When I went to the Word of Life Bible Institute in New York, I volunteered to work in the kitchen at the Inn and they had an interesting chef there, who later became the head of all food services and his name was Glen. Glen was not only a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America where some of the best chefs are trained but he also had a degree in micro-biology and he played the French horn. He was extremely multi-talented individual. One of the things that really intrigued me about Glen was that he always carried a little note book in his shirt pocket and whenever anybody said anything he thought was interesting, funny, worth thinking about or completely absurd; he’d take out his little book and he’d write it down. I actually made his book five times in one day and he said that was a record.
Well, I also began collecting what I considered to be good advice. I don’t always use it, I just collect it. And here are a few of what I consider to be some of the gems that I’ve found.
1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, either. "JUST LEAVE ME ALONE !"
2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tire.
3. Its always darkest just before the dawn. So if you’re going to steal your neighbor’s paper, that’s the best time to do it.
4. Always remember you are unique; just like everyone else and it may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning for others.
5. When in charge, ponder. When in trouble, delegate. When in doubt, mumble.
6. If you think no one cares if you live or die, just try missing a couple car payments.
7. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes and that way; when you do criticize them, you’ll be a mile away...and you’ll also have their shoes.
9. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, remember, it was probably worth the $20.
10. Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
11. The fastest way to double your money is to fold it in half and stick it in your pocket.
12. There are two theories on how to win an argument with your wife – and neither one works.
13. Always remember, five out of four people have trouble with fractions. 14. Experience is what you get, when you didn’t get what you wanted.
15. Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.
16. The toughest years of life are between the ages of 7 and 92.
17. Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person; is like expecting a bull not to charge because you’re a vegetarian.
18. There comes a time when you should stop expecting people to make a big deal out of your birthday. And that’s when you’re eleven.
19. Always remember that you’re unique; just like everyone else.
20. And finally, always remember to buckle up. It makes it harder for the aliens to snatch you from your car.
“And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 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. 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.”
I’ve heard that the definition of a good sermon is: “It should have a good beginning and a good ending but they should be as close together as possible.” So, I’ll try to do my best.
Let me begin with a little recap of what we’ve already covered for those of you who were absent and for those of us who may be absent minded.
The first commandment tells us we are to worship God and God alone. In other words, we are not to have any divided loyalty in our hearts but we’re to be committed to God; body, soul and spirit.
The second commandment deals with how we’re to worship God and our worship is to come from our hearts and not just from our heads. So, we don’t need a liturgy to follow or any religious objects to focus on and we don’t even have to be in any kind of religious building. It’s like Jesus said to the woman at the well, “There’s coming a time when you won’t worship here on this mountain or in Jerusalem but those who worship the Father will worship Him in spirit and in truth.” So, our worship is to come from our hearts and it’s to be according to the word of God.
The third commandment deals with the goal of our worship and our goal is to glorify God, and that means; we will not take His name in vain or as I said last week, we will not use His name in any frivolous or off-handed way because His name is who He is.
Let’s say, I hit my finger with a hammer and I got mad and started yelling, “Tom, Tom, Tom!” Well, you might think that was funny but if your name was Tom, you wouldn’t think it was funny at all. Well, guess what? Neither does Jesus; because what we’re doing is expressing our anger toward Him.
Then the fourth commandment is probably the most difficult of the ten because the issue of the Sabbath was a point of controversy in Jesus’ day and to some degree it still continues today. There’s the issue of whether or not Christians need to keep the Sabbath since it was associated with Israel and not the church and then there’s also the whole matter of the Lord’s Day in the New Testament and whether or not it was to be observed as a Christian Sabbath.
There are several different views on the subject and they’re all based on either cultural or generational differences and there are even those who teach that every day is the Lord’s Day and that means that Sunday is no different than any other day of the week.
I may not answer all of the questions you might have but I hope to give you some background information on the origin and purpose of both the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day and to show how both have been corrupted by Jews and Christians alike and then hopefully give some scriptural principles that we can apply when it comes to the Lord’s Day.
I So, first, let’s look at the Sabbath.
The keeping of the Sabbath wasn’t just given by God as a commandment but He communicated the need for us to observe the Sabbath by His example, when He created the world. When we study the creation account in Genesis it says God created for six days and then He rested or He stopped creating on the seventh.
Now, why did He do that? Was He tired? No, of course not, Psalm 121 tells us God never slumbers nor sleeps. So, God didn’t need to take a rest but He gave Himself as an example for us to follow because He knows that we all need a break, once a week. You see, this is one of the many reasons I believe in a literal, six day creation. God could have created this world in six minutes or He could have taken six billion years if He wanted to, because He’s God but He chose to do it in six days and the reason He did this was because He wanted His work of creation to be the model for us to follow in the way we live our lives.
