|
Plainly Speaking
with Karl J. Forehand
Cease and Desist?
By Karl J. Forehand
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 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 Sabbath day and made it holy.
Since I am a pastor, I would
like to take this commandment and preach to you about coming to church. But, that is not all that it is
about. Sabbath literally means,
“cease, desist and rest.”
The fourth commandment is a
merciful law. Established by God,
at creation, it is a time to rest. We
will work for a time, as God did; and we will need to rest, as God did. There is a Hebrew word that came after the
fall of man. It is “atsab.” Atsab means “pain, struggle and
toil.” It is the word that God used
to describe the curse. Eve would
“atsab” in childbirth and Adam would “atsab” to raise his crops.
There are two challenges with
the Sabbath. In Nehemiah’s day, the
people forgot about the Sabbath. They
had been in captivity and were busy rebuilding their houses and didn’t have
time to rest and worship. In Jesus
day, the leaders over regulated the Sabbath to the point that Jesus was
always getting in trouble because he did something good on the Sabbath.
The Sabbath was created to
protect the health and welfare of worker and to promote worship of God. God created us to work and work hard; but
he also ordained a time or rest. The
Sabbath is for rest.
We need to
rest and we need to worship
“Remember” is
the first word in this passage. It is
what is known as an “infinite absolute.”
In other words, it does NOT mean “if you think about it” or “If you
have time.” Sometimes it is
translated “Indeed.” So “Remember the
Sabbath” is stronger than it may seem.
We absolutely, without exception, must keep the Sabbath.
The central idea of the Sabbath
is rest. Someone said, “The bow that
is always bent will soon cease to shoot straight. “ We must go back and sharpen the saw occasionally. The story is told of a man that believed
he could beat the chain saw in downing trees. He did pretty well for the first few hours, but soon he fell
behind. Upon reflection, he realized
that he never stopped to sharpen his saw.
We will work and we will work hard; but we have to take time to
sharpen the saw.
This command, for the Sabbath,
is not about strong-arming people into coming to church. It is to assure you that you need to
rest. By the way, no one should have
to preach at you or do any kind of back flips to get you to come to church --
especially your own church. It is a
privilege!
The confusion about the Sabbath
can be seen in the ministry of Jesus.
Several times, Jesus got in trouble for doing the right things in
front of the wrong people. The
Sabbath is not necessarily about a day.
It is about a time of rest—a time for family—a time for God’s people
to come together.
Are you thoroughly confused at
this point?
What kind of rest do we
need?
The first type of rest we need
is physical rest. Mark 2:27 says,
“And He was saying to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for
the Sabbath.’” The 4th
commandment is a merciful law.
Burnout and stress are rampant in our society.
Johns Hopkins, in a recent
survey, found that 43% of adults have severe health effects from stress. Some of us don’t know how to relax. Some of us don’t know how to take a
nap. My pastor says, “Sometimes, the
most spiritual thing we can do is take a nap.”
In Matthew 11:28, Jesus said,
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laiden, and I will give you
rest. Take my yoke upon you, and
learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest
for you souls. For My yoke is easy
and My load is light.
I used to tell people, “I’ll rest when I am dead.” Then someone told me, “That may be sooner
that you think.” Burnout and stress
are not part of God’s plan. He wants
us to work hard, but He also wants us to know how to relax.
The second type of rest we
need is mental & spiritual.
This comes in three forms. Let
me explain:
We need Renewal Romans 12:2 says, “And do not be conformed anymore to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” One a month, I fast over my noon
hour. It breaks the cycle and
patterns of my life and the time I spend in prayer renews me. Renewal can be a daily thing; but even
your prayer life can become routine.
We must break patterns and habits and renew and refresh for the work
ahead.
We need Retreat Have you ever felt like waving the white flag and saying “I
give up.” In a way, this principle
does that, but in a healthy way.
Listen to Jesus, in Mark 6:30, “And the apostles gathered together
with Jesus; and they reported to Him all they had done and taught. And He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves
to a lonely place and rest for a while.’
(For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even
have time to eat.) And they went away
in the boat to a lonely place by themselves.
They didn’t have time to eat. I’m
sure you have had days like that.
Jesus was at the apex of His ministry at this point. Every single thing He was doing was in the
center of God’s will. Yet, He also
understood that part of God’s will was that, as a human, we have to retreat
sometimes and recover.
We need to revive. Revive, like revival means, “to live again.” We have to allow God to pump life back
into us. We have to remember that
there are no u-hauls behind hearses.
I like to say, “Come apart, lest you come apart.”
We can, like Jesus, be doing absolutely the things that honor God; but we
must take time for Sabbath, time to rest – time for renewal, time for retreat
and time to revive.
While we are on the subject of
rest, don’t confuse rest with leisure.
Leisure is an activity that sometimes helps us rest; but can also
become just as much a god as anything else.
Some of us are so in love with leisure that we hardly have time to
anything else. We must work six days,
but we can’t go into work unrested –that would be poor stewardship. Our bodies are amazing things. If we don’t work, they become soft and it
becomes work just to get out of bed.
I guess the bottom line is: You
are going to work one way or the other – you might as well be a good steward.
Leisure is a privilege – it is a
merciful act of God to give us a time or rest. We can’t be so busy with recreation that we don’t have time to
rest and worship.
The last type of rest we need is
eternal rest. Read Hebrews
4:9-16. Eternal rest is what we will
enjoy as believers. In fact, I
believe eternity begins the moment you ask Jesus into your life. We can experience true peace, lasting rest
and eternal rest from our struggles (Rev. 21:3-4). Heaven is all about rest and worship. Let me be real blunt.
You will never really experience any other true rest or relief until
you have eternal rest. If you have
never invited Jesus into your life, email me and I’ll walk you through it.
Eternal rest or eternal torment
– You make the choice.
Karl J. Forehand
|