Tepid Faith – The Kingdom Curriculum VIII (6)

Tepid Faith

“Remember and observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Exodus 20:8; Deuteronomy 5:12

And the LORD said to Moses, “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, “Above all you shall keep My Sabbaths, for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.” Exodus 31:12-14

Feeling a little distant from the Lord?

In ancient Israel Sabbath-breakers were put to death. That seems extreme to us today; however, God considered it was necessary in order to preserve the sanctity of His Day as a sign between Him and His people. If people were free just to disregard that sign and do as they pleased, soon enough people would just begin disregarding the Lord Himself, disobeying all His commandments, straying from His sanctification, and going off to do whatever the pagans thought was neat and fun.

Which, of course, is precisely what happened to Israel. And which, it could be argued, is happening to a good many Christians in our day. Of course, we don’t chuck stones against those who break the Lord’s Day today. There are good reasons for this. But violators of the Lord’s Day end up cut off from God anyway, which, as the end of v. 14 shows, is the ultimate effect of disregarding His sign. And churches full of Sabbath-breakers cannot expect the fullness of God’s blessing or to know the power of His sanctifying grace.

Why are there so many shallow Christians populating our churches? Why are our churches so lacking in power, so incapable of effecting moral and spiritual renewal in our secular age? One reason is that there are so few serious Lord’s Day keepers sitting in our pews! They who come under the discipline of the Lord because of their refusal to honor His Day will not experience the power or joy of their salvation in those transforming ways that allow the glory of God to fill and engage them in loving service in His Name. They become indifferent to His Truth, neglectful of prayer, reluctant to bear witness, and lacking in prophetic zeal to resist the temper of the times and the spirit of the age. A church full of such people is not going to be the salt of the earth or the light of the world. It will only be, at best, a haven of spiritual delusion and tepid faith, lacking the presence, power, and glory of the Lord.

Are we content for this to be our experience of the faith? For our churches to continue like this? Do you want to feel “closer to the Lord” and like your relationship with Him is really real? Start with the Lord’s Day–“above all”!

Get your copy of The Law of God today, and begin making meditation in God’s Law part of your daily discipline. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.