Introduction

1. If there is one Commandment neglected by professing Christians today it is the 4^th.

   1. There are some Xians who openly declare that the 4^th Comm. is not for the NT Church. The other nine are, but the 4^th is not. They are 9-Comm. Christians, but just as you cannot have a 4-point Calvinist, so you cannot have a 9-Comm. Christian.

   2. Other Xians imagine that the Sabbath Day is a family day, and only if it is convenient do they worship God on that Day. Such professing Xians will not be found in church on the Lord’s Day but at home, at the shopping center, the beach, the football stadium or even the cinema.

   3. Other Xians imagine that the Sabbath Day is the Sabbath “couple of hours” so that they feel they have done all that is required if they come to one worship service and then they spend the rest of the day doing their own thing. In fact, Roman Catholics have gone one step further, they get Mass out of the way on Saturday evening so that no part of Sunday is spent in the worship of God.

2. While the world despises the Sabbath and much of the church world neglects the 4^th Commandment or even denies it we need to see what the Bible says about the 4^th C.

   1. The world has no time for the Sabbath; much of the church world does not care either, but we cannot afford to neglect the Sabbath Day. It is part of our thankfulness.

   2. We need the Sabbath Day. Without the Sabbath Day, our souls will become parched and dry, and we will become spiritually weak. Without the Sabbath Day, the Church will not survive.

   3. We ought therefore not look on the Sabbath Day with dread and never give our children the impression that it is a dreadfully boring day, when we would rather be doing something else. Instead, we must, as Isaiah explains it, call the Sabbath a delight. Do you call the Sabbath a delight? Consider …

“REMEMBERING THE SABBATH DAY” 

I. The Idea of the Sabbath

II. The Activity of the Sabbath

III. The Delight of the Sabbath

1. THE IDEA

   1. [Rest] The Sabbath is the day of rest. It is called so because on that day God rested from His work of creation which He completed in six days; and because on that day God calls His people to rest in Him (quote the commandment).

      1. God rested. This does not mean that He was tired after six days of creative activity. The idea is that God entered into the enjoyment of what He had made.

         1. At the end of Gen. 1 we read that God surveyed the works of His hands and behold, it was very good.

            1. God delighted in every detail, rejoiced over every tree, bird and flower, because everything was beautiful, exactly as He had purposed it.

            2. And God esp. took pleasure in the crown of His creation, man, Adam and Eve, whom He had created for fellowship with Himself.

         2. Having delighted in, having rejoiced in and having taken pleasure in His creation, God sanctified that 7th Day and blessed it.

            1. To sanctify or to hallow means to set apart for holy use; so God set apart this 7^th Day and dedicated it to Himself. The Sabbath Day was made for God.

            2. But the Sabbath Day was also made for the benefit of man. Jesus says that.

            3. In blessing the 7^th Day, God spoke powerful words of good upon it, and made it a day of blessing for His people. The first full day Adam and Eve spent in the Garden was the 7^th Day, a Day in which they fellowshipped with God.

      2. The 7^th Day, the Sabbath and therefore the 4^th Commandment, which tells us to remember the Sabbath Day, is not a Jewish festival, but a creation ordinance, binding upon all men in all generations.

         1. From the beginning it was God’s good pleasure to give His people one day in seven to worship Him, and to enjoy fellowship with Him with other saints.

            1. The calling of all men, therefore, is to work six days, and to rest for one day.

            2. The godly always had special times in which they worshipped God, and the Comm. at Sinai was simply to remind them of what they already knew.

            3. During their time in Egypt, it became almost impossible to keep the Sabbath (as slaves they were forced to work) so the 4^th Commandment would have been particularly meaningful to them (read Deut. 5:12-15).

         2. If the 4^th Comm. is merely ceremonial, or only for Jews, so are all 10 of them.

            1. The preface to the 10 Commandments is a reminder of God’s redemption of the Jews from Egypt: but that is typical of God’s redemption of us from sin.

            2. The 5^th Commandment, “Honor thy father and mother” promises long life in the land of Canaan; God gave that land to the Jews but the Apostle Paul applies that to NT Gentile Christians in Eph. 6.

