February 27, 2019 Show with Ken Golden on “Entering God’s Rest: The Sabbath From Genesis to Revelation (& What it Means For You)”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 27th day of February 2019.

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And my friends over at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals urged me to interview someone that they believe is going to be a great blessing to you today, and I take very seriously the recommendations of the

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Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals because I am extremely pleased with everything that I know about them and the events that they promote and the speakers and authors that they promote and that they publish, one of whom is my guest today for the very first time ever.

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His name is Ken Golden, organizing pastor at Sovereign Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Davenport, Iowa, and the author of Presbytopia, What it

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Means to be Presbyterian. Today we're going to be addressing another book of his, published by the

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Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Entering God's Rest, the Sabbath from Genesis to Revelation and What it

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Means for You. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Ken Golden.

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Thanks, Chris. I appreciate the opportunity. And we appreciate the opportunity to have you here today with us, and please, before we go into the topic at hand, why don't you tell our listeners something about Sovereign Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Davenport, Iowa.

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Sure. We're a mission work of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We've been at it for a while. I picked up the work back in 2011.

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I had a first full -time church planner. The previous one was, he was living out of the area, and we had a change in direction there, and we did our four years of denominational support, and we've been plugging away ever since, trying to reach this community, not only for the gospel, but to plant a

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Reformed and Presbyterian church in the Quad Cities where there is none. Yes, and the

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Orthodox Presbyterian denomination, for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with it, this was a denomination that arose,

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I should say, during the fundamentalist modernist controversy in the earlier part of the 20th century when liberals were gaining horrifying control over churches and establishments and seminaries and universities that had long been known for their biblical soundness, and denominations were splitting and congregations were splitting, and a great hero of the

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Christian faith, J. Gresham Machen, knew that he was at great odds with this modernist movement.

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In fact, he was excommunicated, wasn't he? Yeah, I'm not sure what term they used back then.

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I know he was deposed from ministry, and a lot of that had to do with the desire to see a

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Bible -believing foreign mission. There were people abroad who were teaching that the gospel was a book of myth, that the social gospel was more important, and Machen and his colleagues were appalled by that and set up their own independent mission board, and that did not fly well with the denomination, and that was the beginning of the end for a number of those men who were seeking to send missionaries out who believed the gospel.

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Yeah, wasn't the liberal missionary Pearl Buck at the center of this? Yes, yes.

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She was in China, and she's a famous novelist. Most people don't realize that she was a missionary as well, and that she did not believe that the

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Bible is the word of God. She believed that it was the word of men, and that was certainly not in keeping with the historic belief of the

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Reformed and Presbyterian tradition, or any Christian tradition. So Machen and his colleagues felt compelled to give an alternative and send missionaries out who were faithful missionaries to God's Word.

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Well, now let me hear something about your book, not the one we're discussing today, but the one with the funny name,

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Presbytopia, what it means to be Presbyterian. Are you making the claim that being

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Presbyterian brings you in some sort of utopia? Right.

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Well, it's kind of funny that the word utopia itself means no place, suggesting that such a place doesn't exist in this incursed world.

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It's really not dystopia, which is a bad place. Presbytopia is a word that I coined.

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The publisher and I were trying to find a title that would be catchy, and presbytopia literally means old place, from presbys.

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Really? So it's a real word, or you coined it? I believe that I coined it, although some people don't like it because it sounds too much like presbyopia, which means old eyes.

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Well, perhaps at some point we can have you on to discuss that book. But before we have you begin our discussion on entering

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God's rest, the Sabbath from Genesis to Revelation and what it means for you, whenever I have, or at least most often when

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I have a first -time guest on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, I have them give a summary of their salvation testimony, what kind of religious atmosphere my guests were raised in, if any, and what providential circumstances rose up in their lives that the

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Lord used to draw them to himself and save them. So I'll have you give that same story yourself.

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Well, thanks for that opportunity. It's a story that I tell often. I'm a

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Jewish convert. I was raised in a form of Judaism called conservative

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Judaism. It was a flavor that involved a fairly traditional worship service when we did go to synagogue, but most people who are conservative

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Jews don't necessarily believe that the Old Testament is God's word. It would be parallel to a lot of mainline

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Christian churches. So I was raised in that. My father was an immigrant from Poland, and he grew up in an

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Orthodox family. And when he came over, he was really not all that interested in any kind of personal relationship with God or any kind of formal relationship, and he threw off the shackles of the stricter form of Judaism.

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But he embraced Israel, and he still wanted to raise his children as Jews.

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So I went to Hebrew school like many Jewish children, and I learned enough to be able to do my bar mitzvah, to read from a selection of the

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Old Testament. And I had to read it in Hebrew, and I didn't learn what the words meant.

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It was more of an oration or speaking of the Hebrew words. And it was a big show, as many bar mitzvahs are.

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And after I did that, because I really wasn't all that interested, and I really had a bad experience in Hebrew school, that I really made a silent vow to myself that I was never going to look at another

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Hebrew character again. And I was done, pretty much, with any kind of organized faith.

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So I went about my life as pretty much like everybody else, pleasure -seeking, trying to figure out my place in the world.

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I went to college, Indiana University, Bloomington, and I studied art. Art was always an interest to me.

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And while I was painting, I was trying to find myself looking for deeper meaning. By the way,

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I'm an art major myself. Really? Yes. Really. Now that sounds like I should be interviewing you then.

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No, it would be a lot less interesting, believe me. So I studied art for four years in Indiana, and I met my future wife there my senior year.

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And I ended up moving back to New York from New Jersey to study at Pratt Institute in a master's program.

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And I was really wanting to give the New York City arts scene a shot. I did so, completed my program, and I had a show in 1994 in the

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East Village. And I thought my career was taking off, but it really wasn't, because a number of factors happened that showed me that that was not the direction my life was supposed to go.

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The gallery I showed at closed down. Nobody purchased any of my work.

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And most of all, I had an experience in 1996 that challenged what

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I wanted to do the rest of my life. And that experience was coming to faith in Jesus Christ.

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My mother -in -law and brother -in -law, and really my whole wife's family, were Roman Catholic.

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And they left the Catholic Church in 1996 and started attending a Protestant church, part of a

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Church of Christ movement. And I really had no interest in becoming a

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Christian, but I did have an interest in understanding the faith that my wife had brought up in, so that we could grow closer together.

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So I was willing to study the Bible, and so was she. And we had our opportunity when we went to a local congregation of this church tradition.

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And they wanted me to just start reading the New Testament, something that I really never had any interest in.

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Once I picked up the New International Version that they gave me and started reading the

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Gospel of Matthew, something changed. I discovered that it was actually interesting.

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Not only that, it wasn't King James, so there weren't any begats or anything like that, but it actually was interesting for the first time.

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And not only interesting, but there was a character in the New Testament that really captured my interest.

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And his name was Jesus. Now, Jews don't talk about Jesus. The honest ones, the

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Orthodox at times, will call him a false teacher. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

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Jesus can't be a good teacher and lead people astray. So he's either true or false.

