God’s Perfect Ten
A Different Kind of Day
Exodus 20:8-11
We are returning tonight to our study of the 10 Commandments, “God’s Perfect Ten”. We’ve covered the first three, and tonight we look at the fourth. And you will remember, the first four deal with our relationship with God.
The first commandment, “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other Gods before me” tells us who to worship.
The next three commandments tell us how to worship. The second tells us that substitute images are forbidden. The third instructs us on how to handle the name of God, and today we have the fourth which tells us when to worship.
There are four things I want us see about this commandment.
First of all,
1. The Period
When the Bible says “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”, which day is it talking about? Well the text tells us. IF we keep reading, we are told that we are to work six days and rest on the seventh. That means, as far as the Jewish Sabbath was concerned, that day was Saturday.
But, right off the bat, we have a conflict, because we are Sunday-go-to-meeting kind of people, not Sabbath people. As New Testament Christians we do not worship on the seventh day, we worship on the first day.
Why do we do it that way? Because we are not Jews, we are Christians. The seventh day is given to the Jew and is Old Testament. The first day is the Lord's Day and is Christian. And the seventh day Sabbath was given to Israel and to Israel alone.
Remember, the Old Testament law was originally given to the Jews and was intended for their societal well-being. It contained societal law, ceremonial law and moral law. As New Testament Christians we are not bound to their societal and ceremonial law. There are lessons to be learned from it and principles that we discover there, but we don’t go to the Old Testament Jewish law to find out how to conduct ourselves in society.
Where do we go? We go to the New Testament, and there we find none of the societal law, none of the ceremonial law and only nine of the ten moral laws that are given in the Ten Commandments. Guess which one is missing?
The Sabbath observance was given exclusively to the Jews.
Exodus 31:12
Notice to whom the Lord is speaking. He's speaking to the children of Israel.
Verses 13-14
That’s quite an eye-opening message to New Testament believers and churches who want to stress the observance of the Sabbath.
Lay that one on your Seventh-Day Adventist friends the next time they want to argue about going to church on Saturday!
You break the Sabbath, you die! That means if you traveled over a Sabbath day's journey which most of you did in order to get to church, you gotta die!
Verses 15-17
And put a star by verse seventeen. God says to Israel, “This is just between you and me, therefore the Sabbath is Jewish in character and we, as New Testament Christians do not keep the seventh day, we keep the first day.
Now, why is this? Someone says what right do we have to change the day of worship? We have no right whatever, but if God who is the Lord of the Sabbath has deemed to do so, then he has every right to do whatever He wants to.
Now, let me show you why we as New Testament Christians, worship upon the first day of the week. We don’t have time to spend a lot of time here, so I’ll just give you a list of facts and supporting Scriptures and you can look them up for yourself. We’ll list them on the big screen for you.
First, Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, praise his holy name, upon the first day of the week. Mark 16:9
Second, Jesus Christ first met with his disciples on the first day of the week. Mark 16:11
Third, on the eighth day after his resurrection upon the first day of the week, Jesus met with his disciples again, eight days later. That shows consistency. John 20:19-20
Fourth, it was on the first day of the week Jesus Christ gave the Holy Spirit, John 20:22
Fifth, upon the first day of the week, Jesus gave the great commission, John 20:21
Sixth, the ascension took place on that same day, John 20:21
Seventh, Acts 2 tells us Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit upon the church on the day of Pentecost which was the first day of the week.
Eighth, Biblical revelation was completed on the first day of the week according to Revelation 1:10 where John says, “I was in the spirit on the Lord's Day”. By the way, that phrase, “The Lord’s Day”, is never used to refer to the Sabbath.
Ninth, the early church met for worship upon the first day of the week, Acts 20:6-7
Offerings and collections were taken and received for the work of the Lord and the comfort of the saints upon the first day of the week, 1 Corinthians 16:2
So you can see that there has been a glorious transition from the Jewish Old Testament seventh-day Sabbath day to the Christian New Testament Sunday Lord's Day.
And besides the Scriptural background for Sunday worship, there are some amazing contrasts between the two. For instance,
the Old Testament Sabbath was at the end of the week and it celebrated and commemorated the finished work of creation.
In contrast, the Lord's Day is at the first of the week and it commemorates the finished work of redemption.
The Sabbath day, the seventh day, commemorated the beginning of natural life, life in Adam.
In contrast, the Lord's Day celebrates the beginning of supernatural life, life in Christ.
