Is Sunday the Sabbath? ***Foskey vs Everhard***

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Is Sunday the Christian Sabbath? About a week ago, Matthew Everhart and I had a conversation about that topic.

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He took the position that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, and I took the position that it's not. We had that conversation on the

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Reformation Red Pill podcast. And now I want to share that video with you. I look forward to your questions and your thoughts, and please leave them in the comments below.

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Also, don't forget to subscribe, and if you like this video, hit the thumbs -up button. And if you don't, hit the thumbs -down button twice.

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Hello, and welcome back to the Reformation Red Pill podcast. I am your host,

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Joshua Hames. And today, as you guys might have guessed already at this point, you guys can kind of guess what kind of episode we have for you.

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It is a very special one. Very special episode for you guys. Today, we are going to be having a heated, knock -down, drag -out, just a vicious debate between bitter rivals.

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It's going to be really intense, and I'll let them kind of set the stage for themselves and give a little bit of an introduction for themselves.

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But first, just so you guys know, this is a debate. Not really. It's more of a discussion, honestly, but on the nature of the

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Sabbath. Specifically, we are addressing the question, is Sunday the Christian Sabbath?

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I have two distinguished guests that I am going to be bringing on the screen.

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Right there we are. So, Brother Keith Foskey, we'll start with you. Could you give us a little introduction?

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Who are you, what do you do, and where can people find you? Yeah. My name is

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Keith Foskey, and I pastor Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida, where I've served there now for 18 years.

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I also host Your Calvinist Podcast with Keith Foskey. It's a weekly show, along with a lot of other videos that I put out.

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Particularly, most people know me through the comedy videos. I do humor online. I do stand -up comedy and enjoy making people laugh as well as making people think.

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That's all about me. I love that. Let's jump over to you,

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Pastor Matt. Who are you? Same question. Who are you? What do you do? Yeah. What's up, everybody? My name is

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Matthew. I'm one of the pastors at Gospel Fellowship PCA. We are a Reformed Bible -believing church just north of Pittsburgh.

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If you're looking for a church like that, come check us out. Also an adjunct professor at RPTS, the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary here in Pittsburgh.

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We'd love to have you come as a student at some point. Also want to mention, just have a new book coming out, Worshiptainment, the

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Modern Church's Golden Calf. It's a book on the regulative principle of worship. If you're interested in that, you can check it out on Amazon.

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Thanks for having me, by the way. This is going to be fun. Absolutely. I'm really excited to have both of you guys on here because Keith has been a source of a lot of laughter and enjoyment for me through the years.

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I particularly love some of the reoccurring jokes that keep coming back, namely the superior theology joke that just keeps coming.

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I love that one. That's fun. Matt, actually, interestingly,

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I want to recommend both of these guys to you, and in particular, Matt, you played a pretty pivotal role in convincing me of Presbyterian ecclesiology in your video titled,

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What If Mark Driscoll Had Been Presbyterian? That just stuck in my brain.

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You kind of mapped out what that would have looked like after the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast.

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I have recommended that to so many people. Thank you so much for all your work, brother. You've been impacting many, many people, myself included.

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Okay. Thank you. I guess I either knew that or forgot about it, or I didn't know that at all, so thank you for saying that. It's great.

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I appreciate that. Yeah. That was big for me. All right. Before we get into the actual debate this evening,

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I've got to do a little bit of house cleaning. House cleaning? Housekeeping. Housekeeping. Tomato. You know.

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This episode is brought to you by Reformation Heritage Books, Farmer Bills, Backwards Planning Financial with Joe Garrissey, and Indigo Sundry's Soaps.

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We believe in the parallel economy here at the Reformation Red Pill podcast. All these guys that we've put in front of you guys, we believe in their products.

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I personally use them. Go check those guys out. And for those of you who don't know, we got canceled on Patreon this last week, which was a huge bummer.

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We had built up a pretty significant bit of income from that, and that was our budget to actually hire an editor to get our podcast edited so that I can focus on creating more content.

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So that was a huge bummer, but a lot of you guys have been so gracious, and you guys have been so kind to jump over onto our new platform, which is directly through our website.

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It's our Reformation Red Pill Club membership, and the link to our new website is in the description.

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So please join us. I'm going to make the pitch for the Knox tier. That's our best value.

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That's where you get the most content, and you get our Tumblr and all that good stuff.

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So highly recommend that. And now, with all the housekeeping out of the way, let's jump into the discussion.

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Now, I know I can see the fire in both of your eyes. I'm just ready to come at this real hard.

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So we're going to start with Matthew Everhard, Pastor Matt. What do you go by?

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Do you go by Brother Matt? That's fine. Yeah. Just Matt or Matthew is fine. Yeah. Okay. That's great.

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We're going to start with Matt, and he's going to be arguing in the affirmative for the Westminsterian position regarding the

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Christian Sabbath being Sunday. So we're going to give you, I think we said 20 minutes, we'll do 20 minutes to lay out your case for why

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Sunday is indeed the Christian Sabbath. The Sabbath is no longer Saturday.

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It's now Sunday. And that changed all that. You're going to get into all that for us. And then we're going to let Keith jump in on the negative side of that.

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And then we'll just kind of have back and forth dialogue, which I'll moderate a little bit. The beauty of a formal debate is whenever you don't have talking over each other so much and you can kind of get into some of the minutiae and the questioning back and forth.

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And so I know you guys are going to do great with each other. So I'm just going to kind of play that moderator role and make sure that everyone's getting kind of a fair amount of time talking.

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And I may throw in some questions there as well once we get into it. But so we'll start off with you. But before we do,

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Keith, would you mind opening us in a word of prayer? Absolutely. Right.

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Father in heaven, I'm so grateful to be with these two men, and I'm especially grateful for the friendship that you have fostered between Matthew and I over the last several months and even over the last year.

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And I truly respect him and I'm thankful for being able to call him my brother and friend.

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So I pray today that our conversation with each other would not be contentious, that the jokes that we may make toward one another would be taken in with a kind heart.

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But as we talk about a serious subject, and that is the subject of your law, your will, your commands, and what we ought to do in regard to this day that is called the

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Sabbath, I pray, Lord, that we would seek to glorify you in what we say, that we would stand firm in our convictions, but also listen to the other side with an open heart.

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And Lord, always seek to conform ourselves, not to one another, but to what the scripture says, and ultimately to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray all of this in his name. Amen. All right.

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Well, thank you, Keith. And we will give the mic over to Pastor Matt. And you got all set at an alarm here for 20 minutes, and you can just go.

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Yeah. Thank you so much. Well, again, thank you so much for having me. So I'm going to be articulating the position of the

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Westminster Confession of Faith, which I happen to subscribe to. I'm a PCA ordained pastor. So if you're interested, you can find our position in the

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Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 21, Paragraph 7. If you happen to be Baptist, you're going to want to look in the

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London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, if you hold to that one, in Chapter 22,

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Paragraph 7. And if you're a congregationalist, you might want to look at the Savoy Declaration, also Chapter 22,

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Paragraph 7. So that roughly articulates where you can find it in the confessions. There's also some interesting material in the larger catechism as well, which

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I may end up quoting here in just a couple of minutes. Briefly, in Reformed theology, there's two general categories of positions on the

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Sabbath. The first we might call the Continental View, which I'm not going to be arguing for expressly here. The Continental View is something like a slightly looser understanding of the

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Sabbath day and its continuing abidance for Christians today. That would be a position held by, for instance,

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John Calvin. You can see it implied in the Heidelberg Catechism and then, for instance, the

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Belgic Confession and probably the Synod of Dort as well. That view would hold that the

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Sabbath has some ceremonial aspects or is largely ceremonial. It may hold that there's moral aspects to it.

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But the position that I'm going to argue for is best articulated by the English Puritans or by the Scottish Presbyterians.

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And so you'll notice in my position here, I will largely be defending what the Westminster Confession of Faith says on this subject.

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And again, the reference there is Chapter 21, Paragraph 7. The Puritan view, the

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Scottish Presbyterian view is the one that I'm going to be arguing for today. So there's about seven things that I want to say here in my opening that I'd like to convey as far as information before we get into some of the back and forth discussion.

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The first thing we want to mention is that for us, the Sabbath is what we might consider a creation ordinance.

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Now for lack of a better term, a creation ordinance are those things that God wrote into the very fabric of the universe itself at creation.

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These are the sorts of things that we might consider like the pre -installed apps of the world.

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And so when we look at the creation story, which is found in Genesis Chapter 1, 2, and 3, obviously 3 containing the fall,

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Genesis 1 and 2 containing the story of the creation of the world. We see several things that are sort of just kind of encoded into the creation itself.

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For instance, work or service or worship is strongly implied when the

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Lord God takes the man and he puts him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. And so work we would say is a good thing.

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It's a creation ordinance. It's something that we were in fact created to do. And in Adam's work, he's glorifying

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God and serving him. Procreation would be another creation ordinance because we are made to procreate.

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We're supposed to take wives. We're supposed to get married. We're supposed to have children.

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In fact, abundantly. So the scriptures tell us in Genesis 1, 28 that we are supposed to be fruitful and to multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

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So that too would be a creation ordinance. And for us who are Christians, marriage is also a creation ordinance.

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It's not a sacrament as the Roman Catholic church would teach. But nevertheless, it's something that God built into the very fabric of the creation itself.

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And for us too, and this is probably pretty key for our theology of the Sabbath, the Sabbath concept, the

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Sabbath construct is likewise part of the creation ordinance of the world itself.

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Now that's going to be important for us because we do not believe that the Sabbath day was abrogated with the ceremonial law.

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And we'll get into some of those details here in just a moment. So for us fundamentally and foundationally, the

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Sabbath is a creation ordinance because Genesis 2, 3 says, so God blessed the seventh day and he made it holy.

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And because on it it says God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

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So there's even a divine example in the fact that God himself is one who rests on that Sabbath day.

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Now, interestingly, although the Sabbath is also part of the Sinai code or the moral law we're going to see that in Exodus chapter 20, as well as Deuteronomy chapter five, it is interesting to note that the

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Sabbath was observed before the giving of the moral law on Sinai. So as you probably know, you learned this in Sunday school, the 10 commandments are found in two places in the

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Bible. You have them in Exodus chapter 20 and Deuteronomy chapter five, very similar with a couple of differences, but God's people had already been celebrating the

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Sabbath as early as Exodus chapter five and Exodus chapter 16. They're already following the six day, one day pattern.

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And this is important for us because what we don't want to do is to put the Sabbath into this box of the ceremonial law, which are going to be detailed very carefully in the

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Sinai covenant. But rather we're seeing that as a carrying out of the creation ordinance.

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Okay. Now it is going to be part of the moral law. And this is going to be my second main point here. The first, again, just to review was that the

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Sabbath is part of the creation ordinances, but second, it's very important for us to note that the

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Sabbath day is part of the moral law of God. Now in God's law, they're braided together three different strands or types of law.

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You have moral law, you have ceremonial law, and you have civil law. We're not really going to talk about the third at all in this lecture, but we are going to talk a bit about the first two moral and ceremonial.

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Now, where is God's moral law summarily comprehended? Well, if you grew up learning your shorter catechism, you know that God's moral law is summarily comprehended in the 10 commandments.

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There are other places in the scriptures where God's law summarized, for instance, Micah chapter six, verse eight, or Matthew chapter 22, verses 37 and 38, the first and the second great commandments, according to Jesus.

