The Sabbath Revisited

Well, we aren't going to settle the issue of the Sabbath here but some thoughts have been going through my mind for a while now so I thought I would write them down.  First of all let me start with what seems obvious to me, while in some measure nine of the Commandments can be said to be written on the conscience of all men, I can't see how the same can be said of the Sabbath.  I am not aware of any person or culture that instinctively knows they need to take off one day out of seven to rest or to worship God.  It is not a moral issue like murder and theft.  It is one that needs divine revelation because it is not know to us instinctively.

Secondly can we argue that it is to be seen as the eternal law of God?  It didn't exist before creation and it certainly won't exist in eternity where there is only the glory of God and no need for a sun and no concept of days.  In fact, we know that eternity will be one long Sabbath but it will have nothing in common with the one found in Exodus 20.

Perhaps part of confusion lies in looking at the Fourth Commandment as looking backward to a supposed creation ordinance instead of future to a greater fulfillment.  After the six days of creation God ceased from his labors.  Adam and Eve were created to enjoy this rest by enjoying all that he had made for them and to be provided for by trusting in his providence.  They fell by saying that they would instead do things their way and not trust in the Lord.  They were saying that they no longer would be willing to rest in God but would do their own work.

It is interesting that the primary curse put on Adam besides his fallen nature is that all of the sudden he had to labor in a way that was mostly futile, Gen 3:19 "By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."   In other words, man in his fallen state has no rest and his labor has no better end than death; it is futile.  Unfallen man had to labor but it would always result in fruit unto the Lord; it was joyful, fulfilling and satisfying.  All that changed at the fall.

And so immediately God starts to make promises that he is going to restore the rest that Adam rejected.  If this is in some way summarizes what happened in Genesis then it seems that the Sabbath laws could be given to look forward instead of backwards.  After all Jesus says more than once that the law and everything in the OT taught of him and can only be fulfilled in him, Mat 5:17-18  "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished."  

The theme of a coming rest is seen throughout the Bible.  In Matthew 11 he alludes to it pretty clearly, Mat 11:28  "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Mat 11:29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Mat 11:30  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."  Notice that this rest doesn't mean that there won't be plenty to do.  We still are under a yoke and have a burden but his service is joyful and fulfilling and accomplished God's glory and our good.  

If we read through Hebrews 4 the writer makes is quite clear that there is a rest waiting for all who come by faith to the cross of Christ.  He compares it to the rest of God at creation.  So in the first creation God did a "good" work that provided a good rest for man but he sinned it away and has been feverishly working ever since to correct but to no avail because sinful man can't fix the problem by his own works.  In Christ, God has done another work, a perfect and final work and all who enter into this rest will have rest for their souls and can never be cast out as our first parents were.  

The Sabbath that the Bible always looked forward to and the only one we need to be concerned about is the rest through faith in the finished work of Christ.  The Sabbath as found in Exodus 20 was never meant to be some eternal binding principle but looked forward to the cross and it is in obedience to the gospel that we keep "Sabbath" as NT Christians.

Leprosy and Sin

Leprosy seems to be used in the Bible in a unique sense as an illustration of sin.  For one thing it is not said to be "healed" by Jesus but "cleansed".  I think the reason is because, like sin, the effect of leprosy seems to always be that it separated one from the covenant blessings and in particular it kept them from the temple and God's people so that they were ceremonially unclean and so unable to serve and worship God.  Whether it was Hansen's Disease or not and therefore deadly or some kind of contagious rash has been debated.  One reason is because we don't read of people dying from it and needing healing but declared unclean and needing cleansing.  In this sense it depicts one aspect of sin.  It contaminates everything it touches and ruins one's ability to serve the Lord.

It is interesting to compare some parallels between sin and Hansen's Disease which is what we usually think of when we think of leprosy.  Scientists have come to realize that the disease doesn't harm by causing the extremities to rot but that it causes numbness in the extremities and this in turn causes the real harm of leprosy.

In one case the man who is credited with understanding how leprosy works relates an instance which helped him understand leprosy.  He was trying to turn a key in an old rusty lock and was unable to do so.  Along came a boy of about ten he knew who was afflicted with leprosy and he asked if he could try.  To his surprise the boy instantly turned the key and opened the lock.  Upon further examination he realized that in the process of turning the key he had ripped open his finger all the way down to the bone but was unaware of it because his leprosy had destroyed his ability to feel any sensation.  Another account tells of a man who had gone blind due to leprosy.  For years he would wash his face with a washcloth dipped in water but didn't realize that the water was scalding hot.  So eventually it destroyed his eyesight.  One might step on a nail but because he feels no pain doesn't treat the wound and so it becomes infected and instead of healing it just gets worse and worse, the whole foot starts to rot and death can only be the eventual result.

