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By Mark Buchanan
THE WORLD is not dying for another book. But it is dying for the rest of God.
I certainly was. I became a Sabbath-keeper the hard way: either that, or die. Not die literally - at least, I don't think so - but die in other ways. It happened subtly, over time; but I noticed at some point that the harder I worked, the less I accomplished. I was often a whirligig of motion. My days were intricately fitted together like the old game of Mousetrap, every piece precariously connected to every other, the things needing to work together for it to work at all.
But there was little joy, and stunted fruit.
Obsessed
To justify myself, I'd tell others I was gripped by a magnificent obsession. I was purpose-driven, I said, or words like that. It may have begun that way. It wasn't that way any longer. Often I was just obsessed, merely driven, no magnificence or purposefulness about it. I once went 40 days - an ominously biblical number, that - without taking a single day off. And was proud of it.
But things weren't right. Through my work often consumed me, I was losing my pleasure in it - and, for that matter, many other things besides - and losing, too, my effectiveness in it. And here's a secret: for all my busyness, I was increasingly slothful.
I could wile away hours at a time in masquerade of working, a pantomime of toil - fiddling about on the computer, leafing through old magazines, chatting up people in the hallways. But I was squandering time, not redeeming it.
And whenever I stepped out for a vacation, I did just that: vacated, evacuated, spilled myself empty. I folded in on myself like a tent suddenly bereft of stakes and ropes and poles, clapped hard by the wind. The air went out of me.
Losing perspective
The inmost places suffered most. I was losing perspective. Fissures in my character worked themselves here and there into cracks. Some widened into ruptures. I grew easily irritable, paranoid, bitter, self-righteous, gloomy. I was often argumentative: I preferred rightness to intimacy. I avoided and I withdrew.
I had a few people I confided in, but few friends. I didn't understand friendship. I had a habit of turning people, good people who genuinely cared for me, into extensions of myself: still water for me to gaze at the way Narcissus did, dark caves for me to boom my voice into and bask in the echoes. I didn't let anyone get too near. And then I came to my senses.
I wish I could say this happened in one blazing, dazzling vision - a voice from heaven, a light that blinded and wounded and healed - but it didn't.
Slow dawning
It was more a slow dawning. I didn't lose my marriage, or family, or ministry, or health. I didn't wallow in pigmuck, scavenging for husks and rinds.
But it became clear that, if I continued in the way I was heading, I was going to do lasting damage. And it became obvious that the pace and scale of my striving were paying diminishing returns. My drivenness was doing no one any favours. I couldn't keep it up and had no good excuse to try.
I learned to keep Sabbath in the crucible of breaking it.
God made us from Dust. We're never too far from our origins. The apostle Paul says we're only clay pots - dust mixed with water, passed through fire. Hard, yes, but brittle too. Knowing this, God gave us the gift of Sabbath - not just as a day, but as an orientation, of seeing and knowing.
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Sabbath-keeping is a form of mending. It's mortar in the joints. Keep Sabbath, or else break too easily, and oversoon. Keep it, otherwise our dustiness consumes us, becomes us, and we end up able to hold exactly nothing.
Stillness
In a culture where busyness is a fetish, stillness is laziness, rest is sloth. But without rest, we miss the rest of God: the rest invites us to enter more fully so that we might know him more deeply. "Be still, and know that I am God." Some knowing is never pursued, only received. And for that, you need to be still.
Sabbath is both a day and an attitude to nurture such stillness. It is both time on a calendar and a disposition of the heart. It is a day we enter, but just as much a way we see. Sabbath imparts the rest of God - actual physical, mental, spiritual rest, but also the rest of God - the things of God's nature and presence we miss in our busyness.
You might have grown up legalistic about Sabbath - your principle memory of it is of stiff collars chafing at the neck and a vast, stern silence that settled on the house like a grief. I hope to invite you out of the rigidity and gloom that marks the day for you.
You might have grown up indifferent about Sabbath - Sabbath to you is a musty, creaky thing about which only ancient rabbis and old German Mennonites bother. I hope to awaken in you wonder and expectancy about it.
