The sermon titled 'Observing the Sabbath' delivered by various speakers at an unknown church explores the significance of the Sabbath in contemporary church life. The speakers, Dan Horn, Jason Dome, Steve Brege, and Scott Brown, discuss a recent five-sermon series at Hope Baptist Church that led to a noticeable revival among congregants. This revival was marked by a newfound delight in the Sabbath, with many expressing increased happiness and devotion to Christ. Initially, the congregation reacted with skepticism and anger towards the relevance of the Sabbath, but through detailed examination of biblical texts such as Matthew 12, Nehemiah 13, Exodus 20, Isaiah 58, and Hebrews 4, they gradually moved towards acceptance and joy. The sermon emphasizes the historical significance of the Sabbath and its role in signifying sanctification. It challenges modern attitudes that disregard the Sabbath, highlighting the idea that observing the Sabbath is a delight rather than a burden. The sermon also critiques the notion that the Sabbath is obsolete, arguing that it remains a crucial aspect of Christian life, emphasizing rest, worship, and love for one's neighbor. Heads of households are encouraged to lead by example, ensuring that their families observe the Sabbath with joy and reverence. The sermon concludes with a call to reevaluate Sabbath practices, aligning them with scriptural teachings and historical confessions, like the Second London Baptist Confession, which describes the Sabbath as a day set apart for rest and worship.

Okay, so here we are again at an early morning podcast on a critical issue for church life. Today we're going to talk about the importance of the Sabbath. And of course we have Dan Horn and Jason Dome and Steve Brege. And I'm Scott Brown here to discuss the Sabbath. So maybe we could just introduce ourselves and then we'll get into the topic.

Hi, I'm Dan Horn. Hi, I'm Jason Dome. I'm a deacon at Hope Baptist Church. And I'm Steve Regge. I'm an elder at the More Christian Assembly in Southern Pines, North Carolina.

OK, so now we want to talk about the Sabbath for a number of reasons. But something remarkable happened in our church at Hope Baptist recently. We engaged in a five sermon series on the Sabbath. And something amazing happened in our church. There was a mini revival going on.

People were saying, I have never had so much delight in this day in my life. I'm loving the Lord more. My happiness in Christ has risen. I love this day. That's what's happened.

Now it took a little bit of time to get there. We felt that we didn't really understand what Scripture said about the Sabbath, so we decided to take five Sundays and bury ourselves in five texts and deal with them in detail and labor in them. So we picked Matthew chapter 12, 1 through 13. We picked Nehemiah 13, 1 through 3, Exodus 20, 8 through 11, Isaiah 58, and Hebrews 4 as five classic texts to help us understand the doctrine of the Sabbath. And so as we did that, what we found is the end point was delight, but it wasn't delight right away.

There was sort of a process. There were varied reactions as we went through the service. The first sermon, people were kind of shocked. Some were actually angry that we would present the idea that the Sabbath was for today. And so there is this progression that we saw taking place in the church.

In the first sermon, you know, on Matthew 12, where Jesus' disciples are being accused of breaking the Sabbath and Jesus affirms the perpetuity the Sabbath by saying that he was the Lord of the Sabbath and We moved on any of my 13 and the other texts, but in the first sermon afterwards, there were a number of objections. The big objection in people's minds was the Sabbath is not for today. And then the second sermon as we moved into Nehemiah 13, and we looked at the judgments regarding the Sabbath breaking, objection kind of turned toward denial in some. Denied the sin in it and and just ignore the teaching there were a number of people that experienced that that phenomenon the third sermon it seemed there was a greater sense of the matter and some conviction of sin and people recognizing that God had something to say about this. The fourth sermon there was a little bit more acceptance, the delight started to rise.

By the fifth sermon there was just an outbreak of happiness. It was really a very interesting phenomenon that we experienced. So I think we certainly don't want to paint a picture of having arrived on the topic of the Sabbath. When you look on the continuum, there has definitely been movement in my household, and I think that's probably true across the church. One of the interesting things to note is that our church was founded a little over three years ago and our confession has always been very explicit about this and actually has more stern things to say about the Sabbath than probably were said during that four-week span from the pulpit.

