CEASE and DESIST!
Exodus 20:8-11
May 17, 2009
4 SLIDES
SCRIPTURE READING
8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
SLIDEI’ll bet you couldn’t guess the name of the 12th president of the United States. In fact, most history books do not even list him as a president and there is even debate as to whether he really took office. Was the 12th president David Rice Atchison or Zachary Taylor?
According to some, the actual 12th president of the United States was David Rice Atchison. You see, outgoing president, James Polk resigned from office one day early to begin his journey home. And the inauguration was to take place on March 4, 1849, however, March 4th was a Sunday and incoming President, Zachary Taylor refused to take the oath of office because it was the Sabbath. As a result, under the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, Missouri Senator David Rice Atchison, the President ProTemp of the Senate, automatically became president. Legend has it, he told his secretary not to bother him since he was going to sleep away the first and last day of his presidency. At noon on Monday, Taylor was inaugurated.
BLANKIf you were elected President or person of the year and the induction ceremony was on a Sunday, at 10:30 am, during your worship time, would you go? Would you ask them to cancel it to another day? How we respond to that situation tells a great deal about our view of the Sabbath.
Of all the commandments, I believe the one commandment that has suffered the most is this one. The command by God to honor the Sabbath as a holy day and do no work, isn’t even a consideration anymore. We can use one word to describe our view, outdated. After all, when was the last time any of us observed the Sabbath.
So, is the fourth commandment outdated? Is it totally irrelevant? I think we’ve missed God’s purpose in this commandment. If you’re under 20 years of age, you’ve probably never known a time when stores weren’t open on Sundays. But there used to be “Blue Laws” regulating what businesses could be open on a Sunday. Malls and stores were never open. Stores were never open on Easter and New Year’s Day, now, there is only one day when stores are not open, Christmas Day. Stores used to close at 9 p.m., now many are open all night so we can purchase our groceries and other products when we can’t sleep.
Studies have shown the busiest day of the week for shopping at the mall, is Sunday. It’s been determined profits will increase 20% or more on Sundays. Yet, restaurants like Chick-fil-a or Dortee’s; or stores like Hobby Lobby and a few others are closed on Sunday, because it is a time to worship and find refreshment and rest in God.
Our calendars, day timers, PDAs and cell phones are stuffed with our appointments and places we need to be. We eat meals in cars, we rush to wherever we are going because we’re always running to the next place. Weekends are busier than ever, because we’re trying to cram more into less. It’s been said we try to fit 31 hours of work into a 24 hour day. The end result is exhaustion and the feeling that we are just too tired and too stressed to sleep, at least sleep restfully.
So, you wonder how did life get this way? Is this how God expects us to live our lives? Of course, the solution is easy, just take a day off and do no work around the house, in the yard, no shopping, just hang out with your family, reflect on God’s blessings and this worship. Or enjoy the day to yourself with no television, no radio, no telephone, no computer. Oh, that sounds like fun, huh?
SLIDEGod didn’t intend for us to live this way. When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, He said, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work” (20:9-10). God takes the idea of a day off from work just as seriously as He takes ‘Do not steal, lie, or commit adultery,’ but we seem to think we can break this commandment without consequence. We often brag about how busy, overworked, and completely stressed out we are.
So what is God asking for in this commandment? You see, when God rested after creation, it wasn’t because He was tired. God was looking back at what He had accomplished and knew it could not be improved upon. God accomplished all of His creative work, and He rested . . . because it was finished. The Creator rested, in other words, He took time off from creating, and as we serve our God, we are commanded to rest as well.
The Sabbath day was not just to be observed by the Jewish people, instead notice from the Scripture reading that everyone, Jew or non-Jew, the slaves and even the animals were supposed to follow this law.
