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November 10, 2021 3:00 am
People think of the idea of the Sabbath rest is somehow old-fashioned or obsolete God's law was given to Moses thousands of years ago and life has changed dramatically since then.
Does it still matter that we set aside one day a week. Our study in the 10 Commandments continues peers. Alistair Begged to tell us more.
Today on Truth for Life. We ought to serve the Lord every day the Lord every moment of every day. The way in which we do our work on to be a service to the Lord. But the fact is that even when we acknowledge that it in no way said society.
The distinctive almonds of this fourth commandment isolating this one day in seven and possessing it with distinction which God has her name, John Murray, late John Murray, Prof. Westminster theological seminary says to obliterate the difference between one day and the other six to obliterate the difference may appear pious, but it was high all city not is not piety to be wiser than God is in the piety of the darkest human the Sabbath day is different from every other day and to obliterate this distinction in thought or practice is to destroy what is the essence of the institution so that unless you and I be convinced that God has distinguished this day for all of time and I because he has distinguished it in this way, we must live within the framework of what is laid down, then any attempts at keeping the Sabbath day will simply be as a result either of legalistic externalism or as a result of a kind of time honored tradition or as a result of the reinforcement of what is become customary for now. I grew up as a child in Scotland in exactly that position, and all children must furtively ask a child with her.
They like the idea of a different day on the Lord's day, the answer is no, I do not.
So we wouldn't ask.
We would tell this is the framework and any child unredeemed unregenerate is going to buck the system. Sound like this and I don't like this day and I don't want to do this and I don't want to worship.
I certainly don't want to do it twice and I'm not going I don't like the Sunday school.
I'm sick and tired of the whole operation is fine honey, I heard I've been there. Now let's go. Let's just continue just as we said we were doing were on our way now unless the day dawns when God by his spirit redeems that child and in the heart of that child what to that point has been simply the observance of custom and it now becomes the conviction of their tiny life. Then from that day, everything changes because once they have become convinced, once the ownership of the principal in their own lives. Then they no longer do things simply as a result of constraint, but they do them.
As a result of an internal conviction now is true is that is of children. It is true of us all, and that is why many of us continue to buck the ideal of the Lord's day because it is a conviction about its distinction, which creates relevance to its observance and since we have never come to a conviction about his distinction anytime anyone suggests to us that this is what may comprise the Lord's day, our answer is, who do they think they are to tell me what I want to do with my time. It's not your time, and it's not my time every breath I breathe is a gift from God and he is in charge of my time and he created time and so that in the way that he intended intends that the utilization of time shall bear testimony to the distinction of his creative handiwork, and shall bear testimony to the fact that we are his covenant children. You see the same thing is true of any commandment, if you take the commandment. For example, in relationship to adultery.
If you and I are only going to keep the commandment regarding adultery on the basis of its pragmatic usefulness. Wiser, good idea. You know you get yourself in a lot of trouble, but not as a result of his rightness as a result of divine authority not as a result of an internal conviction, then we are left to the winds of circumstance to blow, then within the situation and somebody says why not.
And since the commandment is simply kind of practical accretion for us and is not an internal conviction for then the smell of the perfume or the heat of the evening on the drive of the passion may be enough to take us right in the totals because we never internalize the command. God's law had never been written upon our hearts and we had never said I do like to do your will.
We never settle this issue. I am the Lord your God.
You shall do this we have never bowed there.
We had never internalize its truth so as soon as the circumstances went against us.
We were swept into chaos. That is exactly I put it to you what is happening with the Lord's day in the continental United States and in the Western world at large.
We have vast numbers of people who have never become convinced of the distinction of the day. They have no internal conviction about the date about his abiding relevance. And so when somebody says why don't we do this, why don't we go there. Why don't we do whatever it is, why not because after all, the only lingering notion that we have any abiding relevance of the command is that it is something to do with not lighting fires and not writing your bicycle are not doing a bunch of stuff that we've picked up from somewhere along the line, but we don't of any notion of. So if I can express it as clearly as possible. Observance observance of the Lord's Sabbath quickly becomes obsolete if it does not spring from the sense of sanctity generated and nourished by the fact that God set apart this day for our there is not irksome's not a punishment itself phenomenal, liberating privilege until we understand the distinction and apply it. We will internalize any expressions of it as either anachronisms or quirks of human personality. I may be part of the personalization always tell the young people.