The Sabbath day celebrated the work of God's hand in creation where He created the Heavens and the earth, whereas the first day, Sunday, the Lord’s Day celebrates the work of God's heart where he sent his son as atonement for our sins.
The Old Testament Sabbath was a celebration of God's power. The New Testament Lord's Day is a display of God's grace.
The Sabbath was given to Israel; the Lord's Day is given to the church.
The two are unique and different and separate and that is by God’s design. It is a part of the old passing away and all things becoming new.
And anyone who teaches we should live by keeping the seventh day is living on the wrong side of Calvary and their Sabbath ritual is a slap in the face to the resurrection of our Lord and Savior.
I'm so grateful for the Lord Jesus Christ who has given us a new and a living day, not a legal day, but a loving day, the first day of the week.
Now just in case somebody thinks I'm taking liberty with the word of God, I want you to see the company I’m keeping.
Colossians 2:13-14
Did you hear what Paul says? He talks about the death of Christ wiping away the handwriting of requirements that were against us. What is that talking about?
That is the Old Testament ceremonial law which was impossible to keep. Christ took it out of the way and nailed it to the cross.
Verses 15-17
That Old Testament Jewish Sabbath was a shadow. We learned a little about shadows Wednesday night in our Hebrews study. A shadow has no reality apart from the real. The Sabbath day was a shadow of something to come and thank God, He has come and his name is Jesus and when He comes the old passes away and we celebrate a wonderful new day.
So the period of the Sabbath used to be the last day of the week, but for us, it is the first day of the week, the Lord's day.
Now, the second thing I want you to notice is
2. The Principle
Now having said what I’ve said about the old passing away, I want to be quick to add that this commandment teaches us some great eternal principles.
The first principle is the principle of work.
Exodus 20:9
See, that’s a command. Many people do not realize that at the same time the Lord commanded a day of rest, He also established the principle of work.
The same Bible that commands us to rest is the same Bible that commands us to work. In fact, the Bible teaches that the man or the woman who will not work is not worthy to live. And obviously we're not talking about people who cannot work. We're talking about those who are able, well-bodied and able who refuse to work. I know that is not a popular message with the soft-headed liberals who are in charge of the government programs.
But the Bible says in Second Thessalonians 3:10 if a man will not work neither should he eat. And it is a sin to continue to feed a person who refuses to work.
If he gets hungry enough he'll start working. People say, well, people don't want to work today. They will if they get hungry enough.
You say, “That's hard hearted”. No, that's Bible.
God says we are to work six days out of a week, and if we don’t work, we don’t eat. If a man will not work, neither should he eat.
As a country, we’ve gone insane. You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating workers out of it. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it and the government cannot give to anybody without first of all taking away from others.
What one man receives without working for, another man must work for without receiving and nothing will kill the moral or the initiative of our country anymore than for a people to get the idea that half of them need not work because the other half will feed them and for the other half to get the idea that it does no good to work since somebody else receives the reward of their labor.
Maybe you’ve heard about the little red hen who scratched about in the barnyard until she discovered some grains of wheat. She called her neighbors and said if we plant this wheat we shall have bread to | eat. Who will help me plant it? Not I said the cow. Not I said the duck, nor I said the pig, not I said the goose. Then I will said the little red hen and she did. The wheat grew tall and ripened into golden grain.
Who will help me reap my wheat asked the little red hen? Not I said the duck, out of my classification said the pig, I'd lose my seniority said the cow. I'd lose my unemployment compensation said the goose. “Then I will”, said the little red hen and she did.
At last came time to bake the bread. Who will help me to bake the bread asked the little red hen? Oh, that would be overtime for me said the cow. I'd lose my welfare benefits said the duck. I'm a dropout and never learned how said the pig. If I'm to be the only helper, that's the discrimination said the goose. Then I will said the little red hen.
She baked five loaves and held them up for her neighbors to see. They all wanted some and in fact, demanded a share, but the little red hen said no, I can eat the five loaves myself. Excess profits cried the cow, capitalistic leech screamed the duck. I demand equal rights yelled the Goose and the pig just grunted and they painted unfair picket signs and marched round and round the little red hen shouting obscenities.
When the government agent came he said to the little red hen, you must not be greedy. But I earned the bread said the little red hen. Exactly said the agent, that's the wonderful free enterprise system.
Anybody in the barnyard can have as much as he wants but under out modern government regulations the productive workers must divide their product with the idle. They continued to live including the little red hen who smiled and clucked but her neighbors wondered why she never baked any more bread. God said, “Six days shall you labor”. That’s the principle of work.
