Oh shine upon the darkness, a word of truth shine bright. Oh, by with me forever, your law is mighty light. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahweh your God. And it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male or your female slave, or your cattle or your sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days Yahweh made the heavens in the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. That was Exodus 28 through 11, and this is the Anamuni, where we seek to help the good man, leave an inheritance to his children's children. This is Jeremy, the host of the Anamuni. This episode is our last episode on the fourth commandment before moving on to the fifth with the next episode. But before we move on to that, I want to take a little bit more time than normal for housekeeping. Of course, please if you like this episode share it with your friends and subscribe to the Anamuni on your favorite podcast catcher if you haven't already done so, but there are also a few other things I want to mention. The first is something I meant to mention in the last episode, but forgot until I was in the editing phase and not want to record this snippet and edit it and after the fact. John Eccluse of Clear Note Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, a man with whom I administered outside an abortion mill, I don't know how many times, was paid out a settlement of $650,000 as part of a lawsuit over his former employer's attempt to force him to use people's quote-unquote preferred pronouns and his refusal to do so. His church is associated with Trinity reformed in Bloomington, Indiana, formerly Clear Note Church Bloomington, where My Soul Among Lions is out of the band who sang on Psalm 19, I used for my intro and outro music. Another thing I wanted to briefly mention is the death of Chuck Norris since the last episode was released. There have been so many Chuck Norris jokes and memes that I honestly needed to double check that he actually did die to believe it. The reason I am mentioning this event is because he seemed to be a pretty faithful Christian and I want to tell a story about him I heard when I was growing up. Chuck Norris studied among other martial arts, Tanks Udov, when I studied when I was growing up. Grandmaster Dale Drew Lord was the first American to get his black belt or more technically his midnight blue belt since there is not a technically black belt and Tanks Udov for reasons I'm not going into it now. And Dale Drew Lord, Grandmaster Dale Drew Lord, he trained master Edward Ormanian, who went on to found the Korean Cradi Academy of Allen Park, Michigan in 1968. Grandmaster Dale Drew Lord was not a part of the Korean Cradi Academy of Allen Park, Michigan like I was. So I only ever saw him a couple times, but there is one story I heard about him and Chuck Norris that I want to share. The two of them flew to Korea to test under the founder of Tanks Udo, Grandmaster Juan Ki, before his death. Now Grandmaster Dale Drew Lord is the only one of these three men still alive. I believe Grandmaster Dale Drew Lord was testing for his sixth dawn or six degree black belt to use more common terminology and Norris for his fifth dawn. Apparently Chuck Norris had only brought a red, white and blue American ghee and nothing else. And Grandmaster Juan Ki refused to test him in that ghee. So he had to borrow one from one of the local Koreans in order to test for his next dawn. One thing I want to say on that note before going on to the last point of housekeeping is to brag on my club a bit, the Korean Cradi Academy of Allen Park, Michigan. We were not like the all too common Cradi clubs in the US. We make fun of that barely teach people how to fight. We sparred hard and sometimes laughed about hurting each other. My teenage sparring buddy James went on after high school to join the Air Force. But in training, he got annoyed that none of the guys in the Air Force could give him much of a challenge. So he started sparring with the Marines and they got annoyed that a guy in the Air Force kept beating them in fights. But there was one person in our Cradi Club that even James was afraid of. Master Vargo was not technically a member of our club, but a different one nearby. But he came to ours a lot and trained with us and taught us a lot. When I was 17 and James was 18, Master Vargo was probably around 16, maybe still in his 50s, but somewhere around there. And all I can say is that if James and I were to fight him to on one and a fight to the death when we were all those various ages, I am not confident that our chances of winning that fight would be very good. Maybe 50%. If we didn't manage to win, it would probably be only one of the two of us making it out, not both James and I. And that is the same James I just said annoyed Marines when he beat them in fights as an Air Force guy. The last thing I want to say in this longer housekeeping time is happy good Friday if you're listening to this on the day it drops. This holiday is the reason we can be forgiven and saved because without Christ, penal substitutionary atonement for us on the cross and his resurrection three days later, we would still be dead in our sins. This holiday is the reason why even though Chuck Norris is dead, I would get to meet him one day and maybe even ask him about that story I just told you all. So diving into the fourth commandment for one last full episode focusing on it, first looks like it teaches Catechism question 64 which reads what is required in the fourth commandment and the answer the fourth commandment requires the keeping Holy to God such set times as he has appointed in his word, expressly one whole day and seven to be a Holy Sabbath to himself. That has their Leviticus 1930 and Deuteronomy 512 as these scripture proofs. And the last episode on the fourth commandment we talked about the importance of rest for the human body and how that rest ultimately should start with the rest one has and Christ finished work on the cross and his subsequent resurrection. In