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And some people are honest, and others want to be polite. But we didn't talk about him.

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He was a taboo topic. So I didn't know what to do with this character

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Jesus, but I found myself being drawn to him. As I was reading through Matthew, and then

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Mark, and then other books, I found myself cheering for him. Because he wasn't like anything that I had expected.

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He wasn't a moralist. He wasn't trying to clean up everybody's act. He was actually having meals with the riffraff.

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He was inviting people, the dregs of society even, to his table, and he was embracing them.

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He wasn't endorsing their sin, but he was loving them. He was loving them where they were, which was very different than anything

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I had ever imagined about him. And conversely, he was calling out all of the religious leaders.

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The ones who were trying to look religious. The ones who were trying to appear pious.

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The ones who were seeking man's approval. And I thought, this is very different. But I didn't want to believe it, because how could

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I? I'm a Jew. Well, as I kept reading and reading, I am more and more entranced with him, until he gets arrested and he up and dies.

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Now, I had looked at plenty of altarpieces, studying art, and I knew about the crucifixion scenes, and I knew that he was going to die.

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But when I read it for myself, after investing all of this emotional energy,

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Jesus, I was heartbroken. I was truly sad when

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I read that. I thought, how unfair. He didn't do anything. But then, to my surprise, he rose again from the dead.

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And I thought, this is so different. What do I make of it? Well, the group

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I was studying with, they had a time frame that they did with people they were recruiting, and I wasn't moving fast enough for them.

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So they called in the big guns. They called in a Jewish convert from Brooklyn.

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And he started studying with me, and he encouraged me to read the Old Testament, starting in Genesis.

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And I was willing to do that. I started reading in Genesis, and it was a breeze for the first time.

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And then I got to Exodus, and Exodus, the first half of it, was very interesting.

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It was stories. And then I got to the laws, and I was plodding through it. It was a little harder to read that and understand it.

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And then I got to Leviticus. And Leviticus recalled memories of being in synagogue, especially on the high holy days when we did go to synagogue.

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And I remember sitting in the synagogue as a child, not understanding a word that the cantor, the singer, the worship leader was singing.

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I remember being bored out of my mind. I remember my parents being irritable because they were fasting.

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But here I am, as a 30 -year -old, reading Leviticus for the first time, plodding through the early chapters on the sacrifices and the purity laws.

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And then I come to chapter 16, the Day of Atonement, or in Hebrew, Yom Kippur.

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And I thought, here we go again. Do I really want to read this? But I did.

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And as I was reading it, God does something unusual and remarkable.

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He used the book of Leviticus to convert me. As I was reading, yes, probably the first person you've ever heard say that.

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As I was reading chapter 16, I saw the two goats. And the first goat was sacrificed, and the second goat,

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Aaron, priest, was called to lay his hands upon that goat and, as it were, lay the sins of God's people on that goat and send him out of the community.

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And then, in reading those words, I put two and two together, and I saw that those two goats equaled

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Jesus. And all of the scales fell from my eyes. And I could see for the first time spiritually, and I believed, and I knew that there was no turning back.

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What I did next was try to figure out what to do next. What do

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I say to my parents? Where do we go to church? I had some questions and concerns about the church we were studying with.

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They were fairly exclusive in their claims. And the short answer is

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I did tell my parents, and they were not happy, one bet. But they didn't disown me. And we didn't end up joining that church.

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We ended up joining an evangelical church in Hillsdale, New Jersey. And we stayed there a while.

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But while I was there, I was introduced to the Reformed tradition. One of the elders got me interested in modern

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Reformation, which was part of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It was their magazine back then.

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Yeah, didn't Mike Horton have something to do with that? He did. And ironically, I went to Promise Keepers in 1997, which was something that many

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Christian men did back in the 90s. And after Promise Keepers, my friend, who is my

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Reformed mentor, he suggested we go to a conference on Reformed theology.

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And I thought, well, what is that? So we went to a local United Reformed church in northern

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New Jersey. And the speaker of all people was this Dr. Michael Scott Horton.

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Never heard of the guy. Never heard of the guy. And he was very interesting, but I really didn't know what to make of it.

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And the issue that was on display that month had to do with a sacrament. And I didn't even like the sound of that word.

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It sounded so Roman Catholic or so religious, I guess, using that dichotomy between religious and spirituality, which

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I don't believe anymore. But it just rubbed me the wrong way.

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And I read the articles in there, and they rubbed me the wrong way. But I couldn't put it down because I had all of these questions that this original church put in my head.

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And it was giving me some answers. And gradually, I began more and more to gravitate toward the

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Reformed tradition. And we ended up joining a Christian Reformed church in New Jersey. And over the course of a couple of years,

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I felt myself being called into the ministry. I was working in pharmaceuticals back then, and I had made a decent career out of just the abilities that I had.

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But when I was called to the ministry, I felt compelled to go to a seminary in Southern California, Westminster, California, and study with Michael Scott Horton and some of the other people that I had read.

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So we ended up quitting our job, the one job that we had at that time, going from one income to zero income.

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It was kind of scary. We sold our house at the peak of the real estate market back in 2001.

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And we moved to Southern California from New Jersey. And I graduated three years later.

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And I found myself gravitating toward the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

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And the rest is history. I'm on my second call now. This is a church plant in the

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Quad Cities. Most people have never heard of the Quad Cities. But it's an area that is, there's quite a few

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Bible -believing churches, and many of them are good churches. But there's no Reformed and Presbyterian churches that believe our historic creeds and confessions in the cities.

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So that's why I'm here. I believe that's why God has called me to labor here.

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Praise God. By the way, just out of curiosity, do you know, I very rarely hear the answer no to this when

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I'm speaking to an Orthodox Presbyterian. But one of my dearest friends, going back to the 1980s, is

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Bill Shishko. Do you know Bill? I've met Bill, yeah. He's the pastor, or was the pastor, at Franklin Square.

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That's right. Now he runs Reformation Metro New York, which is a parachurch ministry under the oversight of the

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Orthodox Presbyterian Presbytery out there in that area. And, in fact,

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Bill is a client of mine, and I am the one that sold him his airtime for his radio program,

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Visit to the Pastor Study. How fabulous. Yeah, he's very gifted. And, ironically, this is a really obscure story, but one of his parishioners, who is somewhat of an expert on Van Til, a man by the name of Eric Sigward...

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Oh, yeah, I've met Eric many, many times for many, many years. Eric is a character, and I hope he's listening because he probably doesn't remember me.

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But when I was at the Evangelical Church, my friend, who was a merchant, he had a nutritional shop in Queens, he got to know

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Eric, and he would invite Eric to our church and have Eric teach Sunday school. And it was really an amazing thing to see all of these broad

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Evangelical folks being taught by Eric, who is fairly intellectual and sometimes spoke over their heads.

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But one of the things that I'll never forget is that Eric would bring copies of Louis Burkhoff to our church, and he would talk about Burkhoff, and he would talk about Reform things, and most people weren't all that interested and thought it was a little weird.

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I'm sorry, I interrupted you with my laughter. I appreciate the laughter.