It isn't hard to connect the dots from how leprosy works to one way that sin can destroy us.  Sin's primary side effect is for us to love self above all else including God.  Even the most mature saint battles constantly to put the honor of Christ first in everything he does and decision he makes.  Like leprosy, sin or pride gets in the way of properly evaluating things we come into contact with.  Much like the drug addict or alcoholic who is so infatuated with the physical pleasure of the drug or drink that he becomes insensitive to what it is slowly doing to his body and his life.

I think this can be applied to countless ways sin eats away at our lives.  Here is a spouse who because of sin becomes insensitive to the needs of his or her spouse.  In his daily interaction with his wife he fails to speak to her and treat her with the love God demands.  Such things cause the relationship to weaken until one day he realizes that his marriage is ruined.  How many then use the excuse of a bad marriage to justify adultery which just makes the whole problem worse.  It has always amazed me how people will allow problems between each other to go on for years causing all kinds of unnecessary friction instead of dealing with them early on before things get intolerable.  But it is pride and laziness and a general lack of any real concern for the Lord and each other that allows us to be numb to what is going on around us.  And then one day we wake up and wonder why our families and friends and the church isn't what it ought to be or at least why we don't seem to be able to get along with people as we ought.

The Bible says that we are to glorify the Lord in everything we do.  In other words, everything we come into contact with is to be used for one purpose, the Lord's service.  Sin's tendency is to cause us to see things as how they immediately benefit me!  And we can rest assured that this will cause us to use things wrongly and be harmed by them instead of using them properly and benefiting from them.

Perhaps how we deal with trials is a good example.  When we understand that they are from the Lord to shape us into useful servants and produce godliness in our lives we can endure them in light of this and by the power of God conquer them.  They become tools for our good.  But when our sinfulness has us consumed with our immediate comfort then we are easily reduced to complaining and bitterness and they render us incapable of victory.  Too much of this kind of spiritual apathy and pretty soon our lives can become open sores where everyone can see the results of sin instead of the image of Christ.

2011 Conference Messages

Reid Ferguson

Unto Us A Child Is Born

What Jesus is Doing In Us Now

The Kindness of God

Gary Scott

What Is The Heart

The Pure In Heart

How Do We See God

Our God Does Not Forget

We all know the story of Ahab and how sinful he was.  Perhaps nothing demonstrates his sin like when he allowed his wife Jezebel to kill Naboth so he could have his vineyard.  In 1 Kings Elijah makes it very clear that God would not let this go unpunished and the punishment in part would be that his dynasty would come to an ignominious end with the violent death of his descendents.

In 2 Kings 9 we see that God has not forgotten Ahab's sin and that now, through Jehu, the time has come for him to avenge his saints.  But what is wonderful to behold is the unmistakable irony and justice in which the Lord brings it to pass.  As Joram, Ahab's then reigning son, goes out to meet Jehu, presumably to see how the battle is going, he has no idea that Jehu has been commissioned to execute justice on Ahab's family.

But it is the matter-of-fact way the Lord tells us about this in his Word that I find so amazing and comforting.  In verse 21 we read that they "just happened" to meet next to Naboth's vineyard, "and met him at the property of Naboth the Jezreelite."  Lest the reader has forgotten of Ahab's despicable sin and God's promise of judgment, he causes the setting of the judgment to be at the very place that sums up the reason for Ahab's judgment.

One little phrase reminds us that nothing happens by chance, there are no coincidences in God's universe, everything has meaning and we are wise to think things through and live in light of the fact that this is our Father's world.  It is our primary duty to honor him in all things and those that will not can know that God knows their names, he has not forgotten their deeds and judgment is coming.

In light of this, this poor sinner is glad to be washed in the blood of Jesus for without the cross no man is prepared to meet this God who will judge all sin either in Christ or in those who remain obstinate.  He is One who will not forget the smallest of infractions against his holy character and yet is gracious to save all who trust in him.

The Peace Christ Gives

In John 14 Jesus is giving his "last minute" instruction to his disciples.  He begins in the first three verses by saying that he is about to be crucified so that they would have a place secured in Heaven.  Then later in vs. 27 he says that he is leaving them his peace.  Later we learn that this will come through the indwelling Holy Spirit but what is rather amazing is the timing of these words.