this episode, we will wrap up our time with the fourth commandment by walking through each of the four spheres of sovereignty with it, including self government in there for four instead of the three we normally talk about. And then talk about some aspects of the Sabbath and economics. First, let's apply the fourth commandment to the first and most basic sphere of sovereignty, self government. A lot of the things I have said in these episodes can apply here as an aspect of applying this command to ourselves and that is to take proper time for rest. We have a one day and seven pattern of rest laid out for us in scripture. And so let's try to make sure we follow that pattern do not overwork yourself as someone who never takes time for rest. But also do not be a lazy person who consistently takes a lot more than one day and seven for rest. I of course, in that statement, do not do not mean to skip sleeping the rest of the week as we also need adequate sleep each day for rest as well. But in our giving proper time for rest, we also need to give proper time for worship of God. Then includes going to the corporate body to worship, which we will address momentarily in the church sphere of sovereignty, but also private worship of God as well, including prayer and meditating on the word of God. So for self government, we should take proper time for both rest and worship, but not use either of those as an excuse for slothfulness and the name of rest and or worship. For the second sphere, family government, a mansion lead his family well and rest and worship as he leads himself well in those things. Here he takes the godly principles he applies to himself and he leads his family and doing the same things he is doing, but together as a whole family and also privately as each individual. The husband and father should also be careful to not overburden his children with work without rest. There can be a lot to do and very busy schedules, but make sure that your children have proper time for rest, especially because children, especially young children, require more sleep than adults do. And they need that sleep to stay healthy and develop properly. I mean, even slaves were to be given time for rest as well under God's law and our children, our heirs, not much more than slaves. Moving from there to the third sphere church government, first there is going to church as often as you are able to. He was 1025 reads not forsaken our own assembly together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Some of us unfortunately have jobs that at times require us to work Sundays, but as often as we can to the point of potentially trying to get a different shift or even a different job if you have to miss church a lot. We should try to be there as often as possible. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for missing church such as family is sick, there is a legitimate emergency at work and you need to work that Sunday, etc. When those times arise is your heart longing to be at church with the gathered Saints. I asked that question because one time I posted something on Facebook. I don't even remember exactly what it was but it must have been something on the topic of not missing church. And a friend from college commented that she had missed church more than she'd like to recently because of her and or the kids being sick. She asked if I thought that at a certain point that constituted wrongly missing church. Another friend replied to her comment basically asking what I just asked a moment ago and that is where that question comes from. If you have a lot of kids there may occasionally be a time where you miss two or even three Sundays in a given month because of sickness going around the household. When those times happen do you see it as a convenient excuse to skip church or are you saddened and even distressed by missing so many Sundays in a row and you along for the next Sunday that everyone is healthy enough to make it to church. That will tell you a lot about your attitude towards church. We should long to be at church and he missing it when times arise that we have to miss. And if that is not the case for you then take time to pray that God gives you the maturity and the faith to respond that way when those times arise. Next we will look at the last year of sovereignty, the civil government. There is a ton of debate here with the fourth commandment perhaps more than with any of the other of the ten commandments. Some people might get upset if you say that the civil government today should make thieves upon being found guilty pay back all that they stole with an appropriate and that is defined by the Bible. The amount of interest added to what they give the victim. So may get even more upset if you say that it is not only acceptable but even good for adultery to still be punished with capital punishment and that you believe in the future Christian nations will return to this standard we have left behind in our Western nations. But when you talk about civil penalties for the fourth commandment for the Sabbath even people who call themselves theonomists may find some pretty wide disagreements. If we take a very literal application of the Old Testament law penalties for violations of the fourth commandment and apply them to today. The Christian nation and Shrine God's law and to their laws should have capital punishment on the books for violations of this Sabbath. But there is little support for this and church history and even notable influential theonomists such as Gary North argue against such an idea. The Puritans and the theological descendants of the Puritans since their day are perhaps the foremost example of enshrining the Sabbath into law and having penalties associated with its violation such as fines. But Gary North has spent a lot of time addressing them and arguing why he thinks their understanding and application was flawed. In some ways they view that the Sabbath should be observed as strictly today as it was in the Old Testament and punished today like it was back