BLANKOf course, there may be some emergencies or other situations that cause you to miss worship and cause you to work on the Sabbath. But those should be the exceptions, not the rule. In the world we live in, we do not always have choices about when we can or cannot work. Sometimes, if we want to keep our job, we have to work on the Sabbath. If that is the case, then how do you make up for working on Sunday? Do you take a different day to cause yourself to rest and focus on God?
Jesus spoke about the ox falling into the ditch on the Sabbath. Of course, if that happens you stop what you’re doing and you try to save the ox’s life. But if your ox gets stuck in the ditch every Sabbath, you should either get rid of the ox or fill the ditch. In other words, we can come up with lots of excuses which are just that, excuses.
Remember when Jesus and His disciples were walking through the fields on the Sabbath, and the disciples were hungry and started to pick the heads of grain. The Pharisees had a fit and yelled, “that’s against the law!” And according to Jewish law, it was against the law. But you need to understand the Jews had lots of laws concerning the Sabbath. Some were absolutely ridiculous. For example ~
you could not spit on the ground on the Sabbath, because that would be irrigating the land.
It was illegal to put out a fire on the Sabbath, so if your home was on fire, you had a big problem. Add to that the fact that carrying things from your home was also illegal on the Sabbath, but an exception was made that you could carry food out of the house, but only enough to get each member of the family through the rest of the Sabbath. You could not carry clothes out of the house, but you could wear as many clothes as one could get on.
You see, on the Sabbath, people could not do anything that would be considered a burden or work. This meant a woman couldn’t fix her hair, nor could you go to a doctor if you felt sick. It went from one extreme to another. The laws were designed to inhibit people rather than give rest.
SLIDESo you can see there were major problems in interpreting what God wanted from the people when it came to the Sabbath. After the Pharisees confronted Jesus about the disciples picking and eating the grain on the Sabbath, Jesus told them,
“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2).
Jesus even healed people on the Sabbath which was actually against Jewish law. But, we need to understand Jesus was trying to show that the Sabbath was made for us. It wasn’t meant to be a burden, but a gift from God.
On the Sabbath, our eyes should be on Jesus, and the many ways He has blessed you. This is a day of celebration and we are to celebrate and praise the work of our Savior. We find rest for our wearied souls when we come to worship God. Now I don’t mean that you are to come here, find a pew, close your eyes, fall asleep and tell me you had a great rest at church! But I am saying, this is a day of rest from what we usually do, so that we can focus on Jesus.
Think about it . . . why is it that cars, tractors, pianos, and machinery need regular tune ups? Why is it that the strings of a violin are to be loosened when it is not being played? And yet, why is it we don’t believe we need to follow that same prescription and accept rest for heart, soul, body and mind? Do we really think we’re indestructible, that is, until something wakes us up from that dream. I’ve spoken to so many people who say that they never knew how blessed they were until something bad happens and they lose some form of independence.
The Sabbath is a day intended to help us take a break from our normal routine of running around and trying to accomplish so much. We’re to stop all of the doing, and simply be. When we rest, our minds are no longer racing, our bodies begin to feel better, and our souls have time to call upon the Lord.
I remember the old days of a few years ago when I would read to Joshua and Zachary before bed time. I wasn’t the least bit tired, but I can’t tell you how many times I sat in a chair and read to them and started to doze off while reading the book. When we finally stop, our bodies react in ways we didn’t expect. They remind us of the need to slow down and experience the joy of the rest God wants us to experience.
SLIDEAn Academy Award winning movie was called Chariots of Fire. It is the true story of Eric Liddell, a Scottish athlete competing in the 1924 Olympics. A conflict arose when he found out that his track event was scheduled on a Sunday. But Liddell honored God and went to church, and did not compete in that race. In fact, he was able to switch to another race on a different day, a race he wasn’t very good at, and Liddell won the gold medal. Liddell gave up fame as he went on to be a missionary and died in a Japanese prison camp.