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But the 10 commandments have always held a very special place as a summary of the moral law.

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And for this reason, God gives the moral law, the 10 commandments from Sinai in his own voice with thunder and lightning in the form of the stone tablets signifying their perpetuity and their abiding nature.

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And then later after those tablets are broken and then remade with God's own finger note, they are put into the ark of the covenant and kept in the tabernacle or later at the temple.

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So the 10 commandments are extremely important summaries of the moral law, that moral law, which has written on the heart of man and has abiding import for Christians in perpetuity.

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There is no abrogation of the moral law. Okay? So as it relates to the 10 commandments, we have to be careful that we don't fall into one of two ditches.

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And like most theology, there's dangers on either side. In one respect, we don't want to fall into the danger of legalism by adding to them or by making salvation by way of merit and earning your way up the salvation ladder.

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That would be legalism. And that is very dangerous for us to do. On the other hand, we don't want to fall into antinomianism, which is removing the law or a sense of licentiousness so that we don't have to abide by the moral law at all.

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Those are the two ditches that we who are Presbyterian and confessional, including our 1689 Baptist brothers, we want to avoid those two ditches.

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So we don't want to make the Sabbath law more strict than it actually is. And this is why

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Jesus has a bunch of tension with the Pharisees, for instance, in Matthew chapter 12, when his disciples because they're hungry are rubbing together grain and they're eating it.

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And the Pharisees accused them of breaking the Sabbath because presumably they're working even just to feed themselves on a subsistence level.

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So that would be an example of legalism. And we Presbyterians, we don't want to be legalistic in terms of our interpretation of the

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Sabbath, but neither do we want to fall into the antinomian or the licentious ditch either.

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And so we don't remove the Sabbath from the 10 commandments for several reasons. First of all, if we were to remove the fourth commandment from the 10 commandments, it would seem rather arbitrary to do so, because in the scriptures, the 10 commandments are always considered as a unit.

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Of course, we can discuss them separately and individually, the first or the seventh or the 10th commandment, but they're often called by the name, the 10 commandments.

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And we see that expressly given in scripture in Exodus 34, 28, in Deuteronomy 4, 13 and Deuteronomy 10, 4.

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So we conceive of the moral law as essentially a unit, again, that is summarily comprehended in the 10 commandments.

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Now, when Jesus is speaking on the sermon on the Mount, he specifically says that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

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Well, what did Jesus come to fulfill? Well, he came to fulfill the ceremonial law, which is why we no longer offer sacrifices.

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This is why we don't kill a sheep or bulls or goats for our sins anymore, because Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial law by dying for us on the cross.

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But he did not abolish the moral law, which is to say he did not put away those essential fabric encoding of what is right before the

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Lord God. The 10 commandments as well, again, as the first and second greatest commandments and other places as well, define for us how we should live before God.

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And so as it relates to the law, of course, in reformed theology, there are the three uses. The first convicts us of our sin so that we turn to faith and Christ and the gospel.

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Secondly, it restrains us from moral evil. And then third, it shows us the life that is pleasing and honoring to the

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Lord. And so the Calvinistic or the third use emphasizes we live these things so as to please the

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Lord. But clearly the Sabbath is part of the moral law because to violate the

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Sabbath is considered evil in places like Isaiah 56, where Isaiah the prophet talks about the

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Sabbath and violation of the Sabbath is considered evil in the sight of the Lord. And so it has moral implications, not merely ceremonial.

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More than that, we are commanded by the apostles to not neglect the gathering together of the saints on the

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Lord's day, which Hebrews 10 25 tells us not to neglect the assembly of the saints.

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And if somebody were to argue that the Sabbath has been abrogated because Jesus is our rest or because eternity is our eternal

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Sabbath, we would say, well, there's a sense in which that's true. Of course, the Sabbath is typological of heaven and the peace that we have through Christ.

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But similarly, even as Jesus is our peace, that doesn't mean that we're that we're no longer obliged to honor the sixth commandment on murder or because Jesus is our purity.

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Obviously that would not imply that the seventh commandment on adultery has been abrogated either. So we don't believe that the moral law has been abrogated.

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We do believe the ceremonial law has been fulfilled and abrogated, but the moral law is still abiding.

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Now the question pertains to when the Sabbath switches from this seventh day to the first day.

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And that's a difficult question. And I think one that Keith could probably press me on and maybe even pin me to the wall a bit, but nevertheless, that is the confessional position.

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So larger catechism number 116 says what is required in the fourth commandment? And the answer is given the fourth commandment requires of all men, the sanctifying or keeping holy to God such times as he hath appointed in his word expressly one whole day and seven, which was the seventh day.

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Key language here from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ and the first day of the week ever since.

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And so to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian Sabbath and the new Testament's called calling it the

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Lord's day. So again, that's larger number 116. Well, that's a pretty difficult concept.

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So let's break that down just a little bit. And by the way, this is my third point, the Sabbath, uh, to the

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Lord's day change over at the resurrection of Christ. First thing we can say about that is that the first day has always been a glorious day.

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Um, it's not that the seventh day is the only beautiful day in according to creation and redemption, but rather the first day of the week is likewise a day of great beauty and power because it's the first day in which

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God begins the creation of the world, separating light from dark darkness. More to that same point, it is on the first day of the week.

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Very importantly that Jesus makes his post resurrection appearances to his disciples. In fact, though Jesus makes multiple post resurrection appearances to his disciples, every time

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Jesus appears to his disciples, it is the first day of the week resurrection day or the

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Lord's day. Either that or it's not stated, but it's implied that the first day of the week or is that are the days in which

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Jesus makes his appearances to his disciples. Likewise, the day of Pentecost, that 50th day is the first day of the week, at least according to Joel Beakey's reckoning in his brilliant reform systematic theology volume three.

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Now as far as the apostolic or early church goes, it's very important for us in our Westminsterian theology and the confessions certainly cite this as a footnote to indicate that the apostles began meeting with the disciples, having their worship services on the first day of the week, the

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Lord's day. And we can see that in Acts chapter 20 verse seven where the disciples are gathered together to break bread.

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This is the occasion at the city of Troas where Paul preaches late into the evening and it was his name

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Eutychus, I believe he falls out and he's killed and resurrected again. So also

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Paul commands the Corinthians and he says, just as I told the Galatians first Corinthians 16 to on the first day of the week, you're going to have your gatherings and you're going to set apart your ties and your offerings, which are going to be part of your worship.

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And so Paul is commanding the Corinthians just as he says he did to the Galatians to meet on the first day of the week.

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And so take up your ties and your offerings. We see the same thing in revelation chapter one, where John and the island of Patmos has his visionary revelatory experience.

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And so there's this pattern in the new Testament that the disciples begin gathering together for their worship times on the first day of the week, the

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Lord's day. Now we might say, well, what happened to the seventh day? What happened to the temple worship and the synagogue gatherings?

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Well, the early church did try that. In fact, there was mixed practice, for instance, in the book of Acts.

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But one of the standout patterns that we notice in the book of Acts is that as the

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Christians are proclaiming the gospel, they are summarily expelled from and persecuted out of the synagogue so that whenever Paul and the apostles are bringing the good news to the synagogues, we very often see that there is violence, mob violence or rioting that takes place thereafter.

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So Acts nine in Damascus, there's a synagogue plot to kill Paul. In Acts chapter 13 at Pisidian Antioch, Paul and Barnabas are driven out of the district.

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In Acts chapter 17 at Thessalonica, there's mob violence and another riot. And then in Acts 18 at Corinth, Paul is opposed and reviled.

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So everywhere the apostles go to try to participate in preaching the gospel at the seventh day synagogue services, persecution essentially drives them out.

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And so there's the theological reason, the resurrection of Christ. And then there's the practical reason, persecution of the church that they begin to move away from seventh day worship exclusively for the purpose of first day resurrection,

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Pentecost day, Lord's day worship services. Now it's also important for us as reformed people, because we are pretty inclined to church history to listen to the witness of the history throughout the ages.

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Now, somebody will argue back, well, sure, but history is not prescriptive for believers.

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And for the most part, that is true. Yet at the same time, we should be careful not to move the landmarks that are ancient father set.

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And moreover, whenever the whole of church history is agreed on something, the whole of church history, that bears a tremendous testimony to us.

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And I would think is additional proof to make the point. And in this case, we can say without any equivocation for that, for the whole of church history from the apostolic fathers all the way till today, the

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Lord's day, the first day of the week, resurrection day has been the day in which believers gathered together.

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And as soon as we have post -biblical evidence like the didache, it's already talking about that first day of the week,

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Lord's day worship. So the didache says, but every Lord's day, gather yourselves together and break bread and give

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Thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, et cetera. So to the letter of Barnabas dated 120

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AD or so says it's not the present Sabbaths, which I find accessible, acceptable, but only the one

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I have ordained on which I will put away all things and then make the eighth day begin.

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This means a different world. The author of this letter goes on indicating again, the resurrection of Christ and Justin Martyr says on the first day named after the son, we hold the meeting in one place for all who live in the cities or the country.

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Thereby the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits. So here's my point.

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In the very early post -biblical apostolic fathers era, they're all talking about the

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Lord's day, the first day of the week. And in Justin Martyr, listen to this quote. This is very important.

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Justin Martyr says, we all choose Sunday, first day for our communal gatherings because it is the first day on which

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God created the universe by transforming darkness and primal matter. And because Jesus Christ, our healing savior rose from the dead on the same day.

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So Justin Martyr, one of the earliest Christian writers that we have expressly says that it's first day

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Lord's day worship. And the purposes that he gives our creation and redemption, creation and redemption.

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Interestingly, uh, in the variances between the Exodus 20 account of the 10 commandments and Deuteronomy five,

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Exodus 20 points to the fourth commandment Sabbath as pertaining to creation, whereas Deuteronomy five relates it to deliverance.

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So again, we have that motif of creation and deliverance as the reasons why we take our Sabbath rest.

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Now, positively speaking, this is my fifth main point. I'm not sure how much time I have left, but I'm probably running out.

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The Sabbath is a gift of grace for Holy rest for God's people. It is a time of resting of the body.

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So we rest our bodies from physical labor, by the way, work is still a creation ordinance. So presumably we get exhausted and tired and we need to rest.

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We gather together with the local Bible believing church for prayer, for worship, for preaching, and for the sacraments.

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It is a time to love and to serve, which is why Jesus and the gospels does a number of his healings on the

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Sabbath day. We think that's very important, including the man with the withered hand in Matthew chapter 12. And so also it is in fact typological of that eternal rest to come, but in its typology, it has never passed out of the moral law.

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So as to cease having abiding influence for Bible believing Christians today, as far as practicalities and advice go on the

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Lord's day, we Presbyterians, we would emphasize devotion to the Lord. Obviously the three prongs of the stool we think are important gathered fellowship and worship with the saints in church, a family devotion, family worship times, and then individual private devotion as well.

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We think are important. We do make way for works of mercy and necessity.

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And so this is, we resist legalism here with our interpretation of the Sabbath, but there are times for works of mercy, which would be visits, caring for people, tending for people that are orphans, widow, ill, hospitalized.

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We have no problem with making such visitations on the Lord's day. And so to works of necessity, we would call them.

