The Fourth Commandment

Now, if you have your Bibles, I want you to turn over to the 20th chapter of the book of Exodus, please, and verse number 8, Exodus chapter 20, verse 8. Now, I hope that you have brought your Bibles and that you always do that. It is the thing to do. And if you have a friend thereby who forgot theirs, why, you share it with them, please. In Exodus chapter 20, we come to the fourth commandment in the seventh verse, the eighth verse. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it shalt thou not do any work. Thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. It is unfortunate that through the years the Sabbath has been conjured, has borne an image that has conjured up all kinds of negations in the minds of people. Like the early Sabbath, modern Christians believe that the Lord's day is basically a negative day. And when we talk about Sunday, we talk about what we cannot do. We think of some things the Sabbath is against. Jesus Christ never had that in mind. The Sabbath is basically for some things. Like the Old Testament people, however, we too have come to believe that Sunday, rather than being the bright spot of the week, a day of joy and excitement, a day of enthusiasm, a day to look forward to, is the brightest day of our calendar. It has become a day of pessimism and defeat and despair. And we go to church and expect to be buried. And we go home and we let our hair down and enter into a world of normality again. And then a few of us will come back to church that night and play at the job once again. And all in all, Sunday has become a day of sour grapes. The kids can't go to the ball games like they'd really like to do. We have to put on a robe and hang, hide behind an ecclesiastical facade and pretend to enter into a world of abnormality, which is very constricting and very negative and very unpleasant and from which most of us will be very glad to get loose so we can find Monday again and start becoming regular folks. Jesus Christ exploded that myth thousands of years ago when he said the Sabbath was never intended for man. That man was never intended for the Sabbath, but that the Sabbath was intended for man, for some things. It is a positive day and one that God has planned for our own goodness. Even before this commandment was given, the Sabbath was foreshadowed in the wilderness when God gave manna from heaven, but he said, gather it up only on six days, enough to last you over the seventh day that you were supposed to be resting. Would it be of interest to you to note that every day of the week, Monday through Saturday, as well as Sunday, has some major religious group that worships on it? Paul must have had something like that in mind when he said, in so many words, don't be so hung up as to which day is the day, for the calendars have so been changed through the years that it probably behooves none of us to be dogmatic and say this has to be the day. But he said, let every man be fully persuaded in his own heart. There are Thursday Baptists. There are Monday Baptists. There are Seventh -day Adventists who worship on Saturday. There are Tuesday Pentecostals. And around the encircling globe, there are all kinds of people that worship on some days. The important thing is that there is a day specifically set aside and designated for some things. Now, from the Old Testament to the New, it seems that the apostles and apostolic authority is one of the major crucibles in the question of the validity and veracity of any scriptural doctrine. It seems that automatically after the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, without any official mandate from heaven, that they naturally began to transfer the Christian Sabbath from Saturday on to Sunday. And there was a very special reason for having done so. Now, I have not marked my Bible ahead of time, so it'll take me just as long to find it as it will you. And I want you to turn with me as we look up together briefly some scriptures. Turn, if you will, into Matthew's Gospel, chapter 28, and the first verse. At the very beginning of the New Testament, we find the pattern being established. The habit begins to become into reality that they began to worship the risen Lord Jesus on the first day of the week, Matthew 28, 1. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And behold, there was a great earthquake. For the Lord of the, the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door upon it. His countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him, the keepers did shake and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the men, Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen, as he said. Come see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead. And behold, he goeth before you into Galilee. There shall ye see him, lo, I have told you. And they deported quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy and did run to bring his disciples word. The first post -resurrection appearance and confrontation of the disciples with the risen Lord Jesus was on the first day of the week. Now I know it is a broad generalization, a theological abstraction, and a far -fetched spiritualization. But I think it is still creditable that the first time they met him face to face and worshiped him, it was on the first day of the week. Now it becomes more specific. John chapter 20, verse 19. Turn there. John chapter 20, verse number 19. And then in verse number 26 as well. The 20th verse, the 19th verse, chapter 20. Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst and saith unto them, peace be unto you. On the first day of the week, they were worshiping. God was blessed. Jesus was satisfied. And he attested to the validity of this new kind of worship experience by giving his personal presence in the midst. Verse 26. Again, after eight days, not seven, eight days. The Jews count days as a part of a day. They touched the first Sunday, six days between, and then the following Sunday, being touched as well, would have been eight days. So a week later, as we would say, after eight days again, his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said, peace be unto you. So a pattern is established. They are worshiping on the first day of the week. Paul tells us in Revelation, John tells us in Revelation chapter 1, verse 10, that he was in the Spirit in a very special way on a very special day, the Lord's day. In the book of Acts chapter 20, verse 7, we are told that on the first day of the week, men were to lay by in store. Paul said to lay by in store, as God blessed us. Now in the book of Acts chapter 20, verse number 7, we find, again, they were worshiping on the first day of the week. Listen, and upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart of the morrow, and continued his speech until midnight. My, what a long -winded preacher he must have been. Don't worry, I'll not take that long. Somebody complained this morning because I did not get you out exactly at 12 o 'clock. I promise to make up for that, and I'll have you out before 12 o 'clock tonight. Now, it is obvious to us that they worship Christ on the first day of the week. Why? Let's go back to what God had said in the Old Testament. On the sixth creative day, that word yom meaning infinity, meaning 16 different things. We do not know how long those creative days were, but on the sixth day, God had completed the work of creation. Now, he says, on the seventh day, because it was complete, God rested and looked back over what he had done. Now, ladies and gentlemen, on Saturday, the recreative work, the redemptive work of God in Christ was not complete. We, as modern -day Christians, herald the message of the cross of Jesus Christ. We exalt the Christ of the cross. We magnify the preaching of the cross. For our Lord said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. But not so in the early church. They were used to men claiming to be Christ's. They were used to people who said, I am the Messiah. And the hillsides were strewn with the graves of a hundred so -called saviors who came and claimed to be messiahs, but died. But the transcendentally unique thing about the personality and ministry and life of Jesus Christ was not that he had died on the city garbage dump, for that was as old as antiquity itself. The difference was that Christ rose from the dead. It was the touchstone of New Testament doctrine. You can find the graves of all the world's great supposed religious leaders, but you can search a hundred graves on a hundred hillsides tonight, and you'll never find my Savior's grave because he lives. He is not here. He is risen. He died for sin, but he rose again for justification. And so not merely in the cross, but as well in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the redemptive work of God in Christ was completed. And as God would not have paused and looked with satisfaction on what he had done in creation on the fifth day, for it was not as yet complete, it was normal that the disciples would not look at the finished work of God in Christ on the sixth day, the Sabbath, because it too was not as yet complete. But on the resurrection morned, when Jesus Christ went into the bowels of the earth and came back from hell and death and grave, the grave with the keys of sin and death swinging at his belt and said, I am the resurrection. I am the life. If any man believe in me, though he were dead, he shall live again. Then and then alone was the redemptive work of God in Christ completed. Jesus rose on the first day. It was complete. And they worshiped a Christ who had completed the job that he had come from heaven to do. Now, I think, Father, it is of importance to know that five times in the New Testament, after the resurrection, the disciples are found worshiping in the daytime. But eight times they are found worshiping at night. Perhaps there was a fear of discovery. Perhaps secrecy was dictated because of the many oppressions that were theirs. But I believe that the Spirit of God may be telling us that there is nothing any more holy or sacred about Sunday and the fact that the sun has gone down. What makes Sunday morning so holy and so special? Now, in most churches, we have what we call a worship service on Sunday morning. And then we loosen up a little bit and have what we call an evangelistic service on Sunday night. Now, I believe that if you must make a distinction that you should be warmer, more effortful in trying to win people to Christ on Sunday morning than Sunday night because that's when they're there the unsaved don't go to church on sunday night like they do on sunday morning they worship more on sunday night than sunday morning more emphasis was given to it than it was before the 12 o 'clock hour when everybody had to get out and go to the cafeteria and so i think you and i need to be coming to church on sunday morning as well as on sunday night and sunday night as well as sunday morning now somebody said if you really want to see how popular a church is look at the crowd on sunday morning if you want to be see how popular the preacher is look at the crowd on sunday night and if you want to see how popular the lord is look at the crowd you know it don't you on wednesday night and i might add that if we want to see how popular are the souls of men look at the crowd on visitation night and we might all be a little embarrassed now let me suggest in closing three or four brief things to you my folks know at home that when i said in say in closing that means just yawn a little bit and settle back we're fixing to take off first of all let's see what the lord's day then is for the