Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Today we have with us Tim Stevens, who's a pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Calgary, Alberta, and we're here to talk about the Lord's Day, the Sabbath, And this is one of the distinctives that we are really encouraging churches to embrace. Hope you enjoy the discussion. Jason, we're going to talk about this distinctive, this distinctive that makes us look really weird. We celebrate the Lord's day, the Old Testament called it the Sabbath day, according to our confession, chapter 22 of the Baptist Confession of 1689, religious worship and the Sabbath day.

And it's a wonderful section, but it does make us look weird to the rest of the culture. 06 Yeah, you've already hit on a phrase that we have to do something with, and it's from Revelation chapter 1 verse 10. The Apostle John says he was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. So in the last inspired book of Revelation that has been given, you have an apostle who affirms that there is a distinct day, it belongs to the Lord, and everybody has to do something with that. Tim, give us some reflections on that.

Yeah. Well, I think we see that in the New Testament is, you know, in the book of Acts, you have the second chapter, they're meeting every day, listening to disciples teaching. And then by the time you get later in the book of Acts, you know, the 20th chapter, they've settled into meeting on that Lord's Day, the first day of the week, and that's an opportunity for them to remember the day that Christ rose from the grave. And so, that has been, you know, the day of worship for Christians since that time, and it's a sacred day and a special day. Yeah, why do we do it on the first day of the week and not on the seventh day of the week?

Well, Jesus rose on the first day of the week and the Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, which is the first day of the week. The math is really simple there, 50 days. And then the pattern that you see is disciples gathering to worship on the first day of the week. Yeah. And it's really important that you understand what your view is.

You know, people are fuzzy about the view of the Lord's day, and you need to know, you need to establish your position on it. Jonathan Edwards says, you need to establish your position because it comes around every week. Okay? And you know, are you clear about what the Bible says? And you know, God is going to give you hundreds, maybe thousands of Sundays, and it's really important that you know what you're doing.

And so the scriptures, you know, guide us to that. And the other part is that it will set you at odds with mainstream evangelicalism if you celebrate the Lord's Day the way that the Bible speaks of it. Tim, what's the purpose? There is a Lord's Day, well, obviously to be devoted to worship. You know, when you think about even the word Sabbath as it's used in the Old Testament, it just means to cease or desist.

So you stop from your regular labors. And now here's a day that's divinely appointed by God, a pattern established for us to worship Him. And I think in our day and age, Scott, you just mentioned how modern evangelicalism, we've boiled down the Lord's Day to the Lord's Hour, even if that, and we just come out. And the rest of the day is up to us to decide to do what we desire to do, you know, a free day. But really, the Lord's Day, you know, should be filled with the things that are prescribed in scripture.

That's worship, practicing hospitality. We celebrate a fellowship meal as a church. You fill the day with these activities that you don't have the opportunity to do the rest of the week, but yet are so refreshing and invigorating and ultimately direct all glory and honor to Christ. Amen. Hey, I want to throw out 11 reasons the Lord's Day is for today.

And I want to read the heading and then just give, we're going to go really fast to get through all 11, but I think it's important that we actually try to lay a biblical foundation for it. But Jason, you were going to say something before. Yeah, here's what I was going to interject. So William Wilberforce, who was responsible, he spent his life trying to get the slave trade outlawed in the British Empire and finally succeeded. He has some really interesting quotes because he had the confessional view of the Lord today, and he observed that he had so many contemporaries who were much, had many more gifts than he had, but he observed that he outlasted them because he took one day in seven to rest into worship.

And so he saw these more gifted men, men who were stronger than him in many ways, but he was able to outlast them because he, here's the words he used. He said, I unstring the bow. And what he meant was, if you leave a bow strong, then the uninterrupted tension will ruin the bow string over time. And he saw this happening to these tremendously gifted men. They never let the tension off.

And of course, God has designed us with bodies that need rest, minds that need rest, and spirits that need worship. And if you don't give the body its rest, mind its rest, and spirit its worship, then you've never taken the tension off the bow. When you need the string the most, it's not ready. Yeah. Amen.

So let's go through these 11 reasons we should celebrate. The first, that it was established at creation. It wasn't first established in the Ten Commandments. Genesis 2, 2 and 3 make it clear that it was God that established the Day of Rest before the law was given. You know, he gave names, God through Adam gave names to the animals, and then he gave, God gave the Sabbath a special purpose and a name.

