Your Lord's Day Sabbath

Driving home: And Owen perceptively states that when that hedge is either uprooted, cut down, discarded, neglected, it is only a matter of time when the ordinances instituted by God for the benefit of the church and the good of mankin…

Martin quotes John Owen, who perceptively states that the Sabbath is 'God's hedge around all of His other ordinances,' and its neglect leads to the decay of other instituted practices. This illustrates the crucial importance of Sabbath observance for the health of the church.

Now in urging you to hold fast to your convictions and your practice relative to the Lord's Day Sabbath, I want to give some practical counsel on the issue of the Lord's Day Sabbath. God's hedge around all of His other ordinances. And Owen perceptively states that when that hedge is either uprooted, cut down, discarded, neglected, it is only a matter of time when the ordinances instituted by God for the benefit of the church and the good of mankind will be fulfilled.

10:41 - 11:42 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Had we no Sabbath, we should soon have no religion.

Martin quotes a statement, 'Had we no Sabbath, we should soon have no religion,' which he then illustrates with observations of people engaged in sports and entertainment on Sunday, demonstrating their lack of religion due to their lack of Sabbath observance.

Mark 2, 27, where Christ says the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, not Lord to abolish it, but Lord to strip away from it all of the encumbrances of Pharisaic legalism, to take away from it all that was distinctly Jewish in the Mosaic economy, Lord of the Sabbath, to merge it into the glory of the first day of the week, Lord's day Sabbath. He then went on to say, Had we no Sabbath, we should soon have no religion.

14:45 - 15:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Had we no Sabbath, we should soon have no religion.

Martin describes people on the Lord's Day engaged in biking, playing sports, or watching professional sports and movies, illustrating how the absence of Sabbath observance correlates with a lack of religion.

Had we no Sabbath, we should soon have no religion. Driving to church Sunday by Sunday, Lord's day by Lord's day, what do I behold? People with no religion.

15:22 - 15:36 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin addresses why the setting apart of the whole day as the Lord's Day Sabbath is so vigorously opposed. He attributes this opposition to the concreteness of the fourth…

Martin contrasts the hidden nature of sins like idolatry (having 'a hundred idols' in one's heart) or lust (fantasizing about women) with the concrete, observable nature of Sabbath breaking, which involves specific units of time. This illustrates why the fourth commandment is so difficult to rationalize or evade.

Think with me for a minute. But in their hearts, they can have an idol shelf full of a hundred idols, and you and I would never know it.

19:17 - 19:24 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And it is because the native disposition of the human heart is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God. Where will that show itself most clearly? Where the law of God most clearly impinges upon minutes an…

Martin gives examples of spending Sunday morning fishing or playing sports, highlighting how these activities make it 'very difficult to rationalize' breaking the fourth commandment due to its concrete demands on time.

And when you come to the concreteness of the fact, the fourth commandment, it's very difficult to rationalize when the minutes of the morning are spent getting the fishing gear together,

20:40 - 20:56 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And it is because the native disposition of the human heart is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God. Where will that show itself most clearly? Where the law of God most clearly impinges upon minutes an…

Martin shares a personal anecdote about his struggle with the fourth commandment on a Sunday morning, where his first thought was whether a horse named 'Big Brown' won the Derby, despite having sermon notes nearby. This illustrates the reality of indwelling sin and the concreteness of the Sabbath's demand even for believers.

I get up Sunday morning. How do I regard the day? Is this the day to check and see whether Big Brown won the Derby? I wrestled with that this morning.

26:23 - 26:38 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It was his Sabbath breaking and his cursing that was the two great issues that God used to bring that man to his sense of need of Christ and his salvation.

Martin mentions that John Bunyan's Sabbath breaking and cursing were two great issues God used to bring him to a sense of need for Christ. This illustrates the power of the fourth commandment to convict the unconverted.

