The Fourth Commandment - Part II

Well, this morning we complete the Fourth Commandment, and as was mentioned last week, we will take some opportunity tonight to sort of have an open forum, since this is more of a practical message, want to have sort of a informal round circle where we can ask questions and talk practically, talk personally, talk about perhaps areas of challenge, but also encourage one another as we seek to apply this commandment to our lives.

Last week, as we considered the Fourth Commandment, we considered really the question of why. Why does the Lord give us this Sabbath day? Why does He command us to rest? And this morning we want to consider how.

How are we to rest? How are we to sanctify the Sabbath, the Lord's day? We want to consider that in four parts this morning. We want to consider what we rest for, secondly, what we rest from, thirdly, what we rest by, and then lastly, what we rest in, perhaps whom we rest in.

So rest for, rest from, rest by, and rest in. Rest for, question 66, which we didn't cover last week from our catechism, which again bears no authority, but I do believe it is a very helpful and biblical summary of what the Bible has to say about the Lord's day.

And so insofar as it does that, I think it's thoroughly biblical. How is the Sabbath to be sanctified? And this is the answer. The Sabbath is to be sanctified or set apart by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days.

And spending the time in the public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy. That's a very helpful summary. A holy resting all the day.

That's what our answer sets forward, a holy resting all the day. And what does that holy rest look like? Spending time in both public and private exercises of God's worship. So a holy rest that actually looks like public and private worship all that day.

As we saw last week, everything about the Sabbath command orbits around the worship of God. What is the Sabbath command about? The worship, the enjoyment, communion with the Holy God. So the Sabbath is a rest from our earthly labors and a gift from God for the sake of this delightful communion, this enjoyment of worshiping the Lord our Creator, the Lord our Redeemer.

When we view the Sabbath as a gift in this way, we can begin to understand why God was so offended that his people began to treat it as a weary burden, a yoke, a heavy yoke around their neck. And they began to grumble and complain and roll their eyes and huff and puff about this gift of the Sabbath day.

We read that in Numbers 15, Ezekiel 20, Jeremiah 17. It's clear throughout the prophets, the frequent rebukes that God gives to his people, it's clear that he is jealous for our keeping of the holiness of this day.

Failure of God's people to honor the Sabbath is situated right next to idolatry and spiritual adultery, a constant charge. So the question for us that we began to consider last week is, how do you keep this day holy?

Do you treat this day as a day of sacred rest, a day of communion, a day of worship? Or do you treat this day as a burden, as a boredom? We considered last week from Mark 2, Jesus' wonderfully clarifying teaching against the excess of the Pharisees, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

So we considered the Sabbath was made for our sake, for our good, for our benefit. It was a gift given to man. But as Mark 2 goes on to declare, Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. So ultimately the Sabbath is about him.

This day you shall keep holy. It is the Sabbath of the Lord. And rather than view it as a burden, we are to view it as a blessing. As the prophets rebuke God's people for treating the Sabbath as a burden, for profaning it in idleness and worldliness, God calls them to then reconsider, rethink, repent, turn, and consider it in fact a blessing, and therefore to keep it holy.

Blessed is the man who does this, Isaiah 56 says. Blessed is the son of man who lays hold on it, who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, who keeps his hand from doing evil. In other words, the Lord will bless those who bless his day.

The Lord will honor those who honor his day. It's a day of rest. But that rest is worship. It's a worshipful rest. It's a day of rest unto worship. A day of rest for worship. It's great prayer if we consider some of the great prayers throughout Scripture.

Perhaps one of the top three would be Nehemiah 9. The whole chapter is essentially a long form prayer. Nehemiah recounting the history of Israel in some ways like Stephen recounts the history of Israel.

He's considering God's graciousness in high contrast to the people's rebellion. So if we just pick a few examples of this. Nehemiah 9, 13, and 14. You came down on Mount Sinai. You spoke with us from heaven.

You gave us ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments. You made known your holy Sabbath. You commanded precepts and statutes and laws. This is part of what Nehemiah recounts as the gracious and merciful activity of God.

You didn't stay, as it were, distant, aloof, apart from your people. You came down on Sinai. And you gave us good, true, righteous laws, statutes and commandments that would bless us and bind us to your will.

You made known your holy Sabbath.

Nehemiah is saying, thank you. Thank you that you gave us the Sabbath.

