Good Morning Everyone,

I hope all is well with you. Don’t forget that this Google Group is another option when wanting to share some tidbits on your life, perhaps a prayer request or a “Praise God” story. And you’d be sharing such things with compassionate people who know you 😉

Priming the pump as it were, I attended a men’s small group this past Thursday. In addition to discussing the Bible with other grown men, I met a man there who, get this, works as a coffee salesman! Ha! Needless to say, I’ve got an order pending…

So on to this week’s commandment of discussion, the last of our relating to God:

Exodus 20:8-11: Remember the Sabbath (rest) day and keep it holy (set apart). Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God, in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant, or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.

Okay, so you’re probably wondering right now, do we have to keep the Sabbath? And the answer is no. The Sabbath was implemented by God for the Jews and was part of their Theocratic observances. And as you may well know, when Jesus finished His work, the whole Old Testament Mosaic/ Ceremonial/ Levitical system ceased… recall the tearing of the temple curtain, etc…. Christ was the fulfillment of the Law.

The Apostle Paul wrote this:

Colossians 2:16-17 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day- things which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

You see, all those sacrifices and festivals and such of the Old Testament were pointing to Christ. An unblemished lamb to be slaughtered back then foreshadowed Jesus, the sinless man becoming a sacrifice. And so now we celebrate/ memorialize the third day when Christ rose from the dead, which is Sunday.

Now, about this 4th commandment… should we just discard it as irrelevant? May I offer my opinion? Let me share my perspective.

The Bible says that God created everything in 6 days and rested on the 7th. Now Almighty God does not need to rest does He? No. Thus, He rested as an example to us.

By the way, I happen to believe the week we all live by is a simple but blessed witness to God’s design. Have you ever wondered why we don’t just have a 4 day week? Or an 11 day week? And what about this 24 hour stuff??!!  Why not a 17 hour day? Or a 31 hour day? Oh marvelous time! How could we ever seriously think time is an arbitrary phenomenon? Everything around us points to God! Hallelujah!

Okay, so God rested as an example to us. And if we rest from our everyday distractions, what do you suppose we might do? Go for a walk and hear some birdsongs? Play at the park on the soft green grass? Sit in the sunlight to be warmed by the sun? Go fishing? Pick some cherry tomatoes from our garden? Watch for shooting stars in the night sky?

Taking a break and resting allows us time to enjoy what God has made, does it not? And if we stop and take notice and comprehend and enjoy what God has made, we just might experience some thankfulness well up inside us. And I can’t help but believe our Lord loves our “Wow!”s and “Awesome!”s and our “That’s amazing!”s that result from a thankful and appreciative heart.

God has been and is so good to us. Surely some time should be spent appreciating and enjoying what He has made, and proclaiming as such too. This is what I think the essence of the Sabbath day is. If we love God, wouldn’t we recognize all that He has done for us and be thankful everything? And how could we recognize all this unless we un-crowd our mind with the busyness of life/ work?

And the second part of the command, regarding the part “keep it holy”… recall that holy means to be set apart as pure, not defiled… untainted. In our times of rest and enjoying the things around us, for us to thank God as the source really honors Him, don’t you think so? For example, take the rainbow… if you see a rainbow, what comes to mind and fills your thoughts? Leprechauns? Pot of Gold? Homosexuals? Or sunlight refracting through misty water droplets? Or how about Noah’s flood and God’s promises?

Wanting to honor God as the source, let’s look at the source for rainbows…

Genesis 9: 13: I (God) set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant (promise) between Me and the earth.

I suggest we give God the credit for the wonderful things we experience in our lives here on earth… let us not taint it with dishonorable things. Using rainbows you can see the sad progression:

Once upon a time, God flooded the entire earth. Afterwards, He made a rainbow to be a sign of His promise never to flood the entire earth again. Some time later, men forgot this original promise and seeking to make sense of the rainbow, they noticed when they tried to get close to it to examine it, and it would disappear. Ah… must be something magical and mysterious… if only we could see what lay at the foot of a rainbow… must be something important if we’re not able to get to it…. Perhaps some copious amounts of gold are there! Aha… and those other inexplicable things we have experienced are the cause! Oh but such foolish thinking must be dealt with, so the scientists discovered the truth. Yes sir, the how (not the why) of a rainbow is
easily explained… the sun shines on the water droplets and voila! And reading about such things a Mr. Baker decided instead to use it in flag form for the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on 6/25/1978. The different colors represent diversity! Woo Hoo! This is just an example…

So to sum it up in conclusion, I would say that although we are not bound to keep the Sabbath, it is still good to rest at times. And in such times really thank God for His goodness by enjoying things, and giving Him the untainted and undiminished credit and loving praise for all we have by His sustaining hand.

So what are ya‘ll planning to do next? Comments and questions welcome!

Peace,
Jim