Posted on 12/30/2014 6:02:38 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In my fifth and final column on the greatest guide ever devised for a good world — the Ten Commandments — I offer my readers what may well be the best single thing you can do (that you are probably not doing now) to improve the quality of your life, your family’s life, and ultimately the life of our society.
Many people, even among those who revere the Ten Commandments, do not think that the Fourth Commandment, the Sabbath Day, is particularly important, let alone binding.
Once you understand it, however, you will recognize how both life-changing and world-changing it is.
The Fourth Commandment reads: “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.”
Here are six reasons why is this so important.
First, it uniquely elevated the human being. For nearly all of human history, life consisted overwhelmingly of work. In effect, humans were beasts of burden. This commandment changed all that by insisting that people cease working one day out of seven.
Second, no matter how materially poor we may be, at least on the Sabbath Day, we are not just material beings. We are elevated. Recall that the commandment tells us to keep the day holy, not merely not to work. It is enough for animals not to work; we are to make the day holy. No matter what our circumstances, we must remind ourselves at least one day a week that we are sacred beings; we have a soul to feed, not just a body.
Third, more than any other commandment, the Fourth Commandment reminds people that they are meant to be free. As the second version of the Commandment, the one summarized by Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy, states, “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt.” In other words, remember that slaves cannot have a Sabbath; only free men and women can.
In light of this, in the Biblical view, unless it is necessary for survival, people who choose to work seven days a week are essentially slaves – slaves to work or perhaps to money, but slaves nonetheless. The millionaire who works seven days a week is simply a rich slave.
Fourth, while the Bible could not universally abolish slavery, the Sabbath commandment greatly humanized that terrible institution and ultimately helped make slavery impossible. Prior to the Ten Commandments, by definition a slave owner was under no obligation to allow a slave to ever rest, let alone to rest one day every week. Yet that is exactly what the Fourth Commandment commanded. Even a slave has fundamental human rights, one of them being a Sabbath day of rest. Therefore a slave is a human being, too.
Fifth, the Sabbath almost singlehandedly creates and strengthens family ties and friendships. When a person takes off from work one day every week, that day almost inevitably becomes a day spent with other people — namely, family and/or friends. It has similar positive effects on marriages. Ask anyone married to a workaholic how good it would be for his or her marriage if the workaholic would not work for a day each week, and you can appreciate the power of the Sabbath Day.
There are those who argue that without God commanding a Sabbath, people could surely decide on their own to stop working a day each week and spend the day with their spouse, family, and friends. But the truth is that almost no one does. There will almost always be some reason not to take that day off — an important work project, housework, shopping, etc.
Sixth, the Sabbath commandment granted animals dignity. Even one’s animals had to rest one day a week. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the first national law in history on behalf of animals. And its benefits to animals surely went beyond a mandatory day of rest for them. People who felt divinely obligated to give their animals a day of rest were much less likely to treat their animals cruelly any day of the week.
All six of these life-changing and society-changing benefits regarding the Sabbath are available to anyone. You don’t have to be a Jew, a Christian, or even a believer in God to derive all these benefits — though, for reasons noted, the reality is that those who believe in the God of the Ten Commandments are the ones who have kept the Sabbath alive.
The God factor plays another role in the Sabbath. Just as faith in God brings people to the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath brings people to faith in God. In our secularized modern societies, very few activities bring people to a relationship with God as effectively as does devoting a day each week to the spiritual, not just the material.
Not bad for one day a week.
That’s why the Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments. No wonder that those who have it in their lives are often happier, with richer family lives, more serenity, a community of friends, and, yes, even better health.
You might want to give it a try. You will indeed have a Happy New Year.
You can see my five-minute video on the Fourth Commandment here.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His most recent book is Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. He is the founder of Prager University
I've always thought of it as a goal, which I don't think I've ever fully reached. But it shouldn't be for lack of trying.