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So police officers, firefighters, hospital workers, surgeons, et cetera, all these sorts of people that are emergency practitioners, they should and do continue to work even on the

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Lord's day, because we make way for works of mercy and necessity. Now we are a little bit more cautious around commerce,

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I would say than most evangelicals would be at the end of the book of Nehemiah. There's a pretty strong warning against marketplaces.

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Thank you. I'm almost done. And we also take very care not to get drawn into entertainment, which we think would pull our hearts into worldliness and conformity with this world.

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So in summary, then, and concluding my, my position here, we believe that Jesus Christ is the

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Lord of the Sabbath, that the day belongs to him. It is a day that commemorates primarily creation as per Exodus 20 and redemption as per Deuteronomy chapter five.

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And so we think is a wonderful time for the gathering of God's saints, for works of mercy and necessity, and for devoting our entire lives to him.

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That pretty much concludes what I have to say. Thank you for listening. Excellent.

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All right. Wow. That was a very well done. And I'm excited to hear the opposing view from Keith here.

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And this is a kind of, um, for you guys out there in the audience, you can ask questions that we will pose to both of these guys towards the end of our discussion.

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But if you will do this for me, just to set it aside in the chat, if you want to ask a question, put all caps question, and then say who the question is for, and then ask it.

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If it's for both, you can say both. And if it's for Matthew or Keith, say that, put it in the chat. And then

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I'm going to take a list of questions that we'll kind of run through after the discussion is kind of coming to an end.

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So with that, let's jump over into Keith's arguments and the negative.

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I'll give you the floor. Well, again, I want to thank you for putting this together. Thank you,

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Matthew, for a wonderful introduction and explanation of the Westminster position and for wearing the shirt that has the 1646 on it, because I hold to the 1646

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London Baptist confession, not the 1689. So you're sort of wrapping us both with that t -shirt. So thank you for, for doing that.

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The topic of this discussion is Sunday the Christian Sabbath. I do not believe

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Sunday constitutes the Christian Sabbath. Christians have a Sabbath rest, but it is not found in a day.

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It is found in Christ himself. I believe the Sabbath was a sign given at the

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Sinai Mosaic covenant in Exodus 31, 12 to 17, specifically says the Sabbath is a sign given to Israel.

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As such, its purpose was to point to the reality we enjoy as members of the new covenant in Christ.

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Now, please don't think that this discussion is Sabbath versus no Sabbath. If the subject we were discussing was sacrifice, no one would say

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I'm anti -sacrifice. If I find a fulfillment of the old covenant sacrifice in the new covenant sacrifice of Christ.

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In the same way, I'm not anti -Sabbath because I believe the Sabbath is fulfilled in Christ. I believe in the

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Sabbath. I just believe that Christ is our Sabbath, that the purpose of the Sabbath was to point forward to his work and in his work, he completes what that purpose was given for.

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The question of today really is what is the Sabbath? Sabbath was a day in the old covenant, but it pointed forward to something greater, not to another day, but to a state of being.

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It pointed to the person of Jesus Christ. In him, we have genuine Sabbath, not a shadow of it, but the true substance of it.

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Therefore the apostle Paul would write to the Colossians in chapter two, verse 16, therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or in regard to a festival or a new moon or a

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Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

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Paul is responding to the Judaizers who taught that the old covenant laws must be obeyed.

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Paul says, we need not keep the ceremonial laws, which are fulfilled in Christ. Every ceremony of the old

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Testament is fulfilled in Christ. I would agree with Matthew on that. It all pointed to him and is complete in him.

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They were a shadow. Christ is the substance. With the substance, you no longer need the shadow.

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Every good shadow is cast by a greater object. With Christ, you don't need the shadows anymore.

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Well, he says here what the shadows were that point to the substance.

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He tells us three things. He says in regard to food and drink, in regard to festivals and new moons, and in regard to a

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Sabbath. Now the most common objections by Sabbatarians to this passage are number one, Paul isn't saying that we don't have to do these things, but that we shouldn't allow people to judge us for doing these things.

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That's the most common one used by Seventh -day Adventists. I've heard them make that argument. But that doesn't agree with the context because in the very next passage in verse 18,

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Paul parallels that when he says that we shouldn't do asceticism, worship of angels, or any of those things either.

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And so when he says, let no one judge you in these things, he's saying, let no one judge you for not doing these things.

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And so he includes the Sabbath in that. And the second thing, this text does not relate to the weekly

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Sabbath. There are people who say that. They'll say, well, that this only refers to certain Sabbath days. It only refers to Sabbaths that were part of the broader calendar year, but it doesn't refer to the weekly

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Sabbath, only annual Sabbaths or other Sabbaths that happen throughout the year. That position is imposed on the text.

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If that's the argument that someone's going to give, that is not something that that text can bear out. It has to be imposed upon it.

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You have to come to that text with that assumption. It doesn't bear itself out from what the text is saying.

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So based upon the words of Paul, the Sabbath was a shadow of a reality, which has its substance in Christ.

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And the writer of Hebrews agrees with this when he describes the Sabbath, not as a day, but again, as a state of being.

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Hebrews chapter four says, therefore, this is verse one, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

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For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

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For we who believed enter that rest. We who have believed enter that rest.

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As he has said, I have sworn in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.

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He goes on to say in verse seven, again, he appoints a certain day today, saying that through David so long afterwards in the words already quoted today, if you hear my voice, do not harden your hearts.

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For Joshua had given them rest. God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a

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Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest as also rested from his works, as God did from his, let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

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That rest that's being referred to there is not a day. It's the rest that we have in Christ.

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The Sabbath referred to there is a state of rest that comes in trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ.

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This is the promise revealed through Christ. He is our rest, our one true and enduring Sabbath.

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Like so many other types and shadows in the old Testament, the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrifices, the

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Sabbath is a picture of what Christ would accomplish in his atoning work. When he said it is finished, the work of redemption was done and the true

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Sabbath had come. Therefore, I submit that Sunday cannot be the Sabbath because Christ is the

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Sabbath. Some choose to call this position anti -Sabbatarianism, but we wouldn't call someone anti -priesthood.

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If we said Christ is our high priest, he fulfilled the priesthood. We would also not call someone anti -sacrifice.

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If we said Christ is the ultimate and perfect and final sacrifice, we wouldn't call someone anti -tabernacle.

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If we said Christ is the true and abiding tabernacle. I believe Christ is our

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Sabbath rest. And therefore that is my position as to what the Sabbath is.

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But what of the 10 commandments as was already mentioned, and this is not a rebuttal, I already had proposed to say this, but it was brought up by my friend

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Matthew. It is mentioned in the fourth commandment that we should remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

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The Sabbath is included in the 10 commandments. But what are the 10 commandments? We know that there are those who would say that the 10 commandments are in fact the moral law of God.

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But when the Bible describes the 10 commandments, it actually describes the commandments as the words of the covenant given to Israel.

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It says this in Exodus chapter 34 verses 27 to 28. It says he wrote on the tablets, the words of the covenant, the 10 commandments.

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Deuteronomy chapter four, verse 13. He says the 10 commandments are in fact the covenant.

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And in Deuteronomy nine, nine through 11, he says the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the

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Lord made with you. So we know that covenants are made by God and covenants have covenantal signs.

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We look back to the Abrahamic covenant. We know that sign was the sign of circumcision. The Noahic covenant had the sign of the rainbow.

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Later we would see in the new covenant we have baptism and the Lord's supper. What is the sign of the

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Sinaitic covenant? What is the sign of the Mosaic covenant? Well, it is in fact the

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Sabbath. He says in Exodus chapter 31 verses 12 to seven, above all, you shall keep my

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Sabbaths for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I, the

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Lord sanctify you. And he goes on to say in verse 16, therefore the people of Israel shall keep the

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Sabbath observing the Sabbath throughout their generations as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel.

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So the Sabbath day is given to Israel, is given to them as a sign of the covenant.

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And so the very first time anyone is commanded to keep the Sabbath that we know of in scripture is actually in chapter 16 of Exodus.

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And the Israelites are in the wilderness preparing for what's about to happen at Sinai.

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Some argue, this is proof that the Sabbath was known before Sinai and therefore can't be limited to Sinai. But if we look through the scriptures, we see that it actually says that the

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Sabbath was given at that time, not before. Ezekiel chapter 20 says,

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I gave them my statute. This is verses 10 to 12. He says, I gave them my statutes, made known to them by rules by which if a person does them, he shall live.

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Moreover, I gave them my Sabbath as a sign between me and them. Nehemiah agrees with this.

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He says, you, this is in chapter nine, verses 13 and 14. He says, you came down on Mount Sinai. You spoke with them from heaven, gave them rights, rules, and true laws, good statutes and commandments.

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And you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statues and a law by Moses, your servant.

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The Sabbath is the sign of the Mosaic covenant. And this all makes sense when we ask the question, well, why is the

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Sabbath included in the 10 commandments? Well, the 10 commandments are the words of the covenant. Yes, they are a summary of God's moral law, and we'll talk more about that in a moment.

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But more than that, what they were given for at the time was the words of the covenant made between God and Israel through Moses and what would be included in the words of the covenant, the covenant sign.

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So it's not that we see the covenant being established or rather, it's not that we see the sign being part of a moral law.

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We see the sign being part of a covenantal framework given to Israel through Moses.

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Now, I want to say this about the law, the eternal moral law.

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We all believe both Matthew and I would agree that there is an eternal moral law that transcends all of the covenants.

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Cain did not have the commandments, but he knew that it was wrong and that he was guilty when he murdered Abel. Joseph did not have the commandments, but he was unwilling to commit adultery.

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Even Abimelech didn't have the commandments. He wasn't even a believer. And yet he knew it was wrong to sleep with Sarai.

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There are certainly laws that God makes known by nature to all men and they have been known since the beginning, but the

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Sabbath is not among those transcendent laws. It is not something that men know by nature.

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It is not something that men practiced with any evidence in scripture prior to Exodus 16.

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So these are a few facts to consider. I'm going to give you five facts to hold on to while we talk about these things.

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Number one, I just said it, but I'm going to say it again. There's no evidence that anyone in scripture kept a

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Sabbath day prior to Moses. The belief that God gave an ordinance for the Sabbath in the garden is assumed, but it's not proven from the text.

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Nowhere do we see Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, or even Job keeping a

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Sabbath day. Number two, there is no evidence, excuse me, there's no evidence that any

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Gentile nation is ever rebuked for not keeping the Sabbath. They are condemned for other immoral acts.

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They're condemned for great evils, but Sabbath breaking is never listed among the sins of the other nations.

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Furthermore, in the New Testament during the Jerusalem council, which specifically dealt with the Gentile inclusion in the church,

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Sabbath keeping is not mentioned as a command. Number three, the

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New Testament scriptures never command the keeping of Sabbath following the ascension of Christ.

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Some may argue and say it was so commonly known and understood that no one need mention it, but wouldn't murder and adultery and homosexuality also be commonly known?

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But Paul tends to mention those like quite a bit. So are we to believe that a young newly found

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Gentile church that has no background of Sabbath keeping wouldn't need instruction about that?

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Wouldn't need to understand it? But what about the Old Testament? Wasn't that their instruction?

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Well, it couldn't be because even those who believe Sunday is the Sabbath do not believe that the Jewish Sabbath is the one that needs to be kept.

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The Jewish Sabbath was the seventh day, not the first day and new rules apply to the new covenant.