And so it's not that our theology or our convictions changed, it's that as happens many many times, our practice is starting to catch up with our theology. And through the course of that we're realizing how much joy there is to be captured in putting in practice the things that we have probably thought were true for a long time, but actually giving attention to it in a practical way on Sundays has made a difference. It's probably worth reading what the Second London Baptist Confession says about the Sabbath. The Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord where men, after a due preparing of their hearts and ordering their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe and wholly rest all day from their own works, words and thoughts about their worldly employment and recreations, but are also taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship and the duties of necessity and mercy." One of the things that as the church in America today forgets is how modern this is the idea that you just ignore the Sabbath. This is a very new idea.

You look through the Reformation and nobody was talking about ignoring the Sabbath. Everybody was talking about that this is a sign that we're a sanctified people. This is a sign that god has set us apart in even in america I can remember growing up in pennsylvania even in the seventies the Sabbath was being enforced by the civil government it was illegal for many businesses for most businesses with the exception of of some pharmacies it was illegal for them to be open on sunday the sabbath laws maintained by the civil government they've only been off the books for forty years and yet the church is now saying oh we're free we're free or maybe we should go back and remember what a blessing the law is to God's people. What a blessing it is when we choose God's ways. These are the pleasant ways.

These are the ways that He has given us these things for great joy. And what greater joy is there than the Sabbath, where God's people gather together. God's people gather together with a focus on God. Can there be greater joy than that? And it's sad to me to even think, not even that long ago, how I used to view the Sabbath and to think that I was actually delighting in the things I was delighting in and then coming out of the series and realizing that that was not the true delight, that was not the true rest, although I thought it was, so I can attest to this even in the practice of my own family.

And I just think about where your average Christian is in regard to the Sabbath and how they've rejected that resting in Christ, resting in God, that day at rest, is a delight, and they take other things to be a delight. I've got two quotes here to really bring this home, and these are from two people I typically don't quote, but I think even Scott used this in one of his sermons, the first one, on Matthew 12 by Bill Gates. And this kind of reflects, even in the Christian world, how many people view the Sabbath. And this is what he said, that just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.

It's that second sentence, I think, that people in the Christian world really cling to. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning. It's that second sentence, I think, that people in the Christian world really cling to. There's a lot more I could be doing on Sunday than resting in the Lord. And then there's a lot of truth in this statement from this pagan enlightenment philosopher Voltaire.

He says this, if you wish to destroy the Christian religion you must first destroy the Christian Sunday. I think there's a lot of truth in that. He saw, I don't agree with most anything he says, but he saw something there. He saw that in order to destroy the Christian religion, he chose that, the Sabbath. He said, you destroy the Sabbath and you destroy the Christian religion.

And all it takes is to be convinced in your own mind that there is something more delightful out there. That's all it is. Whether it be going out to eat, whether it be watching TV, sitting on the couch so-called resting, all it takes is for you to think that that is where the true delight is. And all of a sudden, you've got a different view of the Sabbath than what has historically taken place. You know, Scripture is very explicit.

They're promises. Instead of, you know, instead of what Bill Gates says, it's not very time efficient. The Scripture says it's actually very, very time efficient. He says if you turn away your foot from doing your own will on my holy day, then something will happen to you. You will delight yourself in the Lord.

And He'll cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth and He'll feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The scripture actually contradicts Bill Gates on that. The Sabbath is actually very efficient, and it's wonderfully efficient for things that we all desire. How about delight? And even for provision, right?

Part of the Sabbath, and we can't ignore this, part of the Sabbath is a testimony that you believe God is actually sovereign, right? If you believe Bill Gates, then you say, well, that seventh day, how can I not work on that seventh day? That reduces my efficiency by 16 percent. But the reality is God says this is the efficient way and God provides. And so if we say we have to work that day, what we're saying is that we provide our own increase.