He called it the Sabbath day. So that was at creation. We want to dismiss the idea that this is one of the Ten Commandments that was abrogated. There are ten commandments, not nine. So the second is in Exodus 16, 22, and 23, before the law was given.

So this is the second occasion that the Lord's Day was established before the law was given on Mount Sinai. The people knew about and observed the law of the Sabbath in Exodus 16, 22 and 23. And then third, the 10 commandments, in Exodus 20, eight through 11. I think we should pause on this one because we are surrounded by people who actually will say boldly there really are only nine commandments that apply to the Christian today. What are your thoughts about that?

Well, I think there was a misunderstanding in people's minds about the totality of God's revelation from beginning to end, and that there is, even as the apostle Paul would mention, there is still a continuity. There's many references to Old Testament law that he uses in the New Testament. And so I think in people's minds, when they see such a sharp discontinuity, it's because there's a very sharp law-gospel distinction in people's minds when they think, well, if we're saved by faith, or not saved by the law, therefore the law now has no purpose. And Paul is quite clear that that's not the case at all, but the law serves a purpose. And especially for those who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, the law is now our pattern, our template for walking faithfully before God.

Yeah. Nothing in the 10 commandments is distinctively Jewish, in the, including, so all men, Oh God worship. And so, God requires, a portion of time one day in seven to be set aside to worship. And that is not a distinctively Jewish idea. So how do you respond to those who say, well, it's the only commandment not repeated in the New Testament?

What's your response to that? I mean, it actually is repeated in the New Testament. There are lots of interactions between Jesus and the leaders of His day on the Sabbath. Jesus never says one word against it, never gives any hint that it would be done away with in human history, and he only corrects the things that were not consistent with the Old Testament testimony about the law. So in Jesus's interactions on the Sabbath in the Gospels, there are only corrections to the misunderstandings and misapplications.

And I think it's important to understand the fourth commandment with the other commandments that are given in the Old Testament in light of Christ's coming. It doesn't mean that in our day and age that the Mosaic Code has given is this drop down in our laps, but it does mean that because Christ has come, that the law itself is not completely done away with, but it must be understood in light of Christ. And so, we recognize that there is a change, the Lord's Day is on Sunday, the first day of the week, because of his resurrection. And there'll be other elements that may be different than how the Jews would practice some of those Old Testament laws, but yet understood through the Lord Jesus Christ especially, this is a time when we remember the rest that we have in Christ and the salvation that we have in Christ. And so it takes on an added significance and even an added weight in light of Christ.

So there are two giving of the Ten Commandments, one is in Exodus 20, the other is in Deuteronomy 5. It's interesting, they're identical except for this commandment. In Exodus, it's rooted in creation and the fact that God rested on the seventh day, setting a pattern for mankind. But in the second, the basis for it in Deuteronomy chapter five, the basis of it changes from creation to redemption. And so actually there is a sweetness to this day with the coming of Jesus and all that he accomplished for the Lord's people, because it really is a day to reflect and rejoice in the things that Christ is to us.

You know, a decade and a half ago, I was preaching through the book of Deuteronomy. You were there, Jason, And we got to Deuteronomy chapter five. And this is the section on the 10 commandments. And I remember preaching the first sermon on that. And I got us together as elders and I said, you know what?

We need to figure out where we all stand on this. We know we're 1689 guys, but we're not perfectly clear on it, and our congregation isn't perfectly clear on it. So what are we going to do? Well, we decided to preach through a number of Sabbath texts, Isaiah 58, Hebrews 4, and so forth. But the first sermon, people were very disturbed.

You mean God wants to limit my day on the Lord's day? Yes, the whole day. That's what I said. Some people were kind of angry the first time, the first sermon. The second sermon, people were thinking, interesting.

By the third sermon they're saying, that is, that, there's something here. And by the time we finished the series, people were coming up to us and saying, you know, I've never had so much joy in the Lord's day. But all along, all along when we were preaching to this, people were badgering us. They were saying, tell us what we can't do. Tell us what we can't do.

Tell us what we can't do. We refuse to answer that question because the Bible doesn't do it. It just gives you a couple of things you can't do. Everybody knows when they're not adoring the Lord. You know, you know when you're not worshiping God, you know, when you're not celebrating the Lord's day, the way he meant it and no, and every, and nobody can celebrate the Lord's day perfectly.