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It was surreal, and I was eating it up.

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I really appreciated what he did and all of those people who were there for me in the early years.

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In fact, my landlord is a retired Orthodox Presbyterian minister,

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Al Stever. He's a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary. He, in fact, went to a 50th anniversary of all those who graduated in his class about a year or two ago.

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And good friends with a lot of folks in the OPC. Jason Wallace, if you ever want somebody to speak on Mormonism at your church,

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Jason Wallace is a thoroughly knowledgeable expert. Pastors a church in the

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Salt Lake City, Utah area, and Magna, Utah to be specific. And Lowell Ivey, a fascinating guy in Virginia, an

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Orthodox Presbyterian pastor who was a white supremacist gang member in prison before he got saved and became an

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Orthodox Presbyterian and is now pastoring in Virginia. I mean, I know a lot of folks, so I always feel at ease when

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I'm interviewing somebody from your denomination. That's true. I've met

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Jason before at General Assembly. I've never met Lowell, but that's an amazing story. I didn't know that about him.

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In fact, this reminds me to ask for prayer from my listening audience, something that I failed to do before today.

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Please pray for the local Orthodox Presbyterian pastor here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Jody Morris.

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His wife unexpectedly and tragically died just about a week or so ago, maybe two weeks ago, at the age of 42.

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And that obviously has been a great tragedy, not only to Jody and his two sons, but also for that congregation.

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So please pray for Pastor Jody Morris. He was married 25 years, even though his wife is only 42 years old.

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She got married when she was 17, and that must be a very difficult time that he's going through.

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I know personally the tragedy of losing a wife. I lost my wife, as many of my listeners know, back in 2011.

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She is now in eternity with Christ after nearly 20 years of marriage.

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But please pray for Jody Morris of the Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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I'm sorry, I just wanted to throw that in there. I'm glad you mentioned that, actually, because Jody was the first person

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I thought of when you mentioned Mormonism. Jody and I were classmates at seminary, and...

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That's right, he's a former Mormon. Former Mormon, that's correct. And I think the world of him, and I remember having a lunch when

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I was in seminary with him and Belinda, and Jody's an outstanding guy, and he's really smart, and I'm assuming you know him well, living in Carlisle.

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He's a good man, and we've been praying for him and his family. So Jody, if you're listening, I just want you to know that we've been praying for you the last couple weeks.

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Well, I'm sure he appreciates that enormously. And, well, we are now going to be entering into our...

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Oh, by the way, did you finish your discussion on your testimony? I don't want to cut you short there, because it was utterly fascinating. In fact,

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I already know I want to have you back specifically to address more about your

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Jewish heritage and the interesting phenomenon of the majority of Jewish believers rejecting

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Reformed theology. And one of the aspects of that that utterly baffles me is how

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Jewish people fully recognize and embrace the fact, without hesitation, that God chose the

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Jewish people not because of anything they believed or did, or because of their specialness, their unique beauty, or anything like that.

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He elected them. He chose them out from among the pagan nations. And yet, when

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Jews come to faith in Christ, that concept of unconditional election, of election not based on anything intrinsic to the ones being elected, they seem to be not only ignoring that, avoiding that, but sometimes even being vehemently opposed to that notion.

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Not all, of course. We have some exceptions, like yourself and some other brothers in Christ I know, who are

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Reformed theologically, but it is an interesting phenomenon, isn't it? It is.

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It's a very complex phenomenon, and I'm certainly no expert on... Even though I was raised

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Jewish, and I know certainly a little bit about the different streams of Judaism, and I've had some

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Messianic believers attend my church, and I even had coffee one day with a local

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Lubavitch rabbi. Hard to believe there's a Hasidic rabbi here in the

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Quad Cities, but there's a little bit of that in northeast

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Iowa, actually. But yeah, I'd be happy to come back and talk about whatever

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I know. The last thing I would say, which is a bit of poetic justice, or God has a sense of humor, however you want to phrase it, is that my silent vow that I made after finishing my bar mitzvah, kicking the dust off the sandals of my feet, and just saying,

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I will never look at another Hebrew character again. And lo and behold, my first year in seminary,

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Hebrew 101, and I'm thinking, what am I getting myself into? But I actually enjoyed it, and I still work in the original languages when

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I prepare sermons, and I really enjoy the Hebrew. It's just fascinating with all of the word plays, and just the language itself, just to look at the characters, it's very aesthetic.

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So, God does have a sense of humor. He sure does. By the way, I want to clarify for our listeners who may not have understood what

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I was talking about in regard to Jewish believers in Christ who reject unconditional election.

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I'm speaking of unconditional election in the salvific sense, not in the natural sense where the nation of Israel was chosen amongst all of the

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Gentile nations as God's own people. I'm speaking of eternal election, election unto eternal life, and so on, that many, if not most,

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Jewish believers, Messianic believers, are opposed to. So they believe in the one aspect of the chosen people of the

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Old Testament who were chosen not for anything they believed or did, and yet they reject a spiritual or salvific election that we who are

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Reformed believe and very enthusiastically declare and teach and preach.

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But we are going into our first advertising break right now before we enter into entering

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God's rest, which is the subject of our program today, the main subject, entering

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God's rest, the Sabbath from Genesis to Revelation and what it means for you. Very controversial theme because it is something that divides brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.

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Not all Christians have the same understanding or acceptance of a new covenant

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Sabbath day, and even those that do don't always agree on what that means. And even amongst theologically

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Reformed Christians, there is disagreement on the Sabbath. So this should be a very interesting conversation, especially,

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I think it even has some unique meaning, knowing that my guest is formerly, or he's still

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Jewish, but formerly a part of the conservative Jewish sect amongst or within Judaism.

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So it should be interesting, even more so because of that. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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So don't go away, we'll be right back with Ken Golden and Entering God's Rest right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Pastor Ken Golden of Sovereign Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Davenport, Iowa.

42:38

We are discussing his book, Entering God's Rest, The Sabbath from Genesis to Revelation and What It Means for You, published by the

42:45

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is

42:51

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

42:56

And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

43:06

Ken, as you may know, there are many books written on the

43:12

Sabbath. In fact, one of the pastors of the church where I am a member, he was a pastor there for 40 years,

43:20

Walter Chantry, he wrote a book that seems to have been very popular for many years called

43:26

The Sabbath of Delight, and there have been many others. Why did you believe that there was an additional volume needed to bless the body of Christ in regard to the

43:37

Sabbath? Well, that's a great question. Some of that is both books that I've written have come out of my own ministry and personal reflection and observance, so they don't just come out of nowhere.

43:57

There is a back story to these things. But I guess the short answer is that, and you said it earlier yourself,

44:07

Chris, that Sabbath observance is a spectrum across Christianity and even in the

44:15

Reformed tradition. One of the things that I mention in the book early on is

44:21

I quote a book by Dick Gavin that he wrote about Calvin and the

44:26

Sabbath, and he lists various types of people who view the

44:33

Sabbath, some he would call dominical proponents who believe that the

44:40

Sabbath is over, that it was completely fulfilled in Christ, and that the

44:45

Lord's Day has no connection to the Sabbath whatsoever, that it's an ecclesiastical ordinance.

