1.) The Lord’s Day shows the world we are Christians.
There are many things that display our Christianity to a watching world. But a major display is our observance of the fourth commandment. It is a distinctive sign that marks us off as the people of God.
This was true for the early church. It is said that early on Christians were made known to their Roman persecutors because of their observance of the Lord’s Day. Justin Edwards remarks, “Hence the fact that their persecutors, when they wished to know whether men were Christians, were accustomed to put to them this question, viz., `Dominicum servasti?’ -`Hast thou kept the Lord’s day?‘ If they had they were Christians. This was the badge of their Christianity, in distinction from Jews and pagans. And if they said they had, and would not recant, they must be put to death. And what, when they continued steadfast, was their answer? `Christianus sum; intermittere non possum;’-`I am a Christian; I cannot omit it.’ It is a badge of my religion, and the man who assumes it must of course keep the Lord’s day, because it is the will of his Lord; and should he abandon it, he would be an apostate from his religion.”[1]
Voltaire, the 18th century French Enlightenment philosopher, knew how important the Christian Sabbath was to the Christian religion. As one who despised Christianity, he wrote, “There is no hope of destroying the Christian religion while the Christian Sabbath is acknowledged and kept by men as a sacred day.”
And this is true of Christians today, especially for those of us who live in the Bible belt. In a culture that has been deeply influenced by Christianity for generations, there may not be a whole lot of differences between your life and the lives of your unbelieving neighbors.
Your neighbor may be a faithful husband, loving father, an honest employee, a social conservative fighting against the evils of homosexuality and abortion, and one who always lends a helping hand to someone in need. But one of the key differences may be what your lives look like on Sundays.
While you are getting into the car to drive to church, he is mowing his lawn. While you are giving God spiritual sacrifices in corporate worship, he is sitting on his couch watching the football game. While you are fellowshipping with the brethren about the things of the Lord, he is hanging out with his buddies talking about work and sports. While you sup at the Lord’s Table, he is eating at the sports bar and grill.
For observing the Lord’s Day properly, people may look at you like you are an alien from another planet. But this is the very thing that identifies you as a follower of Jesus Christ!
2.) The Lord’s Day tests our sanctification.
God tells us that one whole day is to be completely devoted to Him. He tells us to clear our schedules, cancel our appointments, put down the remote, turn back from doing our own pleasure, and leave the day entirely open to Him.
This really tests our trust, love, and commitment to our God! We may be tempted with questions like these: Will God take care of me if I can’t work one day a week? What will I miss out on if I have to put down ordinary things once a week? Will I waste a seventh part of my life? What am I going to do with all the time I have on Sundays? What will others think of me if I tell them I can’t work on that day or do recreational activities on that day?
John Calvin points out where all these questions come from: “Strange and monstrous indeed is the license of our pride! The Lord demands nothing stricter than for us to observe his Sabbath most scrupulously [Ex. 20:8 ff; Deut. 5:12 ff.], that is, by resting from our labors. Yet there is nothing that we are more unwilling to do than to bid farewell to our own labors and to give God’s works their rightful place.”[2]
Jeff Johnson comments, “keeping the Sabbath represents true freedom. The person who is unable to put aside his or her regular labors just one day a week is, by definition, a slave. The inability to lay aside sports and entertainment for a day means you are not free. Those things are your gods before whom you bow. They control you. When you have the ability to set those things aside and do so with delight to give yourself wholly to the purpose of the day, you have true freedom.”[3]
Brethren, instead of viewing the Sabbath as a day of drudgery and sacrifice (look at all the things I must give up!) and a burden to get rid of (Amos 8:5), may we see it as a day of blessing (look at all the things God promises to give me!) and call it a delight (Isaiah 58:13)!
Remember Jesus’ words: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). God has designed the Christian Sabbath to be a means of grace for us to draw us close to Himself, empower us to defeat our enemies, and fill our souls with the good and nourishing words of the gospel! Truly, it is “the market day of the soul”!
