“Guard” the Sabbath – The Fourth Commandment

“Guard” the Sabbath

The Fourth Commandment

Guard your Lord’s Day.

Deuteronomy 5:12-15

“‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.’”

Isaiah 56:1-8; Isaiah 58:13, 14

In this second giving of the fourth commandment, both the commanding verb and the motive change. These do not replace the first giving, but augment it.

Here we are to “observe” (literally, “guard”) the Sabbath. There is much in our lives and culture which seeks to deprive us of the rest God intends for us on the Lord’s Day. Indeed, with but a few exceptions and modifications, the world goes about its business as though the Lord’s Day were a kind of “free” day to do with as people choose.

Believers are not immune from these distractions and the temptations they bring to divert our attention from the business of “remembering” the Sabbath. We must therefore “guard” the Lord’s Day, putting a hedge around it in order to keep the temptations of the world from robbing us of the peculiar rest we need—rest in the Lord and in His works of creation, providence, and redemption.

Take precautions against the world—with the collusion of your undisciplined soul—spoiling the day God intends for you to rest.

The motive for Sabbath-keeping, as it is declared here, reflects on the redemptive work of God. The Lord’s Day is a time to remember God’s work of creation and providence, by which we are so abundantly blessed each day. But we must also remember—“actively attend to”—His work of redemption.

We were slaves to sin, lost and without hope in the world, when the Lord came to us in the Egypt of our sin and brought us out by a powerful redemption through our Lord Jesus Christ. We can never plumb the depths of the richness of Christ’s saving work. The Lord’s Day offers us a weekly opportunity to reflect on all facets of His saving grace, and to look forward—through worship, meditation, prayer, and singing—to the final great work of redemption that is yet to be.

Thus, once a week, the Lord invites us to become immersed anew in His saving mercy and grace. We look back to what Jesus has done, forward to what remains, and around at how we must live out our redemption in the week to come.

Guard your Lord’s Day against anything robbing you of this great privilege and essential delight.

Sign up to receive Crosfigell, our thrice-weekly email devotional, featuring T. M. Moore’s insights to Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition.

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.