The Cultural Revolution / The Age of Aquarius

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

The Sabbath as a Gift Versus Legalism and License

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. The Sabbath, instead of being seen as a gift from God, instead it was starting to be seen more as a burden.

Instead of a joyful time, people were worried about, okay, I'm not allowed to do this, I'm not allowed to do that, can't do this, can't do that. And, you know, if you're hungry, you can't take an apple off a tree.

If you're hungry, you can't cook because that's work. And I guess you're going to have to go hungry, and then the Sabbath just turned into this burdensome thing. That is not the way God intended it. So, the scribes and the Pharisees, the Jews, what they were doing, the word, is they were being legalistic, right?

Adding all these rules, and it was kind of choking out the joy. Now, on the other side, in fairness, why do you think the rabbis were adding these rules? Because the people weren't keeping the day holy.

So, this is the problem. There's always somebody on this side and somebody on that side, and you're trying to correct and overcorrect. So, you can look at it this way. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. These are the errors to watch out for on either side. There's a ditch on both sides of the road. Either people drift too far in one direction and rebel against God and don't take His commandment seriously, or in trying to correct that, they go into the other side of the road, into the other ditch, and they start adding rules and start being legalistic about it, and it chokes out the joy, and you miss the whole point of the thing.

So, these are the two errors, legalism and license. So, where are we at? Where do you think we're at this morning? Are we in the legalism ditch, or are we in the license ditch? Does anyone want to take a guess?

Yeah, we're in the license ditch. Back 50 years ago, 100 years ago, churches might have been in the legalism ditch, but hey, they're both a ditch. They're both wrong. They're both bad. So, I talked about this a little bit last week.

In times past, starting in the 1950s, 60s, into the 70s, legalism was more of the problem. But then it shifted to where now today, license is more of the problem. And the Jews, they struggled with these things just like we do today.

The Sabbath and the New Testament Church

So, now that we know what the Sabbath is, we've read from Exodus 20, we've talked about it a little bit. Now we want to know what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach the church. All these things are written for us, for our admonition.

So, what is God expecting from us as New Testament believers? Let me ask you this way, is there still a Sabbath today? Is there still a Sabbath for Christians today? I think a lot of people would say no.

Well, the scripture says otherwise. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 9, you know what it says? There remains, therefore, a rest for the people of God. And the word rest is the word for Sabbath. Here is a Holy Spirit inspired scripture that says there remains a Sabbath for the people of God.

Hebrews was written in about 68 A .D. Let's turn to the book of Hebrews, if you would. Hebrews chapter 4, we'll get into that in a moment. Hebrews was written about 68 A .D. So, this is pretty well into the New Testament era.

But the author of Hebrews, probably Paul, he says there remains a Sabbath for the people of God. Now, some would say, well, he's writing to the Hebrews. Yes, but they were Jewish believers in Christ. So, they were Christians.

Obviously, they would have had some concern about the Sabbath day and what that meant now. Typically, in the 21st century, for the past few generations, generally we don't use the term Sabbath.

Right?

That's not something you hear in New Testament churches. We are more inclined to talk about. What?

The Lord's Day.

Right?

You would hear that more often. More on that in a moment. But the Lord's Day, Sabbath, whatever it is, there is a day that Christians will refer to. So, we're going to address that in Hebrews chapter 4.

But before we do, I want to acknowledge this difference among believers. Because there's good Christians on both sides of the issue. About 50 years ago, I remember I was going through the file cabinet out back.

And there are documents from 50, 75, 100 years ago. You can tell how old they are sometimes just by the handwriting. Like nobody writes like this anymore. But this church once believed in and preached the Christian Sabbath.

That's the term the church leadership used a while back. The Christian Sabbath. Today, because that's more in the reformed Protestant tradition, the Christian Sabbath. I prefer, I admit, I prefer the term the Lord's Day.

But whatever term you use, somewhere in the 1900s, things change. I'm identifying the period of the 1960s, 1970s, into the 1980s. Here's the thing. And I don't think most Christians know this. I honestly believe the average Christian is unaware of this.

But for 1900 years, it was universally recognized that Sunday, the first day of the week, the Lord's Day or the Christian Sabbath, whatever you call it, was a day set apart unto God. For 1900, you know, Christians disagree on a lot of things, don't they?

For 1900 years, Christians did not disagree on that at all. Acts chapter 20, verse 7, says that the early Christians met on the first day of the week, Sunday. 1 Corinthians 16, verse 2, says the same thing.

They got together on the first day of the week. In Acts chapter 2, verse 42, it tells us what the Christians did on the first day of the week. They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. So there was preaching and teaching.

It says that they had fellowship. There was prayer and the breaking of bread, which is likely a reference to the Lord's Supper. So that's what a church service was for 1900 years. Preaching and teaching.