An interesting story came out of the time while he was in that camp, he coached the kids in various sports, but at first refused to do so on Sunday, but when he saw that the kids were playing on Sunday’s and getting into fights, he decided to coach on Sunday after all -- something he wouldn’t do for Olympic gold, but he did keep kids from getting into trouble in a prison camp. His commitment to God is very clear. He honored God by observing the fourth commandment.
Can you imagine training for the Olympics only to get there and find out your event is on a Sunday? What would you do? Would you honor God? Or would you put your own ambitions first? Honestly, for most of us that would be an easy question, because we would never consider not competing. But the question that confronts us, ‘is that the best choice?’
SLIDE
CLICKThe idea of "keeping the day holy" means that the Sabbath is set apart and is a sacred day from all other days. And we learn it is holy because the LORD blessed this day. Of all the days of the week to bless, God chose this day, the Sabbath day. Very simply because He wants us to be in a relationship with Him. This is not about us just hanging out, it is about our drawing closer to Him and celebrating the gifts, the blessings, the joys He has given us. We take this one day of the week, and set it aside from the ordinary, which means, we call it holy, we make it special so that we can honor and glorify God.
In his book, The Christian Sunday: a Biblical and Historical Study, Wilfred Stott commented on the joyfulness of the Sabbath in Jewish history:
“The Sabbath was welcomed with joy. It was to be celebrated at home as rest and
refreshment and corporately in public worship. On the day before, the preparation
day, everything was to be ready, lamps lit as the Sabbath commenced at sunset. A
meal extra to the normal two was added, and the best clothes were worn. Guests
would be invited. According to the Babylonian Talmud, half the day was to be spent in eating and drinking and half in the instruction of the things of God. The Sabbath was eagerly anticipated for the experience of community, home, friends, more food than usual, and instruction in the things of God. It was intended to teach us that when we trust the Lord and live in dependence on him, we find our experience is filled with his presence and the rewards of his bounty.”
Consider what God told Isaiah about the Sabbath in chapter 58 ~
1SLIDE3 "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on MY holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
1SLIDE4 then you will find your joy in the LORD,
and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob."
The mouth of the LORD has spoken.
What a great promise from God to us . . . if we are willing to follow His desire for us and take that one day to worship and focus on Him. Think about what God said in verse 13 — do you do as you please, or do you delight in the Sabbath day, which according to the LORD is a holy day? This is a conditional sentence, because verse 13 starts out with the word if, and verse 14 starts with the reward word, then . . . then you will find YOUR joy in the LORD. That is His promise to you and I.
A couple of final thoughts about ways to honor God through the Sabbath
The Sabbath was God’s gift to Israel. They were slaves for hundreds of years in Egypt and now they were on their way to the promised land. The work they performed in Egypt and now this journey was difficult, but God had given them a gift, Himself, and when they came into relationship with Yahweh, the LORD, they would experience the blessings in store for them, including the day of rest.
Today, when you claim to be a Christian, it means you have a relationship with Jesus. He is your Lord and Savior, Redeemer, Forgiver and Leader. And Jesus now becomes our promised rest. He tells us that in Matthew 11:28-30, saying,
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will gSLIDEive you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
You see, friends, ultimately we can find rest for our souls, rest for our whole being, but we must be in a relationship with Jesus. It is one in which we must come to Him. This is repeated over and over again in scripture, “come to me, come to me, come to me.” Those are the words of Jesus. It’s not enough to know about Him, it is about being in Jesus. Sometimes we must stop being doers. If you are a doer for Jesus, that’s great, but when was the last time you just were His child, resting in Him. He’s calling you to take that weekly Sabbath break and just be, be His child, rest in Him.
SLIDEHe is calling you to CEASE and DESIST! Sit at His feet and listen to His words of love and comfort. He tells us in this passage we will work, there will be a yoke, but His yoke, and notice that it is His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.
CLICKThe question will we accept His yoke and burden to gain rest, or will we seek our yoke, which will be a burden to us and lead us to the land of no rest.