44:51

And some of the Reformers even fell into this category to some degree. Would they have been the

44:57

Continental Reformers, perhaps? Yes, yes, that would be Luther and Calvin, even though in practice some of what they, especially

45:09

Calvin in Geneva, was certainly in favor of shopkeepers closing on the

45:16

Lord's Day to ensure that people would be in church. But it was done for different reasons and principal reasons.

45:23

It was done for more practical reasons. The folks thought of that, and we rent our worship space from a

45:33

Seventh -day Adventist church here in Davenport, wonderful folks, and they obviously believe in strict continuity when it comes to the

45:44

Lord's Day being the Sabbath day of the Old Testament, falling on the seventh day, so they worship on Saturday.

45:52

And there are even Seventh -day Baptists. In fact, I had a debate on the old

45:58

Iron Sharpens Iron radio program between Reformed Baptist theologian Sam Waldron and a

46:05

Reformed Baptist pastor on the day of the Sabbath, and in fact it was interesting because even the

46:12

Seventh -day Baptist pastor involved in this debate was a Calvinist, a five -point

46:19

Calvinist. Wow. Yeah, yeah, and I think there's a lot of Messianic Jews as well who would want to worship on Saturday rather than Sunday.

46:32

There certainly are some arguments that they make from Scripture, as do the

46:39

Dominical folks. And then there are the folks of the Puritan, Presbyterian side of our tradition, which is reflected in the

46:49

Westminster Standards, which we could call, for lack of a better word, the Puritan Sabbath, which is very, in many respects, similar to the approach of the

47:01

Seventh -day Sabbatarians, except that there clearly is a transfer from the seventh day to what we would call the first or the eighth day of the week.

47:12

There is certainly discontinuity as well, and I don't mean to be oversimplistic at all, and I try to work out some of those details in the book, but I believe that our tradition takes a very strong continuity view of the

47:29

Sabbath. The main areas of discontinuity would be the day of worship, as well as what we would call the ceremonial aspects of the

47:39

Sabbath that you find in the Old Testament, so the sacrifices and things like that. But the moral aspects of the

47:46

Sabbath would continue from creation forward. So you have different views in Christianity.

47:55

I wrote the book not primarily to Reform Presbyterians, but I wrote the book more generally to Christians in general.

48:05

So I do address, in various parts of the book, the Dominical view, and I make arguments against that position.

48:16

I do address, in the book, the Seventh -day Sabbatarians, and I make arguments against that.

48:23

I also interact with the Puritan Sabbatarians as well, of which, you know, that is a concessional view in the

48:33

Orthodox Presbyterian Church, but the OPC does allow for some variety in practice of the

48:42

Sabbath. The Latin term, I believe, is called the animus imponentis, the way that we adopt the confessions.

48:52

That's the language that we use in the OPC. And so you have some who are very, very much on the stricter side or the full subscription side of that debate, and then you have some that are on the more system or looser side of that debate.

49:14

So there are a variety of opinions in the OPC on this issue.

49:20

How do we get along? Because clearly this is a very serious issue in the minds of many.

49:27

And that's one of the reasons I wrote this book, is I want to find a way to bridge the gap so that we can get along, because this is clearly not a monolithic issue.

49:40

Right. So if you could now, obviously it would take a week's worth of programs to have you be very detailed about this, but if you could describe in as much of a summary as you can your view that you think is most biblically faithful, starting off with what the

50:04

Sabbath was in the Old Covenant. Obviously it's not even something that began with the

50:11

Decalogue. It's a creation ordinance. But how that Sabbath day, that Sabbath command, was transferred over to a new covenant, and what changes occurred, and what things were retained in a new covenant

50:29

Sabbath. Sure, sure, and that's a big question.

50:35

I've got nine chapters and a couple of appendices where I tackle the majority, if not all, of the pertinent biblical texts.

50:47

The book is primarily exegetical. I'm not quoting

50:52

Puritan theologians and this and that. I'm trying to stick to the primary standard as much as I can in this book.

51:03

I'll just read something very briefly which gives us a bit of a framework.

51:10

On page 2 in the introduction, I talk about stumbling across this word in the

51:16

Bible, and I say, readers beware, the Sabbath isn't a simple and straightforward concept.

51:21

It appears in Genesis, develops in Exodus, multiplies in Leviticus, deepens in Isaiah.

51:28

In the New Testament, Jesus clarifies it in the Gospels, while Paul appears to abandon it in the

51:34

Epistles. Sabbath references span the periods of creation, Sinai, monarchy, exile, and New Testament.

51:42

It receives lots of attention in the Old Covenant and lots of reflection in the

51:47

New Covenant. Some of the questions that arise from this is, what continues and what doesn't?

51:55

And how do these continuities and discontinuities relate to time and observance? Is there a difference between the

52:02

Old Testament Sabbath and the New Testament Lord's Day? Our confessions answer that last question.

52:09

The Old Covenant may say that the New Testament Lord's Day is the Christian Sabbath. And certainly I agree with that language, but I also unpack that language.

52:18

Because, going back to your question, the Sabbath is not mosaic in its origin.

52:26

It is creational. It starts in Genesis chapter 2. And I have a whole chapter on that, showing that the

52:35

Sabbath is not really for God, because God is enthroned in the Sabbath, but he doesn't get tired.

52:40

So what does it mean for God to rest? And I don't quote

52:49

Meredith Klein in my book, but he was certainly somebody that I read that I was very intrigued about in thinking in terms of Sabbath as enthronement.

53:01

Sabbath as enthronement. God creates the heavens and the earth, and then he is enthroned, which means he becomes an object of worship.

53:10

It's a very ancient Near Eastern quality. And therefore, man is created in God's image.

53:19

Man is called to enter God's rest. That's language that's listed right out of Hebrews.

53:25

Enter God's rest. Well, what does that mean? Man gets tired. Man needs rest. But if God is enthroned over his creation and remained in his image, then there's a sense that we are enthroned as well over the lesser creation, but also from a glory standpoint, that we enter into glory.

53:47

So in a nutshell, what we have here, I mean, there's a lot of state work that I cover in those chapters that support what

53:55

I just said. But in a nutshell, what we're talking about here is the Sabbath is a picture of eternal life.

54:04

That from the earliest times, man is given this picture, which later becomes the sign of the covenant that was given at Sinai, as a picture of eternal life that man is to enter.

54:18

How he enters that varies over the course of Scripture. In the beginning, before sin entered the world, he entered by his works, the covenant of works, in the

54:29

Garden of Eden. But that's no longer possible because we all have sinful natures. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

54:39

Romans chapter 5 is the last word on the connection between the first Adam and death and the second

54:45

Adam in life. So we don't enter God's rest anymore based on our works.

54:53

We enter God's rest on the other side of the cross, based on Christ's work.