Thank you that you came and spoke the law. Thank you that you gave us this badge and this guide, this pathway of how we can walk before you and enjoy you and love you and love our neighbor as ourself.

But of course, the tragic counter, verses 34 and 35. Neither our kings, nor our princes, nor our priests, nor our fathers have kept your law. They have not keted your commandments. They have not kept your testimonies.

They have not served you in their kingdom. They have not served you in the many good things you gave them. Do you see what Nehemiah is understanding? You gave us this law. You gave us this testimony. You gave us a way that we could serve you in the land that you gave us, good things that you gave us.

But we would not. So the law was given that God's people might serve God. Remember, we spent some time some weeks ago considering that in detail. We are servants of God. We are given grace to serve God.

And in this way, we're given the Sabbath that we might serve Him by. A holy rest all that day to worship Him. Now, Nehemiah, this isn't just a prayer. This isn't just an afterthought for him. This is coming from his heart.

This is a reality for his life. He understands the Sabbath is a gift. He's also in a position of authority as governor. He has authority. He has opportunity to enforce the command that God has given. And so in Nehemiah 13, we read of this very thing.

Nehemiah records, In those days I saw people in Judah treading wine presses on the Sabbath, bringing in sheaves, loading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs, all kinds of burdens, and then bringing it into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.

And so I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. So you have this scene that opens up in Nehemiah 13. He notices that merchants are selling. Workmen are loading donkeys. I guess the vineyards are running at full steam, right?

The treading of the wine presses throughout the day. So treading, bringing, loading. And the most significant thing, failing to keep the Sabbath holy. In fact, they were so lax that as we read a little bit further, now even the Gentile nations are being brought to the holy city, and they're partaking in all this activity.

They're buying, selling, trading, carrying forth. So now the Israelites are not being salt and light. They're not having the testimony of God's law going before them. Men of Tyre, we read, dwelt also, brought in fish, all kinds of goods, and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah and in Jerusalem.

So what does Nehemiah do? He doesn't say, well, it's not that big of a deal, I guess. We all stumble in many ways. Not a big deal. He doesn't say, well, at least I'm trying really hard to keep the Sabbath.

I can't speak for them, nor will I speak to them. What Nehemiah does, he goes right up and he says, if you do this again, I'm laying hands on you. If you do this again, I'm laying hands on you. Now I don't know how imposing of a figure Nehemiah was.

He must have been a pretty mighty man, because we read in response to that, from that time forward, no one came again on the Sabbath. Now what did it mean to lay hands? Most likely, with his position of governorship, most likely that was an idiom for I'll arrest you.

I'll have you seized, potentially imprisoned. But if we just read it on service level, he might be saying, you're going to catch these hands if you break the Sabbath. I'm going to take you to the ground.

You don't want to mess with me. We see a man that has this Phineas-like zeal for God. Nehemiah is the same man in prayer in chapter 9 as he is in practice in chapter 13. Now that's key. His heart has an understanding of who God is.

His practice has an understanding of what God requires. A right understanding of who God is. A right worship according to what God requires. Now sadly, our contemporary view of the fourth commandment is so marginalized that Nehemiah 13 seems bizarre.

Out of place. I'm glad we don't have people like Nehemiah anymore. I'm glad we don't have to be like this anymore. Rather than seeing it as God's commendation of what a righteous man, zealous in all of his house, will look like, we find Nehemiah to be an oddity.

Someone that should be turned into a wax statue in Ripley's museum, believe it or not. Nehemiah was so concerned to protect the worship of God that he didn't just threaten those that were transgressing and defiling the day, he actually posted Levites to guard the gates.

So we read in Nehemiah 13, 22, I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, that they should go and guard the gates in order to sanctify the Sabbath. Now, what are Levites charged with?

What are they responsible for? Levites are tasked by God, consecrated by God, to administer to all things pertaining to His worship. Is Nehemiah taking a step out of order when he says, I'm actually not going to have you go to the foundation of the temple, I'm actually going to have you go and be watchmen by the gates.

Wouldn't the Levite protest?

No, no, no.

Nehemiah, I appreciate your zeal, but you need to understand, I'm here to help God and help His people in His worship. And so I'm here to serve the temple in the needs of worship. I can't go be a doorkeeper at the city gates.

Don't you have other workers that can do that? But what would Nehemiah say?

How would he argue?

