Relaxation Commanded Series

A young boy was visiting his uncle on a Sunday when a

new neighbor knocked at the door. When he answered it,

and learned that he wanted to borrow the lawn mower, he

conveyed the message to his uncle. The uncle said, "If he

mows his lawn on the Sabbath he'll be breaking the Ten

Commandments. So go and tell him that we have no lawn

mower." When a man will lie and break the Ten Commandments

in order to keep someone else from breaking them, one

suspects the compelling motivation is not a humanitarian

heart, but a selfish one. Besides breaking the law of God

himself, the uncle did not prevent his neighbor from doing

so, for one does not keep the Sabbath by the mere negative

fact of lacking a lawn mower. Obedience to the fourth

commandment is a matter of one's attitude and relationship

to God. No amount of legislation and coercion can give to

men the essence of the value of the fourth commandment.

Law and force can retrain a man from doing many things,

but it cannot compel him to keep the Sabbath holy as a day

of rest and worship.

One of the perpetual problems of our nation is the

problem of the church and state in relation to the law. This

was no problem in Israel, for the church and state were one.

A crime against God, which we would call a sin, was a crime

against the state. It was an act of treason against the ruler of

the land, and, therefore, punishable as a crime.

In America a sin is not necessarily a crime. Over half of

the Ten Commandments can be broken, and it is of no

concern to the state as far as the law goes. We feel it is not

within the jurisdiction of the state to legislate on matters of

religion. The New Testament makes it clear the Pharisees

legislated the blessings of the Sabbath right out of existence,

and made it a burden. Jesus refused to be bound by man

made laws for this day. He said the Sabbath was made for

man, not man for the Sabbath. It was a gift of God for man's

benefit, and so He threw overboard the legalistic

legislation, and used the Sabbath for teaching, healing, and

doing good. They, of course, hated and despised Him for His

lawlessness. They sought to kill Him as a Sabbath breaker,

but Jesus refused to be bound by legalism.

The Puritans were also infected with this germ of

legalism, and in some ways, in spite of their greatness, and

powerful influence for good in our nation, were just like the

Pharisees in their strictness for details. Richard Brathwaite

wrote,

To Brandbury came I, O profane one!

Where I saw a Puritane one

Hanging of his cat on Monday,

For killing of a mouse on Sunday.

Whether this is fact or fiction, we have many actual laws

on record that show they meant business when it came to

keeping the Sabbath. One of the Pilgrim fathers drew up a

code of laws for the state of Massachusetts, and this was one

of them. "Whosoever shall profane the Lord's Day by doing

any unnecessary work,

by unnecessary traveling or by sports and recreation, he or

they who so transgress shall forfeit forty shillings, or be

publicly whipped; but if it shall appear to have been done

presumptuously, such person or persons shall be put to

death, or otherwise severely punished at the discretion of the

court."

If such laws were in force today, America would be a different

nation, especially on Sunday. But Christians would

be the first to protest such legislation, and they should be,

for this is not the purpose of government to legislate religious

conviction. The state has no right to impose the conviction of

any group on the rest of the citizens. We would not want the

Seventh Day Adventist conviction imposed on us, forcing us

to worship on Saturday. Nor do they want ours imposed on

them. It is true that forcing people to take a day off for rest

and worship would be good for them, but so would it be

good if they got to bed early, drank a lot of juice, and ate

lettuce, but who would want these to be matters of

legislation? To get the full value of what God intended by

this fourth commandment one must chose to obey it with a

free and committed will.

This is one of the two commandments that is stated

positively, but it also has a negative aspect which we want to

look at briefly before looking at the positive. The negative

aspect-

I. PROHIBITS PERPETUAL LABOR.

It is important that we see the limitation of what is