55:00

He earns it for us. So that's the general sense, the short answer to what does it mean to enter

55:09

God's rest? It means to enter eternal life because of the law -keeping, the perfect law -keeping, the act of obedience, and the perfect sacrifice, the path of obedience of our

55:20

Savior, Jesus Christ. And when we come back,

55:25

I want you to give, this is going to be difficult probably, but if you could give a summary of why you believe a

55:37

Christian should be honoring the Sabbath on the first day of the week, also sometimes called the eighth day of the week, rather than the seventh day.

55:47

And in fact, if anybody wanted more information about that, you can email me at chrisarnson at gmail .com

55:54

because I do have a recording of a debate that I think was at least two days long.

56:01

When I say two days, two episodes of Iron Sharpens Iron, not 48 hours. But between Samuel Waldron and a seventh -day

56:10

Baptist that I mentioned earlier. But we'll have, when we come back, at least an abbreviated version of the answer to that question.

56:18

This is our elongated break. The midway break on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is longer than most because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, who airs this show in Florida, requires a period during the show where they can localize

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to Lake City, Florida, with their own public service announcements and commercials.

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So while they're airing their commercials, we're airing our global commercials, our national commercials.

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And so please take this time to write down the information provided by our advertisers because the more successfully and the more frequently you patronize our advertisers, the more likely they will remain our advertisers, which means the more likely we will remain on the air because we rely upon our advertising dollars to exist.

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But also write down questions for Ken Golden on the Sabbath.

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Even if you have a question that involves his Jewish heritage, you can ask that as well, or any general question on Reformed theology.

57:19

But especially if you have a question on the Sabbath, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

57:28

And as always, please give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the good old

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USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

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Bibles are falling apart. They are filled with children's graffiti, perhaps.

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Pages are falling out. Perhaps even the version of the Bible that is in your pews is not one that you currently favor.

01:12:19

Perhaps you don't want to use that translation anymore and you prefer using the

01:12:24

NASB. Please consider replacing all of your pew Bibles with the NASB, the

01:12:29

New American Standard Bible. You can do so by going to nasbible .com

01:12:35

NAS, which stands for New American Standard Bible, nasbible .com

01:12:41

and order your Bibles there. They have all different types of Bibles, both pew

01:12:48

Bibles in all different varieties and colors. They also have all different kinds of genuine leather

01:12:54

Bibles and leather text Bibles. You'll be very impressed with the selection that they have.

01:13:00

And please always tell them that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sherp and Zion Radio. That's nasbible .com

01:13:07

We also have a few events coming up that we need to tell you about. The first event is coming up very soon.

01:13:16

We have the Striving for Eternity Ministries conference on Sanctification through Suffering.

01:13:25

That's going to be held March 15th through the 16th at the Chinese American Bible Church in Freehold, New Jersey.

01:13:31

This is not going to be conducted in a Chinese language. It's going to be in English, but they are just renting the facility there at the

01:13:40

Chinese American Bible Church. March 15th through the 16th. And they have some very impressive speakers.

01:13:47

Justin Peters, who I absolutely love Justin Peters and his ministry. He's become a friend and I love to have him on this program.

01:13:57

He is a victim a victim of cerebral palsy, which he has had for nearly the entirety of his life.

01:14:06

He is going to be on to speak on suffering. Frank Mullis, Joe Suozo, and someone that we just had on the show yesterday,

01:14:16

Colleen Sharp. They will all be speaking at this conference. For more details, go to strivingforeternity .org

01:14:25

strivingforeternity .org Then, the Banner of Truth East Coast Ministers Conference is coming up.

01:14:31

After that, May 28th through the 30th, I will be there in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, at the

01:14:37

Elizabethtown College. They've got Jeff Kingswood on the roster,

01:14:43

Terry Johnson, David Vaughn, who is a Reformed Baptist missionary in France, Steve Nichols, who is the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late

01:14:53

R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, Michael Morales, and Chad Vegas. That's the

01:14:59

East Coast Ministers Conference for the Banner of Truth, May 28th through May 30th in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

01:15:07

The theme is I believe in the Holy Spirit. I think that's a very important theme, especially, perhaps, for Reformed Christians to be focusing on, since I believe as a

01:15:18

Reformed Christian myself, we have the most biblically faithful understanding of the person and work of the

01:15:24

Holy Spirit. So I hope that you and as many other folks that you know of can attend the

01:15:31

Banner of Truth East Coast Ministers Conference, May 28th through the 30th. Go to banneroftruth .org,

01:15:38

banneroftruth .org, click on Events, then click on East Coast Ministers Conference. There are also other conferences that they are conducting that may be closer to you, because we have listeners all over the world.

01:15:51

There's conferences in the UK, there's conferences on the West Coast of the United States, and we have listeners in both of those places and all over the world.

01:15:59

So you can click on whatever conference is close to you. I happen to be going, obviously, to the

01:16:05

Elizabethtown Pennsylvania Conference, since I live here in Pennsylvania. That's banneroftruth .org.

01:16:11

Click on Events and then click on East Coast Ministers Conference or whatever conference is closest to you. We are also promoting the

01:16:19

Foundations Conference, which is a conference being held by the folks at Sermon Audio.

01:16:28

And I love this conference that's being held in New York City December 19th and the 20th.

01:16:33

For some reason, oh, thankfully, their website just started working again before the website was down temporarily.

01:16:42

But if you go to thefoundations conference .com thefoundations conference .com,

01:16:50

and make sure you put the in there, thefoundationsconference .com. You will have all the information that you need on this conference

01:16:56

December 19th and the 20th in New York City. Just to give you some of the folks that are speaking there.

01:17:03

Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, who you just heard moments ago advertising one of my sponsors,

01:17:09

New Covenant Church NYC in Manhattan. Stephen J. Lawson of One Passion Ministries is going to be speaking there.

01:17:17

Pastor Jeff Thomas, who has been for many years, many decades, a favorite conference speaker of Reformed Baptists and Orthodox Presbyterians and pretty much everybody within the pale of Reformed Theology.

01:17:31

Jeff Thomas is a phenomenal preacher and teacher and writer and brother in Christ. You will fall in love with Jeff Thomas if you don't already know him.

01:17:41

He is just a phenomenal brother and a phenomenal speaker. Richard Caldwell Jr.,

01:17:46

who I do not yet know. Rev. Armin Tamasian is a powerful preacher. Mark my words,

01:17:53

Armin Tamasian is going to become a very prominent figure in Reformed preaching in the

01:17:59

United States, if not globally. I first discovered him about two years ago at the

01:18:04

Foundations Conference in Manhattan at a previous event that they had. He is just mind -blowing and such a blessing.

01:18:11

Rev. Armin Tamasian and also Andrew Quigley, another brother that I do not know, but I am looking forward to getting to know him and hearing him preach.