The sanctification of the Sabbath is about God's worship. And that's why Levites must guard the gates. The sanctification of the Sabbath day is about the holiness of God. We can't have men of Tyre coming in, nor Israelites going to trade, lift, and work.

And some commoner, some average doorkeeper is not going to have a heart for the holiness of God, nor an eye to the right worship of God. I need Levites at the gates. This is why they have to not only guard the gates, but cleanse themselves.

In other words, they cleanse themselves that they might go and watch at the very doors where the Sabbath day might be profaned. That's a beautiful image for us. You see what Nehemiah 13 is getting at.

The Sabbath is about the holy worship of the holy God. And therefore, anything that pertains to guarding the gates or keeping that day is holy work.

It's Levitical work.

It's priestly work.

What you do to prepare for this day.

How you arrange your life in order to keep it. What you do to set it apart. That is a holy, priestly work. It's guarding the gates of God's worship. So we need to grow from guarding the Lord's day as common porters, half responsible, half interested, to guarding it with the zeal of Nehemiah.

Guarding it with the holy discernment of a Levite. It is a day of rest for worship. Now we have to add, as we kind of conclude this first point, it's a day of rest for worship, but as the Catechism rightly says, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.

The crown jewel of the day is worship. The worship of God. The posts and frame that keep that jewel in its prominent place are works of necessity and works of mercy. I would not put the worship of God in the keeping of the Sabbath on equal footing with works of necessity and works of mercy.

This is what the Sabbath is for. It's for work of necessity. It is for work of mercy. That's not to say these three things are equal or interchangeable.

No, no, no.

The queen over every aspect of the day is the worship of God. It is a day for worship. Now when you set that as the crown jewel, when you set that as the priority, underneath that comes opportunity for works of mercy and works of necessity.

It's very important that the focus of the day is the worship of God, and then along with that, in the practice of that, we come to works of necessity and works of mercy. So that's the first point. We'll elaborate on what that looks like in the third part.

Now secondly, so we have a rest for. Secondly, a rest from. We have a rest from. Question 67. What is forbidden in the fourth commandment? The fourth commandment forbids the omission or careless performance of the duties required and the profaning the day by idleness or doing that which is in itself sinful or by unnecessary thoughts, words, works about worldly employments, worldly recreations.

So notice what's being said here. We are to rest from something. We are to rest from worldly employments and recreations. Worldly employments and recreations. Now at this point, as we head into this, I want to remind us of a point made in the conclusion last week.

It was from Ryan McGraw. To apply the commandment, the fourth commandment, to our lives, we must first see its scope and our inability to keep it. That's true of every commandment. When you understand the full breadth, the full scope of what God is requiring and forbidding, you'll realize, woe is me.

I need a Savior. I have no standing against this law. And if that's true of the other commandments, it's no less true of the fourth commandment. You must understand what it requires, what it forbids, and therein, your inability to keep it as God requires.

That's why even Nehemiah in chapter 13, he breaks out into prayer when he recounts all that he's done. Threatening those who are breaking the Sabbath in his role as governor. Installing Levites to guard the gates.

And what does he say? Verse 22, Remember me, my God, concerning this. Spare me according to the greatness of Your mercy. Lord, I've tried as hard as I can.

To keep this day holy to You.

Please show me mercy. It's a man who understands his heart and his flesh. Show me mercy, Lord. As zealous as I am, I'm not nearly as zealous as I ought to be. As careful as I am, I'm not nearly as careful as I should be.

Lord, show me great mercy. So on the one hand, he says, I command you, cleanse yourselves, sanctify the Sabbath. And then he says, Lord, give me Your grace. It's the only way I can have a standing before You.

Nehemiah, like we all, judged himself when he had done all to be an unprofitable servant. He knew that he needed God's mercy to pardon his sin. So as McGraw said, we talked about this last week, we return to the commandment, cleansed by the blood of Christ and therefore compelled out of love to serve Him by keeping the commandment.

You must come to the law, understand its weight and its demand against you, flee from the law to Christ, receive that righteous cloak, that covering that comes from His shed blood, and then go back to the law, amazed and grateful because of this righteousness that is now yours by faith and say, therefore, I will walk in this way.

I'll show you my gratitude, my thankfulness, by walking in this way that is right and pleasing to you. The law is holy, just, and good. The more that we delight in the Sabbath, the more we will sanctify it in this very way.