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In fact, I had this conversation with Sam Waldron. Sam Waldron taught a conference on this.

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I was there with him listening and a good godly man teaches very wonderfully. And he said in that conference, he said, the typical significance is abolished, but the moral significance remains.

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Well, where do we draw the line? What's typical? What's moral? What's positive law? What's natural law?

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Where do we draw the line in knowing how to keep the Sabbath? How would we know without instruction?

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And why does the New Testament not provide us any instruction on this? Number four, of all the warnings regarding sin in the

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New Testament writings, and there are several, we call them vice lists, lists that the apostle

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Paul writes and others write about sins that we are to avoid. Never once is Sabbath breaking listed among them.

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When we go to the Old Testament where the Sabbath is explicitly command, we see many places where breaking the Sabbath is condemned.

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Israel's condemned for not keeping the Sabbath, even though it was certainly well known among them, they were still commanded and told when they didn't do it, that they were doing wrong.

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Why is it not listed in any of the New Testament lists regarding sins? Is it just so well known by the

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Gentile churches that they didn't have to be instructed? I think this is a huge issue. Number five, the

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New Testament never refers to Sunday as the Sabbath or imposes any of the regulations or expectations of the

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Sabbath to Sunday. If one proves the Sabbath as moral law and abiding, he then must also prove the ability to make a change to that moral law.

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Those who claim Sunday is the Sabbath have exchanged both when and why it is observed, moving from Saturday of rest to Sunday of gathering for worship.

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Consider this, within the Old Testament text, there is no indication that the weekly Sabbath was designated for worship, but rather it was ordained as a day of rest.

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So the change that Sunday constitutes Sabbath is not only a change of the day, but it is a fundamental change in the nature of the observance as well.

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Now, I want to say something, and I've talked about this issue for many years.

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I did a debate on this subject with Rob Hamm back in 2018, and I have heard some things about my position that I just want to bring out.

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One, I have been told, well, you just don't like this because you don't want to obey God. First of all, I hope that no one would take that type of thought that someone who holds the position of the

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Sabbath that I hold simply doesn't want to obey God's law. That's not the point. That's not what we're arguing.

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Most of what Matthew does on Sunday, I do on Sunday. I get up, I go to worship.

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I spend the day with my family. I don't do the normal routines of the week. So when we talk about how we practically observe the

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Lord's day, it's going to be very similar. The question is whether or not, if I choose to cut the grass or go to Chick -fil -A, which

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I can't do on Sunday, is that going to be a sin? And that's what we're really going to have to discuss.

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Secondly, I've also been told that my position is foreign to church history, but that's not actually the case.

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And I'm glad Matthew said that church history is important because I agree with him. I'm currently teaching a course on early church history.

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And while we don't believe these men to be infallible, we do understand that their words have weight. Some early church fathers compared the observance of the

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Sabbath to the observance of the right of circumcision. And they demonstrated that if the apostles abolished circumcision, then they also abolished the

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Sabbath as well. And rather than seeing the Sabbath as being fulfilled on Sunday, they saw the Sabbath as being fulfilled in Christ, which is the very position that I'm holding to.

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I'll give you some quotes and these are just from a few of the early church fathers. Ignatius of Antioch writes this, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things, i .e.

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the Jews, have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in observance of the

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Lord's day on which also our life has sprung up again by him and by his death. Notice he makes a distinction between the

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Sabbath and the Lord's day. I believe in the Lord's day. I believe Sunday is the day of the resurrection. I believe when John was on the

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Isle of Patmos and he was in the spirit on the Lord's day, I believe that's Sunday. I believe the Didache, when it refers to the

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Lord's day, it's the first day of the week. It's Sunday. So I'm a Lord's day guy, but I don't believe it's the

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Sabbath. I believe that our early church fathers saw a distinction between the Sabbath and the Lord's day. And we should as well in the same way that I'd see a distinction between the

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Passover and the Lord's supper. Is there a genetic link? Yeah, there's a genetic link because the

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Passover gives way to the Lord's supper. The Sabbath gives way to the Lord's day. They're both one in seven. We can talk about that, the way that that works itself out, but it's not the same.

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And that's the point. It's not the same. Eusebius of Caesarea writes this, the pre -Abrahamic saints, it's not what he says, but he says they, but he's referring to the pre -Abrahamic saints of the

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Old Testament. Did not care about the circumcision of the body. Neither do we Christians. They did not care about observing

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Sabbaths. Neither do we. We did not avoid certain kinds of foods.

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Neither did they regard the other distinctions, which Moses first delivered to their posterity to be observed as symbols, nor do

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Christians of the present day do such things. So you see what Eusebius is saying here. He's saying the people before Abraham, didn't keep the

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Sabbath. They didn't have dietary restrictions. They didn't have the things that came. And when, when Abraham comes, you've got circumcision.

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Then it's a long time later before you get Moses and you get the other laws. These laws were not kept prior to then.

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So Cyril of Jerusalem says, fall not away either into the sect of the Samaritans or into Judaism for Jesus Christ has since for ransom you stand aloof from all observance of Sabbaths and from calling any indifferent meat common or unclean.

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He says right there, stand aloof and from all observance of Sabbaths. He didn't say the

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Lord's day is a Sabbath. He says, that's not what we're about anymore. And then of course,

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Aurelius Augustine, someone I think we would all hold in high esteem. He says, well, now

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I should like to be told that there is in these 10 commandments, except the observance of the

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Sabbath, which ought not to be kept by a Christian. The Augustine recognized that the

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Sabbath within the 10 commandments was unique in fact, how is it unique?

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It's interesting because Christosom makes the point. Christosom said, if you look at the 10 commandments, God doesn't explain, and I'm having to quote this sort of loosely because it's a long quote, but he says, basically, you don't have to see, you don't have to be told why not to murder.

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You don't have to be told why not to steal. You don't have to be told why not to lie, because those are things that we recognize in our conscience, but the

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Sabbath is not in our conscience. So God gives an explanation as to why. Keep the Sabbath day because it was on that day that God rested.

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That's why you're doing this, right? So it's not natural. It's not something that's pre -programmed.

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It's not even part of something that we find in nature, right? We look at nature and we see the moon determines our months, and the sun determines our years, and the turning of the earth from day to night determines our days.

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But the Sabbath week, the week seven days is given by God. It's not part of the natural revelation.

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All right. So let me very quickly close by saying this. I believe that Sunday is the

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Lord's day. I do not believe the Lord's day is the same as the Sabbath. I do not believe the New Testament church saw the

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Lord's day as the Sabbath, but something new, a new day for a new covenant. By saying

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Sunday is the Sabbath, I think we're doing a few things which are potentially negative. We're confusing terms where we're setting unbiblical expectations and we're taking away, not adding to what the

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Lord's day should be. And I'm throwing this out there because I want to talk about it. Even those who hold to the

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Westminster Confession, there are those who make allowances of certain things for those who would serve.

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And one of the allowances is the position on the Sabbath. They would never make that allowance for murder.

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They would never make that allowance for anything else. Why do they do so for the Sabbath? That's something I think that has to be considered.

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So I hope this has been helpful and something that can lead to a further conversation.

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Very good. Very good. I know for my audience, at least a lot of those arguments are going to be really fresh.

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We've been making the Westminsterian argument, whether it's from my Twitter or from the

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YouTube channel. So, and I was seeing a lot of people getting excited and we've got a lot of questions lined up, but before we get to the questions,

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I guess what we'll do is move into a time where kind of more of an open discussion, but I wonder if it would be helpful kind of conversationally styled, but still perhaps give a section of time to say like,

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Pastor Matt, perhaps you can ask some questions to, of Keith and we'll give you, you know, a section of time to do that and then we'll swap it back over.

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This doesn't have to be kind of formal. If it breaks out into just a natural discussion, we can go there. But just to have a little bit of structure might enable things to move along a little bit.

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So Matt, if you have some questions based on Keith's opening right there, we can just kind of go from there and I'll be collecting questions from the chat.

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Again, guys, if you want to have your questions answered, capitalized question, say who it's for, then give the question

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I'm collecting those for a little bit later in our episode. So with that, let's just pass the mic over to you,

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Matt, and have some discussion back and forth on this. Great. Thanks. Well, I think what we just heard from Keith is evidence of Keith's brilliance.

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And for those of you who have ever thought mistakenly that Keith is typecast as a, as a funny guy or the comedic relief, his display of wisdom here easily disabuses us of that notion.

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Keith is a brilliant person, a wonderful pastor and an excellent scholar. Keith, I have to tell you,

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I thought your presentation was really, really good. I learned a lot from it. I do have a few questions, but before I give you one or two questions, and these are not tough,

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I'm not trying to trick you. I'm honestly curious about some of your positions, just so you know. I don't consider this like a, like a legal courtroom where I'm going to try to trap you in your words.

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I promise I'm not going to do that. I do want to learn from you from a couple of things. But before I ask a question,

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I wanted to respond to your very last piece, which had to do with taking exceptions to the fourth commandment, especially in the

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Presbyterian tradition. Can I say something real quick? I hope that no one took that as a shot.

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I really, I was not intended to be like, I gotcha. Just like you. I don't want to do that.

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My only reason for bringing it up is, is, is because I know that that it does occur and I just thought it was worth mentioning.

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So. Yes, absolutely. And I do want to clarify that when a person is ordained in the PCA, let's say as well as certain other

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Presbyterian denominations, we go through various examinations, including our Presbytery floor exam.

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And we have to write out statements and precise words, what our exceptions are to the confession.

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And that's determinative as to whether or not we're allowed to teach those exceptions to the confessions. It's very, it's very technical, but you're right.

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An exception to the fourth commandments and the Westminster, it's assessment of the fourth command is a popular one.

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It's a common one that we do hear from time to time, but the exception typically has to do with the phraseology of entertainment, defining what entertainment is on the

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Lord's day. It's not an exception to the fourth commandment as part of the, of the moral law.

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So I just wanted to be clear that somebody can't say, I don't think that the fourth commandment is part of the moral law. It would more have to do with the very practicalities of what consists of entertainments on the

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Lord's day. So, so that's kind of some minutia, but I was interested in pursuing a little bit more about the moral law with you,

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Keith, and a couple of questions just come to mind here. First of all, when it, as it pertains to the moral law, do you think that there are any other of the 10 commandments that are ceremonial or is it only the fourth commandment that's unique amongst the 10?

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And, and if so, then how, how would not be possible that some of the other commandments might likewise be ceremonial?

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Well, this does bring up a difference that I, I, I don't want to create a different debate.

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So I do want to, I tend to not hold a tripartite view. So even though I'm using that language, because that is the language that I understand you hold to, and many people do hold to, which is moral ceremony and civil,

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I can acquiesce to that for the sake of the conversation. But the conversation,

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I hold to more what is known as progressive covenantalism, which would see the whole of the old covenant being fulfilled in Christ.

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And then of course, those laws still have moral value because they reflect a transcendent law, which is cross covenantal, right?

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So it's not that the 10 commandments themselves are the moral law. It's they represent the moral character of God, which itself transcends all covenants.

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And this is again, why Cain is still guilty of murder, even before a commandment, do not murder, is given because that moral law exists outside.

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And even I'm using the phrase moral law, but I'm saying it's a transcendent law. It transcends Moses. It transcends

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David. It transcends even the new covenant. It's moral for all time. And so my position is that nine of the 10 commandments, yes, are moral for all time, but that the fourth commandment isn't.