This never studied on a Sunday never studied myself in difficulty sometimes is a result of it, but I never studied all through school and study rooms.
Why because I thought that to my foreman hit me on the head if I did, why because I thought that if I didn't study on Sunday that I do will press the library there's a whole what a pious person bag is they knew I was a pious person, why didn't I do it because I had a conviction that God had hit on something really good with this one day.
In seventh and furthermore it was right and so I just didn't study what a man was that I could worship. I can eat fellowship. I did have the time of my life on the Lord's day. First, I determined the distinction of the day and then the application for that's the first element in the sanctifying of the Lord's day. It is assented part it is a making a difference of one day from the rest.
God distinguish one day from the rest, he distinguished himself by what he did what he did. The second element to it is and it's just the other side of the coin that keeping it holy makes clear to us that the difference which God is deemed in this day is a difference of a specific kind. The day is not simply a base set apart from other days, but it is a day set apart to the Lord. So the keeping the Sabbath is not in it for 20. The key to the Lord's day is now just waking up and lying your babble about 11 o'clock or 12:30 and say what is a day of rest.
Therefore, I must not see this work is why when we have only services for goodness sake is mostly damn rice tell me about it, which you don't understand what I this is the rest which garners her day is a racist form labor and are rest to the day of rest is a day which has a positive die mentioned and focused towards the Lord our God is not simply From our everyday routine, but it is For the Lord is arrest of another kind of activity rest from the ordinary activities of the other six days. Why because we might be released into the worship and contemplation of the glory of God. That's why now the fact that some people don't do this and don't do that and don't do the next think because they're a bunch of legalists that's their problem. But the fact of the matter remains that if we would remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Distinguish it from all the other days I would do so by distinguishing it by exercising our hearts in the religious exercises of worship and study of prayer and of piety and of acts of mercy and of kindness, and so on. I recognize I can disassociate myself from this that I have the benefit of a Scottish heritage. Amazing benefits in relationship to the danger though is that you go it's cultural. He's just coming off with a bunch of stuff from across the sea.
That's why you have to think it out together.
But I was brought up to understand this.
That's why we visited old ladies in the hospital on Sunday afternoons. Why because it was her green D's see that's why the Pharisees tried to tie Jesus up a notch with a man with a shriveled hand to show the price he say you want to healing today your break the Sabbath Jesus. He said you guys on what you're talking you can come up with all these external rigmarole. He said if you are sheep and fell in a ditch and get it out on the Sabbath they'll look shamefacedly at each other because of course they would send you crazy Rascals, look at this man here do not think a man with a shriveled hand is more important to God. The one your sheet lying in a ditch since the guy stretch forth your hand stretches or was he doing. Setting aside the Sabbath setting the Sabbath aside from the ridiculous accretions of the forest. All the little bits and pieces that the danger is you see that is setting aside any intrusions of Pharisaism we actually do is we throw the baby out with the bathwater were left as so many of us, frankly, are to this point in our lives.
With only nine Commandments. So the principal stated is such that we might enjoy the privilege of God's presence study of God's word, the fellowship of God's people on interrupted by both employment and leisure, which draws from us devotion to Christ in a singular way on other days. But here's the thing's business strategy like something you would want to spend the whole day is where without her newspaper CNN and without recreation answers no, I don't like the sound to know what you don't like the sound of you don't like the sound of what is going to be to be in the presence of Christ will return.
Six of us going to a cabin on the link we go away because we love one another, were glad of one another's company were there for two half days, and suddenly somebody at noontime says something interesting.
Never turn the TV you know what's happening in the never-ending newspaper called the office.
You know I never called to check on my wife because the context of fellowship and law, and enjoyment slogans of the system whenever our experience of worship is sold in our notion of the Lord's day is so disintegrated source to conceive of it in such a way that we believe that religious exercises are supposed to get over and done with. As they possibly can so that we make won't get on with the day and we stand condemned before the fourth wheel action to be getting down on our knees thanking God for the privilege of being brought under the or influence should that is determined on the basis of the holy Scriptures that we will get an opportunity along the Lord's for all the things that the Lord's name was intended for worship for prayer for study for fellowship for holy contemplation and that it does not appeal to us says more about the low level of our spiritual than it does about the forthcoming makes it clear that God has provided this day to worship undisturbed by personal business or pleasure, and the question is what should we welcome so much as a day of worship and service to God on interrupted by the routine in the rush. The scramble of work and recreation.