There was fellowship. Lord's Supper.

Prayer.

I notice there's one thing that's missing. What is that? Music. And I love music. And I think we want music and we are going to keep music. But that wasn't actually part of it. And I only say that because some churches these days, the music is the main event.

Well, just pointing out that that is the one thing not mentioned. But anyways. So the church assembly on Sunday, it was the first day of the week. Now why did Christians worship on the first day of the week and not the seventh day like the Jews did?

Well, it was a new covenant. So things had changed. Here's the main reason. Christians assembled on the first day of the week because that is the day that Jesus rose from the dead. That's why the Christians from the earliest days met on Sunday.

And then it just stuck. So in the church, this is the way it was from the start. John chapter 20, verse 19. The very day Jesus rose from the grave, the Bible tells us that was on what? It was on the first day of the week.

The disciples, it says, were assembled together. Who wrote that detail down? It's the book of John. So John is the one writing it down. Some 50 plus years later in the book of Revelation, Revelation 1, verse 10.

What does John say? He says, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day. And then again, for the next 1900 years of church history, Sunday was seen as set apart unto God as either the Christian Sabbath or the Lord's day.

So I think you get the point. I don't think this will come as a surprise to most people. But yeah, it was only recently in our lifetimes, most of our lifetimes. That's when this nation completely changed.

And it's like a snowball rolling down a hill. You know, it starts out small. It's rolling and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and catches more speed. That's kind of where we're at. Starting in the 1960s during a period known as the cultural revolution.

Some of you who are alive back then, you remember some people called it the age of Aquarius, right? There are some of these terms going around like this is a new day. It's a new time. And it's true that things started to change and it happened very quick.

This is mainly, I think, because number one of a rejection towards God. But part of that was that's when the ideology of Marxism started to take root here in the West. So it was around this time in the 1960s, 1970s.

That's when people's view towards the things of God started to change. That's when people's attitude about the Lord's day started to change. Now some of you might say, well, I don't know that I see the connection between the Lord's day and the cultural revolution.

I think it's emblematic at the very least. When you start viewing things differently and your whole worldview changes, everything is changing. So there may not be a direct connection, but I think it's there.

I told you the story of the pastor last week who in the 1970s, he saw this very thing. He saw this very thing in this church, actually. How Christians were starting to view the Lord's day as any other day.

Now in fairness, to give the other side, there were some people who took the Lord's day and all of the rules. They probably took them a little too far, didn't they? Some of the things that kids couldn't do on Sunday were probably unreasonable.

It didn't have much to do with the Bible. But the people who made those rules, I think they were well-intentioned. Why did they do it? Because they recognized that the Lord's day was set apart. So some people took it too far, added all these rules that aren't really in the Bible, maybe went too far.

But then the other side is, hey, it's Sunday, Tuesday, I can worship God, whatever. It doesn't really matter. So legalism and license. These are the two problems. And if somebody's saying, well, pastor, are you really saying that this, the Lord's day, is this really the issue?

Is this really the thing to make an issue about?

Yes.

Yes, it is. Because this is why Israel was taken away into Babylon, into captivity for how many years? 70 years. You think that was just a coincidence, the number 70? Why was it 70 years? Because for 70 years, God's people did not observe the Sabbath.

It was not only the Sabbath day, it was the Sabbath year. 2 Chronicles 36 verse 21 says, To fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths, as long as she lay desolate, she kept the Sabbath to fulfill 70 years.

In other words, the Lord allowed Israel to be taken captive into Babylon for 70 years because they, for 70 years, ignored the Sabbath day.

The Sabbath as a Gift from a Good Father

Okay.

So you see how serious this is of an issue for God. And their blessing in the land was dependent, to a large degree, on how they viewed the Sabbath. Now, you're in Hebrews chapter 4, right? Again, I would say the Apostle Paul, I believe the Apostle Paul wrote the book of Hebrews.

And if that's true, Paul says to the New Testament Christians, who were Jewish, but he's saying this to New Testament Christians. He says, there remains a Sabbath for the people of God. So we want to know then, what is he talking about?

What is this Sabbath? I said at the beginning, God is a good God. He's a good father. Good fathers give good gifts to their children. Sometimes children don't always appreciate the gifts, do they? You know, for Christmas, you know, there's, you can all relate to this.

There's that one thing that you are asking for. And one thing that you were, had your heart set on. And usually, you would probably get it. But sometimes your parents would give you other gifts. And you didn't appreciate those gifts as much as the one that you wanted.

But as they say, father knows best. And that might not always be true, humanly speaking. But that father knows best. So this is a gift that God has given to his children. Whether we fully recognize it or not.

Thanks for listening.

I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message, or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, MorrisCornickChurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.