Daily Archives: 2014/04/07

REVISITING THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT

WHY THE SABBATH AND FREEDOM INTERTWINE

In previous postings about the Sabbath Day observance required by the Fourth Commandment I had raised the question of why God would make this a matter of freedom for Israel, and I felt I needed to consider what keeping the sabbath holy might do to make us as individuals and as a nation worthy of that freedom.

As I posted before, there are three things God required of Israel in regards to the sabbath day. They are: (1) To keep the sabbath day holy; (2) for you and your family to do no work, nor are you to require anyone else, including strangers and slaves, or even animals, to do any work on the sabbath day; and (3) to remember that the Israelites had themselves been slaves and that God had made them free.

I did not understand the relationship between the sabbath and freedom, and yet The Lord told Jeremiah that if the Kingdom of Judah would again keep the sabbath holy Jerusalem would remain free and stand forever. Last week I caught a small glimpse of the link between sabbath worship and freedom and why our nation is losing liberty.

When people turn away from God and no longer follow His ways, they lose the knowledge that it is He who made man free: that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Unalienable, or inalienable, means an inherent, or inborn, right which cannot be taken away, nor should it be relinquished by the possessor. If people forget this meaning it becomes easier for unscrupulous men and women to foster the thinking that it is the Government that GRANTS freedom. One way to understand the nature of freedom is to REMEMBER that we have all been in some form of slavery. We have not all been in physical slavery, but we are all slaves to the lies we believe.

Where do we learn the TRUTH that makes us free if we no longer give time to God and His Word? How do we even know what freedom and liberty are if we have no contact with truth? Keeping the sabbath holy was enjoined on the people of the bible to keep them REMEMBERING God by REMEMBERING that only HE can teach us Truth and guarantee freedom.

Learning about the truth of God and the purpose of our lives requires us to consider HIM in all our doings. The sabbath day requirement to REMEMBER WE WERE SLAVES directs us to the ways of The Lord

He does not want slaves, He wants men who freely turn in love to Him, with broken hearts and contrite spirits. When men humble themselves before God and put Him first they become more able to resist relying on the arm of flesh and to begin acting on God’s Commandments which were given to insure freedom and safety for all. That is the only way to have a civilized society and a nation worth saving.

Is sabbath day worship the most important thing we can do for the freedom of the United States of America? How many of us will it take for God to honor our effort? Are YOU willing to follow this commandment?
I, for one, am convinced that this understanding of the nature of freedom and the sabbath is a small but important step in the right direction.