            3. There may be typical elements in the 4^th Comm. as the Jews kept it (such as excessive rigor, the death penalty for offenders, etc) but the 4^th Commandment itself has abiding significance.

      3. The Sabbath is typical of the true rest which Jesus Christ gives to us

         1. All of us carry a heavy burden which makes us exhausted. That burden is not physical labor, but sin. Those who feel that burden are called to find rest in Jesus Christ who carried that burden. If you feel that burden, you will thirst for the Sabbath Day of rest.

            1. Jesus calls in Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

            2. Christ gives rest by taking upon Himself the burden of the guilt and shame of our sins, carrying that load the long, lonely and difficult road to the cross and there suffering the wrath of God against our sins.

            3. Then Christ rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and as the Risen Savior applies that rest to His spiritually exhausted people so that they experience the rest of knowing the forgiveness of sins, the peace of the Gospel.

         2. On the Sabbath Day, therefore, God has given us a Day when we can be reminded of that rest, and when we can enter into the enjoyment of that rest.

            1. Throughout the week, beloved, we fight against our spiritual enemies, we come exhausted to the house of God, burdened by guilt, crushed by failure, and the Lord speaks to us, “grace, mercy and peace.”

            2. And then the Lord reminds us thru the preaching of the Gospel that our sins have been paid for, and we know the rest, the peace, the assurance of the Gospel. Our souls have rest.

            3. And all of that is simply a foretaste of the eternal Sabbath: “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors …” (Rev. 14:13).

   2. [The Day] The 4^th Comm. reminds us that God has set apart a day (a whole day) in which we rest and spend the whole day in the private and public worship of God.

      1. The principle is that God has set apart one day in seven for Himself.

         1. What a generous God we serve, beloved. He did not say, “You must set apart six days for Me, and you have work on the other one.” He gives us six whole days in which we may pursue our earthly callings, and claims only one day for Himself. Shall we begrudge Him one?

         2. Of course, every day we serve God – in our work and in our study and in our play we serve Him; it is all for His glory – but the 4^th Comm. is for official, public worship of and service to God.

      2. In the OT, God’s people observed the Sabbath on the 7^th Day, but in the NT, God’s people observe the Sabbath on the 1^st Day of the wk. Sat. to Sun.

         1. None but God has the right to make such a change. But remember that God rules thru Jesus Christ, and Christ said on several occasions (Matt 12:8, Mark 2:28, Luke 6:5) that He is Lord (Master, Owner, Authority) of the Sabbath. And remember too that Christ sent the Apostles with His own divine authority.

         2. Christ indicated that He is Lord of the Sabbath by rising on the 1^st Day of the week, by meeting His disciples after His resurrection on the 1^st Day of the week & by pouring out His HS on the 1^st Day of the week (Jn 20:1, 19, 26; Luke 24:1, 13).

         3. In addition, the practice of the churches set up by the Apostles was for worship on the 1^st Day of the week (Acts 20:6-7; I Cor. 16:2).

2. THE ACTIVITY

   1. Because the Sabbath Day is a Day devoted to God, a Day in which we rest in Him, it is a day in which we cease from our ordinary works, and are active in serving God.

      1. There are activities suitable for the other six days which we are commanded to stop doing on the Sabbath Day.

         1. The 4^th Comm. reads “six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work …”

            1. Today, with modern labor laws, many work only five days. To keep this Commandment we must do our work on the job, in the home, in the garden and our school & university work on Mon-Sat and we must not work Sunday

            2. We must organize our week so that all our work is finished by Sat. evening so that we have that time freed up deliberately so we can spend it with the Lord.

         2. This means that we must not pursue careers or take jobs which require us to work on the Lord’s Day because the Lord’s Day is a special Day of rest.

            1. The slaves in Egypt did not have much choice in the matter, but we do; we have freedom to take jobs (they might not be the jobs we want, they might not be the most convenient or the best paid jobs).

            2. This is difficult today, because more and more employers require Sunday work, but God is our Lord, and we must obey Him and trust Him to provide our needs.

            3. Will this mean that the Christian life is costly? Yes, but did we ever imagine that it would not be costly?

            4. There are three exceptions to not working on the Lord’s Day: first, works of worship, second, works of necessity which cannot wait until the next day; and third, works of mercy in which we do good to others.

