dian Babies are born out of wedlock, and the Sunday Sabbath has almost been forgotten by both pagans and Christians. That bodes extremely ill for us for as Williams S. Plumer put it “There is no example of any commu- nity, large or small, ancient or mod- ern, continuing virtuous or happy for a considerable time, if they slighted either marriage of the Sabbath-day.” A little while ago, one of the mem- bers of our church had the disap- pointing experience of not getting a job that had seemed like a sure thing. - tion, she worked for another branch of the same company, and she had an excellent work record. The manager of the location even told her she was the only candidate he was consider- ing. Everything went well until she told him that while she was willing to work any other day of the week, she could not work on the Lord’s Day as this went against her sincerely held religious convictions. At that point, she was told that this was non- negotiable, that the store was open on Sunday (and no, they don’t sell necessities like medicine), and that all employees had to take their turn working on Sunday. He even pointed out that he was also a Christian and that working on Sunday didn’t both- er him and that he was not willing to make an exception.
Her experience has become in-
creasingly common, Sunday is go- ing from being the Lord’s Day to just another day for work and recreation, and that change rather than being resisted by Christians (and even Pas- tors) is being encouraged. But have we ever stopped to ask ourselves what the long-term effects of this change will be? Today it is mostly re- tail and food service workers whom we cause to work on Sundays by go- ing out for meals or going shopping, but gradually the trend is beginning to affect other businesses as well. We seldom stop to consider when the person providing us with our Sunday
6
after-service brunch is going to go to worship, but will we be quite as indifferent to that question when most businesses are open on Sunday? I would guess that in a couple of decades, the Lord’s Day just might be something as alien to our culture as it is to Islamic nations, and we will have returned to precisely the kind of bondage God delivered Israel from. We will have forfeited the blessing and placed a heavy yoke on our shoulders. Plumer has said rightly “Just in proportion as churches decline in the practice and power of godliness, become unsound in doctrine, licentious in life, and lax in discipline, wedded to human inventions, and heedless of the law of God in other respects, in the same proportion do they lightly esteem the Sabbath of the Lord. No Sabbath, no church, is the rule laid down in scripture. It is a correct rule. Without that holy day, all true religion would soon vanish from the earth.” Does it surprise us that as we have abandoned God’s revelation we have abandoned the day when we gather together to hear it read and preached? Brothers and Sisters, we have been freed from bondage to sin and idolatry by
devil and return to a crushing slavery of work, work, work, play, play, play, and never rest and worship. Know that the devil WANTS you so busy you never even think of CHRIST and his work. Don’t let that happen in your life brothers and sisters! Remembering the Christian Sabbath is not just a commandment it is a priceless gift! Robert Mur- ray M’cheyne described it this way:
It is also the type of heaven. When a believer lays aside his pen or loom, brushes aside his worldly cares, leaving them behind him with his weekday clothes, and comes up to the house of God, it is like the morning of the resurrection, the day when we shall come out of great tribulation into the presence of God and the Lamb. When he sits under the preached Word, and hears the voice of the shepherd leading and feeding his soul, it reminds him of the day when the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shal1 feed him and lead him to living fountains of waters. When he joins in the psalm of praise, it reminds him of the day when his hands shall strike the harp of God—
Where congregations never break up, And Sabbaths have no end.
When he retires, and meets with God in secret in his closet, or, like Isaac, in some favorite spot near his dwelling, it reminds him of the day when “he shall be a pillar in the house of our God, and go no more out.”
This is the reason we love the Lord’s Day. This is the reason we “call the Sabbath a delight.” A well–spent Sabbath we feel to be a day of heaven upon earth.
Shouldn’t we have the same kind of view of the Sabbath as M’cheyne had? Let us therefore heed the wise advice of Bible commentator Matthew Henry: “If we call the sabbath a delight, then shall we delight ourselves in the Lord; he will
more and more manifest himself to us as the delightful subject of our thoughts and medi- tations and the delightful object of our best affections. Note, The more pleasure we take - ness, we shall go from it with satisfaction and shall have reason to say, “It is good to be here, good to draw near to God.”
Rev. Andy Webb is the pastor of Providence ARP Church in Fayetteville, NC. The Associate Reformed Presbyterian
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