01:18:19

It's December 19th and the 20th in New York City. For more information, go to thefoundationsconference .com

01:18:26

thefoundationsconference .com and, God willing, I will see you there. Please tell them if you register that you heard about them from Chris Aronson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:18:35

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01:20:33

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01:20:48

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01:21:03

So it's chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. We are now back with Pastor Ken Golden, and we are discussing his book on the

01:21:14

Sabbath, as we have been mentioning already during this program, Entering God's Rest, the

01:21:20

Sabbath from Genesis to Revelation, and what it means for you. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:21:29

chrisarnson at gmail .com and Ken, before we go to any listener questions, if you could, in as much of a summary as you can, explain, because I'm sure that a lot of people are wondering, how could it be that Saturday, for thousands of years, was a vital day for God's people in the

01:21:55

Old Covenant and many people viewed that as an eternal day of rest, and then we enter into a new covenant and all of a sudden the day changes from Saturday to Sunday.

01:22:07

How could this be? Why did that happen? Yeah, that's a great question.

01:22:14

And I would start with a simple principle that the Westminster Confession of Faith gives us a valuable creating confession that we hold to as Presbyterians.

01:22:28

It talks about interpreting the Bible at times through good and necessary consequence, which means that you're not going to find one -stop shopping proof text for everything you believe.

01:22:43

Sometimes you're going to have to trace a thread or a theme throughout the

01:22:50

Bible to really understand its significance. And I think we find that good and necessary consequence principle with the

01:22:59

Sabbath, which starts in Genesis and it occurs on the seventh day. And that seventh day

01:23:05

Sabbath is in Exodus 20, the appeal is back to creation.

01:23:15

So it shows that the Sabbath is a creation ordinance and that the seventh day is to be set apart for this purpose.

01:23:22

So how do we come to the Lord's Day on Sunday? Are the seventh day

01:23:27

Sabbatarians right? Well, I would disagree with them for a number of reasons that I argue in the book.

01:23:35

First of all, we see the seeds of a variety of Sabbaths, of Sabbath not being tied to one particular day.

01:23:46

And we see this as early as the book of Leviticus. My chapter on Levitical Sabbaths discusses the number seven and eight.

01:23:54

And what we discover is that the original weekly Sabbath becomes incorporated into a system of Sabbaths in the

01:24:04

Old Covenant. So that there are other days, some of the various feasts, such as Unleavened Bread and Weeks and Booths, they have days that are considered

01:24:17

Holy Convocation days, days of worship, but also days where people are to not do normal work.

01:24:26

They are even called Sabbaths of Solemn Rest. And those days oftentimes occur on the eighth day or the first day of those feasts.

01:24:39

So we see early on, even in the Old Covenant, seeds for something beyond just a seventh -day

01:24:46

Sabbath. The Sabbath is not explicitly tied to the seventh day. It has more a broader understanding.

01:24:58

When we get to the New Covenant and the New Testament, we find in the life of our

01:25:05

Savior Jesus Christ, we discover that He has come to fulfill the

01:25:10

Sabbath. I do have a whole chapter on already and not yet, so when I say fulfill, I don't mean completely abrogate, so that we have no understanding whatsoever or responsibility.

01:25:24

But I'm saying that He fulfills the Sabbath and enables us to enter

01:25:30

God's rest through His active and passive obedience. We see these things, quite a bit of discussion in the

01:25:40

Gospels on the Sabbath. He calls Himself the Lord of the Sabbath. He says the

01:25:45

Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And a number of other texts where He associates

01:25:51

Sabbath healing with deliverance and things like that. Deuteronomy, the

01:25:57

Sabbath did not appeal to creation, rather it appealed to redemption.

01:26:03

So redemption is another Sabbath theme. When Jesus is about to leave this earth, and He is arrested and suffers on the cross, and He says it is finished,

01:26:18

He is buried in the tomb, and those verses in Luke chapter 23 going into chapter 24 are very interesting, because it talks about the

01:26:30

Sabbath, and Jesus is, as it were, resting on the Sabbath, along with the women, along with all of Israel.

01:26:38

He's resting in the tomb in death. He has completed the work of redemption.

01:26:46

But then on the first day of the week, which we could call day one of the new creation, Jesus rises so that the resurrection is intricately tied to this idea of entering

01:26:59

God's rest. Jesus has entered the rest on the seventh day. He rises on the first day of the week, and therefore the resurrection is, you could call it, a guarantee that we will enter

01:27:11

God's rest, because we are included. Jesus is the firstfruits, according to 1

01:27:17

Corinthians 15. We are the rest of the harvest. So there's some theology, some big picture principles that we find.

01:27:28

But then, what about evidence? Well, Jesus does appear to his earliest disciples on the first day of the week, not on the seventh day.

01:27:38

And then what we see is a pattern in the New Testament regarding when the

01:27:44

Church gathers. We see this as early as Acts chapter 20, when they are gathered on the first day of the week, and they are breaking bread, which is another code word.

01:27:55

Most of us would agree that's a code word for the Lord's Supper. On the first day of the week, the offerings are to be set aside in 1

01:28:07

Corinthians 16, on the first day of the week. And then we discover John, in the book of Revelation, he is in the

01:28:14

Spirit. He is prophesying on the Lord's day. It's not the day of the

01:28:19

Lord. It's a completely different concept. The Lord's day is the day that specifically belongs to the

01:28:27

Lord. It's a different adjective than what we find in day of the

01:28:34

Lord. This is where I go, one of the few places in the book where I go beyond scripture, because there's a lot of debate.

01:28:42

What is the Lord's day? Some day Adventists would say that's the Sabbath day, it's the seventh day. Others would say that's

01:28:49

Easter. But the early Church, going back to the earliest centuries, used that adjective, kuriake, which means

01:28:58

Lord, possessive of the Lord. They used that adjective, kuriake, to describe

01:29:06

Sunday. So the earliest Christians were viewing Sunday as the

01:29:12

Lord's day, primarily because of the Resurrection. Because it's the day that Jesus enabled us to enter

01:29:21

God's rest. So the first day of the week, which is also the eighth day, the number seven is the number of completion, the number eight is the number of new beginnings.

01:29:33

The Lord's day is a day of new beginnings. I use the language of a dress rehearsal for eternal life.

01:29:41

It's the appropriate day to be worshiping God, to be breaking bread, to be resting so that we can experience a foretaste of Heaven, so we can rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

01:30:00

Amen. Well, we have some listener questions. We have let's see,

01:30:07

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who says, how do you respond to those

01:30:13

Christians who are not Sabbatarian who will quote from Colossians chapter 2 verse 16, therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a

01:30:28

Sabbath day? Right. That's a very, very important verse.

01:30:36

In fact, I have a chapter called Sabbath Liberty and this chapter discusses some of the discontinuity that we have to grapple with as Christians.

01:30:48

There is discontinuity. There is language that we have to take seriously from Romans 14, from Galatians 4, and from Colossians 2.

01:30:59

So if we read Colossians 2 in isolation, we would come to the conclusion that the

01:31:05

Sabbath, indeed, all almost all of the Old Testament, aside from some of the moral commands, really have no application for us.

01:31:17

And that's, the first part of my answer would be, we have to compare Scripture with Scripture.

01:31:24

And this the Dominical position very much would appeal to Colossians 2 and some of these other texts, which seem to show that these days are obsolete.