Therein, we'll move away from the list of do's and don'ts, the papal statements, to actually receiving this day as a day of rest for worship. Again, the more we understand it to be a gift, the more we call it a delight, the more we understand that we are cleansed from all of our sins, and this is our pathway, our walking stick of gratitude unto God, the more that naturally we will set apart this day.

A lot of the questions of what about this, what about that, get answered in this very way. I have no desire as an elder to put on the big papal white hat with the gold trim and pronounce on what you can and cannot do.

Some of you might want that, I don't want that. Paul is as concerned to be a prophet unto holiness for God's people as he is to be a champion for their liberty in Christ. One of the harder things, I think, in church ministry, you have people that are maybe lax and you want to sort of pull them up by the bootstraps and you have people that are overzealous and they might trample on those that are lax in a way that they trample on the liberty they have in Christ.

And shepherds especially are called by God to not only prosecute what God requires but protect the liberty that is afforded in Christ. It's very challenging. Well, I don't want to be the Sabbath police.

I don't want to have the statey brim and be kind of scanning, you know, newspaper folds down and I'm scanning the lunch lines,.

You know, the table.

What was that conversation?

Sounds pretty worldly to me. No, there's no place for Sabbath police here. When you understand what this law requires and you're serving and seeking to follow this commandment out of gratitude, part of that is you recognize how woefully far behind what God requires you are and yet God has given you grace.

You can't help but then be gracious to your brothers and sisters. We need to have this outlook of charity and encouragement to encourage and spur one another on to good works in this way. We can't do it through intimidation or trampling on one another's toes.

If that's true of any commandment, then it's certainly true of the fourth. So it's a day of rest from worldly employment and recreations. And as I say, when our sole focus begins with what this day is for.

This day is for communing with God and enjoying God and the people of God. Communing with God and with one another. Both public and private expressions of worship. And then following downstream from that, as the day unravels, works of necessity, things that have to get done just to live another day or to carry forward in the week, as well as opportunities to show mercy.

And the early church especially treated the Lord's Day as a day to do works of charity and mercy. It was a day of distribution to those in need. A day that alms were taken up for the relief of the poor.

We have that right off of 1 Corinthians 16. Certainly it's something we should consider as Christians today. What are the works and opportunities that we can do to show mercy? So when we consider what the day is for, so many of these practical questions about our thoughts, our speech, our recreations, begin to answer themselves.

In other words, if I combine the first point with this, what you are resting for will help you determine what to rest from. What you are resting for will help you determine what you need to rest from.

There's a lot of debate over Calvin's view on the fourth commandment. Richard Gaffin wrote a whole book on that. Some historical vignettes that might shed light on him having a perhaps much broader and liberal view on keeping the Lord's Day compared to the English Puritans.

But if you actually read some of his sermons from Deuteronomy, you wouldn't get that sense at all. So here's an excerpt from one such message from Deuteronomy. Calvin says, We must refrain from our own business, which might hinder us from the minding of God's works.

We must call upon His name and exercise ourselves in His words. If we spend the Lord's Day in making good cheer and playing and gaming, is that a good honoring of God?

No.

Is it not a mockery? An unhallowing of His name?

Yes.

But, when the shop windows are closed shut on the Lord's Day, and men don't travel like they do on other days, it is to the end that we should have more leisure, more liberty to attend the things of God.

But most people have no regard at all to using the day in this way, which was ordained for them to withdraw from all earthly cares and affairs so that they could give themselves wholly unto God. And do you notice what he's saying?

It's the same thing I'm saying in this way. What you are resting for will determine what you rest from. We must refrain from our own business. Why should we rest from that? Because it will hinder us from minding God's works and calling on His name and being exercised in His Word.

You're resting for that, therefore you rest from minding your own business. If we spend the Lord's Day in making good cheer and playing games, why should we rest from that? Why should we rest from games and gaming and playfulness and good cheer?

Because of what we're resting for. To hallow God's name. To have leisure and liberty, so that we can attend God's commands. And so again, we rest from... We determine what that resting from looks like in light of what we're resting for.

What is the day about? As I said last week, there's some views in the Lord's Day that amount to a little more than which view of this controversial position, which view allows me to play sports and go to movies?

That's my view. What conviction allows me to follow through with my own desires? That's the conviction I have. You basically say, is there any theological position that allows me to do this? That's my position.

We don't care to let God begin His thoughts directed down toward us. We rather seek to impose our thoughts, our desires upon God's will. Sort of like a petulant child. And all they want to do is stretch the very limits of what is still technically obedience.