So, you know, we, we were reluctant to give a list of what you can't do. Yeah, Tim and Scott, I think one of the things we want to say here is that until you're really being benefited by it, you don't rightly understand it. So If the Lord's day, if a day for rest and worship isn't a delight to you and a help to you, then you gotta go back to the book. We don't rightly understand it yet until we're really being helped by it. Why is it noxious to you that you would spend a day delighting in the Lord?

That was one question we asked people. Well, I think that's when they confronted Jesus over the Sabbath regulations. And he was trying to teach them that this is not a set of shackles that you put upon people. And that's the conception that people have is, oh, you mean we have to do this, but rather it's more that we get to do this. This is something that we ought to look forward to every single week to see a day devoted to rest and worship.

Yeah, he says the Sabbath was made for man. He speaks of the blessing of it and really to unshackle it from all these rules and regulations that the Pharisees had put on the celebration of the Lord's Day. And they were ridiculous shackles, all made up out of whole cloth. I don't remember which commentator this should be attributed to just to say this did not originate with me. But the commentator said if you know if you had an employer that gave you seven and a half weeks off, would you be mad at that employer?

And of course, the unspoken answer is no, you would love that employer who gets seven and a half weeks off. Well, the truth is the people of God are given seven, the equivalent of seven and a half weeks off if you take a day to rest and one day and seven to rest. Yeah. So you have Jesus really establishing the reality and the truth of the Sabbath, that it's good for man, men should participate in it. And then also next fifth, the prophets.

Isaiah 58 is probably one of the critical texts, but Jeremiah 17 makes it really clear. The Babylonian captivity took place because they broke the Sabbath for 490 years. People forget the harsh judgment that fell upon the heads of God's people, deporting them to Babylon because they refused to celebrate the Lord's Day, celebrate the Sabbath. There, this was a harsh judgment and we don't want to dismiss God's passion to bring his people together in for pure worship and an entire day. The next, the sixth, of course Mark 2.27 says that the Sabbath is a good thing for man.

Seventh, the apostles affirm it. You've already talked about this. Acts chapter 20, 1 Corinthians 16, you know, make it very, very clear. You know, Revelation 1, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. There's a thing called the Lord's Day, you know, when John was was writing Revelation.

So it's, it's a, it's something that the apostles, you know, advocated. I would just say be wary of using Colossians 2.16 to abolish the Lord's Day. Paul is referring to a, quote, festival or new moon or Sabbaths. He's not extinguishing the Lord's Day in that text. He's talking about the ceremonial law.

He's talking about the feasts and the Sabbaths that were associated with that. He was using the language of the ceremonial law. Hebrews 4 11, number eight says that it remains. Ninth, there are 10 commandments, not nine. Here's another one.

Is work abrogated? If the Lord's Day is abrogated, is work abrogated? Because they're all mingled together in the commandment. Eleventh, are the other commandments abrogated? If one is abrogated, you have to ask, are the rest of them abrogated?

Well, no, the answer is no. So there you have it. When you minimize the importance of the Lord's, Lord's day, you minimize the basic elements of historic Christianity. And for our, and for our purposes, we don't want to go back to the 20th century to establish our doctrine of the Lord's Day. We want to go back to the historic confessions where there is there is there is a near universal agreement in reformed churches about how to celebrate the Lord's Day.

So I grew up in a Christian environment but in an environment that was totally insensitive on this point. So, Tim, how would you encourage a younger me if you just wanted to raise my sensitivity to it, just as somebody who hadn't thought about it before or never really considered the issues? Yeah, I think even what you just said, Scott, about an acquaintance beyond the 20th century, I think the church in modern times has been so thoroughly pragmatic and man-centered and hasn't followed the old paths that have been established before us, and so get acquainted with the history of the church. I know for myself as a young man, just reading how the church would celebrate the Lord's Day, and what they would do, the Lord's Supper, all these different things that went into it and realized, boy, we've missed a lot. So those confessions and creeds and how they would explain the Scriptures is where I would recommend a young man to begin.

Scott, you've mentioned Isaiah 58 a couple of times. I want to read those two verses. It's Isaiah 53, excuse me, Isaiah 58, 13 and 14. And it's really an exhortation not to trample on this special day for rest and worship. It says this, If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, the mouth of the Lord has spoken." So what this is saying is, if you don't trample on the Sabbath, but you just acknowledge it's a delight and you honor it and set aside your own ways, your own words, your own pleasures, just to have God's ways, God's words, God's pleasures, then you actually are the recipient of promises that you'll delight yourself in the Lord and that he'll give you victory.