That's the principal stated, let let me just give you a flavor that again either falls into the realm of anachronism or falls into the round of something to which we might approach this is a description by a guy whose name was Donald McDonald.
He was the minister of Gray Friar St., Church of Scotland in Inverness for many years and died in 1970, addressing the issue of the Lord's day and how it might be profitably shared.
He says I shall cherish the memory of it.
As long as I live Sabbath in my native island of Lewis my boyhood days. This is his experience as he grows up as a child in the 80s. Let us allow geography to put his off 10 Commandments don't apply any better in the remote parts of the Western miles than the apply in the heart of the continental United States. He says that the Sabbath day was prepared for on Saturday evening.
All the household work was finished earlier than usual tomorrows meals as far as that was possible were prepared in by 10 PM.
The family gathered."
The book was taken Scottish Highland home to this day. If you are there for a meal close to the whole man one point towards the end of the evening say, shall retake the book. You may be forgiven for thinking that is fed into the Sears catalog led the Yellow Pages or something but he and so he says the book was taken, however late with their household work. Some might be on other nights necessity.
There would not be One Life in 100 to be seen at 12 Sabbath itself began with family worship, public worship began usually at 12 noon. Hundreds of people made their way to the house of God. The only way to get there was by walking yet almost everyone I was able to go attend although many live several miles evening worship was at 6 o'clock and again everyone who could go. Is there particularly impressive was the complete silence the field throughout the day. The stroke of work done was no noise of car parked between church services.
Nolan was seen outside his own house except those who like to take their capital to drink. She anyone be seen going up or down the main road.
People would come to their door stress one another if he knew who it was being absolutely certain he was going for medical aid for some ill person or to deliver an origin message inside the house. No books were read the Bible and religious books. All other books were put away on Saturday night conversation about worldly things was not about frequently, relatives and friends who had a long distance to walk to the church, came into my parents home between services and their conversation was always of a religious kind is a rule to discuss points made by the preacher in the morning service. This was the way the Lord's name was observed as I remember that he says of course was in a country place. Unhappily, it is now impossible to get a quiet Sabbath similar to that which I described whatever we go Sabbath desecration is penetrated to the most isolated home Sunday newspapers, radio, television, and pleasure loving tourists of left no corner, however remote and touch.
Yet, in spite of all of this, it is possible for believers to enjoy the blessing of God in his day and now I shall explain how they can obtain when we return we will try and tackle in this very different geography. The practical applications of the observant forthcoming Alastair Raygun Truth for Life. Alastair returns in just a minute to close today's program with prayer so please keep listening. Our mission here at Truth for Life is to teach the whole Bible, even the hard parts. We believe that God's word is unchanging and without error. It has the power to transform the hearts and minds of those who hear it's truth.
That's why we teach the Bible verse by verse every day so unbelievers will become faithful followers and believers will grow in their relationship with Jesus.
When you donate to. Truthfully, that's the mission you're supporting your giving helps listeners across the US and around the world come to saving faith and then grow deeper in their faith. When you give today we want to invite you to request a copy of Alistair's book titled pathway to freedom how God's laws guide our lives.
It's the companion book to our current series that will help you gain a better understanding of God's commandments. When you read the book you will be able to consider each commandment. One of the time at your own pace so that you can more fully grasp the scope of God's instructions and how they relate to your life and you learn why obeying the 10 Commandments, and loving God, go hand in hand. Request your copy of the book pathway to freedom@truthforlife.org/donate or call 888-588-7884 now hears Alastair to close with prayer God and our father.
Now we realize why the Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God as we gaze into the mirror of your law and see ourselves. We know we need a Savior. And I pray today that you will convict and convince of sin in the life's of some that others are less who, by our disregard for your law. Live life's pragmatically pleasing ourselves that you will catch us, you will consume us with your grace and your goodness, you will create within us convictions so that we are not suffering under external rules nor routine customs nor buffeted by the expressions of the culture of our day remind us that we are a holy nation chosen people. People belonging to God that we might declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light) word upon our hearts. We pray that we might live in may grace and RCMP's father-son abiding portion of all who believe.
Today and forever about pain.
The fourth commandment compels us to be intentional about one day of each week.
What would happen if we applied that principle our society today. Find out if you listen tomorrow Bible teaching of Alastair Greg is furnished by Truth for Life Learning is for Living