Tom Brady Isn't Your Savior and You Will Not Find Rest in Trevor Lawrence - Rev. Benjamin Glaser

“Not only do I believe that God has a right to one dime out of every dollar we receive but I also believe that one day out of seven belongs to Him. There is something special about the Sabbath and the tenth part of your income. They are holy. I’m a strong believer in keeping the Sabbath day different from all the other days. Sunday is a day that is set aside to actively work for God – not to go to bed and rest. On Sundays the wheels of commerce cease and we have opportunity to go and visit the sick and prisoners in jail, as well as friends and neighbors, and to witness to them about Jesus. Sunday is God’s Day.”

You know who wrote that? Oral Roberts.

That’s right, the godfather of the charismatic movement in North America had a higher view of the Sabbath than the majority of conservative, confessional Presbyterians in the PCA and ARP.

That should not be.

It also illustrates how pervasive the view of the Sabbath Day as a day of rest from worldly activities, given by God for worship and Christian fellowship once was in the United States. One could find quotes from Baptists to Mormons to Atheists promoting a day of rest in the past. In fact the last place in our nation that it is still unlawful to engage on commerce on the Lord’s Day is Bergen County, New Jersey. Not exactly the Bible Belt. Though most jurisdictions also have bans on Sunday hunting, limit alcohol sales, and other likely unknown provisions still on the books. All remnants of once ubiquitous regulations of daily life on Sunday. So what happened for the last crumbs of 4th Commandment observance to be found in the western suburbs of New York City? As with most things this began with its abandonment by the people of God. Why should civil authorities worry about the law of God if the men tasked with propagating it and teaching it no longer take the view that the Lord cares about His day?

I for one have regrettably allowed my own , and my household’s, observance of the Sabbath languish in the past several years to my own spiritual hurt, and for that I repent before the Lord and His Church.

But enough negative vibes for a moment. Why does this matter? Why should we concern ourselves over whether or not we spend more time engaged with the nuances of pass interference or the fluid strike zone rather than wrestling with Paul’s doctrine of sanctification and Isaiah’s seraphic presentation of the suffering servant on Sunday? Well, in this brief piece I want to give two reasons as to the pressing need to no longer give rote, and misguided, exceptions on “recreation” and reaffirm our love for the Lord’s Day Sabbath.

1) We are entering into a time of great separation of the chaff from the wheat. The lives Christians lead are going to stand out more and more from the ways of the world. This means that there is going to be great need to give more of ourselves to engaging in the blessed labor of grounding our faith, and the minds of our children, in the things of the Lord. If we do not catechize our children the world will. Our Lord in His mercy has granted unto us a great time and opportunity to do that on His day. Speaking of this J.C. Ryle in his work on the Sabbath has this to say:

The soul has its wants just as much as the mind and body. It is in the midst of a hurrying, bustling world, in which its interests are constantly in danger of being jostled out of sight. To have those interests properly attended to, there must be a special day set apart; there must be a regularly recurring time for examining the state of our souls; there must be a day to test and prove us, whether we are prepared for an eternal heaven. Take away a man’s Sabbath, and his religion soon comes to nothing. As a general rule, there is a regular right of steps down from “no Sabbath” to “no God.”

We see here from our English Anglican brother the need we have to feed, and feast on the meat of Christ and His grace on the day He has set aside. For God has made the Sabbath for man in His love for us. (Exodus 16:9, Mark 2:27). The Creator seeks to sustain His creation in His order of time. Why then do we give more attention to Roger Goodell’s schedule planners when starting our week than what our Redeemer has planned for us on the First Day of His Week?

At the heart of it in my mind is a love for worldly things over heavenly things. A belief that it is easier and more pleasurable to find rest and peace in the things which are passing away than the things which are eternal.

If we cannot give Him a day, let alone a couple of hours, on the day He has set aside by the command and example of His Son what hope do we have to withstand the flood that has already begun to wrest away the conservative Church from its moors? There is some irony to parents seeing the necessity of regular ball practice to nurture their progeny in their abilities as a Shortstop or Quarterback then in the same breath believing that singing about the arky ark and giving half-hearted attention to the pastor bringing the Word in worship will be sufficient to build them up in the faith and allow them to stand strong in the day of trial. We need the Sabbath for our souls and our preparation for Heaven far more than we need to see Baker Mayfield throw an ill-conceived pass that ends up in the hands of Joe Haden.

2) Our God has given this 4th Commandment as a blessing, not a burden. It is a common theme of the Bible, but especially in Paul’s letters that true Christian Liberty and freedom is found not in a release from the law of God, but in obedience to what our Lord has revealed in His word. Jehovah has not placed a yoke upon us in order to be like the capricious gods of the nations, but out of His great love for His people. To quote Southern divine R.L. Dabney on this:

The reader must note that the Bible speaks of the Sabbath not as a ritual burden, laid on the neck of the church because it was in its minority, but as a privilege and a blessing. We are “to call the sabbath a delight, holy to the Lord, and honorable” (Isa. 58:13); “Blessed is the man . . . that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it” (Isa. 56:2); “The sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27); “The Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exod. 20:11). The argument is this: Since the Sabbath is a needed blessing, if God has abrogated the Jewish Sabbath and given to us no Christian Sabbath in place of it, the new dispensation is less blessed than the old. But who can admit this? Did kings and prophets desire to see the less blessed day rather than their own? The new dispensation is always represented in the Bible as more blessed than the old, more crowned with privilege and better furnished with means of grace.

Here we are reminded again of how thankful we should be at the Lord’s thinking of us when He made the creation. But it is even more than that. We testify that the Commandments of God are a revelation of who He is. We learn about the faithfulness of His covenant promises by meditating on the 3rd, 7th, and 9th Commandments. We see and are humbled by His glory in the 1st, 2nd, and 5th commandments. Even more to our point here we testify to His love and provision for our blessing in the 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th commandments. They each in their own way buttress our faith and peace in days of tribulation.

To close there is so much to be gained from abiding by the teaching of Christ when it comes to the Sabbath Day. The prophet Jeremiah says, “Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Art not thou He, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.” To update this for the 21st century is there anything among the vanities of the Carolina Panthers or the Memphis Grizzlies that can give to us what we need on the Lord’s Day? Would we not be better served resting in the blessings of hearing the Word preached, two times a Sunday as was the practice of the Church for centuries, than wondering what sleek immodest dress Carrie Underwood will be wearing tonight?

These are hard questions because we live in hard times. Which way shall we go? What does our heart desire? Let it be said of the Lord’s people as it was by the Apostle Paul to young Timothy that we are found in this way:

“Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.” – 1 Timothy 4:15-16

Oral Roberts, defeater of Buckeyes