01:31:37

And well, I think that these days clearly we do clearly have to take them seriously as that something has changed from the

01:31:50

Old Testament to the New Testament. And I argue in this chapter that while there's

01:31:56

I believe we can have some variety of the way that we celebrate the

01:32:03

Sabbath, there's going to be some differences. Clearly, we don't want our

01:32:12

Sabbath to look like the Old Testament. And I think that's one of the themes that we have here in Colossians 2, is that the

01:32:21

Old Covenant Sabbath, while the Sabbath itself is moral, and certainly, you know, in the

01:32:29

Old Testament there were judicial qualities to it, there were things that were punishable when you violated it, but there's also ceremonial qualities.

01:32:39

And the Old Covenant is ceremonial. The Sabbath is complex, because it combines all of these things.

01:32:46

But we don't want our Sabbath to look like an Old Covenant ceremonial Sabbath. And I'm not just talking about the sacrifices.

01:32:55

Clearly, there's some discontinuity there, but that's, and now we're getting at the crux of what

01:33:01

Christians disagree about, even Orthodox Presbyterians. Could that text give weight to the fact that the day of the

01:33:12

Sabbath changed, which is why there would be people, especially amongst the

01:33:18

Jews, saying to these Jewish Christians, why are you worshiping on Sunday?

01:33:24

Could that be an evidence that would lend support to a change in the day?

01:33:32

It's possible. I mean, we'd have to reconstruct the Colossian heresy and everything that was going on there.

01:33:39

There were other things going on in Colossus that are more than just a radical continuity of the

01:33:46

Old Covenant that we could spend an hour talking about. But I think, again, going back to what

01:33:54

I said earlier, when you compare Scripture with Scripture, there's clearly something that is happening in the early

01:34:01

Church concerning the Lord's death. And I think our starting point is going to determine our ending point.

01:34:11

If we see the Resurrection as something that is connected to eternal life, and we connect the dots, going all the way back to Genesis, see the

01:34:22

Sabbath as connected this way as well, and I think that's legitimate, because Hebrews clearly makes that connection.

01:34:29

So this is not just some theological construct that we're imposing on the text. We're trying to make sense of all of these different threads in Scripture.

01:34:38

And if we only take Colossians 2 in isolation, well, of course we're going to end up as Dominical Christians.

01:34:45

But if we view the Sabbath as a creation ordinance, meaning that it continues until the end of the existing creation, and if we see how the

01:34:59

Sabbath develops over the course of time, and how there is a sense, and I argue this in one of the later chapters, there's an already and not yet sense for the

01:35:08

Sabbath. How Jesus fulfills the Sabbath in an already sense. But then you have to deal with Hebrews chapter 4, which talks about a

01:35:18

Sabbath rest awaits for the people of God. Well, if Jesus fulfilled the

01:35:23

Sabbath completely, then why is it talking about this future Sabbath? And if there's a future

01:35:29

Sabbath, what are we supposed to do in the interim? So there's all of these questions, and all of these texts that we have to make sense of.

01:35:37

And the easiest thing to do when we're reading the Bible is we find a text that seems to be very strong and appeals to us, and we basically sit on that text, and we will not be moved from it.

01:35:53

And that text becomes our starting point and our ending point, and it informs everything else that we do.

01:36:02

I think the fact that the Sabbath is a creation ordinance and that the Sabbath still awaits for us are significant things.

01:36:10

So we have to read Colossians 2 in light of these things, but we also have to read texts like Exodus chapter 20 and other texts in the

01:36:19

Old Testament in light of Colossians 2, that there is this continuity as well, even if,

01:36:25

I would argue, the Sabbath continues. Well, thank you, Susan Margaret. You have won a free copy of Entering God's Rest the

01:36:32

Sabbath from Genesis to Revelation and what it means for you. Thanks to the generosity of our friends at the

01:36:38

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Please make sure we have your full mailing address so that cvbbs .com

01:36:45

can ship that out to you. We have, let's see here, we have

01:36:52

CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York. CJ asks,

01:36:58

How is your Jewish family today in response to your coming to faith in Christ?

01:37:05

My second part of the question is, do they find it interesting that you take more seriously the

01:37:12

Hebrew Scriptures than they do? Well, that's a long,

01:37:19

I could give a long answer to that question. Without getting too personal,

01:37:25

I would say that, you know, there are all stripes of Jewish people, just like there are all stripes of Christian people, and it's very possible and actual in today's world to be

01:37:39

Jewish and to consider yourself, consider oneself a Jew and be an atheist.

01:37:44

And I happen to know people like that. Or even a Buddhist. Yeah. And, you know, there are

01:37:53

Marxist -Leninists who are certainly communists in the kibbutzim in Israel.

01:38:00

So there's all kinds of views and beliefs in Judaism. And I think it really depends on who you're talking to.

01:38:08

If you're a person, I have one family member who identifies very closely with historic

01:38:17

Judaism, and you know, we've had some issues. Sometimes when one converts to Christianity, probably familiar, maybe even experienced it yourself,

01:38:31

Chris, of being the overzealous convert. And knowing that you have the cure for cancer, all you want to do is tell everybody at all times of the day.

01:38:40

That's right. And that's not wise. And nor is that ultimately loving, because even though we think it's loving, we have to, we still have to respect people.

01:38:54

And some people don't want to hear it, because their heart is not ready to hear it.

01:39:00

And that's where prayer comes into play. So I was a little bit reckless in my youth, you could say, as a

01:39:07

Christian, and I burned some bridges. But for other people in my family, you know, parents are parents, and they're going to love their kids most of the time no matter what.

01:39:18

Some of my other siblings weren't as committed to Judaism, and as I grew wiser in how much

01:39:27

I was willing to share with them, and let the game come to me, our relationships weren't as affected.

01:39:35

But the moral of the story is we have to use wisdom when we talk to people.

01:39:42

Thank you, CJ. Give us your full mailing address in Lindenhurst, Long Island, and you will also receive, as a gift from the

01:39:48

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, a free copy of Entering God's Rest to the Sabbath from Genesis to Revelation, and what it means for you.

01:39:55

Keep your eye open in the mail for a shipment from cvbbs .com, who will be shipping that out to you.

01:40:01

And please, as I said, please make sure we have your full mailing address. We have an anonymous listener who says,

01:40:08

I am familiar with a theologically reformed congregation in Israel, the name of which

01:40:13

I will not mention, that worships on Saturday. Do you believe that it is acceptable for a reformed church, or any church for that matter, to worship on Saturday if they keep

01:40:26

Sunday as a Sabbath day of rest even if they're not gathered for their corporal worship on Sunday?

01:40:37

Well, I believe that's a very unique situation to be sure, and I think there's various errors that we have in Christian circles.

01:40:52

Clearly, there are heresies and people actively teaching those things, trying to make disciples of those things, versus misunderstandings and confusion.