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And that I realize creates somewhat of a conflict because people say, well, why would God do it? But that's why I tried to answer.

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And my reasoning is why would God include the Sabbath? Because the 10 commandments were not intended to be seen as the moral law, at least from how

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I understand it, but they were intended to be seen as the covenant that God is making with Israel. And if God is making a covenant, he would include the covenant sign in the covenant document, right?

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So the 10 commandments reflect and certainly summarize God's morality, but they also serve a different purpose.

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They serve the purpose of creating an established covenant with this people at this time that is going to have a sign just like Abraham's sign and David's.

58:49

Well, well, we can argue about David having a sign, you know, the throne or whatever, but the other covenants have a sign.

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This covenant has a sign. It's the Sabbath. It would certainly be included in the covenant document. It also sounded like maybe you did not accept the principle of creation ordinances.

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Is that something that you're familiar with? Or is that a concept that you actually, I'm glad you asked because I have that in my notes.

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Because it's interesting to me that John Bunyan and John Gill, obviously two very well known names, both of those men believed that Sunday was the

59:25

Sabbath, but both of them did not believe Sabbath is a creation ordinance. And I could quote several of their writings on the subject if need be, but hopefully people would just accept that or people can argue with me if they want.

59:37

But the point is, I don't think that when we talk about creation ordinance,

59:43

I don't think the Sabbath qualifies because ordinance means a law or something that is given, right?

59:49

And we have the law of marriage because we're told in Genesis chapter two, that for this very reason, a man shall leave his father and mother.

59:55

That becomes the standard of law for marriage throughout the scriptures. It's quoted in Matthew 19. It's quoted again in other places, first Corinthians seven and others, but we don't see

01:00:05

God telling Adam to keep the Sabbath. We see a principle established, the one in seven principle of rest, but we don't see a command being given to Adam and we never see him fulfilling it.

01:00:17

And this is a question I have, and I don't mind you answering this if you would like. If Adam has given a command to keep the

01:00:23

Sabbath, was there another way that he could have fallen other than the tree of knowledge?

01:00:30

Could he have broken the Sabbath and fallen into sin and taken humanity into sin through another way other than the tree of knowledge, if that was a command given to him?

01:00:40

So that's just a thought. Yeah, that's interesting. So, well, first of all, I think it's a, it's a theoretical that's hard to bear out in reality, just because the tree of probation or the tree of knowledge of good and evil is in fact, what, what happened?

01:00:58

I guess, you know, asking could he have followed in any other way? You know, it's one of those kind of like multiple universe type questions, like could he have not done that?

01:01:09

Well, the one reality that we live in is the one that we, that we deal with. But I do think that God's blessing of the seventh day in Genesis two is strong enough that we would consider the

01:01:23

Sabbath a creation ordinance in the same way that the opposite side, remember the fourth commandment is not just about rest, but it also commands work.

01:01:34

Six days you shall work and then you have to rest on the seventh day. So I think to reduce it just to the resting principle is a little bit too simplistic.

01:01:43

It's, it's actually a work rest pattern. Six and one is the work rest pattern. And the positive side of that is implied and expressly stated when

01:01:53

God commands Adam to work in terms of his, his serving and tending to the garden. So I would say that that actually bears it out.

01:02:00

And then you have the explicit blessing of the day when God blesses. But I was also wondering too, Keith, if you don't mind another question about your position, you mentioned that you subscribe to a

01:02:11

Baptist confession, the 1646 confession, not the 1689. Is your position taken up in that net confession?

01:02:19

I honestly don't know. I'm not familiar with that confession. Is yours, is your position confessional in that regard or is this something that you've kind of, um, derived on your own?

01:02:31

I'm actually really glad that you asked this. And, um, this is going to, this is going to incense some people.

01:02:39

So I, I, I realized the, the, the, uh, the troubled waters in which I'm about to wade.

01:02:45

Oh, here we go. But part of the reason why we did not adopt the 1689, even though we would probably affirm 95 % of it was because there were some things in the second

01:02:56

London confession that we cannot affirm. And therefore we said it would be better for us to not take exceptions.

01:03:04

Going back to the thing you talked about, where there are those who take exceptions to the Westminster, we said we would prefer to find a document that we could affirm the entire thing.

01:03:14

And the 1646 is actually the second, uh, it's, it's actually the second edition of the first confession.

01:03:22

The first confession was written in 1644. It was edited because it was immediately met with a response and there were errors and things that had to be corrected.

01:03:30

So the 1646 is the corrected version of the 1644 and it's only 52 articles, but it's 52 articles that we as a church can affirm.

01:03:39

And it ties us to a historic movement, which is what we wanted to do. But it does not mention the

01:03:45

Sabbath. So it wasn't something we had to consider. We also considered some other Baptist documents as well.

01:03:50

We considered the Philadelphia and the, um, New Hampshire and a few others, but it was the first London that we felt most comfortable with.

01:03:59

Since then, however, I will say this, there have been those who have argued against me because I've done videos about this and said that the people who held to the 1644 -46 were some of the same men who held to the 1689.

01:04:14

So by me not holding the Sabbath, I'm not really holding to the same positions that they held to. And it's almost comes with the, well, you're being disingenuous because you're saying they didn't hold to the

01:04:23

Sabbath. No, I'm not. I'm saying that the confession doesn't mention the Sabbath. Therefore we can affirm it. I'm not saying what those men believed or held to because I don't know enough about them to say exactly their position on the

01:04:33

Sabbath and if they all held the same position. But because the confession doesn't mention the Sabbath, it also doesn't say that the

01:04:38

Pope is the Antichrist and things like that. Other things that we would have difficulty with in the 1689, we were able to affirm it.

01:04:45

Hmm. That's cool. So do you want me to ask another question or do you want to try to feel free?

01:04:53

I've got some questions, but I wanted to, or we'll let Josh make the decision. Yeah. Well, you know, you guys can just run the show, honestly.

01:05:02

Now you guys all have our own shows. So yeah, that's right. This is my lane, I guess. So yeah, let's say if you have any just burning questions,

01:05:11

I also wanted to just come on here and just tell you guys to maybe chill out a little bit. You guys are kind of getting heated. I just wanted to keep this cool.

01:05:18

Keith and I, we always end up, we end up throwing punches in the parking lot after every video we do together.

01:05:23

Oh no, just a wee bit. But yeah, if you have any other burning questions. I always appreciate learning from you,

01:05:30

Keith. Keith, was there anything in my presentation that you just had to say, what the heck or what do you think at Everhart?

01:05:37

Is there anything that just kind of drove you nuts in what I said? Well, certainly nothing drove me nuts.

01:05:42

And I'm thankful you did clarify some things because again, I've, I've listened to a lot of people on this issue. You're very articulate and I, and I don't say that to, to in any way flatter you, but you're a great teacher and I'm thankful for it.

01:05:54

And you, you presented in such a way that I think most anyone who wants to know about the subject would have learned and gained from that.

01:06:00

So thank you for that. These are my thoughts about your, you had five,

01:06:06

I think you said you originally had seven, but I think you only got out five of them. Well, I probably didn't number them very well.

01:06:11

I did get to all seven points. The summary was the very last thing I said, that was the seventh. And then

01:06:16

I think the sixth point was just something of practical nature regarding our, our applying our, our principles.

01:06:23

But yeah, I kind of flew through them and I didn't number them very well. But yeah. Well, you said you called the creation ordinance of the

01:06:33

Sabbath. You said it was like a pre -installed app. First of all, I think that's a great analogy, especially for for modern context.

01:06:41

Right. Where do we see the Sabbath encoded in the hearts of men that have not been taught the

01:06:49

Sabbath? Do we see this in, in, and, and, and, and I must, I must preface this by saying,

01:06:55

I think anything modern is a bad example because modern people have been, have been influenced by the weeks that we live in.

01:07:02

And so to say, well, everybody goes by the week now. Yes. But do we see that in the ancient world and where do we see it?

01:07:09

And, and so that would be, you said it's pre -installed. Sure. Where do we see it? That's a wonderful question.

01:07:16

Um, first, I'm not sure why we would have to restrict it to only ancient people when modern people are, are fairly analogous to ourselves since we are modern people.

01:07:25

But since you asked it that way, I would reply and say that there is a longing in the heart of every man for rest because this world is exhausting and tiring and pagan unbelievers experience frustration, um, tiredness, exhaustion, pain, difficulty, duress, suffering in the same way that believers do.

01:07:48

And, um, every single person who's experienced the arduous nature of this mortal journey longs for and desires for rest.

01:07:57

And this is why even unbelievers, they need days off and they need vacations. There's a, there's, there's something about us that we recognize our own mortality and we long for that better day in which we can heal, in which we can recuperate, in which we can, we can, um, strive towards more strength to go take it, you know, a running go at this difficult world again.

01:08:18

And so I would say that is the longing right there when we recognize our frailty, our mortality and our, our exhaustion.

01:08:25

And so even an unbeliever has this longing for the rest that actually does recover, not only the body, but also the soul.

01:08:35

And the same way that, you know, the natural law, um, it drives man towards greater things, even if he rejects the greater things that it drives.

01:08:47

So for instance, marriage is also a creation ordinance and there's a real longing in human hearts for a person that could come and that could complete them.

01:08:58

Even those who have perverse lifestyles and degraded inclinations, they desire somebody else to come into their life and to fulfill them as a person.

01:09:09

Now we know that the only thing that actually does that is Christian marriage. But the weakness of human proclivity at least implies that there is something that can fulfill that longing.

01:09:21

And so when pagan men desire to recap, uh, to recover and to recuperate from the exhaustion of the world,

01:09:28

I think that is the moral law crying out for a Sabbath day. Gotcha. Another question that I had when

01:09:37

I was, Oh, I want to add a thought to that too. Uh, and this is, this is actually against my own position.

01:09:42

So I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to say something as a positive for your position.

01:09:48

When the French revolution tried to move to a 10 day week, it didn't work. And so that's the, so even though I, even though I kept you from mentioning modern examples, that would be a more modern example within the last millennium.

01:09:58

And, uh, and it did show that a pattern of seven days does seem to be the need of man for rest rather than a 10, 10 day.

01:10:07

Uh, so, so I recognize the pattern of scripture. I'm just, and, and how that can, how that can play itself out.

01:10:16

Where my biggest issue of course runs into how we apply this, especially in regard to things like church discipline and sin.

01:10:23

And that's one of the questions I'm going to ask you in a moment. Okay. How do we, how do we enforce this? And in what way do we enforce this, the moral law, the same way we enforce other moral laws?

01:10:31

And so, uh, but before I get to that, I want to address something else that you said. You said that one of the reasons why you think that the

01:10:39

Sabbath is moral law is because not keeping it is considered evil. And, and you made that distinction.

01:10:47

Um, but, but is it not also said to be evil when the people of God did not keep the ceremonial laws of God?

01:10:56

I mean, would we not say that what Nadab and Abihu did was evil in the eyes of God and that was a ceremonial thing?

01:11:03

It was, they brought strange fire before the Lord. So is that not somewhat of a, somewhat of a, you see kind of get where I'm coming from?

01:11:11

Yes, I absolutely take your point on that. I think, um, we do, first of all, abide to that kind of braided theory of the law.

01:11:19

And this is one of the difficulties of the law. John Frame, who was one of my professors, he sometimes kicks against the goads of reformed theology a little bit.

