The True Leisure of the Christian's Rest

By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms:

How the Sabbath is the Given that We Might Be Built Up in a Community of Faith

Good Morning,

As we continue to speak on the Sabbath Day we kind of have to in these days reaffirm that I am not introducing some new Legalism or wanting to take away fun or whatever. God in His grace gave the Fourth Commandment for our benefit. Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the day of rest for man. As the Directory of Public Worship explains why we are to not just individually, but as a community of faith keep the Sabbath Day holy one of the principles that will be hard for us in America today to remember is that we are not a bunch of individuals making our own moral decisions which only affect our lives. Everything we do has a consequence. It is part of what the Lord means when He says in the book of Proverbs, “He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed.” What do we call wisdom in the Bible but listening to what Jehovah witnesses to be true? Well, in the Fourth Command as Moses is repeating the law given to him on Sinai in Ex. 20:10 he writes, “. . . but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.”.

What we read there is a word from God that says that those in authority, whether it be fathers, rulers, or us in our various capacities are to be clear that our observance of the Sabbath is to ensure that others are able to keep the Day holy as well. There is a mutual love witnessed here.

Let’s go ahead and see the selection from the DPW for today

That the diet on that day be so ordered, as that neither servants be unnecessarily detained from the publick worship of God, nor any other person hindered from the sanctifying that day. That there be private preparations of every person and family, by prayer for themselves, and for God’s assistance of the minister, and for a blessing upon his ministry; and by such other holy exercises, as may further dispose them to a more comfortable communion with God in his public ordinances.

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