DAY OF REST: Because We want To!

"God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it …"

Genesis 2:3 [see also Exodus 31:12-13]

"on the first day of the week …"

Acts 20:7

"let no one act as your judge in regard to … a Sabbath Day"

Colossians 2:16-17

A museum gardener wants to rest on the seventh day – whether the museum is busy or not.

Muriel Taten, 70, of Old Westbury, NY, has sued Nassau County over a requirement that she work Sundays at a colonial museum, which is busiest on the weekends. She believes she should be in church.

Mrs. Taten’s work schedule of 21 years at the Old Bethpage Village Restoration was changed in June. She said she used vacation days to get Sundays off. And when they ran out, she filed a … lawsuit.

Many, who claim Christ, faithfully observe two key Christian events each year: Christmas and Easter. Yet there are 50 other days each year which they quite easily profane. It seems contemporary believers have become insensitive to the real meaning of the Lord’s Day!

Then again, we must be careful, for our obedience is voluntary. We keep the Lord’s Day as a memorial of the gift of Grace provided by the Father through the Son. To keep it “because God said to” is like being faithful to your wife, “because God said to.” We are faithful to our spouses because we want to, not because we have to!

Recently a church made an agreement with a market to use its parking lot each Sunday. The market had only one condition: park there 51 Sundays per year but set aside one Sunday as a “NO PARKING DAY” in order to remind members who owned the lot.

So too ought we to set aside one day out of seven to remember who gave us the other six.

[“Hey, God did it,” San Gabriel Valley Daily Bulletin, November 2, 1997, A19]

Christianity, Illustrations, Religion

Relativism

Six of One - Half-dozen of Another [Isaiah 55:6]

A giant sea turtle, which is on the international endangered species list, has been rescued from a floating Taoist temple in Hong Kong harbor. A local magistrate said the temple violated animal protection laws by keeping the turtle.

The giant sea turtle was being kept on the floating temple because the Taoists believed it had special powers for predicting typhoons. The temple master said the turtle was calm until the weather turned bad.

What troubles me most about this story is that the animal rights activists are no better or worse than the Taoists; both are creature worshipers; one actually, the other virtually.

Storm or calm, man is to turn to His Creator; and the only right worth defending is every man’s right to know His Creator. But how will they know, if no one goes to tell them; how will they go if no one is sent. [Romans 10:14,15]