01:11:28

He has particular exceptions to the confessions and things like that. He, he acknowledges that when we're looking at the law of the old

01:11:36

Testament, it's very difficult at times to distinguish what is moral from what is civil from what is ceremonial.

01:11:44

Because in a lot of passages you have, you actually have braiding is the right word. You have one and then the other and then the third again.

01:11:50

So it's hard to untangle and even those of us who subscribe to the confession and acknowledge the distinction between moral ceremonial and civil, we're not always the best at, um, picking out any one hair in the, in the rope, one strand in the rope and saying this belongs to this because as it's given, the law is braided together as, as one strong and abiding principle.

01:12:14

And yes, you're right to violate the ceremonial law in the time of the ceremonial law would have been evil in the same way that, uh, ignoring or, you know, breaching the civil law would have been evil as well.

01:12:29

Um, so I, I definitely take your, your point on that. What I would say though is that we will bear the natural consequences of not having

01:12:37

Sabbath if we try to refrain from it. So if a person acts in a way as if there were no

01:12:44

Sabbath, they would definitely fall into exhaustion, possibly even sickness, illness, or, or worse.

01:12:51

So there, there is a point in which, you know, our more, our mortal human constitution breaks down if we don't take

01:12:57

Sabbath. So it is, it is in fact a very, a very good thing. And of course, God's law is not necessarily to, um, to beat us down or to beat us back, but it's actually to strengthen us and to enjoin us towards holiness and beauty and righteousness and the good.

01:13:13

And so this is why Jesus always is constantly doing healings and things like that on the Sabbath day, because, uh, the

01:13:20

Sabbath is good. The Sabbath is made for the man, not man for the Sabbath. And Christ is the

01:13:25

Lord of the Sabbath. So he doing what is good and right for us gives us that day so that we can rest and we can worship him exclusively.

01:13:33

Good deal. I mean, by the way, if you saw me reaching, I wasn't ignoring you. My, my computer started to die.

01:13:39

I didn't have the power plugged in. I was like, well, if I don't do that, I'm going to lose it. So if anybody thought I was just looking about,

01:13:46

I was grabbing my power cord. So no problem. Lose anything. Last one. And then we'll go back and see if Josh has some questions from the audience.

01:13:53

Um, very quickly. Uh, I mentioned the issue of sin and this is where this works out practically for me.

01:14:00

Okay. Um, and I'm going to have to reference a conversation I had with a Sabbatarian before, not in any way to impugn him, but to say this was a conversation we had.

01:14:09

And I'd love to hear your answer. Cause you know, I thought it was an important question. I said, okay, in your church you have someone who chooses willfully not to attend worship on a

01:14:22

Sunday, but instead chooses to do something else on a Sunday. I don't know what that would be.

01:14:29

In this particular case, the person had gone to Disney world. So we could, we could really go down a rabbit hole with that.

01:14:35

But let's just say anything. They it's not an act of mercy. It's not an act of necessity. Right. Chosen to be away from the people of God and do something else.

01:14:46

Would you call that person to repentance? And do you see this as as the same as if they had done one of the other, like if they had stolen from the church or committed adultery or murder, do you see it the same?

01:15:02

Okay. That's a, that's a really good question. It's a tough one too because I definitely see the point that you're driving at here.

01:15:07

Your, your point is if we're saying that the Sabbath is abiding moral law and to break the

01:15:12

Sabbath, the sin, then would we discipline somebody for that particular sin? Yes. To that, I would reply.

01:15:19

Yes, I do think that sinning against the Sabbath is still sin, but because a person sins does not automatically trigger church disciplinary processes in every case.

01:15:32

We all sin all the time, every day. If the church was to engage in church disciplinary procedures for every infraction of law, we would be tied up in church disciplinary procedures ad nauseum and we'd never be able to do anything else.

01:15:47

And not only that, but it probably would not be good for the spiritual good and the sanctification of the church. So I guess the question is not so much, would we discipline somebody for one infringement of the

01:15:59

Sabbath, but would we discipline somebody for multiple and repeated infringements of the

01:16:04

Sabbath? And to that, I would say probably yes. Because if a Christian was willfully repeatedly and heartedly neglecting the apostolic command to not forsake the gathering of the saints, then we would certainly have to have some elder led conversations.

01:16:20

Now even there, having an elder led sanctification laid in discussion is not necessarily church discipline.

01:16:30

Discipline is a multi -step process. And even in our book of church order, there's like a bunch of ingress and egress steps that you would take before you ever get to barring somebody from the

01:16:43

Lord's supper or God forbid, excommunicating that person. But I think theoretically the answer is yes.

01:16:50

If a person refused to honor the Lord's day and was constantly neglecting their duties to worship and to gather with the saints, ultimately it would result in some kind of discipline.

01:17:03

And typically in our book of church order, that would be elders contacting, meeting the person, beginning some sort of dialoguing conversations, attempting to restore.

01:17:13

You attempt to restore multiple, multiple times before you ever actually subject that person to punitive church discipline, i .e.

01:17:23

banishment from the sacrament or excommunication. But people who don't come to church, eventually they do get removed from the roles.

01:17:32

And of course removal from the roles is a kind of excommunication and ultimately that is what would take place.

01:17:39

And the same question for you, would you remove somebody from the roles of membership for not attending church?

01:17:47

Let's say in my example, they don't come for a year and every time you look, it's nothing important.

01:17:55

They go to a Steelers game, they go to Disney World, they're boating that weekend, they have an

01:18:00

RV and they're constantly out. Is there anything that could possibly trigger church disciplinary procedures if a person willfully neglected the

01:18:09

Lord's day on your part? Oh yes. And I'm glad you asked me that is because we actually do, in our constitution, it is very clear.

01:18:17

We used to actually have a set number of days, but we ended up changing that because we found it to be somewhat arbitrary.

01:18:24

And there are times where the number of days wasn't useful, but the number of days that we had at one point was 120 calendar days.

01:18:31

If you had not participated in the life of the church for 120 calendar days, you would be removed from the role. That's four months.

01:18:37

And our attitude was, that's 12 Lord's days or 16

01:18:42

Lord's days. I'm really bad at math. But we looked at it and said, you know, somebody who's chosen not to be a part of worship for four months is really not part of the life of the body.

01:18:55

And therefore, yeah. But, but, but I think where, where, where we may differ is when

01:19:01

I tell someone it was a sin if they missed a day or if they not, not necessarily miss worship, but if they like on Sunday afternoon went and did something that was more entertainment, this kind of kind of comes to the

01:19:12

Westminster position, you know, the ones who take exceptions say, well, what about entertainment or maybe what about going out to eat?

01:19:18

And those are, those are the more practical arguments of this debate, because that's really what people are.

01:19:24

That's really what it comes down to sometimes, you know, and I know we got to move on Josh. So I know you got other things to,

01:19:31

I can't hear you, buddy. You're muted. Yep. Muted. I'm here for it. We don't even need to move on.

01:19:37

I was just popping in to say, Hey, well, I know we have other questions and I know Matt has a hard stop and so do

01:19:42

I. So let's, you want to move on? Yeah. Yeah. We can move on. Yeah. And just to be clear, how much time do we have on the clock for you guys?

01:19:50

We can, we can go a little bit longer. I'm not necessarily in a hurry. Yeah. Okay. Okay, cool. Yeah. Honestly, this is actually, this would be a good place to transition because a lot of the questions that even you were just getting at Keith have been coming up in the chat a lot.

01:20:05

Like what is permissible? Can I mow the lawn? If I enjoy mowing the lawn, what if I hate mowing the lawn?

01:20:12

Does it become sin if I think it's work? You know, these are some of the questions coming up. And so we'll get into some of those, but there's one that I got on Twitter.

01:20:21

I'm a conservative. I call it X, X. There's what I got on X yesterday.

01:20:27

I'm a boomer. I'm a boomer. It's still Twitter. Yeah. No, this account, the

01:20:34

Imago Dei ministry, I think that he is also in the chat, but he had a great question regarding ministry on Sunday on the

01:20:46

Lord's day. And he said this, is it, and this is for both of you guys, we'll start with pastor

01:20:51

Matt, and then you can stick to it also. Is it sinful or forsaking the church?

01:20:57

If you miss church one to two Sundays a month to do ministry. In my case, there's an abortion clinic that I serve at, obviously serve to oppose just to be clear here.

01:21:09

He serves at a has started that they've started doing surgical abortions one to two

01:21:15

Sundays a month. So they're out there trying to prevent mothers from killing your children. And so, yeah, what would you say in that particular case, is it okay for them to, to forego gathering with the saints on those

01:21:30

Sundays one to two a month, or would you say that they are in sin for, for neglecting to gather with the saints on those days?

01:21:39

That's a tough one. These are the kind of inventive questions that I think make the entire conversation very hard because we can make all kinds of what if scenarios that are very difficult to untangle.

01:21:51

But two things that bear in mind for me, and I'd like to hear Keith's answer to first, remember our exception clause for our

01:22:01

Sabbath principle, which is works of mercy and necessity. And so largely we consider ministerial outreach as a kind of form of, of ministry.

01:22:11

So there would be nothing wrong with me preaching on the Lord's day. There would be nothing wrong with me making visitation to hospitals on the

01:22:20

Lord's day. There would be nothing wrong with me inviting guests over to my home to share a meal with me on the

01:22:27

Lord's day. And so I would by extension say that doing some kind of outreach ministry to an abortion clinic is both a work of mercy in that it's a ministry and it's a work of necessity and that it is a stand for a very appropriate civil cause.

01:22:41

So I would say it's probably qualifies in that. The only thing I don't like, and this just grinds against my gears personally a little bit is the idea of missing half of your

01:22:51

Lord's days for worship. One to two for me would be quite a bit. That's a little bit much for my personal taste.

01:22:58

And there's just an opinion here. I don't have anything in the confession that I could point to, but I would say works of mercy and necessity should take place after the gathered worship because the gathered assembly for the worship of the triune

01:23:11

God is the sine qua non of what we're supposed to be doing on the Lord's day, the gathering together for worship and praise of his name.

01:23:19

What do you, what do you think about that one, Keith? Before you get to it, I'll speak one. I said he, it's actually a she, but that's interesting putting it that way.

01:23:30

And I wonder if there is in a situation like this, a compromised middle ground that could, you know, where let's say there's an early service at a church right next to right next to where the clinic is.

01:23:43

And you make it a point to worship with the saints still and still go. It seems like there could be a needle to thread there, you know, but Keith, I'd love to hear from you on this.

01:23:54

Well, I agree with what Matthew said. I would only add one, one of the things that, and even our church does not do, but I think is a sad reality in many churches.

01:24:05

And so I'm sort of saying, and my church too is we've gone away from evening services.

01:24:11

And I imagine Matt, do you have an evening service at your church? Not every week. We have them occasionally we have them in the summertime sporadically, but we're not, we have multiple services in the morning.

01:24:23

So it's fairly exhausting for us because our church is larger than our ability to fit everybody in the sanctuary.

01:24:28

So we don't do it every evening, but we do have some. So I was going to say, if your church offers an evening service,

01:24:34

I think that could be a partial compromise on those days that if you needed to be in there in the morning, because that's when they're killing the babies.

01:24:41

But you could make it evening service, but that's unfortunately not the case with so many churches now that it's available.

