A Study Of The Ten Commandments
Rule # 4 Use Your Time To God’s Glory:
“Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it Holy”
Exodus 20: 8 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt 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:
11. 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.”
Use Your Time To God’s Glory:
Our English word Sabbath comes from a Hebrew word which means to come to an end, or stop, to cease, to rest. The Sabbath recalled God’s rest after six days of creative work.
Genesis 2:3 “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified (To set apart, to make Holy) it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”
There is no evidence that the rest day was observed before Moses’ day by the Hebrews. In fact the very first mention of an observance of the Sabbath was in,
Exodus 16:23. “And he (Moses) said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath said, To morrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.
This chapter records the giving of the manna to the children of Israel, Six days the manna would fall and every man could gather for their needs. On the seventh day there would be no manna for them to gather. On the sixth day they were to gather twice the daily amount. Moses said to do your gathering, baking and you’re seething on the sixth day.
God was preparing them to set aside some time out of their normal routine of activities for a time of rest and worship. This was a tired people who had been slaves for 400 years. They had been driven day after day relentlessly by their Egyptian Task Masters with no days off.
God said I want you to rest and restore your souls. It’s a long journey. We will march and carry a load for six days but we will stop and rest awhile. God was telling them that He was doing this for their own good. This time which God set aside was hallowed by God.
Genesis 2:3. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
To make a long story short God was saying “I want some of your time. There is time to bear your burden, to make a living, and time to deal with every day chores. We must take time for raising a family, keeping a home, cooking, cleaning, washing, mending and striating up every thing. Some women do this and hold a full time job.
Mother, after washing, dressing, feeding the children, getting her husband’s Sunday clothes ready, preparing Sunday dinner, she would arrive at Church nearly on time.
The Song Leader would give out the opening Hymn, “O Day of Rest and Gladness” But Mothers the Fourth Commandment says nothing at all about Mothers resting on the Sabbath Day. You (fathers), your son, your daughter, manservant, maid servant and strangers must observe the Sabbath.
Use your time to God’s Glory:
Let us not fill our days, and weeks with so many “things” that we do not have time for the most important thing of all. The keeping of the Sabbath was very slow about taking hold in Israel. 1,000 years later. Nehemiah 13:15 -22. Tells us Nehemiah chastised Judah for profaning the Sabbath
Then for the next 550 years (until Jesus’ time) a very rigid set of rules were enforced concerning the Sabbath. These rules were taken to the extreme by the Jewish Rabbis. During the time of Jesus the Sabbath was hateful to many Jews because of the many prohibitions. Thou Shalt not.
Absolutely nothing could be carried, cannot separate two threads, cannot tie a knot, cannot wear an artificial limb. They were not to write more than 2 letters of the alphabet. A Taylor could not carry his needle home or a Scribe his pen on the eve of the Sabbath.
God never intended the rule for such a purpose. Jesus tried to put things back into their proper perspective by saying, Mark 2:27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28. Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. (Owner or creator with implication of diety.)
From the beginning, God had intended it to bless rather than burden His people. Families and friends could be together. Devotion and worship to God could be shared. The Spirit and the Body could be refreshed. Let us not move too far from that Idea.
Very early The Christian Church began to worship on Sunday. Jesus arose from the grave on Sunday. The Church started on Sunday (Pentecost). It became known as the Lord’s Day.
Revelation 1:10. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
Constantine made Sunday a State Holiday in 321 A.D. Charlemagne issued a decree in 789 A.D. which forbade all ordinary labor on Sunday as a breach of the Fourth Commandment. Then are we bound by all these Sabbath rules? Can we call Sunday The “Christian Sabbath”? The answer is no. The Sabbath is distinctively Jewish.
Exodus 31:16. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.
17. “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever………….:”
The Sabbath is Jewish from the beginning to the end of its observance in the Bible. Yet we have not been freed from the principle brought forth by the Fourth Commandment. “I want some of your time” God was saying. This principal teaches us that God wants to be honored in the use we make of our time.
Leviticus 25:10. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
Many of us have reached, and some have passed, the fiftieth year. It seems as only yesterday we stood on the threshold of youth. Looking when, life and the world lay before us and when we could make something worthwhile of our lives. Can we honestly say that we have done our best, or do we feel inclined to say, “Lord, have mercy upon me?”
How have you spent your time? That precious limited fleeting thing which once it passes is beyond hope or recall. What is our pastime? Do we have to “kill time?” Use your time to God’s Glory.
How the keeping of the Sabbath by the Jews relates to the Christian Sunday. It was a forerunner of the day set aside by the Early Church.
Acts 2:1. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
Acts 20:7. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.