Now, let's talk about the second principle,
the principle of worship. Why has our Lord ordained that man should worship?
Let me give you three reasons it is important for a person to worship.
First of all, to replenish our spirit
You can run d own spiritually just like a battery can run down and God has given us a day to replenish and renew our spirits.
A man in Philadelphia was passing a coalmine in the old when they used mules to pull the coal wagons through the mines and he noticed that the mules were always out in the pasture on Sunday. He talked with the owner about it and the man said if he were to leave those mules in the mines seven days a week without bringing them up into the sunlight on Sunday they would go blind.
I know some people like that. They have stayed in the coal mines seven days a week and are spiritually blind. All they can think about is the world and its responsibilities. Life has become a drudgery. They just go through the motions of making money to but things they don’t need.
Not only do we need some time to replenish the spirit, we need to
Refresh Our Souls
Not only do you have a physical life and spirit that can grow tired, you have a soul that needs to commune with God. The most recent statistics say that doctors annually write over 60 million prescriptions for drugs like Xanax and other tranquilizers.
Millions more drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and use marijuana, opiates, and other street drugs while still others eat excessively, exercise compulsively, work to exhaustion, watch TV endlessly, escape into books, relentlessly pursue sex, and overindulge any number of otherwise harmless habits in an attempt to escape their tensions and apprehensions.
In fact, the problem has gotten so bad they now say that is some zoos, the monkeys have to be given tranquilizers after they've watched the people.
We’re moving faster than we ever have. The problem is we don’t know where we’re going and God says we better slow down and take some time to refresh the soul.
Some American explorers went to Africa and hired guides to help them explore the bush country. For six days, they traveled and hiked and explored, but on the seventh day the guides refused to move. They sat down under a tree and would not budge and when the explorers tried to move them on, they said, “We rest today to let our souls catch up with our bodies.”
Have you done that? Have you learned to be still and know that God is God? Have you learned in this neurotic, insane age how to deal with fears and worries and nervous tensions by refreshing the soul?
Listen: the God who made us knows how we're to operate. We need to replenish our spirits and refresh our souls and then we are to
Rest Our Bodies
That’s why the Sabbath is called a day of rest. After six days of work, we need to rest our body for the preservation of health and renewal of strength. I tell you there's something about coming to church and being with God's people that invigorates and renews you if you worship right,
Now, if you're tired and aggravated after you Sunday worship it's because you're worshipping wrongly. When you allow the Holy Spirit of God to refresh your should and replenish your body, you’ll find out that it will also refresh and rest your body.
Go home after church and relax. IT’s not time to go to the lake and mow the grass and work on the car or the house. It’s a day of rest. Don’t misuse what God designed, then complain because you’re tired all the time. And then we need to go home on Sunday afternoon and just kind of sit back and relax.
Somebody says, “Well, I've got a lot of things to do and Sunday’s the only time I have to get those things done.”
That’s the same kind of thinking that believes you can steal God’s tithe and your money will go farther. If you will tithe you can do more on nine-tenths than you can 100 % and if you’ll honor the Sabbath you’ll get more done in six days than you can in seven.
Any woodcutter will tell you you’re not wasting time when you stop to sharpen the axe. Some of you are about to work yourselves to death because you’re chopping with a dull bit. God said, Work six and rest one.
Now, we've talked about the period. As Christians, we worship the first day of the week. We've talked about the principles of work and worship.
The third thing I want you to notice is
3. The Practice
As New Testament believers, how do we honor the Sabbath? We know how the Jews kept it. They followed the rule book. It was not a day of celebration and worship. It was a day of worrying about what you were doing and not doing.
You couldn’t eat an egg that was laid on Saturday because that was a Sabbath violation. If you got a rock in your shoe you had to stop and take it out lest you be accused of carrying a burden on the Sabbath.
If you had a toothache, you could swallow vinegar, but you couldn’t hold it in your mouth and swish it around because that was considered healing on the Sabbath.
If a mosquito happened to bite you had to let him gnaw because there's no hunting on the Sabbath and so you couldn't kill that mosquito.
No fire could be kindled on the Sabbath day no matter how cold it was. If an ox fell in the ditch you could get him out but if a man fell in a ditch you just had to leave him there.
It was all about rules and laws and violations. You know, kind of like being a Baptist!
So how do we observe the Sabbath? How are we going to keep the day? What is the practice?