***Biblical exegesis makes reasonable exceptions such as healing on the Sabbath, or aiding someone, or even an animal, in distress. ***
And yet, when two little kids wondered up to my home on a Saturday SABBATH , wet from a rainstorm, they told me they had been to several houses near the local Adventist Church, looking for help, and had been rebuffed at each one.
All the houses between mine and the church a half mile away are occupied by sabbath keeping adventists.
I posted that on FR and it lasted about 1/2 hour before being pulled as I was so mad at the self-righteous sabbath keepers who would not go out of their way to help two lost, rain soaked kids.
IT STILL MAKES ME MAD!
The commandment of self-defense takes precedence in Judaism. You real a false report or a report about mistaken Jews.
Mathew 12:11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
It would seem Jesus addressed that.
the law was given to his people, Israel.
For those of us who had dairy farms there was no days off. Cows still had to be milked twice EVERY DAY including Saturday and SUNDAY, other animals fed, house warmed with a wood stove. Think of all the Biblical requirements against kindling a fire or hauling wood on the sabbath.
At the same time we see Sunday Sabbath keepers with the very same view which also came from these same religious teachers.
The religious teachers being no more understanding in the spiritual value of the commandments than the scribes and Pharisees.
I was also raised on a farm or around farms and ranch`s and was milking cows in the early 1940s, many people used animals to work the fields and some even used them for transportation.
I know nothing about it first hand but heard some of the older people talking about how some of the preachers would work their horse’s all week and then use them to travel miles to church on Sunday.
And then tell every one if they did not honor the Sabbath ( meaning the Sunday Sabbath ) they were hell bound.
I would guess that most Sabbath keepers are missing the point a little and i believe the Sunday services are appropriate.
But calling it the Sabbath?
The Sabbath is an event which happened, it can not be changed.
Now that’s an outright sin. I wouldn’t want to face God with that in my “moral bank account”.
In America, Christmas, a tradition of men, an unbiblical feast day, is observed by both believers in Christ and unbelievers, every year, without fail. Businesses close. People have a feast. They have a tree inside their house. They give each other gifts.
Jesus tells us what the two great commandments are and that if we keep them we have kept them all.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
To honor God in our hearts, souls and minds could be much more important than honoring God through ritual or physical doings.
If we believe that we can change the Sabbath to some day other than the day in which God rested we can hardly say we believe in him with all of our hearts, soul and minds.
The Sabbath is an event which happened, we can not change it.
So if the Sabbath means nothing, then neither do any of the other commandments such as thou shalt not kill which the Sunday Sabbath keepers hold so dear.
I believe the early Church held services on the first day of the week ( Sunday ) for two reasons, the first in honoring the Sabbath the second in honoring Christ.
The religious leaders obviously had made the Sabbath a day of ritual,
The early Christians knew that the seventh day was a day of rest, not a day of ritual, also in honor of the Sabbath Jesus was raised on Sunday so the Christians held services on that day in honor of him.
Yes, Christmas and the Sunday Sabbath are nothing but traditions of man and yet they will go on and on about false prophets and false doctrine.
I hardly believe that we can live the letter of the laws of
God, we couldn’t that is why God sent his son.
But i also think it is fruitless to try to change the laws of God and make up all sorts of laws in an attempt to hide our own short comings.
But it seems to be great for the bank accounts of many.
As for the wood stove, the only solution I could find was asking, BEFORE Shabbos, a non-Jew to kindle the fire of the wood stove several times a day. The only way that lighting a wood stove on Shabbos by a Jew is permissible is if it is very cold and someone is seriously ill, and their illness would be exacerbated by the cold if the stove is not lit.
*** So you are not violating the Sabbath by turning electric things on and off;****
But someone somewhere is on duty stoking the fires with natural gas or coal to make steam to turn the turbine which spins the generator which then sends it’s electricity to the farm to make the power come on.
