27th October 2025

27th October 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Genesis 2:2-3)


Message (Alan Burke) 


I’m off this week and Hiram is coming to lead worship this coming Lord’s day, normally I’d just post some old devotions and sure I may as well as we come to the Fourth Commandment because while we get the first three, we understand commandment number five to ten, in reality we leave this one by the way side. I’ve debated with myself why, and I think that the reason why is that it is just because it is inconvenient. We have no problem in accepting the other nine commandments and many of us simply ignore this one or have forgotten it, we live like it doesn’t exist, or it doesn’t matter and we treat those who try to observe it with contempt and I’d go further we despise it, even though it is to a blessing for us and for our good. 


For some reason the sabbath to us is unnecessary, inconvenient, optional even. Maybe it is because we like our wee trip out for ice cream on a Sunday night in the summer, we don’t want to exclude our kids from a birthday party at Streamvale open farm that happens on a Sunday, and a Sunday Carvery is hard to beat, where else do you get a bit of gammon, lamb, beef and turkey at the same time. 


Now think to the church calendar for a moment, what is the most important events in the church year in your opinion? Christmas, Good Friday and Easter, Harvest? What else do you have in there, but the question comes why do we have them? In short we have them for two reasons, firstly because they replaced other pagan festivals. When the Roman Empire became “Christian” then Christmas was introduced to replace their pagan festival of Roman Saturnalia which took place after the winter solstice, the darkest night of the year, celebrating the renewal of light in the Unconquerable Sun. Then more recently harvest took the place of the festival of Lughnasadh around the 12th century. The second reason of course why we have these things is tradition. We have these things because of tradition. They are not commanded by God, they are not holy. 


But the Sabbath is something completely different, the sabbath is something that has been instituted by God for all people, and there is a difference between the Sabbath and the rest of the week. We first look at the account of creation, it’s something that we are all familiar with, on the first six days was creating, and then on the seventh day in Genesis 2:2-3 God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. 


We have a week because God made it that way, six days did he work and on the seventh day he rested. It is a pattern that is mirrored all over the world, in ever culture, I know of only two examples when the week was changed, the first during the French Revolution they changed the week to being 10 days from 1793 to 1805. The intention was greater productivity, after all one day off in ten increases productivity over a year by 5% but it actually was counter productive and caused a fall in production so they went back to seven days. The other was the Soviet Union between 1929 and 1940 introduced first a five day then a six day week, it had different issues and they reverted to a seven day week, six days working one day of rest. 


God gave us a seven day period, six days for work and one for rest as exampled here in the book of Genesis and it is a pattered that is replicated all over the world. So from creation, from the beginning, we have a day being set apart for rest. God rested because he was finished his work and gave us a pattern to follow. It gives us insight as well to the nature of that rest, for the Lord made the day itself holy, this is the first time in scripture that we have the word Holy used, here it is used of a day, as the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it Holy. Holy meaning it is set apart, it is concentrated for a purposes and that purpose is to be God’s day. Do you see it as that, a day set apart by God as holy, consecrated as God’s day? God has given us 52 Holy days in the church calendar, 52 days to be observed, each as special as the last. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q3 What do the Scriptures principally teach?
A. The Scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.
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