressing an ancient heresy. It's unbelievable how much, like every other sentence of the confession, of course they're all run-on sentences, but every other statement of the confession is addressing some battle that took place in the 400s, the 500s, the 600s, the 1400s, 1500s, okay? So they were aware of that. We would be fools not to benefit from that work. So, okay, very good. All right, Yesim. the crisis or Sabbath rest, then they don't understand how crisis or Sabbath rest from keeping the works of the law to be justified. He kept the works of the law so that we could be justified through his death, burial, and resurrection on the cross. The thing is, I can't even unpack what that means. Christ is our rest. Meaning what? He fulfilled that one commandment for us so we don't need to worry about it? What about the prohibition against idolatry? Did he fulfill that one? Or is that still on me? Yeah. It's also incoherent It's one of the worst things ever. It is, it is. It's evil, it's evil. But yeah, the fact that those offerings in the Old Testament had to be offered over and over and over again, that demonstrated it didn't take away sin. Which is why, how many offerings did Christ make? One, okay. So the repetitiousness of the offering demonstrated its imperfection. Hebrews chapter 10 explicitly says that. For the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, i.e. the sacrifice of Christ, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? But when Christ offers himself, it does cease to be offered. And where there's forgiveness, there is no offering for sin. That's why my suffering has no bearing on my salvation. That's why all the whole medieval thing of beating yourself up and sleeping in the cold and all the self-torture has no effect at all, no value to it whatsoever. Our salvation is entirely wrapped up in the offering of the one Savior on Calvary. Yes, sir, Jim. That's right. And that's why in the parable of the sheep and the goats, come you, blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom. And then he says, for I was hungry, you gave me something to eat. And the last thing he says is, enter into your rest. So we haven't entered into it yet. All right. Very good discussion. Let's go ahead and close it here. Father we bless your name and praise you for. on the Sabbath day. What a blessing. And thank you for giving us scripture so we know what to do. We know what is pleasing to you. And we have great confidence that as we enjoy our worship of you and do what you ask of us, that you are pleased by it. And we pray that our hearts will be built up and edified through the ministry of the word, that you would be blessed through it by our worship. And we pray that we give this whole day over to the public and private exercises of worship, except the works of necessity and mercy. We ask in Jesus's name. Amen.