1 Corinthians 16:2. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.
Revelation 1:10. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
Both the Christian Sunday and the Jewish Sabbath show the necessity of assigning some definite and regularly recurring portions of human life to the Worship and Meditation upon God……
Regular and recurring times instead of leaving individuals free to choose their own times and seasons. Temporal concerns “Many Things” occupy men’s time, that if there were no definite rule or time set, these concerns would push religious observances into odd corners of human life and finally life’s concerns would crowd out religious worship altogether.
That’s why we have a day appointed and set aside to give men best from temporal concerns. “Many things” stop and refresh themselves in worship. The appointment of a day, one seventh of our life, surely this is not an undue requirement….
In this the two institutions are alike, but in the primary characteristics of the observance there is a great difference…..The Jewish Sabbath was emphatically a day of rest. The Christian Sunday is a day of Holy Activity.
Jesus said, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath?”
He did miracles, He taught, He walked through the corn fields and He journeyed….. The First Church followed His example, they filled the day with Holy activity and Holy Joy…… It is a day of Holy Work for God’s Ministers… Preaching, Teaching, Counseling and Fellowship……..
Lay People to have time to visit the poor, the sick, reading, praying and Ministering. “Going about doing good,” So to us, the Christian Sabbath, is not merely a day of inactivity but a time of worship and active duty for God’s cause. It is not a day of gloom, of restraint, of discomfort, but a day of cheerfulness, and Holy joy – A foretaste of the joys of Heaven.
Psalm 90:12. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
There is a time for work, a time for rest and a time for Worship.
****************************************
7. Rule #5, Honor Thy Father And Thy Mother:
Exodus 20:12 “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.”
The First Four Rules were given to guide us in our understanding and respect of our God, or duties toward God. The Next Six Rules were meant to guide is in our interaction with our fellowmen, duties toward man.
Our duty to our parents is higher than that toward men in general.
Honor your parents,
Love your fellowman.
The family is without question, the most important of any group that we will ever belong to. Other groups we join for various reasons and different lengths of time. But the family is with us always, in fact we are the family. We are born into our family and are in it till our death or till it ceases to exist.
The family is the most enduring and universal of groups in society. The family can be traced back to Adam, and will be here when Jesus comes. The Bible tells us to honor our parents. It also says for parents to train their children. There is a working relationship in this type of family.
There is what is called an “Empty Shell” Family where individuals, though married, just live together. There is very little communication or activities which bring them together. Respect for Parents is often a forgotten virtue. Children “talk-back” to their parents or ignore them.
Statistics say that almost 1 in 5 children will abuse one or both of their parents this year, in this country. The Law of Moses was very severe toward this activity.
Exodus 21:15. And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.
17. And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
Jesus is speaking in these verses. Mark 7:9. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
10. For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:
11. But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.
12. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;
13. Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye. (“Made void” “Disannulled”)
Parents are sometimes shoved away by their children. Children refuse any financial or emotional support to their Parents. But God has made our Parents the second highest obligation (God himself is first). This shows how much God wants us to fulfill our obligations to our family.
In Romans 1:29-31. Paul says that those who are disobedient to Parents are the same as the 22 other despicable characters he names.
Ephesians 6:1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
2. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;)
3. That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
A message to the Children of Ephesus …… “Be right with your Parents” To you, then God will give special mercies.
Why Parents should be honored.
1. “For this is right.” “Children, obey your Parents in the Lord: for this right.” It’s the moral thing to do. God has placed Parents in a place of responsibility and authority over their children. To resist this authority is to resist and dishonor God.
In the home is where we learn to be obedient. A child who fails in this will be a failure in every thing.
2. We should honor our parents because we owe them a huge debt. She fed me, she changed me, she bathed me, she shared her own self with me. She sang and rocked me; she calmed me in my fears. “Darkness, fires and storms” She used all the old “Home made remedies” when I was sick.
Surely My Father deserves all my respect and Honor. He always brought home the “Bacon.” It was always enough. Not one of us will ever know the many, many sacrifices our parents made to feed us, and to send us to school and put clothes on our backs.
They helped us get started with our own families. It was not the money they were able to give. They helped most by being someone you could always believe in. How can we ever repay them?
The best lessons about life don’t come from a text book. They come from the good counsel of Godly Parents. Our conscience was formed by the advice, counsel, and the manner of life of our Parents. No one has a greater influence on us, in our formative years than our Parents.
Proverbs 23:26. My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.
4. We should honor our parents because the day will come when we cannot show them the honor we would like to give. The saddest day in my life was the day someone came and told me my Mother was dead. I don’t have to look back and say with regret, “I never told my Mother I loved her.” She knew I loved her. I told her so. I believe I will tell her again someday.
If you still have your Parents don’t be embarrassed to tell them you love them. Spend some time with them. Remember their birthdays and Wedding Anniversary, Call them up. Drop them a card of appreciation. I’m thinking of you, I Love you.
1 John 2:1. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
12. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.
18. Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
28. And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