Although we are not given a list of requirements, from the New Testament we get some indicators. For instance, it is to be a day of gladness, not a day of gloom. Jesus Christ is alive and how we use the day of worship should show that.
It's to be a day of love, not a day of legalism. It is to be a day of service, not a day of selfishness. And maybe most importantly, it is to be a holy day and not a holiday.
We have so prostituted our spiritual heritage and misused the Lord’s Day that it is no longer any different from any other day. We have sacrificed the Lord's Day upon the twin alters of pleasure and profit.
Now with all that said, it still really doesn’t answer the question of how do we practice the Lord’s Day. And I know some of you would like me to give you a list and tell you what’s right and wrong to do on the Lord’s Day.
Can I go golfing or can I go water skiing? Can I watch professional football? Is it alright to go visit someone in the hospital? How about a Sunday drive, is that okay?
Shall we cook on Sunday or is it alright to eat out? Maybe we should just stir up some peanut butter and syrup, but how many rounds can I make with the spoon?
You’d like me to make a list for you wouldn’t you? Well I'm not going to do it and I'm not going to let you make a list for me because God does not want this day to be a day of legal restriction.
You say, “How do you know?” If He’d wanted that, He would have given them to us. He did it in the Old Testament and He could do it in the New, but He didn’t.
The Bible is not a rule book, it is a guide book and you can- search the Bible through about what people ought to do on the Lord's day and you'll come back to those two principles I’ve already given you: first of all, the principle of work, and then the principle of worship.
So here’s my counsel on how to practice the Lord’s Day. You take your list to Jesus and let him check it and you find out if what you're doing on this day really corresponds with calling it the Lord's day and when you get His approval, you don’t need mine or anyone else’s.
Are you doing things on that day that would give glory to him? Are you serving him on that day? Are you truly resting your body? Are you truly replenishing your spirit? Are you refreshing your soul? And most of all, avoid the legalism and learn to love and worship the Lord on His day.
Now, the last thing I want us to notice is
4. The Prophesy
This is maybe the most important thing I’ll say to yo tonight about the Sabbath because the Old Testament Sabbath was a prophesy of Jesus.
In fact, that is true of all the Old Testament. The entire message of the Old Testament is simply, “Someone is coming!”
And the entire message of the New Testament is very similar. It is “Someone has come and His name is Jesus!”
And there is one companion message contained in the New Testament that reminds us Someone is coming again. That’s really the message of the Bible in a nutshell.
So let’s go back to a passage we looked at earlier and wrap this up.
Colossians 2:16-17
The Sabbath days are a shadow of Christ. So every Sabbath Day was a prophecy of Christ. Question: How can the Sabbath be a shadow of Christ?
I can see how the sacrificial lamb could be a shadow of Christ. I can see how the temple can be a shadow of Christ. I can see how the Old Testament priest could be a shadow of Christ. But how can the Sabbath be a shadow of Christ?
Let me show you how.
The word Sabbath means rest. Now Jesus said in Matthew 11, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest”.
Now that word “rest” can be correctly translated “Sabbath”. Jesus literally said, “Come unto me and I will give you Sabbath”.
Now I’ve tried to be careful tonight about how I’ve spoken of our Sabbath and Lord’s Day observance. Sometimes people say New Testament Christians don’t keep the Sabbath. I do.
I believe in keeping all Ten Commandments and I believe in keeping that commandment which says remember the Sabbath day and let me tell you how I keep it.
I keep it seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year by resting in Jesus Christ who is my Sabbath. Jesus has fulfilled the law. I believe in Christ and I've ceased from my own works and I'm resting in the finished work of Calvary.
When God created this world the Bible says God worked for six days and then He rested. In other words, from an Old Testament perspective, you had to work before you could rest.
But let me show you something that is very significant. The New Testament Day of Rest is the first day of the week.
See, because of the cross, we rest before we work. When you come to Christ by faith, you're saved before you serve. You rest in Christ and then you serve Christ. If you want to be right with God, the primary need is not to work but to worship. You're not going to be saved by doing things, you'll be saved just simply by resting in Jesus Christ.
When we stop trying and start trusting, we rest in the finished work of Calvary. You cannot save yourself by your efforts. We start with a day of rest. Have you ever had a day like that when you come to Jesus and say Lord, I rest in the finished work of Calvary?
You see that day is your Sabbath and it is a perpetual first day for the rest of your life that allows you to rest in Jesus.
Jesus is the believer's rest, he is your Sabbath and that Old Testament day was a prophesy of a wonderful salvation.
His invitation still stands. “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Let’s pray.
