Work Diligently to Rest – The Fourth Commandment

Work Diligently to Rest

The Fourth Commandment

We must give all diligence in keeping the Lord’s Day.

Exodus 31:12-17

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 for 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. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’”

As God is working to sanctify us, His people (Phil. 2:13), so we must work to sanctify the Lord’s Day. It is a holy day for us, just as we are a holy people for the Lord. The Lord sets us aside unto Himself in Jesus Christ; then, for the rest of our lives, He works within us to make us willing and able to do His pleasure. He works to sanctify us.

Similarly, we must, in our minds and plans, set the Lord’s Day aside as holy. Then we must work diligently to remember and guard the Lord’s Day, and to fill it with sanctifying works of worship, meditation, and prayer. As we do we are reminded of how the Lord, in the rest we have in Jesus, is working to sanctify us day by day. It’s good to be reminded of this, and the Lord’s Day can “sign” this great work to us, reminding us of it and preparing us for it, week after week.

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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.