How far can I stretch? How far can I go where technically I have not disobeyed? But they're straying as far as they can. And even though perhaps technically they haven't disobeyed, the parent knows you have no heart for obedience.

There's no thoughtfulness, no gratitude about why I'm asking you to do this or to not do this. You're only taking it as a command, chafing against it, and trying to get as far away from it as you possibly can.

Do you think God honors that kind of obedience? But when you have a willing heart, when you have this heart that is soft and tender and saying, Lord, I don't want to do anything that jeopardizes what this day is for.

It's a day of worship, a day of communion, a day of delight. Therefore, I will withdraw from all of these other things that will impose upon that. Another thing that people commonly do, they'll go and break the Fourth Commandment, profane the Sabbath by some worldly recreation or idleness on their part, and they'll say very confidently, I don't feel bad about it.

I don't feel any conviction about it. Most lawbreakers don't feel conviction.

It's like they break the law.

Most lawbreakers don't feel bad about the things they do. Have you ever seen an episode of Cops? Where someone, you know, runs over a fire hydrant and crashes into someone's house, and the officer runs up and, you know, get out of the car, you know.

They're on the getaway, and the person says, I don't see how I've done anything wrong. Well, then you're free to go. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't matter that you don't see what you've done wrong.

It matters that according to God's will, you have done something wrong. Again, what you're resting for determines what you're resting from. Amos chapter 8, we get this insight into the rebellious heart.

When will the new moon be passed so I can sell grain? When will the Sabbath be over that I can trade wheat? Now, if you read a little bit further in Amos 8, famously, do you know what comes downstream from this kind of mindset?

God's bringing judgment, and the judgment is because of this and also produces this. When is the Sabbath going to be over? Why do I have to keep it so boring? When can I do the things I want to do? And downstream from that, God says there's a famine in the land.

Not a famine of bread, but a famine of the Word of God. If we could have a view of God, of His glory, of His beauty, if we could be enraptured like the angels that hide their faces in shame against His peerless light, if we could be taken to Isaiah's throne room vision where Sarah's endlessly fall before Him.

Screaming out, Holy, Holy, Holy,.

As we open the service with this morning. We would never get to the place on the Lord's Day where we have this mindset of, well, I can still honor God on this day and enjoy the playoff game. Isaiah could not say, this is incredible!

Woe is me! I'm just going to go rollerblading. It really makes me feel relaxed on the Lord's Day. You couldn't juxtapose that kind of base worldliness into a scene like that. So if the day is about the enjoyment, the worship, the communion, the sort of enrapture of God, what is that going to draw us away from?

What would detract from that? Malachi 3. Your words have been harsh against me, says the Lord,.

Yet you say, what have we spoken against you?

I haven't said anything. But God says, no, you have spoken against me.

You have said, it's useless to serve God.

What profit is it that we have kept His ordinance? This is just a waste of time. There's no benefit to it. It's useless. I'm waiting for it to pass. It's all about what I can't do. When is the three stars going to appear in the night sky?

I can go do what I want to do. Kind of catch up on lost time. Catch up and review all the things that I've missed. None of the people really said, it's useless. It's a burden. It's boring. We don't like it.

But God says, it's as if you came to My face and spoke it to Me. Your actions speak directly to Me. He's viewing their whole attitude and outlook, their whole heart of rebellion, as if it was a mouth.

What profit is it to walk in this? Why keep this? Others are doing things that are against this, but they seem fine. Why can't I be like them? So the question is, what are our hearts saying to God? Nothing that we're vocalizing, but what's our action communicating to God?

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And we will never be able to keep the Sabbath. We'll never desire to keep the Sabbath. We'll never guard the worship of God if our hearts and our thoughts are carnal.

If our desires are worldly. If our walk is fleshly. The Sabbath will be the farthest thing from your purview. It's the thing that scrapes against worldliness in a Christian's life. It shows you how composed of flesh you are.

When this day is set apart, you understand to sanctify the Sabbath means I have to be incredibly sanctified. Nehemiah says, cleanse yourself, Levites, so that you can sanctify the Sabbath. James Dennison, who wrote a tremendous book, The Market Day of the Soul, his treatment of the Puritans on the fourth commandment.

Market Day of the Soul. In a different article based on that book, he wrote, the Puritan sanctification of the Sabbath day has been caricatured as a bore. The Puritan response would have been,.