01:24:48

I like Matthew. I think it's not good to be out of worship, you know, one or two Sundays a month. We have a police officer who helps me lead worship in our church and he has to be out two

01:24:56

Sundays a month. And it takes a toll on him that he's only in church twice a month. So, but his is, again, it's a work of necessity.

01:25:03

So can it be a work of necessity? Yes. But finding other ways to make it, make it work for you to be among the body,

01:25:11

I think is what we're called to do on the Lord's day. That's great. This one is, you guys have touched around it, but I just wonder if even just really quickly

01:25:22

I could get, this one's mostly for Matthew, just to kind of a snippet of an answer. Cause some people tuned in at different points and have come late, but would you say that your brother is in sin for meeting for corporate worship on, let's say a

01:25:36

Wednesday? And that they decided that they were going to meet for corporate worship on Wednesday and not

01:25:42

Sunday. Would you say that they are in sin? Well, we can gather together for worship on any day of the week.

01:25:50

It's just that it's the Lord's day that is the one that is specially sanctified. So we have, for instance,

01:25:56

Wednesday services, we have Friday Bible studies, we have Tuesday prayer groups and things like that.

01:26:02

So there's nothing wrong with meeting on any day of the week at any time of the week. But we do think that the first day of the week, the

01:26:08

Lord's day is especially sanctified for the gathering together of the saints. So no, there's nothing wrong with Wednesday services.

01:26:15

But there would be something wrong with Wednesday services that replace Sunday services.

01:26:21

That would not be my preference, right? To replace the Sunday service with something else.

01:26:28

Okay. Okay. And I'm actually, interestingly, if I could, I actually agree, even though I'm not a

01:26:34

Sabbatarian, I don't like to see churches say, well, we're going to have service on Friday and not have service on Sunday.

01:26:42

I do think historically, and part of what I, I know history isn't authoritative, but history is important, as Matthew said.

01:26:49

And when we look at the history of the gathered church, the, the, the, the church has always since the resurrection gathered on the

01:26:58

Lord's day for worship. And, and it is only in the last few generations that we have decided that another day is better.

01:27:05

And most of it has to do with mere convenience. I know of a church in my, in my town that advertised, hey, take your

01:27:13

Easter Sunday off and worship with us Friday night. And I thought to me, that certainly rings very hollow that we would, that we would want to do something else other than gathering with worship or gathering for worship on Easter, particularly, but every

01:27:27

Lord's day, that we would want to do it on a different day, simply because, hey, we want our Sunday morning free. Well, on that note,

01:27:36

Keith, would you say that it is in fact a sin to work on Sunday on the

01:27:44

Lord's day? Not works of ministry or works of mercy or necessity.

01:27:51

Necessity. Uh, you're just, my job has me working on Sunday. Uh, in fact, but I can make the

01:27:58

Sunday service, but I still got to go to work after. What would you say to that? Yeah, this is, this is where I would probably differ with Matthew.

01:28:05

I don't think it's a sin to, to work on the Lord's day as long as it doesn't keep you from corporate worship.

01:28:11

If it keeps you from corporate worship, then I think that's where an issue would, would arise. And if that's, and again, that would come into the issue of necessity.

01:28:18

Are you having to provide for your family? And this is the only thing that you can do for a season that would have to come at least into the conversation, uh, or for persons only, you know, they're working overtime so they can buy that extra yacht or whatever that might be another part of how we'd have to have that conversation.

01:28:33

But I, but I don't think, and this goes to the whole cutting grass, going out to eat, things like that. I don't think that Sunday has to be a day where we cease any and all activities, but I do think it's the day of worship.

01:28:46

And over to you, Matt, what do you think? Yeah, I'd have to know a little bit more specifics about it.

01:28:52

Um, I do think that generally speaking, works of mercy and necessity are pretty important to consider, but certainly our position holds that there's something special and sacred about the

01:29:03

Lord's day. And for the most part, it should be a safeguarded as a day of worship and rest. So as for me personally,

01:29:10

I do not cut my grass on, on the Lord's day. There's a number of things that I could do.

01:29:17

And sometimes I'm tempted strongly to do because of the crush of my schedule. And because of the responsibilities of family and church,

01:29:25

I've made all kinds of excuses in my mind of why I should do certain things on the Lord's day. But the, the spirit tends to convict me to try as much as I possibly can by his help to set apart the day for worship and rest.

01:29:38

And again, those three prongs of gathered worship, family devotion, and then personal devotion are what

01:29:44

I strive to. Do I carry that across? Perfectly? Absolutely not. And if, uh, my presbytery was able to pick on my exceptions of my lifestyle versus my convictions,

01:29:56

I'm sure that they could, they could convict me because of course I've made many mistakes as all people have in relation to the

01:30:02

Lord's day. But my conviction is that we should not do work on the Lord's day. That's helpful.

01:30:09

I think, uh, one thing that I've struggled with, as I've come to, uh, the Westminsterian position myself,

01:30:16

I have noticed, and you, you've made this criticism before Pastor Keith, and you did it in your debate as well, which

01:30:23

I think is fair, uh, that there, the lack of consensus around the actual practices that, that becomes, that's definitely a difficulty because whenever I ask other people who have come to the same

01:30:36

Westminsterian convictions, there, there doesn't seem to be a strong consensus that says, and I don't know that that is the case historically, but I know it is the case now.

01:30:47

And so maybe, maybe one of you guys, or perhaps Matt, you could speak to that, um, kind of around some of the practices.

01:30:54

So one guy says, I don't mow my lawn because it's the Lord's day. Another man says,

01:30:59

I'm also a Westminsterian Sabbatarian, but I enjoy mowing the lawn and it's how

01:31:04

I rest. You know, I've heard, some people say, uh, you know, if you work with your mind, rest with your hands, if you work with your hands, rest with your mind.

01:31:12

Uh, and I thought that was kind of a cheeky way to put it, but I thought, you know, that is kind of helpful because me, if I'm a, you know, at my computer desk all day and, and reading and studying and prepping for things, uh, getting in the yard actually kind of is therapeutic for me in some sense.

01:31:27

So there's justifications that we make either way. But, um, what would you say to the lack of, uh, consistency across, uh, those who claim

01:31:36

Sabbatarianism and then, um, kind of relating that back to whether or not churches can actually discipline for that?

01:31:43

Cause I know that we, you've been pressing that a bit, Keith is, well, where, where do you actually discipline?

01:31:49

When can you actually discipline? Could you discipline for the guy who just says, I'm going to keep mowing my grass every

01:31:55

Sunday, even if I think it's work, like can we discipline for that? You know, anyway, so I'll, that's a lot, but I'll pass that over to you,

01:32:01

Matt. If you could just speak to that a little bit and Keith, if you want to speak to that as well, you can too. Yeah. I had, I admit that the particulars are hard to ferret out, but it's not that we don't have anything helpful to guide us.

01:32:11

For instance, the larger catechism has a lot to say about the fourth commandment. And as you were asking the question, I just turned to one 19, which says, what are the sins forbidden in the fourth commandment?

01:32:21

And the answer is given the sins forbidden in the fourth commandment are, and then it lists a list here, all omissions of the duties required, all careless, negligent, and unprofitable performing of them, being weary of them, all profaning the day by idleness and doing what that which is in itself sinful and by all needless works, words and thoughts about our worldly employments and recreations.

01:32:48

So there's the guidance that the catechism gives to us. And it would be up to our church elders then to, to get even more particular.

01:32:57

If there was a person that, that let's say was a habitual Sabbath or Lord's day violator.

01:33:03

And that's why I think churches have elders, because there are so many what if situations that we could possibly conceive in so many different scenarios that we could create.

01:33:13

We have that system of presbyterial government by which our own church elders are responsible for shepherding our souls to make sure that we're, we're not strained too far from, from the commandment.

01:33:26

And also then to chastise us if, if we are. So yes, there's there's an objective nature to this commandment.

01:33:35

There's a subjective nature in which we could ask all these scenarios, but then ultimately that's why we have church elders to guide, to lead, to love and to shepherd us if, if we go astray.

01:33:45

So I think that's a good thing. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I think that is a, that is one comfort that I have, even in, like you mentioned the, the way that our churches, our ecclesiology is structured that elders, that's their job is to, is to hold us as, as parishioners, hold us accountable to the word of God.

01:34:03

And to really examine our hearts in light of it, you know, because there's a lot of times where sin you know, it's, it's not sin in the

01:34:13

Bible. There's not an exact sin that you can point to that says that you're, you have violated this sin whenever you've done this, this or that behavior, but the heart is in sin.

01:34:21

The heart, you know, you can violate your own conscience and that there's a sin that's not in the Bible, but you actually did sin because you violated your own conscience according to scripture.

01:34:29

So anyway, all that to say, that's a, that's a great point with the elders. And so Keith, if you want to speak to that at all, pass it over to you.

01:34:37

This might be the thing that most keeps me from being a Sabbatarian. And I certainly appreciate

01:34:43

Matthew's point that the elders have a, as a very sublime duty in, in, in shepherding the souls of people.

01:34:51

And I, and I share that duty and I understand the weight that comes with it. We will give an account for how we shepherd people's souls.

01:34:59

But with the other commands of the Decalogue there, we don't have this conversation.

01:35:04

We don't have conversations about how many times does a person have to murder before we call them a murderer, right? We don't have the conversations about how somebody, how often somebody has to steal before we say this person is a thief and they need to repent.

01:35:16

But we do with the Sabbath. And I think this again leads to a complication and how we see it as moral, right?

01:35:23

A moral infraction. And this is where I think really the issue lies for me.

01:35:29

Years ago, my kids were playing with another man and I love this man. This is a man I respect.

01:35:35

And if he watches this, he knows who he is and I love him. But my, he, we were having our kids play together on a

01:35:41

Sunday and he said, my kids can play, but they can't do any games that require running. No running games.

01:35:49

And I, and that was actually the first time, cause we're talking 15 years ago, probably.

01:35:54

That was the first time I started looking into the subject of Sabbath keeping and what it meant because that man's word, that simple phrase, my kids can play games, but they can't run.

01:36:03

I said, this sounds to me, at least it feels to me like we've, we've dipped our toe in the, in the pool of a

01:36:12

Pharisee ism by saying it's. Yeah. And, and, and, and again, I'm, I love this man. And if he watches this, you know who you are, brother,

01:36:18

I have no, nothing but respect your great father and a great husband and all those things. But that was, that actually made me have to investigate what it, why is it that this is the one command where we, where we don't really have.

01:36:32

Well, Keith, can I, can I give you some friendly pushback on that? Because I don't think that that's true. I don't think that this is the one command in which there is gray area because while murder is a pretty clear example, yes, or adultery, definitely we're going to initiate church disciplinary procedures for either of those.

01:36:51

But what about coveting? Is that not also possible to, to be a sin in which it starts very small and innocuous and perhaps can be combated through prayer and through the victory of devotion and, and in sanctification, but it could also become something that could be disciplinable at the end, at the end of a long run.

01:37:13

Or what about a ninth commandment violations in relation to gossip? All of us probably are guilty of gossip to some lesser degree.

01:37:22

And if we were going to discipline every evidence of gossip, you know, we could take up probably the whole youth group and bring them for chastisement before the bar.

01:37:30

But at some points you do have to step in as the elders. When gossip gets to a certain place where it's actually divisive or causing disunity in the church, the elders would be negligent to not step in and say something about it.