For some encouragement, listen to the words of Albert Barnes: “And it is easily capable of proof that no institution has been more signally blessed to man’s welfare than the Sabbath. To that we owe, more than to anything else, the peace and order of a civilized community. Where there is no Sabbath there is ignorance, vice, disorder, and crime. On that holy day the poor and the ignorant, as well as the learned, have undisturbed time to learn the requirements of religion, the nature of morals, the law of God, and the way of salvation. On that day man may offer his praises to the Great Giver of all good, and in the sanctuary seek the blessing of him whose favor is life. Where that day is observed in any manner as it should be, order prevails, morals are promoted, the poor are elevated in their condition, vice flies away, and the community puts on the appearance of neatness, industry, morality, and religion. The Sabbath was therefore pre-eminently intended for man’s welfare, and the best interests of mankind demand that it should be sacredly regarded as an appointment of merciful heaven intended for our best good, and, where improved aright, infallibly resulting in our temporal and eternal peace.”[4]
And Philip Schaff: “The due observance of it . . . is a wholesome school of discipline, a means of grace for the people, a safeguard of public morality and religion, a bulwark against infidelity, and a source of immeasurable blessing to the church, the state, and the family. Next to the Church and the Bible, the Lord’s Day is the chief pillar of Christian society.”[5]
3.) The Lord’s Day prepares us for the glory to come.
This day is also a day designed by God to get us ready for heaven. The ancient Jews supposedly described heaven as “the day which is all Sabbath”.[6] It is a continuous, eternal Sabbath Day. That doesn’t mean we will never do any work in heaven; but it does mean we will experience in full the peace, enjoyment, and rest that we only partially receive on the Sabbath Day here on earth.
Therefore, each Sabbath Day in this age functions as a sneak peak of heaven and foretaste of glory. We should live Sabbath Day to Sabbath Day in anticipation of the eternal Sabbath Age to come.
Observing the Sabbath will help us stay on track in our pilgrimage. It will remind us that our eternal Sabbath rest has been won by Christ when He defeated death at His resurrection on the first day of the week. Since He has entered into God’s eternal rest, so will we! And it will make us long for the day when Jesus returns and brings us as well as all creation into that rest forever. As the hymnwriter says,
A few more sabbaths here
Shall cheer us on our way,
And we shall reach the endless rest,
Th’eternal sabbath day:
Then, O my Lord, prepare
My soul for that sweet day;
O wash me in thy precious blood,
And take my sins away.
4.) Those who find no delight in the Sabbath Day now would be absolutely miserable in the Sabbath Age to come.
Listen to these sobering words from Albert Barnes: “(4) they who do not love the Sabbath on earth, are not prepared for heaven. If it is to them a day of tediousness; if its hours move heavily; if they have no delight in its sacred employments, what would an eternity of such days be? How would they be passed? Nothing can be clearer than that if we have no such happiness in a season of holy rest, and in holy employments here, we are wholly unprepared for heaven. To the Christian it is the subject of the highest joy in anticipation that heaven is to be “one long unbroken” sabbath – an eternity of successive Sabbath hours. But what to a sinner could be a more repulsive and gloomy prospect than such an eternal Sabbath?
(5) if this be so, then what a melancholy view is furnished as to the actual preparation of the great mass of people for heaven! How is the Sabbath now spent? In idleness; in business; in traveling; in hunting and fishing; in light reading and conversation; in sleep; in visiting; in riding, walking, lounging, “ennui;” – in revelry and dissipation; in any and every way “except the right way;” in every way except in holy communion with God. What would the race be if once transported to heaven as they are! What a prospect would it be to this multitude to have to spend “an eternity” which would be but a prolongation of the Sabbath of holiness!”[7]
Conclusion
To conclude, are you ready for the “one long unbroken” Sabbath to come? The Day which is all Sabbath? The Day when you will purely and sinlessly take delight in the LORD, when you will ride on the heights of heaven, and when you will feed on all the blessings of the New Heavens and New Earth? Then remember the Christian Sabbath Day, to call it a delight and keep it holy!
[1] Justin Edwards, Sabbath Manual, 120.
[2] Calvin, Institutes, 2:3:9.
[3] Jeff Johnson, “Lawful Works on the Sabbath Day”, unpublished paper.
[4] Albert Barnes, comments on Mark 2:27.
[5] Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church Volume I, 479.
[6] JFB, comments on Hebrews 4:9.
[7] Albert Barnes, comments on Hebrews 4:9.