What?

What is so boring about a Christian setting aside a day to delight in the Lord and to delight in His people? What is boring about taking a whole day to enjoy the sweet presence of the Lord in public and in family and in private reflection?

What is boring about spending a day teaching children the way of salvation? Opening up the words of Scripture to them at home? Dealing with them in a tender, loving, and joyful way? What's boring about taking a day to visit and pray for those who are sick or in need?

What is boring about a day of warm fellowship with others who love the Lord Jesus that you love? You see, what you are resting for determines what you rest from. So you need a renewed mind. You need a renewed heart.

You need the kind of heart that's willing to turn the foot away from your own pleasure, your own thoughts, your own desires, and turn instead to the Lord. That's, of course, the classic passage. Isaiah 58, 13 and 14.

If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and then you call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord, and honorable, and honor Him, not doing your own ways, not trying to find your own pleasure, not speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord.

Now notice what's encapsulated in those verses. We have the repetition of delight that frames the passage. Call the Sabbath a delight. Then you have the imperatives. Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord.

So we have the initial call. Call the Sabbath a delight. And then the promise, if you do it in this way, if calling the Sabbath a delight looks like this, then you will delight yourself in the Lord. You won't just be calling it a delight, but finding it to be something other than delightful.

You'll actually experience why this is a delight. God is saying, call it what it truly is. Practice it in this way, and you'll find it to be so. What does it look like to honor the Lord on the Sabbath day?

Not doing your own ways, not trying to find your own pleasure, not speaking your own words. Now our flesh immediately resists that. That's tyrannical. Not speaking, is this thought police? Every sentence has to be like a psalm or a proverb.

I can't just say, hey, I just wanted to say thank you for that, or hey, how's your work going? This is so tyrannical. But understand what's being framed here. Call the Sabbath a delight, practice it in this way, you shall delight.

And then, of course, God attaches even more weight by giving more promises to this. Not only will you be able to call the Lord's day, this holy day, a delight to your soul, but you also will receive the heritage of Jacob.

In other words, you'll be brought to ride on the high hills of the earth. And the Lord gives these promises throughout the prophet. You would just come to me and have your heart to me and not grumble and begrudge things that I've given you as gifts and blessings.

I would feed you the very heritage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I'd bring you to the very heights of the earth. I would give you blessings untold. If you would just constrain your flesh and your worldliness to sanctify and set apart this day.

So here's a sort of renovated way of saying what you're resting for helps you determine what you rest from. What you turn your foot to shows you what to turn your foot from. What you turn your foot to shows you what to turn your foot from.

If you turn your foot from treating this day like any other day. Or maybe setting it half apart. Now it's all the things I don't do because it's Sunday. Turning your foot instead to the Lord's day. The day of delight.

The market day for my soul. Not a day for my own ways. Not a day to produce my own sense of enjoyment and recreation.

No, no, no.

A day of worship. A day of rest for worship. A day that comes with needs and necessities and mercies, but even then it's all to worship and enjoy the Lord my God. I turn my foot to that and it shows me all the ways I need to turn my foot from all the other things that impose upon my thoughts, my cares, my needs, my concerns.

The things that frame Monday through Saturday. The stress and the busyness of work. How am I going to make ends meet in this way? All the things that fill us with anxiety and concern that cause us instead to say, I can't afford to call this a day of delight.

I need to work. I need to produce. I need to prepare. We spend more time getting ready for Monday and the week ahead than we do getting ready for the Lord's day as a day of rest. No wonder we're not brought to the high hills of the earth.

No wonder the church in North America is not fed with the heritage of Jacob. What you turn your foot from follows what you turn your foot to. Turning your foot from your own pleasure. We're going to get there in this third point.

When I read that from Isaiah 58, I couldn't help but think of Eric Liddell. Some of you have seen Chariots of Fire. It's a great, great film. And of course, Eric Liddell, who was a Scotsman,.

Properly so,.

Was endowed with this incredible gift. He could run a burst of speed in a short distance. He wasn't very good at long-distance running. But the 100-meter was his for the taking. There was no one in the world that could beat Eric Liddell in 100 meters.

No one. And all of the United Kingdom knew it. And when the 1924 Olympics came around, Eric Liddell was by far the favored to win the 100-meter event. But Eric Liddell was a Christian. And Eric Liddell sought to honor and live for the glory of God.