I'm going to make a bold assumption and guess that this description fits you closer than the other: that you tend to see Sabbath, even if you grew up under legalism, as something archaic and arcane. Something from which you're exempt. Something that, like bloomers and corsets and top hats, went out of style long ago and is not likely to make a comeback soon.
Well-being
I hope to convince you otherwise: that Sabbath, in the long run, is as essential to your well-being as food and water, and as good as a wood fire on a cold day.
I am going to be bold enough to assume one more thing: that you are just plain tired, and often overwhelmed - such that even Sabbath seems just one more thing to do. I hope to tune your ears to better hear, and gladly accept, Jesus' invitation: "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew11:28 NASB).
One thing I've already hinted but need to make explicit: when I use the word Sabbath I mean two things. I mean a day, the seventh day in particular. For Jewish people, that day is sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. For Christians, it has traditionally been Sunday, however you reckon it, evening to evening or daybreak to daybreak or midnight to midnight.
I want to convince you, in part, that setting apart an entire day, one out of seven, for feasting and resting and worship and play is a gift and not a burden - and neglecting the gift too long will make your soul, like soil never left fallow, hard and dry and spent.
But when I say Sabbath I also mean an attitude. It is perspective, and orientation. I mean a Sabbath heart, not just a Sabbath day. A Sabbath heart is restful even in the midst of unrest and upheaval. It is attentive to the presence of God and others even in the welter of much coming and going, rising and falling. It is still, and knows God - even when mountains fall into the sea.
You will never enter the Sabbath day without a Sabbath heart.
Reprinted by permission: 'The Rest of God, Mark Buchanan, 2006, W. Publishing, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.' Mark Buchanan has written several books and is pastor of New Life Community Baptist Church in Duncan, on Vancouver Island.
January 24/2008
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-Banner Kidd
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King James Bible
1 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. 2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. 5 And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. 6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. 11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. 12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. 15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Colossians 2:16 "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:"
Colossians 2:17 "Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ."
Date: 6/7/2008
Subject: Sabbath Keeping
Question
You keep saying that the Sabbath is a part of the old covenant that was made obsolete. I agree that the old covenant was made obsolete however i do not believe that the Sabbath or even the ten commandments are a part of that old covenant.
The Sabbath was not created at the time of the mosaic law it was created in the beginning when God rested from his work on the Seventh Day and called it Holy Genesis 2:2,3. The Sabbath was created in a sinless perfect world while the covenant was created as an agreement between God and his people after they sinned.
In addition if the Ten Commandments were made obsolete then is it OK for me to kill, steal, commit adultery, tell lies and break all the other principles of the Ten commandments? Why do non sabbath keeping Christians like yourself keep these other principles but try to discount the sabbath? Shouldnt we be free to have multiple spouses, and tell lies and murder each other without any consequences?
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Answer
Dear K.G.:
The Ten Commandments were the heart of the Old Covenant. “So Moses stayed there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights, without eating food or drinking water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant: the Ten Commandments” (Exodus 34:28). “He proclaimed to you his covenant which he commanded you to keep: the Ten Commandments, which he wrote on two tablets of stone” (Deuteronomy 4:13). These verses are very clear that the Ten Commandments which included the Sabbath were indeed the Old Covenant.
It was God who gave the Sabbath law to the Israelites. He did this, however, through His servant Moses. Yes, there is Biblical evidence that the Sabbath law came through Moses. Of course, this would mean that the 7th day Sabbath was not a preexisting eternal law as the SDA claim. Let me point out that even if we grant the SDA claim that the Sabbath law was in existence prior to Moses, this would not automatically make it binding on us today. Remember that both animal sacrifices (Genesis 4:4, 22:7-8, 13, 31:54; Job 1:5) and circumcision (Genesis 17:10-14) were in existence prior to Moses, but are not now binding on us (Hebrews 7:27; Galatians 6:15).
Let us now see what the Bible, God’s word, has to say concerning when God’s people received the Sabbath command. Listen to the scribe Ezra:
“On Mount Sinai you came down, you spoke with them from heaven; you gave them just ordinances, firm laws, good statutes, and commandments; your holy Sabbath you made known to them, commandments, statutes and law you prescribed for them, by the hand of Moses your servant” (Nehemiah 9:13-14).