That's what has given birth to the Saturday night worship services? Is a capitulation to a society that increasingly, because it has no Sabbath, it has no religion, and worships the God of sports, and self-indulgence. And I know there are good and godly men who are detaching the first day of the week from any relationship to Genesis 3, 1 to 3, Exodus chapter 20, and Deuteronomy chapter 5, and trying to establish the Lord's day with no theological underpinnings with which one can bind the conscience of the unconverted, that he's violating the fourth commandment, the very commandment God used in...

29:21 - 30:40 Read in full sermon

The point: Have the holy guts to set the standards for Saturday evening preparations in your home.

Martin recounts two pastoral instances where 'mature Christians' went to R-rated movies on Saturday night, claiming it was for witnessing. This illustrates how poor Saturday evening preparations hinder a fruitful Lord's Day and the misguided attempts to justify worldly activities.

In the last few months, I've had two instances in pastoral dealings with people where I discovered that, one, the so-called mature Christians went out on a Saturday night to a movie theater, one of them to watch a blood-and-guts, R-rated, horrible collation of brutality,

33:04 - 33:33 Read in full sermon

The point: Passionately and incessantly resist any tendency to an oppressive and barren legalism that would make the day one of oppressive drudgery.

Martin describes a set of 16 Christian classics from the American Tract Society, with an illustration of a family reading together, as an example of how spiritual forefathers used the Lord's Day for family reading. This illustrates a creative and realistic way to plan Lord's Day activities.

Family reading habits. This used to be a Lord's Day Sabbath activity of our spiritual forefathers. I have a set of 16 books. And those books, were Christian classics put together by the American Tract Society, beautifully bound with half leather.

37:12 - 37:30 Read in full sermon

The point: Passionately and incessantly resist any tendency to an oppressive and barren legalism that would make the day one of oppressive drudgery.

Martin shares his family's practice of memorizing hymns during their car ride to church, illustrating a creative way to prepare children's minds for the Lord's Day and buy up the opportunity for spiritual growth.

And they were the family reading materials where on the inside there's a beautiful picture of a family sitting together on a couch and children leaning over the shoulder of dad and mom. And they are reading good, solid Christian classics together as a family. One of the things that we did, as a family, for years, was we memorized hymns on that trip from Cedar Grove to Caldwell and then out to here. And those hymns that we memorized, I can still, for the most part, sing them all, word perfect, all the stanzas.

37:31 - 38:10 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Why? Just to bury the Sabbath? Oh, to bring it out of his tomb as the new covenant Lord's Day Sabbath. Freed not only of Mosaic strength, scriptures, and legislation, but free of all Pharisaic drudgery and oppression.

Martin quotes John Owen's humorous observation about writers who create so many rules for the Lord's Day that one would spend the whole week reading them and have no time to enjoy the day itself. This illustrates the danger of oppressive and barren legalism.

I've seen some parents in their anxiety that we're going to keep the Lord's Day. It was terrible. The things that they did, treated children as though they were not children and tried to overload the day. Rarely in the hundreds of pages, thousands probably by now, of John Owen that I've read, rarely will you find Owen using humor.

38:45 - 39:08 Read in full sermon

The point: Expect and enforce respect for the Lord's Day and its chosen activities from unconverted children.

Martin points out that Jesus spent more time stripping Pharisaic legalism from the fourth commandment than any other, illustrating Christ's intention to free the Sabbath from drudgery, not to abolish it, but to bring it forth as the new covenant Lord's Day Sabbath.

There is no commandment that Jesus spent more time stripping the Pharisaic legalism than the fourth commandment.

39:46 - 39:53 Read in full sermon

Driving home: What are the patterns of the Lord's Day Sabbath observance among the people? Are they beginning to buy into some of the stuff that feeds back from sister churches? After the evening service, Oh, the Lord's Day is over. W…

Martin imagines an elder asking him only two questions about the state of the church. His chosen questions—about the Wednesday night prayer meeting and Lord's Day Sabbath observance—illustrate what he believes are the most telling indices of a church's spiritual health.

Two questions, that's all. When you've asked two, that's it. We're hanging up on you. You know what my two questions would be?

50:11 - 50:18 Read in full sermon