Oh shine upon the darkness, a word of truth shines 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 y'all where you're got. And at you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male or your female slave, or your cattle or your son or your son or your daughter who is within your gates. For six days, y'all made the heavens and the earth. The sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, y'all a bless the Sabbath day and made it holy. That was Exodus chapter 20, verses 8 to 11. And this is the honor money, where we seek to help the good man, leave an inheritance to his children's children. This is Jeremy, the host of the honor money. Real quick before we dive further into the episode, I just want to say if you like the honor money, please share it with your friends. And also please follow my wife's Facebook and ex-pages, Rose Collins writes. The handle is our Collins writes, where she posts poems and maybe occasional other things, but mostly poems that she has written. Now, jumping in the episode first, I want to read one question and answer from Teachers' Catechism. Question 64, which reads, what is required in the fourth commandment? 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. In the last episode on the fourth commandment, we talked about work and laziness and how that relates to the Sabbath because it is a pattern of work for six days and then rest for one. We also looked into implications of the fourth commandment related to Genesis 1, a couple more details about that one day and seven Sabbath, and finally we spent some time on land Sabbaths. In this episode, we spent a lot of time talking about the rest of the Sabbath and how that relates to the gospel. This one will be a bit of a shorter episode, like what part one on the fourth commandment was, and then the plan is to finish up the fourth commandment in the next episode, which will probably be a bit longer like what parts two and three were. That last episode ended with a transition from what I addressed last and to a teaser of what I would address first in this episode. So let's quickly review that. In addressing land Sabbaths, I talked about how the land itself needs to rest and how that is helpful for the soil itself, and is still seen today in concepts such as crop rotation. At the end, I briefly mentioned how violating the Sabbath brings death. I said that if violating the Sabbath with our land and our livestock brings death for humans and how it degrades the nutrient quality of those things when we eat them, then how much more does violating the Sabbath bring death to humans when we violate it with not just our land and animals, but with our very selves. You may have not thought of this before. You may be thinking what I just said is crazy, but violating the Sabbath really does wreak havoc on us as humans. And that really should be no surprise because God hasn't many ways written the rules of his law into the fabric of creation so that violating those rules often comes with consequences. When we don't take time to rest, we wear down our bodies. Our bodies need time to recover from the physical strain that work puts on our bodies and also the stress strain that work puts on our bodies. You may be thinking that you have a desk job and living in an apartment or condo so you don't have grass to mo or other landscaping work. So you have next to no physical work you actually have to do to put that strain on your body, but you still have the mental and stress strains that come with any job, especially since often the more a job pays the more stress it comes with. You may have late nights working on stuff related to work or working on other things that need to be done, maybe a couple late nights working on your taxes and it's currently tax season that's currently that time of year. But if you don't have a desk job and you have a yard to maintain, then you can put a lot of physical strain on your body that idea of rest gives you a good chance to recover a bit from. Taking a day of rest, go to church, spend time with your family and maybe even go to bed early does a lot to relax your body, both from physical strain and also from stress. Without this your body rarely gets a break from the constant strain of life and that eventually wears you down. Muscles, joints, tendons and other body parts can wear down and get damaged. And the guy with a desk job is not exempt from this, especially if he has poor posture while sitting at his desk or standing if he has a standing desk which is often better than sitting on a day. Or if he has a family history of carpal tunnel or a personal history with it. These things and others mean that even the guy with a desk job is not immune from physical strain on the body related to his occupation. But for many people, even many with jobs that are physically demanding, these stressful parts of work can do more damage to your body than the physical wear and tear. Stress can suppress your immune system, perhaps not anywhere close to a catastrophic degree, but enough to make you more susceptible to illnesses that go around. Stress can also be very hard on your heart, up to being a major factor or even the major factor causing a heart attack. Either of those a weakened immune system or a heart attack can easily shorten a person's lifespan. And all of that ties into the Sabbath. People miss Sabbath rest and stress increases. Stress increases and health issues slowly, perhaps and perceptibly, begin to develop, up to and including premature death from stress. So we as humans need time for rest and relaxation so our bodies can recover physically