Ezra clearly stated that the Israelites first received the Sabbath command from God through Moses. Moses is also very clear that the Sabbath command first came through him and that not even the great patriarchs had that command. “The Lord our God, made a covenant with us at Mount Horeb (Sinai); not with our fathers did He make this covenant, but with us, all of us, who are alive here this day” (Deuteronomy 5:2-3).
If an SDA should complain that Moses says “covenant” not “Sabbath”, refer him to the clear statement of Ezra above. Also remind him that the 7th day Sabbath was the sign of the covenant made at Sinai.
“The Lord said to Moses, ‘You must also tell the Israelites: Take care to keep my Sabbath, for this is to be a sign between you and me, throughout the generations, to show that it is I, the Lord, who makes you holy… So shall the Israelites observe the Sabbath, keeping it throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. Between me and the Israelites it is to be an everlasting sign…” (Exodus 31:12-18).
The Bible is clear that God made a covenant with the Israelites. The sign of that covenant was the 7th day Sabbath. He gave them the Sabbath command on Mount Sinai, not even the great patriarchs had the Sabbath. We can say this with confidence because there is no mention of anyone keeping the Sabbath until God gave it through Moses in Exodus 16:23. Then the people did not understand its regulations because it was something new. We can say this because after receiving the command through Moses, we read, “Still on the 7th day some of the people went out to gather it, although they did not find any” (v.27). After a further explanation by Moses, we read, “After that the people rested on the 7th day,”(v.30). Further, the ignorance of Moses and Aaron concerning what should be done to a Sabbath-breaker suggests that this law was not in force since Adam and Eve, but was a new law. “But they kept him in custody, for there was no clear decision as to what should be done with him” (Numbers 15:34). God says, “I gave them (the Israelites) my Sabbaths…” (Ezekiel 20:12). Please note the word “gave” not “restored” denoting a new institution and one belonging to the Israelites exclusively. Only the Israelites/Jews were ever charged with breaking the Sabbath. For example, Nehemiah told the Jews, “What is this evil thing you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?” (Nehemiah 13:17). But to the Gentiles who were equally guilty of breaking the Sabbath there is no like condemnation.
An SDA will often appeal to Genesis 2:2 in the hope of proving that the Sabbath was given at the very beginning of Creation. “Since on the 7th day God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested on the 7th day from all the work he had undertaken.” Please note that God “rested”, not man. God had done the work, not man. Also there is nothing in the text about God resting every 7th day. The statement that God “rested” is simply a way of saying that God’s immediate creative acts were finished. God’s “resting” is an anthropomorphic statement, for God does not get tired (Psalm 121:4; Isaiah 40:28). Importantly, there is no command for man to keep the Sabbath. Later, Moses would mention God’s rest at Creation as one reason for keeping the 7th day holy (Exodus 20:11). Remember that there is no command at all for anyone to keep the Sabbath before Moses. One would think that Moses would have mentioned the great revered men of old –Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-as models of Sabbath-keepers for the Israelites. The reason that Moses doesn’t mention them is obvious-they didn’t keep the Sabbath because it was not given to them (Deuteronomy 5:2-3). It is a hard exegetical fact for the SDA to accept, but there is not a single command or explanation for Sabbath-keeping in the Creation account nor, for that matter, in the entire book of Genesis.
No, we may not murder etc even though the Ten Commandments are obsolete. Christians are called to a higher moral standard than that which is contained in the Ten Commandments. According to the Ten Commandments one must not murder, but according to the Law of Love we may not even be angry with another (Matthew 5:21-23). Christians are told that we may not murder. “Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15). Further, all the Ten Commandments are restated as valid for Christians with the notable exception of the Sabbath command. The nine moral commands of the Ten Commandments are mentioned at least five times in the New Testament as binding on Christians. The first commandment is restated as necessary for Christians an astounding 54 times. This is in contrast to the Sabbath command that is restated as necessary for Christians zero times!
God Bless You,
Sal
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Seventh-Day-Adventists-2318/2008/6/Sabbath-Keeping-2.htm