Besides, in my days in a dairy when a cow ate her feed, got tired of standing in one spot she was determined to move she would MOVE, often times kicking off the milkers. This caused a loss of vacuum and all the milkers on the other cows would also fall off!!
ALSO, the milkers, being vacuum operated, if there is NO power, the milkers will not stay on the cow but fall off in the manure. Someone STILL has to be “Johny on the spot” to keep them on and the system working!
Yes, ravenwolf; verses to remember regarding false teachers and bank accounts:
2 Peter 2
“1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”
Christians are USED today to further the ends of globalism by false Christian leaders. Globalism, of course, is ultimately Satanic. Satan, remember, is a “deceiver” and “father of lies”.
John 8
“42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”
“1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you,
I believe he meant just that, MANY.
The Sabbath was an old testament type.. It foreshadowed Jesus . Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath ... Remember that the curtain in the temple was rent from the top to the bottom ..showing the end of the rituals , the sacrifices and entering into a New, but better Covenant ... Jesus is our Sabbath rest .. we can cease from “working” and rest in Him in faith
God gave the Sabbath to the Israelites as a sign between God and the Israelites (Ex. 31:17). The Sabbath made the Israelites different from other nations—but Paul says that the laws that separated Jews and Gentiles have been done away by the cross of Christ (Eph. 2:11-18).... There is no longer a law to keep the Sabbath ..that type was fulfilled ...
The 4th commandment has not been abrogated; none of the ten commandments have been abrogated.
The 4th commandment is a Creation ordinance, instituted by God not only before the Israelites, but before the fall of Adam into sin. Since at that point there was no sin in the world, thus no need of a Savior, the Sabbath ordinance can not be ceremonial.
The 4th commandment is a Creation ordinance
very interesting, so Adam, Noah and Abraham all rested on the 7th day in observance of the Sabbath?
if you answer yes, could you please provide chapter and verse to support your answer.
the pagan Gentiles who were being preached to by the Apostles and converted to faith in Christ had no idea what the Sabbath was and how to observe resting on it.
Can you show anywhere in the NT after Pentecost that the Apostles taught that the 7th day Sabbath was to be observed or how to observe it? Anywhere?
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.”
This tells us the reason for observing the Sabbath, citing the work of God in Creation.
It would stand to reason that men who were obedient to God generally observed his ordinances, e.g., bearing children, being a good steward of that which he was given dominion over, etc., without every obedience being specifically mentioned.
The New Testament documents that the Apostolic Church observed the Christian Sabbath, the first day of the week, the day after the Israelite Sabbath, the last day of the week.
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,”
There are many good Reformed scholarly writings which comment on Scripture in this regard.
“It would stand to reason that men who were obedient to God generally observed his ordinances, e.g., bearing children, being a good steward of that which he was given dominion over, etc., without every obedience being specifically mentioned”
It would stand to reason if any ordinance before Exodus to keep the Sabbath was ever given. The commands you cite were given in Genesis 1 and it would be reasonable to assume they were followed. Not so with the Sabbath. It would be like saying George Washington followed the law, therefore he kept the speed limit. Adam, Noah and Abraham were not given any ordinance concerning the Sabbath and they did not keep the Sabbath. So the Sabbath definitely was not a creation ordinance.
Next, you better check your security system, I think you were hacked. A poster using your name in this thread said the 4th commandment has not been abrogated........yet your last post gives examples of the Church worshipping on the first day of the week and NOT keeping the 7th day Sabbath.
Can you reconcile the two? The 4th commandment specifically mentions “the seventh day”, not the first. Yet, we don’t find Christians keeping the 4th commandment. What happened?
What a ridiculous statement. As a small business owner I often worked 7 days a week. BY CHOICE! This is a competitive world we’re living in. People that work hard and bust their asses made this country. No one is forced to work any job. The last thing we need is the government telling us when and how long we can work per week. That’s done wonders for the European economy right?
Isa_56:2 Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.
Isa_56:6 Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant;
Isa_58:13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
Isa_66:23 And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD.
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