God doesn't provide the increase, we provide the increase. And so when we ignore and we reject the Sabbath and say this is the day that we need to work, what we're really saying is it's all about us and God has nothing to do with this world. It's a very bad testimony to the people around us. Primarily, I think there's two groups that we'd really like to reach out to today and they make up an overwhelming majority of the modern church. The first group believes that the Sabbath is really part of the ceremonial law and it's something that passed away when Christ came.

So really, we have nothing to do with it today in the modern church. The second group, which is probably even a larger group and I would have to say I was part of recently, which is a group of people who believe that the Sabbath hasn't passed away, that it's enforced, but that the requirements of it are satisfied simply by going to church. We understand that we need to gather with the people of God. And so it's not a day devoted to the Lord It's a third of a day devoted to the Lord or something like that and with the argument we'd like to make at least one of the arguments we'd like to make is the amount of joy and delight that is left on the table by taking that type of approach. And a lot of this is just about taking God at His word.

And Isaiah 58 couldn't be more explicit about what can be gained by a proper observance from the Sabbath, and that is delight in the Lord. What Christian does not want more delight in the Lord? They don't exist, right? And so, you know, one of the ways that we capture that is by giving careful attention to how we observe the Sabbath. One of the things that strikes me is that the people argue against the first case where it's all ceremonial and it passes away, is to say that what you have to say is that the law of the Sabbath has nothing to do with loving your neighbor.

And it's impossible to read the actual passage in Exodus or in Deuteronomy and come away with that because the Sabbath is about giving your maidservants, your manservants a day of rest. It's about giving your animals a day of rest. There is a significant aspect of it that's not about us and about our delight. It's also showing the love of God to your neighbor. If God's people all actually held the fact that they should not have paid anybody to serve them on the Lord's Day.

If they held to that, think about how many businesses would close and how many people would have a day off. They currently do not have a day off what we've done is by saying our were under grace and not under law were saying we can curse our neighbor because our view of grace is better than god's view of the law the reality is god's law is a blessing to our neighbor it's a the love of god is is reflected in our love for our neighbor. When we neglect the Sabbath, we're neglecting our love for our neighbor. You know, Jonathan Edwards said it's one of the ways that the presence of God, the knowledge of God is declared in the world. That if people did not keep the Sabbath, there would not be a visible way.

And Edwards believed that the Sabbath was that day where the whole church would just stop and say to themselves and the whole world, there's a God in heaven and he is delightful. Edwards was very plain about it. He said, you better figure out what you believe about this day because it comes around every week. That's kind of a profane translation of how he said it but it's it's true you know it comes around every week and you better figure out what you really believe that most people have kind of a fuzzy belief about it as as jason you know indicated it's either of a belief that has sort of a general understanding but not much detail what scripture actually says and that's what we want to do in this series is to pursue that you know we don't we don't think we can prove you know the perpetuity of the Sabbath in this little podcast here but you know what we'd encourage you to do if you have time is a listen to some of the sermons we've preached about. You can find them on the Hope Baptist website.

There are five sermons on these texts. Also, on the National Center for Family Integrated Church's website are a number of articles by guys like J.C. Ryle and Jonathan Edwards and Robert Lewis Dabney and different other theologians that explain some of the details and make some of the arguments that are more granular in nature that we won't be able to get to here this morning. But what we can do during this time is encourage everybody listening to really consider your current Sabbath practices, whatever they may be, and it could be on a wide scale. But we are calling people, just as we've called ourselves, just as we've called the Church to really examine their current Sabbath practices, and then evaluate that in light of Scripture.

And so that's really the best way to come at how are you going to view the Sabbath. I mean, it's just basic hermeneutical principles. Don't just take a couple of verses out of context that seem to speak on the Sabbath, and then base your whole doctrine on the Sabbath on one verse. Don't base your whole doctrine on the Sabbath on Colossians 2.16, where it seems that Paul is saying that you don't have to observe the Sabbath, which is clearly not true. That was not Paul's teaching.