then with the only change being from Saturday to Sunday. There's a sense in which that is the easiest and simplest position to argue. You cite the Old Testament laws. You say that we are all theonomists here so why are we going to be different with the fourth commandment than we are with the other nine. Gary North actually devotes a lot of pages to this subject in his book The Sinai Strategy. He argues that there was a change in the Sabbath from the Old Testament to the New Testament that is more than just the day of the week. And part of that change is that the final human arbiter of the Sabbath is no longer the state or even the church, but the conscience of each individual. And that book he writes, when the Lord's Day became both a day of rest and a day of corporate worship, its emphasis changed and the states rule and protecting the Lord's Day was radically altered. When the Sabbath day or the Lord's Day became a day which emphasizes positive worship, the state ceased being a reliable agency of enforcement. Shortly after that North goes on to say the fact of the individual conscience is assigned the task of decoding the limits of the Lord's Day activities has not subjectifized the reality of the Sabbath principle of rest. Worship and North has that hyphenated there. The Sabbath principle of rest worship is still intact, but God has determined that the complexity of Lord's Day observance is too great for the church or state to enforce. The requirement of honoring one day and seven is still with us, but not all people see this. And hardly any group agrees concerning the exact ways in which any prophecy confirm or individual must honor the Sabbath principle. God will be the final judge, not the earthly institutions of government. There are objective standards, but they must be interpreted subjectively, person by person and the New Testament era. We have been given specific revelation to this effect with respect to the Sabbath, and we must honor this revelation. I will say we all remember the words of Jesus, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. The first four words of that statement are the Sabbath was made, something that could not be said about the other nine like it is about the fourth. The law in general reflects God in his perfect, holy nature, but God is omnipotent and needs no rest. So the Sabbath was given to man as a gift to help us as finite creatures to prosper. And that way the Sabbath is a bit different than the rest of the Ten Commandments, and that can give credit to the way that Gary North understands continuity a bit differently that he does the rest of the Ten Commandments. I want to read one more quote from North before moving on from the civil government to economic implications of the fourth commandment. It reads, what is the proper sabbiterian role today of the civil government? One very distinct possibility is this, the civil government should declare no and void any labor contract that requires a person to work seven days a week as a condition of employment. This is a contract against conscience, comparable to requiring a woman to commit illicit sexual acts as a condition of employment. Businesses would be compelled to honor the desires of employees to take one day off per week. And that day would probably be the first day of the week. The compulsion here is essentially negative. The state may prohibit economic coercion against people's consciences when their consciousness are based on an explicit statement of the word of God. Moving on from there, let us look at some economic implications of the fourth commandment. These examples will be far from exhaustive, but they can at least give us some ideas and some examples to build upon. One big economic implication of the fourth commandment is the lost income that a person could produce by working every single day of the week, weekend and week out, 365 days a year, versus taking off one day every single week. There are some practical concerns here. At a certain point, you get diminishing returns from continuing to push yourself. And if you take some time to rest, you will be so much more efficient when you get back to work that you may more than make up for the lost productivity when you were resting. More importantly, there are concerns with obeying God's commands. God commands us to rest one day and seven, and so we deal. We study the human body and the way the world works and we learn that things just in general work better when we do that and we praise God for how wise his rules are. On this note of the lost economically productive time when resting, Gary North and his commentary on Genesis, the dominion covenant, writes, and man's week men are faced with a decision, steal time from God's Sabbath rest, but increase their short run income or forfeit short run income on the day of rest, but reap the rewards of faithfulness that God promises to his covenant to leave faithful people. By taking one day a week to rest, we are showing that we are subordinate to the God who created us and trust his rules rather than our own judgments that we can make more money if we never take a day off for rest. And like I mentioned a moment ago, because of diminishing returns that is not even necessarily true anyways. On this note of the costs or seeming costs of taking time off to rest, North writes, in God's week the day of rest is an unmitigated blessing, a cost free blessing, not a day for agonizing over the costs of resting, the forfeited economic benefits of working. The unbeliever who is forced to obey the Sabbath because the Christian culture around him may agonize the whole day about the money he could be making if we were allowed to work. But for the mature believer, it is a blessing and he associates no serious cost with it. Or even if he does at moments, he reminds himself that obeying God is better than those costs and this is for his good, not his harm. But there are other economic implications of the Sabbath as well. If many people in a society began to avoid work that was unnecessary on