Number Four

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8-11

This is a loaded commandment encompassing many related aspects of our lives. This is the longest of the commandments and the only one urging us to “remember”. The imperative to remember implies that it is possible to forget this day. God has asked us to “Remember the Sabbath day” informing us that there is only one. Then it goes on to describe this day so that we may be able to successfully identify “the day”.

The narrative of the command them shifts to bring us the description of this day. We are instructed to do all our work for six days. Then on the seventh day we are to rest because it is our Lord’s Sabbath. If the God of this commandment is my ruler, commander and Lord then I’ll keep His Sabbath Holy. Then the passage goes on to list all who are not to work making it expressly clear that as His servants we nor anyone nor anything under our power is to work on this day.

Finally, the commandment lets us know why. God will always tell us why. God created this earth in six days (Genesis 1). After His six days of creation He carved out one more twenty-four-hour period in which He did no more work. He blessed that period of time and He declared the day to be holy. Because of who God is He wants to share this time with us. So He asked us to remember this time, forget all our labours and cares, on that day, and spend the time with Him.

With that breakdown of the fourth how do we remember this day? Well on the basic front all work is to stop, if you are employed you don’t go to work on this day, and if you are a student you put away the books on this day. If that is where it ended this would be the easiest commandment to keep – you just don’t do anything. But there is more, a state of mind is involved. We are to keep the day “holy”. But as sinful beings we lack the capacity to do so. This is where we must learn to submit ourselves to God that He will give us the ability to keep the day Holy (1 Peter 1:16).

As a professed Sabbath-keeper, fellowshipping with other professed Sabbath-keepers, I have found that though we have identified the seventh-day and are committed to the seventh-day that we are notorious for trampling on the seventh-day Sabbath. Jesus declared that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day (Matthew 12:12). And with that instruction we seem to have opted to all our good works on the Sabbath only. With that the Sabbath then ceases to be a day of rest and by the end we are tired and the Sabbath is no longer a blessing to us but a day burdened by “good deeds”. We ought not ignore someone in need on this day, but we ought not plan to do every good deed, we neglected during the week, on the Sabbath day either. We have six days to do all our work and that is not limited to self-serving work but includes Christ serving work as well. Every day we are to have joy in doing the things of God and all we do should be done to His glory (Psalms 1:2; 1 Corinthians 10:31; Romans 7:22).

Another major shortcoming we have, regarding the Sabbath, is how we view it. Some of us have come to regard the Sabbath as a day of amusement and selfish pleasure. In Isaiah we learn that God did not design the Sabbath for this purpose (Isaiah 58:13, 14). We are not to turn the day into a self-gratifying pleasure seeking day. For those of us who limit or activity on the Sabbath day and find ourselves, as we ought, in church (Leviticus 23:3) there is another subtle plague. We participate in the planned service then we come together in fellowship and start talking. And our conversation may begin innocently on the sermon we just heard and then drift to all the things that are happening at work, in the news, and in the lives of the people around us. None of it is said to bring glory to God. As Bible believing commandment keeping people we need to ever vigilant about how we treat God’s holy day.

This commandment is of particular importance as we come to the end of the world. This commandment declares who God is, the reason for His claim of authority, and His dominion. The fact that the vast majority of the God’s creation has been made to forget His day will be of particular importance as we proceed to the culmination of this earth’s final struggle. Therefore, as Sabbath-keepers it has never been more vital for us to be intentional in how we fulfill this command.

In Love  

Number Three

“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7)

This is another commandment that people tend to gloss over. Most relegate it to not using bad language or using God’s names simple to express exclamation. While these are accurate it goes beyond that. To probe this, we must have a functioning definition of the word ‘vain’. The book of Ecclesiastes expounds greatly all the things that are vanity but today I will choose Merriam’s and Webster’s definition. For our purposes the dictionary defines vain as an adjective denoting something as “having no real value”, “marked by futility or ineffectualness” or “foolish, silly”. Apply these definitions to Solomon’s plight in Ecclesiastes and we understand why he is described as being depressed. But that’s a topic for another day. Today we are looking at the commandment.

Working with these definitions of the word vain let’s see how that would or could apply to our daily use of God’s name. We know God as many names: Jehovah, Jesus, Holy Spirit, The Almighty, Alpha & Omega, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, etc. I could go one and on. My favorite, because I think it encompasses all is attributes is, “I AM”. How do we use God’s name every day? The two major ways we are expected to use God’s is in prayer and in how we identify ourselves. We pray to God the Father in Jesus’ name (Matthew 6:9-13). We identify ourselves as Christians – followers of Christ (Acts 11:26).

Now how could we possibly take God’s name in vain by praying? Jesus gave us instructions on how to pray, we ask of the Father and we call on His name as our reason for asking. But are there other instructions on how we should pray? One major flaw in the way we pray is highlighted in Mark 11:24. Jesus said: “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” When we pray do we genuinely believe that God will fulfill our request? Or do we doubt and go out and do things in our own strength? Another point in this passage ‘whatsoever things we desire’ does this mean that if I desire something detrimental to myself that God will give it to me? As was said in the previous post, God will not contradict Himself. So what desires are these that we should be requesting of Him? Psalms 37:4, 5 instructs us to ‘take delight in God and commit all we do to Him and He will give us the desires of our hearts and bring us success’. Therefore, when we pray in opposition to God’s will or if we pray and don’t believe that He will supply we take His name in vain because we then render Him ‘ineffectual’.

We live in this world and classify ourselves as Christians – followers of Christ – but do we genuinely know what this name entails. To be a follower of Christ means that we live our lives the way He did. He is the pattern by which we make our choices. What would this look like? Well as previously stated Jesus came to this earth to be our example. The example He left was that He kept His Father’s commandments and He admonished us to do the same having love for each other despite the response we would surely receive (John 15:10-27). But in this world people carry the name Christian but choose to blend in with God’s enemies in the name of ‘peace’. For centuries, albeit millennia, God’s people have fallen prey to this deceptive desire for peace. Living in opposition to the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 16:11) and our propensity to sin will result in strife (Matthew 10:34). However, God’s people, because of a desire to fit in (1 Samuel 8:5) and bring ‘peace’ through human means, have repeatedly caused us to give in to actions that are not of God misrepresenting His Name. By this, rendering His Name as “having no real value”, or “foolish”.

The bible tells us that a good name is rather to be chosen than gold or riches and we also learn that God’s name alone is excellent (Proverbs 22:1; Psalms 148:13). God responds when His name is called by His people (Genesis 4:9-12; Exodus 6:5; Judges 3:9; Revelation 6:9, 10). The things God speaks will be accomplished (Isaiah 55:11) because His excellent name is being challenged in this life. We are to respect His name because the power that is behind it is far beyond anything we can imagine.

Love