What we need to do, number one, is come under the authority of Scripture. So if you're going to go into this type of study, the first thing you have to do As a Christian, you've got to come under the authority of Scripture and say, I'm going to let Scripture shape my way of thinking, not only on the Sabbath, but on anything. So come to the table with that mindset, first of all. Scripture is authoritative and not our own minds. Let that be our instructor.

And then number two, take the whole counsel of God. We always encourage to take the whole counsel of God. Taking verses out of context is a very dangerous thing and it happens all the time. And taking God's Word in full, His whole counsel, it takes time. But any Christian who desires to be obedient to God, which is to love Him, will desire to put that kind of time in.

So we're encouraging, at the very least, everybody to take that kind of time, because the Sabbath is so important, to take that kind of time and come down through your own exposition, through the whole council of God and where you stand, where your family stands, where the church stands in the Sabbath. And too often we look at these things and say, oh, it's just ceremonial. Well, God destroyed Israel because they didn't keep the Sabbath here. And for 70 years, he put them into Babylon because they didn't keep the Sabbath. He says that their gates will be destroyed because they don't keep the Sabbath.

Over and over again, the warnings of Ezekiel, the warnings of Jeremiah, they go back to, You're a profane people because you are not keeping my Sabbath. As opposed to Ezekiel saying the Sabbath is a sign that you're a sanctified people. It's a sign that you're set apart. When we make every day alike what we're saying is we're just like the Gentiles. We're just like everybody in the world.

The Sabbath is a sign that we've been set apart. And to ignore that testimony throughout scripture and then say, well, in the New Testament we're not set apart really? Be holy for I am holy. It's the same. I mean, that's a reiteration of the Sabbath in a very real sense because the Sabbath is about from the beginning God was going to set apart some.

He set apart from the seventh day, He set that day apart. It's a sign that we're set apart, it's a sign that He's setting us apart. When we ignore that, we're ignoring, as you said, we're ignoring a huge amount of counsel of God. One of the things I had a vague awareness of, but really crystallized for me during this series, was how comprehensive in the whole sweep of scripture the Sabbath is. It really is everywhere.

And so I think the argument that the Sabbath is only ceremonial law is a very weak one. We see it established by God himself in Genesis 2. We do see it as part of the Ten Commandments, by the way, the most comprehensive, it's the longest, the most fully described, most comprehensive of the commandments. So a lot of the Ten Commandments, if you look at it in terms of word and space given, it actually stands above the rest. You see it all throughout the prophets.

You see Jesus talking about it a lot in the New Testament, and it's definitely a mischaracterization to say that Jesus is disparaging the Sabbath in any way. What he's doing is correcting errors on the Sabbath. The Pharisees had made something that God always intended to be a blessing to man into something that was an onerous burden through the way they were observing it, not that they were observing it. And one of the arguments that J.C. Ryle makes is that the Pharisees had errors on that side taking it and making it more onerous than God ever intended it to be, and that the modern church, and of course he was talking about the church 200 years ago, I wonder what he would say today, The modern church in his time had errors on completely the other side of the continuum where we take all these things very lightly.

So they had overdone the Sabbath in that they had made it more onerous than God intended and we have underdone the Sabbath in making it nothing. I'm not sure more onerous than what God suggested was what you meant. God designed it to be a delight, right, but they end up, and I think this is one of the reasons that you get in the modern church of, oh, we should just ignore the Sabbath, is that Jesus Christ was killed because of the Sabbath. His healing people on the Sabbath, his being a blessing to people on the Sabbath, ended up getting the Pharisees so angry they wanted to kill him. But to say what that means is that we're not supposed to be a blessing to people on the Sabbath.

And to give people a day off on the Sabbath is being a blessing to people on the Sabbath. What we've ended up doing is saying we're not going to be Pharisees, so we'll be Pharisees. We're not going to say, well, if you even heal somebody, if you show mercy on the Sabbath, you've broken the law. Now we say, we're not going to show mercy on anybody. Well, wait a second.