As we study Genesis we see Cain and Abel coming to God at a set time of worship when they brought their sacrifices and many commentators assume that the day they came was the Sabbath because they certainly acted as though they had come to worship.
And then in Exodus 16 when God provided Israel with the manna; they were told to gather enough on the sixth day so they wouldn’t have to go out and gather any on the Sabbath. So, even prior to the giving of the Ten Commandments God was saying that the purpose of the Sabbath was to give everyone a day for rest and worship.
So, before the law was given as well as after, the Old Testament believers had several reasons to keep the Sabbath and the main one was; it was to be an act of obedience because this would be a test of whether or not they were willing to be obedient to God. And if they were, God promised them certain blessings and if they refused, He warned them He would afflict them with specific punishments.
We also understand that the Sabbath was given for man’s benefit because as Jesus said in the gospels, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” So, God created us with a need to take a break from our routine and even the sociologists tell us that reasonably spaced work breaks increase productivity; after forty hours of work concentration drops, mistakes increase and morale suffers.
When we lived in Oshawa many of our neighbors worked at GM and they’d tell us, “Never buy a car that was made on a Friday because on Friday everybody is tired and nobody cares about quality.”
The Sabbath was also to be a time of individual and corporate worship. It was a time for everyone to get their eyes off the physical world and to get themselves focused on the eternal. It was a specific time where each of them would have a ministry toward one another and enjoy fellowship with those who shared their faith. It was to be a time to enjoy conversations that were uplifting and be exposed to the truth rather than the usual barrage of garbage that came from the world around them. And it was a time to be reminded; to love their families, to do good works and to have the proper goals and desires. And it was also a time of encouragement for those who lived in a very discouraging world.
And then we see; that the Sabbath was a covenant symbol for the Jewish people. They were to be different from the world around them and keeping the Sabbath was the evidence that they were. And basically, by doing this; they were saying, their devotion to God was more important than their business or anything else because this day was set aside for Him.
So, does the idea of a Sabbath sound good? Well, there were plenty of benefits but there were also a few verses that told them what they couldn’t do on the Sabbath.
In Exodus 16:29, “And the Lord said to Moses, remain every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day." In other words, everybody stay home. In Exodus 16:23, here’s the second thing you couldn’t do. "This is what the Lord meant: tomorrow is the Sabbath observance, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning." So, you couldn’t leave your house and you couldn’t cook anything on the Sabbath. And then Exodus 20:10 says, "On the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God; and in it you shall do not any work; you or your son or your daughter, or your male servant, your female servant, your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you." In other words, neither you, anybody in your family or anyone who works for you was supposed to do any kind of work. Exodus 35 says in Verses 1 and 3: "These things are the things the Lord has commanded you to do: you shall not kindle a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day." I guess it makes sense because if you couldn’t cook then what was the sense in making a fire. It also says in Jeremiah 17:27: "If you do not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load and coming in through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day." So, you weren’t allowed to carry anything anywhere. And then Nehemiah 10 says: "As for the people of the land who bring wares or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or a holy day." In other words, there was no business of any kind to be done on the Sabbath.
So you couldn’t leave the house, you couldn’t cook anything, you couldn’t do any work, you couldn’t build a fire, you couldn’t carry anything anywhere, you couldn’t buy or sell anything and you couldn’t go out to eat because if you did, you’d be making someone else work.
So what would you do? You would: "Remember the Sabbath day; to keep it holy." First, you avoided any kind of sin or causing anyone else to sin. Second, you were to rest and Exodus 31 tells them to "completely rest." And then third, you were to celebrate the fact that God has made a covenant with you; which meant you were to spend the day thanking God He has given you a holy and righteous standard to live by. And Isaiah 58:14 told them when they kept the Sabbath: "Then you will take delight in the Lord."
We also know that the Sabbath happened according to Leviticus 24:32, "from evening until evening" and that’s why the Jewish Sabbath went from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Did you know that even today, orthodox Jews have a timer to turn their lights on, on the Sabbath, so they won’t have to flick the switch; and in Jewish buildings, every elevator stops at every floor on the Sabbath and that way, no one has to push a button.
But; what was the sense in giving rules if there were no consequences if you disobeyed them? Well; if you violated the Sabbath, there were several scriptures that said you were to be put to death.
For instance, in Numbers 15:32-36, “And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. And the LORD said unto Moses, the man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses.”