Sundays, then the lack of income on those days would force businesses to adjust to Sabbath principles at least to some degree, just by the invisible hand of market forces. On that idea, North writes in the Sinai strategy, as a theological insight of men improves over time, they will come to recognize the implications of God's creation week 6-1 and Covenant man's recreative week 1-6. They will recognize the necessity of a day of rest, a moral, physical, and economic necessity. When they do, they will make economic decisions and social decisions that will indirectly pressure recalcitrants into honoring the Lord's day. For instance, if Christians refuse to go out to shop on Sunday, there will be no economic incentive to keep stores open on Sunday except just out to non-Christians. If most people in a society are eventually converted or at least honor the Lord's day externally, then there will be almost no economic incentive to remain open on Sunday. But a person's conscience is the guide and New Testament times, not civil compulsion. But there are those who must work on Sunday, such as those who work in the church like pastors or other occupations like doctors and other staff at hospitals and urgent care because people get sick or hurt on Sunday too. Other professions too include Sunday work, like utility workers if we still want to have electricity, gas, and water on Sunday, or for someone like me on a well, electricity that lets my pump system keep my water on past the point when my water pressure tank would otherwise run out of water. And the Old Testament Passover could be rescheduled for those who were legitimately unable to make it at the normal appointed time. This is recorded for us in numbers 9, 10 to 11. Geary North speculated that perhaps an Old Testament Israel, though not written in scripture for us to observe, similar exceptions were made for resting on a different day of the week for one who legitimately could not observe the Sabbath. Something like this had to be the case for the priests who offered to the Sabbath sacrifices and they leave it to aided them. And perhaps there were others for whom this exception was allowed. This is to be fair speculation, but it is a principle that can be used today for those who have to work on Sunday, which in keeping with the longer quote from North that I just read, should decrease over time as a nation becomes more Christianized, but will never go down to zero unless great technological advancement in the future allows that. But even then someone will likely need to be monitoring that technology for issues or glitches. North did propose the idea that several churches in a given area could come together to make one service a week on a day other than Sunday for the members of each church that are unable to make a Sunday morning service due to work. Some churches already have Saturday evening services and about rather members of those churches attend the Sunday morning service if possible. For those for whom it is not possible that is better than not being able to go to church at all. Also, many churches still have Sunday evening and Wednesday evening services and while those services are not the same thing as the corporate body gathered together church service, they do Sunday morning service. And they are better than not going at all for the person legitimately unable to make Sunday morning. There are some other aspects of economic implications I mentioned in the episode where I covered works of necessity and works of mercy, such as hotels rotating which one is open, which Sunday to have reduced staffing needs on Sunday. Right now with our culture of traveling on the weekend, the demand for who tells on Sunday might say too high until a more Christian society begins to reduce those demands and line with what North said and that quote I wrote a few minutes ago. And of course there are so many economic implications of the Sabbath that I could spend several episodes discussing only that and still be far from exhaustive. But I hope these last several minutes have at least helped you to think through it better and have given you some ideas. I want to conclude this final episode on the fourth command by reading a few quotes. First they quote from Rush, Juni, I read near the beginning of the first episode but back in it up a bit from where I started back in episode 141. Churchmen who limit the meaning of the Sabbath or who feel it is obeyed and worship and an activity have no knowledge of its meaning. Certain Pharisees debated over the in advisability of eating eggs because the hands may have labored over them on the Sabbath but they did not trust in God for their salvation. Their emphasis on no work was in itself a work of man, a proud boast and their ability to fulfill a law. And this same a Phariseism is apparent in some churches today. The Sabbath is life to the man who looks to the Lord for life and allows God to work throughout all creation as the great recreator. It is more than an outward observance and it cannot be joined with any humanistic confidence in man's work or the state's work as man's source of rest and salvation. Second, a short quote from Gary North, slightly changing it and by that I just mean that I am adding the words with God that would be understood if you read the broader context as I am pulling those words from the sentence before. So here's the quote. Perfect rest and perfect fellowship with God here is the heart of the Sabbath. Lastly, one more quote from Gary North also from the Dominion covenant like the one I just read. We work now yet we also rest now. Our work is not perfect nor is our dominion perfect. But as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, we learn the meaning of both rest and dominion. That was this month's episode of the Anomone as we go. I want to remind everyone that the law of the Lord is perfect, sure, right, pure, clean and true. So go apply that law and light of the gospel of Christ and Tony death and resurrection to every area of life. Peace, friends. Peace, friends.