sabbath is for several things number one it is for rest the word sabbath like sabbatical means a rest a departure from the norm jesus christ said come ye apart and rest a while i want you to know that ye will come apart and rest a while or ye will come apart jesus knew what he was talking about professor heeden of sweden has discovered of switzerland has discovered that a man expending expends a certain amount of energy in an eight hour work day in eight hours of sleep he reimburses himself with only 85 of the energy he has expended consequently he is 15 short every day now a little mathematics will show you that by the time sunday comes you are exactly one day behind on your rest and so you ought to take off do you know that spurgeon and finney and moody and all of the greats have only had at best seven to ten years at the very epitome and crux of their ministry billy graham is the first evangelist in the history of the world to stay at the top if you please for as many years as he has and for 22 years he has been god's voice to this world and ladies and gentlemen he is the only man that's ever rested he'll take off and rest for two or three and four months at a time you and i will soon realize that if you burn the candle at both ends until it runs out of wax one of these days we're going to have to get down on our back and we'll only be spending time in the hospitals catching up on sundays in arrears jesus commanded also that the disciples were to rest and all that was theirs was to rest the lord said your cattle is to rest he instructed the people to let their land rest now in the old testament the jews were carried away for 490 years it for in the captivity and for 70 years of captivity they were merely letting the land rest for the 490 years that they had not observed the sabbath god was merely catching up and you and i will as well it is said that many years ago the texaco oil company president demanded that his people rest and take off an entire day from saturday midnight until sunday midnight and they began to make more money it is proven that you will not only do more work but you will do better work in six days with one day of rest than you will all week long it is important there are places in my own state where the land has not been allowed to rest one year in seven as in yours where the erosion has decayed and it will never again be the same and it is so in our lives physically and mentally and every other way the sabbath the christian sabbath is a day for rest secondly it is a day for recreation relaxation family and fun now i mean that You need a day to be alone with your family, to have a good time doing things that are honorable and sacred and right and good. Some of the most pleasant memories of my childhood are times when we'd make homemade ice cream and throw the football around in the backyard and just roll and run and play and get caught up. Remember this. Children do not spell love, L -O -V -E. They spell it T -I -M -E. Not merely a quantitative, but a qualitative time as well when you enter into their world and invest some time with them. Sunday is a day for having a wonderful time of family relaxation and for the recreation of the mental and emotional powers that are expended almost to the point of exhaustion through the hubbub and hurry of a week. Would you believe that in many homes in Oklahoma City where I visited, I've seen little community billboards in the hall where the passing members will stick up notes for each other to read. John, don't forget to go by the grocery store. Mary, don't forget you. They never see each other. They have to write notes in the hallway. They're not acquainted with each other. And they hope that somehow they'll find them. Does that ring a bell? Does that sound like your house? Is that a little bit close to home? Sunday is a day to recreate those family ties, those mental and spiritual and emotional values of life that are very, very important and so easily expended. Third, Sunday is a day for doing good. Jesus was asked clearly by the disciples, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath? He answered as explicitly as they had asked, it is good to do well on the Sabbath. Jesus commanded and permitted people to do good. God, don't you know someone that you ought to visit? Is there not a lost friend, a sick friend, someone that has lost a loved one, somebody that's discouraged, someone that's recently been divorced or lost their job, or someone that's been hurt, or someone that's quit coming to Sunday school? Is there not somebody on your block that could use a letter, a visit, a kind word? Sunday is a day for doing good. Last, Sunday is a day for worship. And as we do good on Sunday, as all through the week, we will find the strange thing happening that it begins to come back to us. Kind of like the little Australian who killed himself trying to throw away his boomerang. You just can't throw away doing good. It'll come back into your life. And others, by a kind of spiritual osmosis, will begin to do the same thing. You get up on Sunday morning, Monday morning, and you look around and you say, Good morning, Lord. You'll have a good day. You look out the wind and you say, Good Lord morning, and you'll have a terrible day. You get in the car and start down the freeway and ramming on the horn and blasting everybody out of your way, and they'll start blasting back at you. But you sit there under that wheel and you grin at them and smile if it kills you, and you'll find that folks will start to smile back at you. Let Sunday be a day to do good to other people, and life will bring that same goodness back to you. The last word is this, as I suggested. It is a day for worship. The word worship is an Anglo -Saxon word, a combination of two. Worth -ship. The way that we express our value and