This above All – The Kingdom Curriculum VIII (1)

This above All

“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…’” Exodus 31:12, 13

So much depends on it.

In the two different declarations of the Ten Commandments we find a nuance of difference when it comes to our responsibility for keeping the fourth commandment. In Exodus, God commands us to “remember” the Sabbath–now, the Lord’s Day, as the New Testament indicates. This idea of “remembering” carries the implication of continually attending to it for the sake of realizing its full potential. As God “remembered” His people when they were in captivity in Egypt (Ex. 2:24), actively attending to their needs and readying them for the next stage of His redemption, so we must give careful attention to all that is required of us in observing the Day of the Lord.

The Deuteronomy account moves from “remembering” the Sabbath to “guarding” it–the literal meaning of the word, “observe.” As Adam was charged with guarding the Garden, so that it could flourish free of ungodly influence or interruption (Gen. 2:15, cf. Gen. 3:24), so we must give all vigilance in guarding the Lord’s Day. The Lord’s Day is under continual assault from spiritual and secular powers, which want nothing so much as to steer us away from the Lord’s purposes for this day so that we might indulge and submit to their own.

Remembering and observing the Lord’s Day thus requires diligence in preparation, conduct, and protection against those distractions and diversions which would dislodge our hearts and minds from meditation on the Lord as our Creator and Redeemer, and from being renewed as His people together in Him. The fourth commandment is the only commandment to which the phrase “above all” is attached. In remembering and guarding the Sabbath we refocus our souls and lives on God as our only true God and Savior, and we renew ourselves as those who bear His Name, so that, thus fortified and refocused, we may go into the week ahead to love God and our neighbor according to His good purposes.

If we fail in guarding the Sabbath–as Adam failed in guarding the Garden–we shall surely inhibit our ability to know the fullness of joy, peace, and righteousness that is ours in Christ, and we shall put unnecessary hindrances in our service and witness to our neighbors. “Above all” requires that we give more earnest attention to remembering the Lord’s Day and guarding the proper observation of it jealously.

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.