That's equally breaking the law. No, as you said, you can fall off both sides of the horse. Yeah, I think I do want to defend my position here not to say that the Sabbath is onerous, but I think we should all acknowledge that God is calling us to an investment, and it's an investment of the day on his behalf. And it does have real implications. And to your point, it wouldn't be right to call those onerous.

But we should acknowledge that it really changes the complexion of our week. And it changes the complexion of Saturday, too, because there's a sense in which preparations have to be made. You don't just stumble into a proper observance on the Sabbath. There is a making yourself ready both in practical terms and also making your heart ready for the Sabbath as well. I think we'd like to position this as an investment that has a high return.

Yes, it has implications on the way your week is conducted. And in a sense, it's not onerous, but there is a price to be paid for it. But the return is fantastic. Right. It's not onerous, but it sure looks onerous when you're looking at it.

In a sense, part of what we're saying here is we need to walk by faith and not by sight. Because to look at it, you say, but look at all these things I could do on that day. That's a whole day I'm just supposed to sit around and instead what we're supposed to say is, God said to do it, this is where blessing is, this is where joy is, this is even where prosperity is. Not to speak of prosperity gospel, but when we think that somehow we're going to be more prosperous if we disobey God, I mean let's be serious, That's just not what God's Word says. You know, it's a call to saturate yourself in the delight of the Lord.

All day long, not half a day. It's a holy day. Not your own words, not your own ways. And So it is restrictive like you said, Jason. It does control your life.

God wants to control your life. God wants to control your week. He wants to have you stop for an entire day of a week and do one thing. Worship Him, praise Him, put your own things aside, and saturate your whole mind in the glory of God. But here's the problem with that.

Because we are so spiritually mature, because in many ways we have a hatred toward God, We cannot conceive of an entire day. And so it's often when you present the idea of an entire day, well, you know, most of evangelicalism spends, you know, the first half of the day at church and the second half of the day on the ball field. They cannot conceive of an entire day committed to the glory, to the meditations on the glory of God. They really would rather do other things. And so it's a confrontation really of hatred of holy things.

Maybe that's why, you know, in the first place in scripture where we find that the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus as he was teaching them about the Sabbath. If you want to teach about the Sabbath, there will be some people who will have a violent reaction. The reason is, yes, God wants to control your life, and He wants to control your whole week. And there is one particular day that He desires you to set aside your own words, your own ways, set aside buying and selling, and devote it exclusively to the feeding of your soul so that it would be found to have delight. And that's a problem with our thinking.

You mentioned we cannot conceive of spending an entire day worshiping God instead of just believing what God's Word says. The Word says that a whole day of worship to God is a delight. You can translate this to people's thinking on heaven. I've heard people talk about heaven and how wonderful it will be and they say, but I can't imagine spending an eternity worshiping God. Won't that get boring?

Is that all we're going to do? Our thinking has just been so influenced by our culture. It's hard to imagine, of course, heavenly things, but again, we should let God's Word instruct us on what that looks like. And I mentioned earlier one of the obstacles I had to overcome in coming to a proper biblical understanding of the Sabbath was, number one, understanding that the true delight wasn't what I wanted to do, but what God laid out in His Word. That was really the true delight.

The second, probably one of the second obstacles I had to overcome was my selfishness and thinking that my time was my own. That God, really that God was not my creator and he didn't have a claim on my time. And so I forgot in the verse it says I was bought with a price. I am not my own. I'm not my time is not my own God owns not just one day of the week He actually owns all seven days and he gets to as the creator and us being the creature I realize he gets to tell me exactly how to spend that day and if I were to use my own thinking on this I'd run myself into the ground.

I would just be working and doing my own thing for seven days. But no, God was gracious. He was loving and kind and realized that human nature would do that. And so he actually commanded out of love and mercy, He commanded us to rest on that day for our own good, because I know what I would do on that seventh day if God hadn't commanded me to do that. So I had to overcome the thought that, no, all of this is God's time.