So, there were times in the Bible when God made death the punishment for some people’s sin to make sure that everyone else knew how serious He was and is, about sin. We also see this in the book of Acts where God took the life of Ananias and Sapphira who claimed they given all they got from the sale of their property and God killed them for lying.
I’m sure when God dealt with the man for picking up sticks and then with those two for lying; those who witnessed these events not only had a healthy fear of God but they also had a whole new motivation to be obedient.
Listen, if God killed every one who took His name in vain; our streets would be riddled with dead bodies. If He took the life of everyone who worked unnecessarily on the Sabbath; the world itself would be a graveyard. And if He killed everyone who acted like they were the financial backbone of the ministry I’m sure we’d lose a lot of loose change in the offering.
So, why did God do these things? I think He did them to show us how serious He is about His word. That’s why I said He called these laws the Ten Commandments rather than the ten suggestions or the ten recommendations. They were given to be obeyed.
Human nature being what it is; man said he was willing to be obedient but it had to be on his terms. And the problem became; the keeping of the Sabbath became the focus of the Jew’s attention rather than the Lord who was supposed to be honored by their keeping it.
I remember reading about a terrible tragedy that happened in Chicago a number of years ago. These people were having a Christening party for their new baby and when all the guests came in; they threw their coats on the bed. And after a while, someone asked, “Where’s the baby?” And to everyone’s horror; the baby had been smothered to death under the guest’s coats. The purpose of the party had been neglected for the party itself. And that’s what the Jews had done with the Sabbath.
You see, their obedience to their interpretation of the commandments became more important than their obedience to God Himself. And since the law had forbidden them to work on the Sabbath they determined they weren’t going to offend God and they set out to define the word work. And they came up with what was known as ‘the fathers of work’ and these were classifications of work that were broken down and defined. Now, listen, there were hundreds of pages describing what work was but I’ll just give you a few examples of what they said.
For instance, a person was forbidden to carry a burden on the Sabbath; so, they asked, what exactly is a burden? And they decided that a person could pick up their child on the Sabbath but not if he were carrying a stone. After all, if you could justify carrying a stone because your child had it in his hand then the next thing you know you’d be hiring a bricklayer on the Sabbath because he was your brother-in-law.
And then, to make sure that no one misunderstood the point or used an example as a loophole they decided to define what a stone was. And a stone they decided; was any rock that exceeded the weight of two dried figs. So, while they were busy measuring the weight of any stone some one might carry, they forgot what the intention of the law was.
And then there were restrictions for traveling on a Sabbath. And they said a person could go no further than three thousand feet from their house. But, he could extend this by taking a chair or some object of furniture to the end of the three thousand feet, the day before the Sabbath; and then; he could claim that part of his house was there. Or, he could even carry a ball of string that was attached to his house and that allowed him to travel three thousand feet beyond the end of the string. And again, by doing this they forgot why they were even doing it.
They also had rules about healing on the Sabbath. They said a person could do something to stop a medical crisis from getting worse but they couldn’t do anything that would promote healing. For instance, you could put a bandage on a cut but you couldn’t put any medication on the bandage because that might cause it to heal and that would be considered work. So, just like that baby who was suffocated under the coats these guys were burying the law with all their rules.
Let me give you an idea of how absurd this became. Imagine if you will, that we were having coffee at the end of this service and eventually everyone went home with the exception of Les, Dolly and myself; and I thought I’d get one more cup of coffee before I left but as I was walking away from the coffee pot I tripped and spilt my coffee on the floor. So, Dolly said, “Don’t worry about it; I’ve got a few other things to do and I’ll clean it up before I leave. So, I put my coat on and left, she cleaned up the coffee and she put a little sign in front of the wet spot that said, “Don’t step here.” And then she and Les went home.
The next morning Elwin came to the church for something and as he walked in; he saw the sign that read, “Don’t step here” he didn’t know about the coffee I spilt or that Dolly had cleaned it up; but all he saw was the sign and he wondered what it was going on. And then he thought to himself, “Whatever it is, that’s not a very big sign.” So, he went down the basement and found a few of those red plastic cones you see on the road and he put them around the spot with some yellow caution tape around them and then he did what he had to do and he left.
Later in the day, the pastor came in to get something and he saw Elwin’s set up and he wondered, “What’s that all about” and he thought to himself, “Well, there’s nothing inside that square, so, maybe something fell from the ceiling but when he looked he couldn’t see anything but he thought; well, something else might fall. So, he stretched out the cones and he had a tarp in the trunk of his car so, he put that over the top of everything and left.