         3. Let us briefly give examples of works which are possible for Lord’s Day

            1. A work of worship is the work of minister on the Lord’s Day or the work of the church caretaker who has to prepare the building for the worship services.

            2. A work of necessity is a policeman’s job or a fireman’s job; or making the dinner because on Sunday we have to eat. Do not confuse real necessity with convenience. It is not a work of necessity to finish homework because I neglected to finish it on Saturday; it is not a work of necessity to go to work because the boss wants me to; it is not a work of necessity to go to a football match because I want to or my friend wants me to.

            3. A work of mercy is the work of doing kind deeds on the Lord’s Day: a doctor, a nurse, those who work in nursing homes, or to pull a sheep out of the ditch.

      2. As well as ceasing from work, we are called to cease from our own recreations.

         1. Isaiah 58:13 is God’s explanation of the 4^th Comm.: we do not do our own ways, we do not find our own pleasures, we do not speak our own words.

         2. Every other day of the week we do our own ways, we find our own pleasures, and we speak our own words, but not on Sabbath, not on Lord’s Day, not on Sunday.

         3. For ex., we do not play sports on Lord’s Day, we do not play video games on the Lord’s Day, we do not watch TV or spend hours on Facebook on the Lord’s Day.

         4. That does not mean we cannot go for a walk, or send an e-mail of encouragement to a Christian friend or use the computer to enjoy fellowship over Skype, etc. But the principle is clear. Be wise and apply the principles to yourself.

   2. The ceasing from work and from recreation is not so we can be inactive all day.

      1. That was the great error of the Pharisees. They thought the best way to remember the Sabbath Day was to do nothing.

         1. God is never inactive. Jesus said, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.”

         2. And since God was not inactive on the Sabbath Day, nor was Jesus. He did many of His healing miracles on the Sabbath Day. For Jesus, it was a day of worshiping God and doing good, not a day of doing nothing.

         3. In fact, the Sabbath Day is full of activity: there is simply no time for sleeping in to noon, for watching TV, for playing sports or for doing one’s normal work.

         4. Really, the whole point of clearing our schedule is to make sure we can devote the whole day to the worship of God. When you love someone you will make an effort to be with them. You will not allow other things to get in the way.

      2. The HC reminds us of what the chief activity of the Lord’s Day is: “diligently frequent the house of God.”

         1. The HC has it right – the Lord’s Day is not about families, it is not “me time;” it is God’s time, the whole day is God’s time. And to take God’s time and to use it for our own pleasure is to steal from God.

            1. The “ministry of the Gospel and the schools” refer to the seminaries of the church, the place where ministers are trained to preach God’s word, the Gospel, to God’s church. These must be maintained. That does not mean they are open on Sundays but to keep the 4^th Comm. they must be supported because the church needs ministers.

            2. Ministers preach the Gospel of God’s rest to God’s people, so that God’s people learn and are constantly reminded of God’s mercy in giving us rest from the crushing burden of our sins by the death and resurrection of Christ.

            3. But the Sabbath is not kept unless the people come to hear that Gospel every Lord’s Day, twice every Lord’s Day as often as the Church meets.

         2. Diligently to frequent the house of God means to come often and to come in the right spirit. And we come to do the activities listed in A. 103 (“to hear His Word, to use the sacraments, publicly to call upon the Lord [prayer and singing] and contribute to the relief of the poor”).

            1. We frequent the Lord’s house diligently when we and our children are at both services every Lord’s Day, as often as we can come. Now when there is a baby in the house, that means that sometimes mother and baby cannot come, but that does not mean the husband or other children stay at home!

            2. We frequent the Lord’s house diligently when we make every effort to be in church on Sunday, when we make the same kind of effort we make to be at school Monday-Friday or to be at university for our lectures or to be at time for work. We do not make excuses why we cannot come which we know our teachers and boss would never accept during the week. If we truly want to be here, we will make the effort.

            3. We frequent the Lord’s house diligently when we come eager to hear God’s Word, eager to meet with God, eager to worship God.