If we were visiting an inmate that was about to be executed and his last words to us before being led off to his death was that he would like to give us something before he died and that something is the same kind of peace that was in his heart; what would we think?  Thanks, but no thanks?  We generally assume that one about to die and especially one about to die a slow, excruciating death would be barely able to keep his sanity.  He would be doing well to remain calm in any sense but certainly would be full of the fearful anticipation of what lies ahead.

We see from Jesus's prayer in the Garden that he did not relish the physical pain and especially the bearing of the wrath of God toward sinners that the cross would bring.  Yet his words in John 14:27 mean that he had a peace even on the eve of the crucifixion that was so perfect, so strong, so effective that it was this peace that he would give his people in this present age!

This peace is illustrated by his ability to sleep in a boat while his disciples panicked during the storm on the sea.  How did Jesus have peace in either of these situations that caused him to act completely different than his disciples?   In John 14 he says he didn't get it from anything sort of security that this world offers.  His peace came because he knew and could see what his disciples at that time could not.  It is not unlike the calmness and confidence one has as he walks through a room full of obstacles when the light is on compared to the fear and uncertainty he would have if the room was completely dark.

Simply put the peace that Jesus gives is the peace that the Holy Spirit works in us as the light of the knowledge of God grows brighter and brighter as we learn the Word of God.  And while much peace will come as we learn of what God is doing in his redemptive plan in human history as revealed by his word, I think perhaps the greatest source of peace for a saint comes in the clearest view of the sovereignty of God.

There are a great many passages that give us light of God's control over all things that should calm us in the worst of times.  Let me just point you to Hebrews, to one that we don't mention as often. "Heb 12:26  At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." Heb 12:27  This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of things that are shaken--that is, things that have been made--in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Heb 12:28  Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe."


The time is coming when God will destroy the physical universe and create them anew.  This means that everything in this world's days are numbered.  But the kingdom that we enter when God saves us cannot be shaken.  We are already in it, nothing can remove us, nothing can destroy us, nothing can defeat God's purposes in us!  If the disciples found themselves in that same boat in the same storm without Jesus but after Pentecost they would have no excuse not to have the same peace that enabled Jesus to sleep.  That does't mean that they should have slept and not rowed but it is the peace and trust in God while they rowed that would honor the Lord in that they put their trust in him more than they feared the storm.

After Pentecost I believe God would have expected the disciples not to cut and run at Jesus' arrest because they would have the same peace and faith that allowed Jesus to calmly and faithfully walk to the cross.  So yes, I want the peace of a dying man, the Man Christ Jesus.  I want the peace of Christ that causes me to trust in the goodness and power of God more than I fear this world

Our Annual Bible Conference is Almost Here

The date for our conference is Sept.. 30-Oct. 2.  Each Speaker will speak each night and both on Sunday.  Services begin at 7 PM Friday and Saturday nights.  Attached is a copy of the brochure.

Brochure

This Syrian

As we were studying through 2 Kings 5 and Naaman the Leper I was struck with the way Gehazi referred to Naaman after Naaman clearly became a believer when he was cleansed from his leprosy.  After Elisha had made it clear that he would not accept gifts or payment from Naaman, Gehazi decides to take advantage of Naaman and pad his possessions by taking advantage of Naaman.  

It is the way he refers to Naaman that indicates to me the sinful heart of Gehazi.  You would think he would be amazed at the grace and mercy of God to save this pagan man.  But this is hardly Gehazi's attitude.  Instead of seeing him as a convert, as a brother and in particular a soul that has been snatched out of the flames of Hell, he continues to see him as an enemy as someone to use but not to love and serve.  He refers to him as "this Syrian".    His speech betrays a heart that is not wrapped up in the Lord and in people serving Him but he is only concerned with what affects him personally.

Does our speech betray defective hearts?  Do you find yourself referring to people in ways that are hateful and that clearly show that you see yourself as superior to them?  Even worse is when Christians see each other in this way.  Hopefully when we see or think of each other we see people that we love and want to know what their needs are; we don't just see someone to be used.  

Let it begin in the way we refer to each other.  Use terms of endearment because why should we refer to one another in the same way we address those outside the kingdom of God.  Not that we should address them hatefully or coldly but should not the way we speak to each other reflect a love and closeness that others can see and hear?  

Jesus says in John 13:35  "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."   Surely one way we show this love is by kindness in our speech and an attitude of service, not one of taking advantage.  We should look at each other as people that will spend eternity together and as sharing the most amazing thing in common, the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Oh Lord forgive us for not loving one another in the deepest of loves.