01:37:43

So I disagreed that this commandment is unique in that it has a lot of gray area and it has a lot of gradation in terms of severity.

01:37:51

I think several of the commandments could also qualify in that. But I take your example of murder and adultery as those are kind of like the moment you see the dead body on the ground and draw that chalk line around it, probably somebody needs to be disciplined.

01:38:05

Yes. But others of the commandments are not so clear. And that's why I think the elders are absolutely essential and indispensable to trying to work through these very practical things of the daily

01:38:17

Christian life. And I think that's very fair. Good point. Good. That's great. Keith, in your view, are we required to rest one day in six?

01:38:28

As Matthew pointed out, he argued for that being a creation ordinance.

01:38:34

And you both seem to agree that that is the general way that God made the world.

01:38:40

But would you say, Keith, that it is in fact sin to work all seven days all the time?

01:38:46

I'm trying to get ahead, man. I can go to church, but I'm still going to get my work and I'm going to make sure that I can make that money.

01:38:53

You know what I mean? Yeah. This again is where we would differ. I would not say that it's sinful.

01:38:59

I would say it's unwise. I would say there's some wisdom in holding a day of rest. But I don't think that I could,

01:39:06

I don't think I would be able to discipline someone in regard to that as a church. So that's, this is where, again, this is where the issue rises because I do see it somewhat differently.

01:39:17

Yeah. Matt, do you, I'm guessing you would just go the opposite way with that. Yeah, probably.

01:39:25

You know, I'm trying to be as charitable as we possibly can. And at the same time maintain that there is still moral ground here to be covered.

01:39:34

And I think it would be hard, practically speaking, to work a seven day work week and not destroy a whole lot of other areas of your life.

01:39:42

For instance, let's say there's a man in our church who works seven days a week. He's a doctor, he's a lawyer, he's a business owner.

01:39:48

He cannot slow down and he cannot stop. Well, this is also a man who's probably wrecking his marriage.

01:39:54

And if he's not aware of it yet, he's certainly going to be pretty soon. And if he's not wrecking his marriage, he's probably not the father that the

01:40:02

Lord would have him to be because he's clearly neglecting the responsibilities that he has for his children.

01:40:09

And if he's not doing that, then he's certainly not serving in a lot of other areas in the church. And so, again, it's not like we're looking for,

01:40:17

I think we have to remove this topic from the concept of church discipline a little bit here. It's not that every sin relates to church discipline immediately, but it's definitely unwise and certainly destructive.

01:40:29

And as a pastor, if I see people with unwise and destructive life patterns, it becomes me and my pastoral responsibility to say something about it.

01:40:38

Again, it doesn't have to be church discipline, but I do think it's, it's, it's, um, it's negative.

01:40:44

It's diminishing. It's not healthy. It's, it's ultimately destructive for a person to live into that pattern because we just can't keep up that pace and be fully formed human beings that are striving after the image of sanctification in Christ.

01:41:00

That's great. And this is where I may now ask another question because, okay, let's say that a man is choosing to take a

01:41:08

Friday off, but work on Sunday afternoon. He's still not missing the Lord's day worship, but if we are holding that Sunday is the

01:41:15

Christian Sabbath, is he still violating the Sabbath if he's still taking one day and seven and resting?

01:41:23

I'm curious about that as well. Yeah. I mean, I guess if you've got you, but that came to my mind.

01:41:29

Cause I was like, you know, there, there are times where I, I, I would agree with you that a man who works seven days a week, never stops would be neglecting his family.

01:41:38

Wouldn't it be? So, so I don't want anyone to think I'm not saying that. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah. I mean,

01:41:44

I don't want to dodge the question, but again, it's like, well, what's the real scenario here? Why is, why is he available to have

01:41:50

Friday off? But he couldn't possibly have Sunday off. Is it the job that's imposing that requirement of upon him?

01:41:57

Is that a preference of his? Is there, is there not some kind of remedial steps that he could do to correct that and to adjust so that he can get on the, the, the same pattern as the rest of the, of the worshiping church and the rest of church history and the apostolic pattern.

01:42:12

I'm not sure why that would be the case. I grant that that could conceivably be the case and it's a, it's a moral difficulty.

01:42:18

But again, I would insist that all things being properly ordered, it would be best to worship with the body on the

01:42:26

Lord's day. That's great. I've got, I've got one that I know that Michael St. Joseph on here is, is desperate for.

01:42:33

And this one, I think it would be for, yeah, this one would be for you, Matthew. Basically. I'm getting all the questions cause

01:42:40

I'm the stricter Sabbatarian position. Yeah. You're having great followups to it. So that's, that's fine.

01:42:45

Um, but Matthew, uh, kids sports. What, after, after Lord's day worship, can, can the, can, you know, can the boy go play soccer and can the family come and watch?

01:42:57

What do you think? I mean, I, it's for me, it's a no. I know that there are a lot of people who do, and I know that sports is one of those things that's just at all.

01:43:08

There are those, those who do you're saying. Um, in my church right now, um,

01:43:15

I, I just had a young man the other day. He might even be watching who came to me because his conscience was burdened by this.

01:43:22

He's in a, he's in a sports league in which, um, Sunday afternoon games are part and parcel of the league itself.

01:43:30

And there's no way around it. He's a starting player on the team and he's an important figure in the, in the, in the club.

01:43:37

And we just had to talk about that. And I told him, I'm like, honestly, I don't think this is good. I think this is something to be avoided.

01:43:43

I understand that your parents are committed to this. They've already paid the money for the league. And to that extent, you know, you owe duty and obedience to your parents, but all things considered,

01:43:51

I don't think it's right to be playing sports and leagues on the Lord's day because this is just another area in which we have this kind of secular creep into our lives.

01:44:02

And the day, actually the Westminster is pretty clear that it's the day that belongs to the Lord, not, not just a portion thereof.

01:44:09

So if I check in for worship real quick and then dodge out and then, um, you know, we got, we got three soccer games this afternoon.

01:44:16

I don't think that's a real honoring of the Lord's day, at least as the Westminster confession of faith defines it.

01:44:22

So my advice would be to get out of the kinds of sports leagues that are all consuming because it's just this creeping influence in which slowly, but surely we're, we're worn away.

01:44:34

You know, we're, we're worn away by the battering waves of secular influence. And, uh, the pillars of the bridge get eroded that way.

01:44:42

I think it's not good. This next one is for both of you. I do have to, I have to mention,

01:44:47

I've got a pretty hard, I gotta bring it to a close pretty, pretty soon. Cause I've got, uh, uh, counseling coming up.

01:44:54

I have to prepare for it. Would you say you got a five minute warning? That's perfect.

01:44:59

If that, if that's okay with Matthew, uh, yeah, let's do this. Last, last question then. Okay. Oh yeah.

01:45:07

Okay. Yeah. It's you. It's all me. That's all me. Uh, do you think it's a positive good, and this is for both of you, for society to have

01:45:18

Sabbath laws? We used to have blue laws on the books. So we'll start with Keith. Do you think it's a positive good for society to have

01:45:25

Sabbath laws? I want to say that I think it, there, there is value in recognizing the

01:45:35

Lord's day on a national level. Um, but,

01:45:41

I would have to give more thought to what that should look like for me to give a firm answer.

01:45:48

But I remember growing up, uh, in a, in a time where you really didn't do a whole lot on Sunday.

01:45:54

You didn't go out to eat and things like that because businesses were closed. And I've seen the benefit of companies like Chick -fil -A and Hobby Lobby who have instead have, have, have institutionalized a day of rest where they don't have to wonder who's working on Sunday.

01:46:06

Cause nobody's working on Sunday. Right. Um, I do see value in that. Um, but I, I think that, um, where it becomes the issue would be enforcement and, uh, things like that.

01:46:20

So, um, I, I think I could see value in it, but I, I, it would be something

01:46:28

I'd really have to think about more before I gave a solid answer. it sounds like it also depends on the nature of the Sabbath laws because there's a whole slew of different laws that could, that some could be positive.

01:46:37

Some could be negative. Um, yeah. And Matthew, what about you? Yeah, I would be in favor of that for the most part, because I think the laws of man are best and rightly discerned from the law of God.

01:46:49

And so I, since I think that the Sabbath is part of the moral law of God, then therefore, uh, in best case scenario, the laws of man should reflect that.

01:46:58

Now I too would have a hard time thinking about exactly how I would impose penal, um, penal code punishment on Sabbath breakers.

01:47:05

But I think in general it would be good. Now, again, my same, my same categories of mercy and necessity click into gear here.

01:47:13

Hospitals should be open. Uh, paramedics should be available. Police should be working.

01:47:19

Um, electrical wire line men should be available in the case of storms because all of those things are for safety and for the good of society.

01:47:27

So there'd be a lot of exceptions, but in general, I would think, yes, Sabbatarian laws would better reflect, uh, the law of God and therefore be a net good positive for, for, uh, for mankind.

01:47:40

Yes. Okay. Well, we'll wrap it up there. Do you guys have any closing thoughts, closing statements before we pray?

01:47:47

Just how much Keith is a stud and I like your tie, Keith, and it's been a wonderful time to discuss this matter with you.

01:47:53

You did a great job and thank you so much for having us on your channel. I really appreciate that. And it's been great to hang out with you guys.

01:48:01

As always, I'm very blessed to, uh, to hang out with Matthew and I thank you, Josh, for having us on your program. This has been a blessing and thank you for hosting it for us.

01:48:10

It was a, it was a wonderful time. Yeah, we'll do it again. I was telling you at the Fight Life Feast Conference, Keith, that, uh, my plan is to be hosting weekly live discussions and debates like this moving forward.

01:48:25

And so both of you guys have a perpetual invite. If you have a topic that you want to come on and do,

01:48:31

I'm going to be scheduling these things out. And so I greatly appreciate both of your work and I want to go ahead and plug your book again,

01:48:39

Pastor Matt, Worshiptainment, right? Yes, sir. Yes. I haven't read it.

01:48:46

It's out, right? It's out. It's out in paperback, Kindle, and audible. So if you want to just listen to it, go get it on audible.

01:48:52

And it has a wonderful endorsement from a very well -known humorous pastor. That's right. Great. Now, I, that, just the name alone tells me that you are directly over the target.

01:49:04

One of the greatest, most desperate areas of needed reformation within the church is our worship.

01:49:10

I fully believe that. So you guys go pick that up. I'm personally going to pick that up and then we'll have Pastor Matt back on the podcast to talk about some of that stuff.

01:49:19

And so with that, I'm going to ask Pastor Matt, if you wouldn't mind closing us out in a word of prayer and we will wrap it up.

01:49:26

Yes. Thank you. Dear heavenly father. Thank you so much for all of your mercies in Christ Jesus. We love you.

01:49:31

Heavenly father. We thank you for your law. Please help us to understand and to obey Lord. Give us more of your spirit that we would be inclined to follow you no matter what comes heavenly father.

01:49:41

We do pray that you'd strengthen all three of our churches in various places and God strengthen all those who have tuned in today.

01:49:47

Lord, we love you and we know that you love your church. So be with us. Even this Lord's day, we pray in Jesus name.

01:49:53

Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. Thank you guys so much for coming on the program. And with that, my hope and prayer for all of you guys out there is that this conversation, this just heated debate would be a resource for you guys, that you would be better equipped to build, defend, and expand the kingdom of our