And He's only asking for one day, a whole day of dedication toward Him. Now, of course, we're to be worshipping God all week. But he's asking for one whole day. And the other six, he's giving us a lot more leeway on, as far as that's concerned. But he's also commanding us what to do with the other six.

We shouldn't forget that, because that's in the fourth commandment, too. We are commanded to work the other six days. And so we get our schedule that, well, we work five days and we have two days that are all ours, instead of the reality is we're supposed to be about God's work for six days and on the seventh day we're supposed to rest in Him. It's interesting, you find among creationists, you know, tremendous passion in defining what is a day. It's a 24 hour period, but when they get to the Sabbath it's really like a half a day or something like that.

So there are all kinds of conflicts that this brings up. Here's one of the great conflicts. It really puts pressure on the head of a household, the father. Of course, you know, Scripture puts it on the heads of households to ensure that everyone in their realm, everyone in their household has a Sabbath. This is a responsibility of headship of fathers and mothers to make sure they have a Sabbath.

But to have an entire day dedicated to the glory of God is a challenge. That's perhaps one of the biggest issues is that fathers who do not have a vision for how to bring their families into worship and prayer and doing good on the Sabbath, showing mercy on the Sabbath. Fathers who have no vision are the perpetrators of boredom on the Sabbath. And so they sin against their families by not having a plan. They don't have anyone to visit to go pray for.

They don't have songs to sing. They don't have scripture to read. They don't have prayers to pray on the Sabbath. They're just kind of getting through the day and so they can hit it again on Monday morning. And so they find whatever is interesting and fun to do on Sunday afternoon.

Sports activities or buying and selling or things like that are far easier to fall into when in fact God has called for heads of households to ensure that everybody in their realm of authority experiences the worship of God all day long, not half a day. One of the hilarious parts of this series at our church was that everyone, including me, just kept waiting for a verdict on what could and could not be done, what was on limits and what was off limits for the Sabbath. You know, the preachers were content to lay out the principles and let the applications largely be in the hands of heads of households. Because that's really who has to regulate how time is spent on the Sabbath, is heads of households. And so elders preach and teach the principles.

And then heads of households have to wrestle with the right application. And I, among many, just wanted the list. Tell me what I can do and tell me what I can't do. And then we can apply the formula, right? But this goes beyond that.

As in all things, this is a matter of the heart. Now, not to say that there's not right application and wrong application, but it's possible to technically apply the right application and have your heart be completely unaffected. And one thing that's important for the heads of households to do, right, we can talk about having a plan and all that, and that's all wonderful things, but they have to start with calling it a delight. And the problem is when they call it and say, oh, I really don't want to do this. Their household is going to be miserable on the Sabbath and they've cursed the Sabbath and they've made the Sabbath a curse to the people that are in their jurisdiction.

They have to start by in their own heart actually calling it a delight and say God has given this for our good. And so When the head of any sphere of authority says that the Sabbath is a curse rather than a delight, it will become a curse. They need to be delivered about saying this is a delight. God gave this to us for our good and for the good of those around us. And as Jason said, our intent was not to give a list of what you can and cannot do.

And as also what Jason said, there is right application that you can and cannot do. We are not to buy or sell in the Sabbath. If you're a Christian employer, you should not be making people work on Sunday. So one thing we need to, as fathers, to be aware of and guard against is the whole idea of syncretism. What I mean by that is an acknowledgement that yes, we should be keeping the Sabbath, we should be resting in the Sabbath, and it should be a whole day.

And then to come to that and say, we're going to go to church, and we're going to have some fellowship time. But then there's also a time for recreation and play. But we try to combine those and say, but I can golf on the Sabbath and rest. I can play softball and whatnot on the Sabbath. And I can worship God while I'm hitting the ball and things like that.