And then later that evening Deven walked in and wondered what was going on and he thought; “Whatever it is, I better put up a bigger sign so people won’t get too close and he made a big red one with exclamation points that said, “Danger!”
Well, the next morning was Tuesday and as the men came for the prayer meeting; they saw the sign, the tape, the cones and everything else and they decided they had better hold the prayer meeting at Tim Horton’s because it looked as though; there something really awful going on.
Now, as absurd as that sounds, that’s exactly what happened with the law. These Jewish people who were told to keep the law and they weren’t as much trying to disobey it as they were looking for every way possible to get away with not being guilty if they didn’t keep it.
Now, don’t get the idea that they were just playing games to avoid being obedient because they were very serious about the law. In 1 Maccabees which is a record of Jewish history; there’s a story about Antiochus Epiphanes who had attacked Jerusalem on the Sabbath and because it was the Sabbath all the Jews died without fighting; because they didn’t want to offend God. And then when Pompey was trying to take Jerusalem, his people built a siege mound on the Sabbath and there was no interference from any of the Jews because they said God was more important than their own lives.
Josephus the Jewish historian said, “The gentiles couldn’t believe the stupid beliefs of the Jews.” You see; a law that was meant to set them aside as people who worshipped God made them look like they were totally insane when they perverted the law.
They were so pre-occupied with the concept of the Sabbath that they forgot to do the one thing the day was set aside for; and that was to worship God. The Sabbath wasn’t just the absence of work but there had to be the presence of worship.
It’s just like coming to church; if all you do is come here and feel like you’re putting in your time by being bored for God then you missed the point completely. We are to come to worship and learn; and if you haven’t done either; then you might as well have stayed home. (I’m always reluctant to say something like that because next week there’ll be no one here, and I’ll really look stupid.) But, as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Well, someone said, "My sermons are like chickens with their heads cut off; as soon as you think the sermon is done, it just jumps back up and runs off in another direction!" So, let me go from the subject of the Sabbath to the Lord’s Day.
And we’ve certainly seen some changes in the last twenty or thirty years. I didn’t come from a Christian family but it was understood that there were certain things you couldn’t do on a Sunday. For instance, you didn’t play any kind of sports. You couldn’t go shopping because there was nothing opened and not only were the stores closed on Sunday but some even covered their windows so you couldn’t shop in your mind on Sunday. As a matter of fact, there weren’t even any gas stations opened and if you wanted to drive anywhere you either got gas on Saturday or you stayed home. For the non-Christian Sunday was the most boring day of the week. They had nothing to do but things have certainly changed.
II So, where did the concept of worshipping on Sunday begin? First, I should mention that the term “Sunday” was borrowed from the Romans and they had borrowed it from the Egyptians and it was a day that was dedicated to the sun which they worshipped as a god. And that’s why the church has always referred to it as the Lord’s Day.
Well, after Jesus’ resurrection something difficult to explain began to happen because the church started to observe Sunday instead of Saturday as their holy day and the purpose of this was to mark the day of the resurrection.
The early church began by observing the Sabbath but we see a pattern slowly emerging in the pages of the New Testament. In Acts 15 the Sabbath wasn’t even mentioned in the list of things the gentiles were told to observe and then in Acts 20 the Christians of Troas met on the first day of the week to break bread. (And remember that the first day of the week is Sunday not Monday.) And then in 1 Corinthians 16 the believers took up the offering for the poor on the first day of the week and in Revelation 1:10 John said, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” and all these things began happening on Sunday without explanation.
In the letter to Barnabus, one of the uninspired writings of the first century, it says, “The old Sabbath celebrated creation but the new Sabbath celebrates the resurrection.” So, rather than working for six days and then going to worship; the emphasis became, you worship first and then allowed your worship to dictate the quality of your work.
We realize that not everybody jumped on the bandwagon at the same time; because there were different views among different groups. The one thing that probably slowed the change was the fact that many of the believers were poor and some of them were even slaves and everybody had to work on Sunday.
There wasn’t universal acceptance of Sunday worship until 321 A.D. when Emperor Constantine passed an act forbidding any work to be done in the cities on the Lord’s Day. The only exception he made was for the farmer’s, so their crops wouldn’t be spoiled. It was never clear why he established this law; some thought it was religious conviction while others assumed he did it out of economic necessity. You see, they had problems with multi-culturalism back then even as we do today.
If you were to go shopping in Jerusalem today, you’ll find the Moslem shops are closed on Friday, the Jewish ones on Saturday and the Christians on Sunday. So, there are really only four full business days a week in Jerusalem. My brother-in-law Joe works in Dubai and he goes to a Christian church that meets on Friday which is the normal day off for that part of the world because most of the population are Muslim.
