RE>>I have no weakness about you posting on your Sabbath day <<
You must believe that it causes others to work or you would not have mentioned it. I do use power in my home and heat with natural gas. I believe most of that is automated. In any case it is an act of " Necessity "
The Bible teaches that acts of necessity are allowed. The hospitals must have workers every day of the week. These were taught to be acts of mercy. I have not posted nor discussed stocks on the Lord's Day. I did not lie to you when I said I did not believe that posting caused more work because my internet provider is a Christian and no one works there on the Lord's Day. However if his server broke down I could not guarantee they would leave it until monday and so I must agree that using the Internet even though I believe that God wants me to spread what I have learned I do not need to post and take a chance on breaking God's Christian Sabbath.
I believe that the work of "Justification" is finished in Christ for the Elect but I do believe the Lord's Work is never done in Sanctification and deeds of righteousness and mercy. I separate those works completely.
Jesus taught that acts of mercy are not only allowed but encouraged on the Sabbath:
Mark 3:4 And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.
This verse is interesting because it speaks as though there is no middle ground. You are either killing or saving doing good or evil but it is not possible to be doing nothing. Whatsoever you are doing is either to God's glory or not.
Matthew 12:11 And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?
Matthew 12:12 How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.
Necessity is proven by these verses:
Matthew 12:5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?
This teaches that priests and ministers conduct their "work" on the Lord's Day ( sabbath ) and are blameless as that is what the day is for.. worship to God though by it they make their living while the common man must not work and make his living that day.
Matthew 4:7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
Jesus , in spite of the answer He gave his accusers, plainly teaches that they were guiltless - They were not breaking the Sabbath as some men teach!
Jesus fulfilled the law perfectly. Jesus is perfect in Love and Law.
It was not lawful for David to eat the shewbread but because of 'neccessity' it was allowed. How then could the Sabbath condemn acts of necessity in the lives of others? If a child throws up do we not clean it up. Do we not water and feed the animals? Is that farming or merely maintaining.
We know that farming or harvesting is not allowed on the Sabbath:
Exodus 34:21 Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.
ÿ
Having a "crop" you MUST get off on Sunday is a sin of faithlessness toward God and a breach of the Sabbath. Better to let your crop fail than to distrust God's ability to provide to those who are faithful and keep His Sabbath.
Rest does not mean sleep and sloth it means to " cease from " God ceased from creating but God does not slumber nor sleep. We are not to consider the Sabbath a day of being Lazy and lying around or napping. It is a day to 'work' at knowing the Lord. Not slothful in spirit.
ÿ
RE>>Go down to your electric coop, or local dam, of sub-station and see if there are not people there providing a service. <<
You are likely right.. However in a Christian nation I would venture to say that a mere 'crew of maintenance' would be set to work and they would be a swing shift so that all those who work there would get a chance to worship "corporately with their families" and not to forsake the assembling of the themselves together.
God has shown that The Sabbath does not interfer with things necessary by another Great and wonderful miracle.. the destruction of Jerico.
The Israelites where to march around the walls for 6 days in a row and even the seventh. It cannot be that one of those days were not the sabbath indeed I venture to say to you that it was the Sabbath day that Jerico was sunk by the Glory of God's power alone. Therefore any nation has, by example, the right to defend itself against enemies at war even on the Sabbath. It is a "necessity"
I doubt I need argue that acts of "mercy" are encouraged as it seems Jesus did most of His healing on that day in spite of the way the Pharasee's had corrupted the Sabbath.
We do not live in a day where the Sabbath is being held unbiblically strict but we live in a day of apostacy where many professing Christians break the sabbath and do those things that should be done at another time.
An act of necessity is something that cannot wait until another day. Going to a restaurant is not a necessity unless your talking about an old folk's home where they cannot prepare their own meals or a hospital making food for patients but I will not eat even in a hospital when I visit on that day because they need to be enabled to run with a minimum amount of staff that men be not slaves of other men's appetites for pleasure rather than need.
When a stranger comes to your church you need to make sure that someone takes them in and to their home lest they be tempted to use a restaurant. Is it too hard for Christians to "Remember" the Moral and perpetual Sabbath and prepare the day before even as men did for ceremonial Sabbaths of the old covenant? I think not!
I quote to you "Historical record of understanding"
Not because the church or church rulings of old have any place over your conscience but the Word of God alone!
I quote them to show you that the church has historically understood the Bible to teach that the Ten Commandments are not to be despised by men who are saved by Grace but to be obeyed even as Jesus said:
Matthew 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Again:
Deuteronomy 8:3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.
We do not gather Manna though we want to turn stones to bread on the Sabbath.
Better a man starve to death than to disobey willfully the commandments of the Lord.
It is an evil thing for men to try and make the Sabbath too difficult to obey as an excuse not to obey! Surely God will judge this kind of thinking. Better a man confess that He may not know exactly how to keep the Sabbath but then to do his best.
Judge for yourself do I not speak the truth to you?
I quote to you again a Historical record of the accepted attitude concerning the Sabbath throughout the churches for hundreds of years. Do not judge the truth by what the apostate masses are doing today. Just as homosexuality is still a sin also the Sabbath is still to be observed. God's moral law does not and never will change!
ÿ
There are many historical confessions that teach these very things this is from the largest and most widely accepted know as " The Westminister Confession of Faith of 1643 "
Honor these fathers by knowing that they too were saved and studied to show themselves approved unto God. Be not an unwise son but rather wise and respect these fathers of churches of days gone by:
Chp 21:VII. As it is of the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath.
VIII. This Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations; but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.
ÿ
I will not post on the Lord's Day nor use the Internet ever again as you have rightly said it may indeed cause "unnecessary employment" of maid and man servants.
My thoughts about it being automated are unfounded and based on concepts I cannot prove. I will post at other times. It is enough. |