01:41:03

And I think there's also varying degrees of errors of misunderstanding

01:41:08

Scripture. To be perfectly honest with you, our book of Church Order in the

01:41:14

OPC even admits that there is no church under Heaven that gets everything right. We all strive as Christians to make the best sense of what

01:41:25

God's Word teaches, and we come to different conclusions, and it becomes an exercise in the health of the

01:41:31

Church rather than the essence of the Church. I don't believe that I have cornered the market on truth as an

01:41:37

Orthodox Presbyterian, but I do believe that our system of doctrine is the best, and makes the most sense of what

01:41:44

Scripture teaches, thus it is the healthiest. There are Christians who do not worship on Sunday, they worship on Saturday.

01:41:53

Or, there are some secret churches that worship Wednesday because Sunday is something else.

01:42:00

And I don't agree with those strategies, to be sure, because I'm convinced that worship and rest are both aspects of the

01:42:10

Sabbath. If somebody asks you what does the

01:42:15

Sabbath mean to you, what are you supposed to do, I think the short answer is to worship and rest.

01:42:22

Now that can be, we'd have to unpack that, certainly we'd have differences of opinion, but I believe that Sunday as an

01:42:31

Orthodox Presbyterian who believes in the Westminster Standards, I believe our system of doctrine teaches that Sunday is the inheritor of this

01:42:42

Sabbath principle, and Sunday is the day that God has set aside for rest and worship as we look forward to entering

01:42:52

God's rest, and as we look back upon the Resurrection, which shows us that Christ has entered

01:43:00

God's rest for us. Well, we're going to our final break, and by the way, anonymous listener, if you off the air, of course, give me your full name and full mailing address, you will receive a free copy of Entering God's Rest, The Sabbath from Genesis to Revelation and What It Means for You, Compliments of the

01:43:17

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and also Compliments of CVBBS .com, we'll be shipping it out to you.

01:43:23

We're going to a break now, our final break, and it's going to be a brief break, so if you intend to ask a question, send it in immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:43:32

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com Don't go away, we'll be right back,

01:43:37

God willing, after these messages. My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of Len Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

01:43:45

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

01:43:51

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

01:43:57

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

01:44:03

You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.

01:44:12

They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

01:44:18

If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

01:44:27

New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

01:44:34

.nyc. Have a great day. Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, assistant professor of systematic theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, TX.

01:44:47

I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of God in the churches of our

01:44:55

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Spread the word about FirstLoveRadio .org. Welcome back.

01:52:51

This is Chris Arnzen, and this is our last segment of our program today featuring our guest Ken Golden, and we are discussing

01:53:00

Entering God's Rest, the Sabbath from Genesis to Revelation and What It Means for You, his latest book, published by the

01:53:05

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who asks, since we do not have a detailed blueprint in the

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New Covenant regarding prohibitions and liberties regarding a Sabbath day as we do in the

01:53:20

Old Covenant, how do you respond to the judgmentalism that exists amongst some

01:53:26

Sabbatarians in regard to the way other Christians observe a Sabbath day or a

01:53:32

Lord's Day? Yeah, that's the $60 ,000 question.

01:53:39

That's usually when people are interested in this subject, and certainly some people, even some of my own members of my congregation, when they got the book, the first thing they wanted to do was turn to the last chapter, which is titled

01:53:57

Sabbath Wisdom, because you've got basically what I've done is I've tried to make a biblical theological case to show that the

01:54:08

Sabbath originated in creation, that it develops, that there is continuity and discontinuity throughout the

01:54:15

Scriptures, but when the rubber hits the road, what does that mean for us? So in order to answer the question, we need to at least consider what the

01:54:26

Scriptures say about the Sabbath before we start asking, what shall we do? And the last chapter, chapter 9,

01:54:36

Sabbath Wisdom, the short answer is, we need to apply the principles of wisdom to the biblical data when we keep the

01:54:45

Sabbath. So what I offer in that chapter, without giving you all of the answers, because they're all written in there,

01:54:54

I define wisdom, and then I apply wisdom to certain case studies, such as the

01:55:01

Sixth Commandment and then the

01:55:07

Fourth Commandment. And this particular chapter basically examines what

01:55:18

I've already talked about, and then I apply it to three specific case studies that we all run into in the

01:55:26

Christian life. One of them is, what do we do about food on Sunday?

01:55:33

Can we eat out at a restaurant, or do we have to eat at home and prepare food for ourselves?

01:55:39

The second one involves watching sports on television. People are very fond of watching

01:55:46

NFL football. And the third and final one is recreation. So the purpose of this chapter is not to take a hard -line position and tell people exactly what to do.

01:55:59

It's rather to help people using this principle of wisdom to apply all of this

01:56:07

Sabbath information to the circumstances in our lives. And that's what

01:56:12

I do with these three case studies. I try to be fair and show the pros and cons, the different points of view that strict

01:56:22

Sabbatarians have versus looser Sabbatarians, and try to at least come up with a framework for approaching these issues, which, in order to do that, requires working through the other eight chapters and seeing what all of these texts have to say about the

01:56:44

Sabbath. So that might not be the tidy answer that people are looking for, because a lot of people are looking for exactly a list of do's and don'ts.

01:56:55

And I don't think we want to go there, because that's exactly what the

01:57:01

Pharisees did. They did it mostly for good motives, because they wanted people to keep

01:57:07

God's law. But once you start legislating things that the scriptures do not specifically address and start binding consciences,

01:57:19

Jesus had a problem with that. And I can tell you this,

01:57:24

Chris, in the listening audience, one of the reasons I wrote this book is because that's the direction I was gravitating toward.

01:57:31

I was becoming a Pharisee early on. And it's very easy to do.

01:57:37

I think we all have a little Pharisee in us. So that's why, rather than hard and fast answers on these things, it's better to think, in my opinion, it's better to think in terms of framework.

01:57:50

What's the ballpark that we're working in? How can we apply these principles to specific situations is very, very much the heart of wisdom.

01:58:00

Well, we are out of time, and I want to make sure that our listeners have all of the important contact information they need for you and for this book.

01:58:08

First of all, the Sovereign Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Davenport, Iowa, has a website,

01:58:15

SovGraceOPC .org, that's S -O -V as in victory, GraceOPC as in Orthodox PresbyterianChurch .org,

01:58:24

SovGraceOPC .org. And if you want to find out more about the book that we have been discussing and other books published by the

01:58:34

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, you can go to ReformedResources .org,

01:58:39

ReformedResources .org. And you can also go to CVBBS .com,

01:58:46

CVBBS .com, the website of the Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who carries this book and many other books that you will definitely enjoy and be blessed by.

01:58:59

So I want to thank all of you who listened today. I want to thank you, Brother Ken Golden, for being our guest.

01:59:05

I look forward to your return. In fact, if you could hang on the line there so I can give a proper goodbye to you off the air.

01:59:11

I want to thank everybody who especially wrote in questions today. I want you to remember that tomorrow we have

01:59:19

Audrey Werner coming back to the show on her book on sex education, 10

01:59:27

Tips on How Not to Talk to Your Kids About Sex. It's Audrey Werner tomorrow on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:59:33

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.