When it came to bizarre rules about the Lord’s Day some Christians managed to come up with some really strange things though out history. For instance, in 1656 the Puritans passed laws that forbid, “All vain and profane walking on the Sabbath.” In 1842 the first people to take the train on a Sunday were met at the station by a group of clergy that told them they were on the train to hell. And then in 1847 there were Irish families who were dying of consumption and starvation but the church ruled that the soup kitchens wouldn’t be opened for fear they might offend the Lord.
There have always been those who were associated with the church that had a strange attitude toward Sunday. I read a page from John Wesley’s journal and it described a few of his Sundays at various churches and he wrote; “Sunday a.m. May 5 I preached in St. Ann’s and was asked not to come back any more. Sunday p.m. May 5 I preached at St. John’s and the deacons said, "Get out and stay out." Sunday a.m. on May 12, I preached at St. Jude’s and I can’t go back there either. Sunday p.m. on May 12, I preached at St. George’s; kicked out again. On Sunday a.m. May 19, I preached at St. Somebody Else’s and the deacons called a special meeting and said I couldn’t return. Sunday p.m. May 19, I preached on the street and was kicked off the street. Sunday a.m. May 26, I preached in a meadow but was chased out when a bull was turned loose during the service. Sunday a.m. June 2, I preached at the edge of town but was kicked off the highway. Sunday p.m. June 2, in the afternoon service, I preached in a pasture and 10,000 people came.” God’s blessings came when God was ready.
So, why did Christians choose to worship God on Sunday? First, the Lord finished His work; conquered death, hell and the grave and then He rose again on Sunday. And then it was on a Sunday that the Lord first appeared to His disciples following the resurrection. And then the Holy Spirit also descended on a Sunday and that was the day of Pentecost. So, it wasn’t Christians but God who chose Sunday to be the day set aside for worship and service.
So, the purpose of the Lord’s Day is to worship. And if we spend our time in worship there are certain things we won’t have time to do but we also have to remember this doesn’t give us the right to draw up a list of rules or impose our standards on everyone else. God doesn’t tell us what we can or can’t do but we do have some indication from the examples of the early church of what we ought to do. And as they gathered together they set out to accomplish five things.
The first one was to study the scriptures. As Peter tells us; the Bible is not to subject to private interpretation meaning we aren’t to stay home and decide for ourselves what it means but we have the responsibility to come together to hear the preaching and teaching of the word.
And then the second reason they got together was to pray. And it was a time of both individual and corporate prayer where you could pray for others and have them pray for you. That’s why we remind ourselves of the missionaries who are serving around the world, announce who’s in the hospital and what needs they might have and then mention any special needs someone else might be going through. After all, all these are prayer concerns and not just community announcements.
And then the third reason they came together was for fellowship. And it’s hard for us to understand this but being a member of the early church meant for the first time many of them experienced a world where there were no social barriers. I mean, there could be Romans and Jews worshipping together, or slaves might be called to preach and those who owned them might sit and enjoy the message and afterwards everybody would sit and eat at the same table. We don’t understand this but people who were divided by money, positions, race or gender but in the church they were one.
And then the fourth reason they came together was to sing, and music has always been an important part of fellowship. Ephesians 5:19 says that those who are filled with the Spirit sing. And when we sing, there are several things that happen. Our focus is on the One we’re singing to; after all, we’re not performing but we’re communicating our love and appreciation for who He is. And then second, we’re also reminded of many precious truths that are revealed in the word of God because there are some things that come through music that our logical mind might miss altogether.
I remember when I first went to a Baptist church and they sang a chorus, “Something beautiful, something good; All my confusion He understood. All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife, And He made something beautiful of my life.”
Listen, I wrote that down and sang that song all day long at work the following week. You see, the music we enjoy on Sunday can minister to our hearts long after we’ve left the service.
And then the fifth reason they came together was for a time of recommitment. Pliney, who was the governor of Bithynia, tells of a pledge the believers took. Each week they would take an oath not to commit any wicked deeds such as fraud, theft, adultery or breaking any trust the following week. And by doing this they were holding one another accountable by promising God and each other that they wouldn’t bring shame to the name of Christ in the week to come.
Listen, it was important for the early church to meet together on Sunday and it’s just as important for us today. Sunday is the Lord’s Day and by claiming one day out of seven God is telling us that all of our time belongs to Him. And how we use this one day tells the rest of the world who we are and what we’re all about.