It's just a call, not to say what you can and cannot do on the Sabbath, but just to be aware of the fact that our human nature will try to meld those together when really if you look at it at face value, there might be no way that you can watch a TV program sitting on the couch, very restful and still honor and worship God during that time. Just be aware of how our minds work as we try to meld these two things together, when really, they might not be able to be melded together. I know what I should and should not do on the Sabbath. I know what really is rest and what I'm calling rest, but really isn't rest. I'm not really worshiping God doing those things.

So this is just a call to beware and really think hard when you try to rationalize what you're doing as being rest and worshiping God when it really isn't. It's just doing your own thing. So in our family we had some really funny discussions about this whole thing, about rationalizing this or that activity. Like for example, can you buy a book off the internet on Sunday because your credit card won't get hit until it ships. So is that buying and selling on the Sabbath or not?

So here was the principle that I can't remember if it was my wife or one of my daughters. Whenever you hear the term, technically, in a sentence regarding the Sabbath, you're probably sinning. And so technically, one other point I wanted to make is technically the Sabbath starts Saturday night. I don't think I'm sinning in saying that. But when we think about it, it makes a big difference when that 24-hour period starts.

Because where is the worship service even? Is this the start of the Sabbath, or is this in the middle of the Sabbath? Biblically, it's more in the middle of the Sabbath. And when it's in the middle of the Sabbath, what that means is, yeah, I know, it means that you can't do whatever you want Saturday night because Saturday night really will affect what happens Sunday morning. And if your household is about staying out late Saturday night, guess what?

Your household is not prioritizing the worship of God. And so when we think about this, is this a hard, fast thing? No, but you should really consider what the implications are on your household if what you say is the Sabbath is from when I get up Sunday morning. Because Saturday affects so much of the Sabbath. Are you all running around like chickens with your heads cut off on Sunday morning trying to get out the door, trying to make it to church in time, because you didn't lay out clothes the day before, because you weren't prepared.

Biblically, the day before the Sabbath is called the Day of Preparation, and it's really useful to consider it that way. And when we think about business, when we think about our work, frequently while I have an early business meeting, so I'm going to go to bed early, I'm going to make sure that I have my stuff together in the morning so I can go right out the door. We do that for other things. And when we do that for other things and don't do it for the worship of God, what are we telling our families about what we think the worship of God is? Is it a secondary thing or is it the primary thing?

When we're in heaven, it's the primary thing. We should really consider what example we're setting, what things we're testifying to on Earth. So I have to quote my favorite commentator, J.C. Ryle. And he could have been writing this last week.

It's amazing how many of the things that were written hundreds of years ago are still germane. But he says this in challenge to the people who view the Sabbath as a burden. Ryle has this counsel. Many are raising a cry in the present day as if we were inflicting a positive injury on them and calling them to keep the Sabbath holy. They talk as if the observance of the day were a heavy yoke like circumcision and the washings and purifications of the ceremonial law.

But the Sabbath is God's merciful appointment. For the common benefit of all mankind, it was made for man." Amen. So we really want to just encourage people to consider what the Scriptures say. Go back, read the texts, See what you think. We need to know with certainty what the scriptures say.

We need to acknowledge that the Sabbath can be a stumbling stone. We need to have historical perspective on it. You know, for us, as people are asking us, okay, what can we do and what can't we do? That was always the big question. We would always just dive into the text and try to expose what's there and what's there.

It is an urgent appeal to delight yourself in the Lord on a holy day. What we did when people asked us the specific question was we wanted to repeat the biblical terminology of what was restricted on the Sabbath. And so we were also just content to direct people to our confession of faith, the second line of Baptist Confession. We didn't really have anything new to present to the members of our church. They already understood the doctrine of our church to include this clause in the second line of Baptist Confession.

What we liked about the confession is it sticks to the Bible words about it and doesn't create, what the Pharisees created, a nightmare. And so what they said is the Sabbath is kept holy to the Lord by those who, after the necessary preparation of their hearts and prior arranging of their common affairs, observe all day a holy rest from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employment and recreations, and give themselves over to the public and private acts of worship for the whole time and to carrying out duties of necessity and of mercy. So our encouragement is this, call the Sabbath of delight and see what might happen.