So reading that makes me say, oh man, if the Lord's day, if there's not a day of the week for God anymore, I'm so sorry. What a loss, you know? Have you ever felt dry? Have you ever felt like your delight in the Lord is flagging? Well, actually, we're given sort of something to look to if we find ourselves dry and our zeal flagging.

Maybe we're not giving this day its due, and if we'll set aside our own pleasures for God's pleasures and just give ourselves to the pleasures of God for the day. You know, the Puritans called this the market day of the soul. It's when you go to get what you need for your soul, then we might find ourselves, our delight in the Lord really increasing. You know, that text in Isaiah 58 is so helpful because it gives both the positive and the negative. You shall delight yourself in the Lord.

Exodus 20 says it's a holy day, so that's what it is, positively. But What is prohibited? Well, in Exodus 20 in Deuteronomy, no work, you know. And also, you know, in this passage, not your own words, not your own pleasures. It's a holy day.

And I think that God gave us such brief instructions so that it would be something that we would do from the heart. The prohibitions are very narrow and the affirmations are also narrow, but they open up the heart to love the Lord on that day. So the Lord's Day should be a day like no other. It should be a day of delight. It should be a day where you're not working and involving yourself in economic activity.

It's really pretty simple. We don't need to make up a bunch of prohibitions, you know, on the Lord's Day. Okay, final shots. Well, Jason, you go first and then Tim will give you the last shot. So in the copy of the 1689 Confession put out by Church of Family Life, at the beginning of every chapter, there's a quote from usually an old dead guy.

And in this case, it is J.C. Ryle. So let me read this. It's a wonderful quote. J.C.

Ryle says, but the Sabbath is God's merciful appointment for the common benefit of all mankind. It was made for man, Mark 2.27. It was given for the good of all classes, for the laity quite as much as for the clergy. It is not a yoke but a blessing. It is not a burden but a mercy.

It is not a hard, wearisome requirement, but a mighty public benefit. It is not an ordinance which man is bid to use in faith without knowing why he uses it. It is one which carries with it its own reward. It is good for man's body and mind. It is good for nations above all.

It is good for souls to that assay, amen. And Scott, well, I appreciate what you said about the Lord's day and being a holy day. And I think that just helps people's mind to navigate through the prohibitions or through the positive instructions. This is a day that's holy, it's set apart, it's like none other. And it's a day that it's not just a carryover from Saturday or get things done that you didn't get done the rest of the week.

But this is a day where even Saturday, you ought to be thinking of, and Saturday evening, if you have family, preparing for the coming day tomorrow and fill that day with those elements that we do see in Scripture about worshipping the Lord, being together with other brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, being in the Word, resting from our labors. And I believe as people do that and faithfully follow the Lord and His instructions, that they will see the benefits and the delight, and they can't imagine that they used to neglect the Lord's Day or not hold it as sacred as they are. Tim, that's just a very practical point that you just made. The Jews called the day before the Sabbath the day of preparation, and I think they had learned what everybody who tries to observe the Lord's Day learns, which is if you don't make preparations the day before, then you don't rest on the day itself. Yeah, no, that's so critical.

And that has to do with anticipating this day of delight. You know, Tim, Jason and I were just on the phone with Sam Waldron a little while ago doing a podcast with him. And he said, this is the last thing I'm gonna do before I go on my month vacation. Okay. He was ready to blow out of there.

Let's make this podcast short. He didn't do that. But you know what that's, you know, when you're getting ready to go on vacation, you know, I just had a week with Deborah, you know, swimming in the ocean with the manatees in Florida doing nothing together, just the two of us, like for the first time in forever. I so looked forward to being with her, just the two of us. I think the Lord's Day should be like that too.

You know, you punch out the clock and then it's the Lord's Day. You know, you're going into this day of delight. That's how we should think about it. Where we're sort of re nourishing our souls, being with the people of God, singing together, worshiping like your church and our church and Jason's church. We feast together on the Lord's Day.

We have a fellowship meal. It's so fantastic. So delight yourself in the Lord and celebrate the Lord's Day the way that God has prescribed. Amen. Thank you for joining us, Tim.

Really, really appreciate it. And Thank you, man. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Hope to see you next time. Church and Family Life is proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture by helping build strong families and strong churches.

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