our worth and our appreciation of something. And what a wonderful privilege to go to a live and living, vibrant church, where the power and presence of God make it wonderful to go. Ladies and gentlemen, there is a koinonia. There is an excitement. There is an intangible something that we cannot express, that I cannot tell you what is. I cannot tell you always when it is there, but I can certainly tell you when it is not there in a church. It is that something that makes people want to go, to express their worth of God. And I want to say to you that if you expect people to drive 15 and 25 miles and pass a hundred other neighborhood churches, you're going to have to be the church with the plus. You'll have to have something that makes people want to get up and go to the effort of starting a half hour early and getting home a half hour late to want to come to the first Baptist church of Houston, Texas. If it's going to be a normal church, there are plenty normal churches in Houston, and people cannot be expected to pay a price to go to great difficulty to go to a church. The most wonderful and consistent comment that I hear among our visitors is that they say, Preacher, I used to hate to go to church. It was an obligation. I'd wind my watch and look out the window. But when I went to First Southern for the first time, I never saw anything like it. And I really can't wait to get back on Sunday night. I just can't wait to get ready to go back down to church. Our folks kid me sometimes about letting them out late after 12. But I found that when I do, they'll stand around. They still won't go home no matter when they get out. The worth, the way we express our value of something is what Sunday is for. It is a wonderful day of expressing. How glorious to hear the people of God come together by the hundreds and thousands and with resounding testimony saying what a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came into my heart. And you sing it and you believe it and you act like you believe it. You let it get on fire and they'll come. Many years ago, an atheist was invited by the pastor of a little country church to attend his services. He was not interested. About three in the morning, the preacher woke up. The church was on fire and burning down. He went down to the church and who was leading the bucket brigade, throwing church a water on the church fire? But the town atheist. Well, the preacher rubbed his eyes and said, atheist, I never saw you at church before. And the atheist said, preacher, I ain't never seen your church on fire before. You let it get on fire and the people of Houston, Texas are going to come and watch the fire burn. People won't come by when an ice wagon goes down the street. Ah, but when a fire truck races by, that's where the action is. That's where they want to go. Now, worship is not necessarily synonymous with quietness. They are quiet in the funeral home too, but that's only because they're dead. To worship, to express value, to express sentiment, to express my appreciation of something demands the intellect and the mind and the emotion and the soul and the heart of the whole man giving himself to Jesus Christ. I am not suggesting it, but in the Old Testament, the New Testament, they not only all prayed at once, but like the Pentecostals of today, they all raised their hands at once. Repeatedly, the Word of God says that men pray with hands exalted, lifting up holy hands. There was a verb, a vitality, a koinonia, an intangible excitement. And I remind you that the word enthuse is from two Greek words, enthios, in God, in God. There is nothing any more godly about a man, nothing any more, no more godly quality about a church than that it is is excited and exciting, that it is enthusiastic about its matter of worship to the Lord God of heaven. It is a wonderful day, a day for worship. Some natives were going across the desert with an ex, across the jungle with an expedition. They stopped one day and refused to go further until the next. The leader went to the head man and said, we've just got to rest here for 24 hours. You see, we have to have time for our souls to catch up with our bodies. Now you say, preacher, I worship God in my own way and in my own manner. I don't have to confine myself to a formal experience within the confines of a church and a printed order of service. I worship God on the golf course on Sunday. I worship God on the creek bank on Sunday. Well, that may be true. I have been by a few golf courses on Sunday, and I have heard something about God on Sunday on the golf course. So maybe they were worshiping. I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think they quite meant it that way. But I've never seen a collection at the first tee. Oh, they do take up money at the first tee sometimes, but I don't think it's a collection they're taking up. You say, I'll worship God anywhere. I don't need the form of religion. We have several Oklahoma University football players who have come to our church and do come periodically. Gene Cagle, our quarterback two of the years ago, is just retired as our youth director. And I can imagine one of them going down to the coach and saying, now, Coach, I like football, you see, and it's just the game I admire. I just like the whole game. I don't really like the form, all of the plays and the planning, so since it's just the game I'm interested in and not the form, I'll show up on Saturday for the game, and I'll just see you then. He wouldn't get very far. And so we say, I like religion, and I like Christ, and I love Christianity, but I just don't like all of the form of it. We won't get very far without a form. I'll show you then. All right.

Exodus 20:8 Exodus 20 · chapter mention John 20:19 John 20 · chapter mention Revelation 1:10 Acts 20:7 Acts 20 · chapter mention