3. THE DELIGHT

   1. Perhaps some think of the Lord’s Day and the requirements of the Lord’s Day (no normal work, no normal play, going to church twice) with dismay but Isaiah promises rich blessings to those who consider the Sabbath Day to be a delight.

      1. Isaiah 58 calls us to view the Sabbath as a delight (“if thou … call the Sabbath a delight”). Is that how we view it, or are we like the Jews of Amos 8 who could not wait for the Sabbath to be over so they could do their own works and pleasures or the Jews of Malachi 1 who complained, “Behold, what a weariness is it!”

         1. The Lord did not give us the Sabbath so He could spoil our week or make our life boring.

            1. Sometimes Xians have given that impression: if the Lord’s Day has become simply a day “of don'ts” we have made a great mistake. Some people have memories of Sundays from childhood where strict parents made it miserable.

            2. Parents esp. need to have wisdom here: on the one hand we need to teach our children that Sunday is God’s day, and we need to show them by our example (coming to church and devoting the whole day to God) what that means. And do not expect them to appreciate it unless we lead by example.

            3. But on the other hand, we must remember that our children are children and we do not want them to have horrible memories of Sundays. If all we do is turn off the TV, turn off the computer & lock away their toys, we have failed.

         2. Let us make the day meaningful for the children as well.

            1. When you say to your children, “Today is the Lord’s Day, so we don’t watch TV or play video games today; we don’t play sports today” you need to have some alternatives for them to do. Don’t expect children to sit still all Sunday. Use the day to do activities with the children which will help them worship God. Children will come to love Lord’s Day if parents make that extra effort.

            2. Read Bible stories to them, pray with them, sing with them, help them with their catechism, visit elderly or sick person with them. Go with a walk on Sunday and teach them G’s creation in prep for church. Make them excited to go to church.

            3. Then we will be able to say, “Today is the Lord’s Day. Today is the best day of the week. Today God blesses us thru the POG. Today we can rest. Let’s get ready for church.” How better than having to drag the children to church.

      2. That word “delight” in Isa. 58:13 means an “exquisite delicacy,” something delicious and precious. It is also, says Isaiah, holy and honorable.

         1. Holy means separated from all ordinary things. What we do on the Lord’s Day is the worship of the Holy God, and His worship is not common or ordinary. It’s God’s special time. Nothing interferes with God’s special time.

         2. And honorable means weighty or heavy and important and meaningful. We might be tempted to think that nothing important is happening here and what the world is doing is important. But we would be wrong. Here, where we worship God – even in humble surroundings – is where the most important activity takes place.

         3. But when we say of the Lord’s Day and of God’s Sabbath, “It is just the same as any other day. It does not matter if I am there or not Nothing important is happening. If I go, I’ll miss the football match or the shopping trip or some great programme on TV,” we are denying that it is a delight, holy and honorable.

   2. God serves up rich blessings to those who keep His Sabbath Day holy.

      1. Isaiah 58:13 puts it this way, “Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord.” The HC says, “I yield myself to the Lord, to work by His HS in me, and thus begin in this life the eternal Sabbath.”

         1. To delight in the Lord is to have rich fellowship with God. Of course we shall by keeping the Sabbath. One whole day devoted to the worship of G. One whole day hearing G’s Word. One whole day w/o distractions of world. That must deepen our relationship with the Lord. A relationship needs time and God gives us time.

         2. Besides that, to delight thyself in the Lord is not to delight in sin. Spend every Lord’s Day in the presence of God and with the other saints and we will receive strength to fight sin and we will be encouraged in our Xian walk.

         3. But neglect the Lord’s house and stay away on the Lord’s Day and we must not expect to grow; instead, expect that our love for God will grow cold, and our fight against the flesh and the world will become more difficult.

      2. By keeping the Sabbath, God’s holy, honorable Day of rest, we will experience the beginning of the eternal Sabbath.

         1. That’s the ultimate Sabbath. Heaven! But if we have no interest in the Sabbath here below, why expect to enjoy the eternal Sabbath of heaven?

         2. Isaiah says, “I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth and feed thee with the heritage of thy father Jacob. Quite simply that means spiritual victory and covenant fellowship with God.

         3. And such blessings are served up in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s Day. Let us come diligently and find rest for our souls. Amen.