and we can also rest from the stress of everyday life. Avoiding this, such as by pushing ourselves to work hard day in and day out without time for rest, does not allow our bodies to rest and recover and leads to these negative consequences I just said. In other words, following God's rules on the Sabbath or the very least some general ideas of rest and relaxation inspired by God's rules about the Sabbath is one thing that can help us to say healthy and live longer. A shorter way to put it as you go back to the beginning and say that violating God's rules about rest brings death for humans. But while an unbeliever can rest and relax and be stricter about cessation of work on Sunday that any Old Testament Jew ever was in their Sabbath day, he lacks the true foundation for rest. He will still receive many of the benefits of rest, yes, but he lacks the foundation of rest, a rest that comes with the best benefits of any rest a human can experience. I am there describing the rest we have in Christ, the rest we have in Christ. Relaxation is needed for true rest, but it is difficult to achieve true relaxation and rest without the comfort of a conscience at ease because it has been forgiven by God and is in continued fellowship with him through continuous repentance and confession of sin and growth and sanctification. Without forgiveness in Christ, man either lives with a guilty conscience or seers that conscience to make the guilt go away. With a guilty conscience, how are you able to relax the way your body needs you to for the best rest that is helpful to you and your body? But the Christian can achieve true rest as we know that we have been forgiven by God through the gospel are no longer under the wrath of God and have the sovereign and omnipotent God guarding our lives. Our conscience is our clear concerning final judgment and as we continue to confess our sin and repent, they can be continually clear of these sins that so easily be set us in our Christian walk. So our rest in Christ rest that means our sure salvation given to us freely by the triumphant God. That rest is our basis for achieving true beneficial rest on the Sabbath. Pagans have false ideas of forgiveness of sins or they have meditation to try to achieve rest and relaxation. Those things can help reduce stress and thus have that physical benefit, but they have no eternal benefit and cannot achieve a truly forgiving conscience, thus reducing how restful one really can be. On that note, when you're stressed, breathing exercises can genuinely help, but don't make them what you go to instead of God. Maybe do those breathing exercises while you pray and don't do legit pagan stuff like mindfulness or some other thing in those breathing exercises. I'm thinking generic stuff like breathing deeply through your nose, holding your breath for three or four seconds, and breathing out through your mouth, which is someone with asthma. I've been helped by that technique many times in my life because it can relax your lungs in particular as much as it relaxes you in general. This isn't weird pagan stuff and there's a lot of scientific data to back up how breathing exercises can help your body to relax. Such as, though not limited to, stimulating your vagus nerve. So the principle of the Sabbath of rest is very important and we disobey this to our own harm. But the Sabbath is not just about rest, but also worship. And there is a sense in which the two are related as our ultimate rest is the God who we worship. And our physical rest is an outflow of that rest in God. On that note, rest in your rights. Remember that the principle purpose of the Sabbath is not worship, but rest. Only as worship qualifies as rest and refreshing to the man as true worship does is a disaid, is it a necessary aspect of the Sabbath rest? But the essence of the Sabbath is rest. But worship is important and especially now and the time after Christ crucifixion resurrection, now we have weekly church services on the Christian Sabbath. So we should think of the Sabbath as a day, set aside not just for rest, but also for worship. That is why on the Christian Sabbath, the first day of the week, or as I'm like to call it the eighth day, the day that Christ arose from the dead, we meet with the gathered saints to worship the Lord corporately and a respective local churches. This aspect of the Sabbath is so essential that many believers today claim that attending church on Sunday and of itself is obeying the Sabbath. The actual commands about rest, and cessation from labor are no longer valid, or to whatever degree they are, we obey them by going to church on Sunday. But many believers recognize that if it is a day of worship, then an hour or two long church service is not a day of worship. And thus more times should be devoted to the worship of God as individuals and families outside of the corporate worship as a local church. One really simple way you can apply this principle is to read more of the Bible on a given Sunday than you do other days of the week. I usually spend more time in the Bible on an average Sunday than any other day in a given week, partially because it is a Sabbath of worship and partially because since I am ceasing from normal work activities on that day, I have a lot more time to spend in the Bible. Plus it is a lot more restful to spend time reading the Bible when I would be working any of the other days of the week. So it is hitting all of the major aspects of the Sabbath. On this theme, paragraph 8 of chapter 22 of the 689 Confession reads, The Sabbath is then kept holy into the Lord when men after a due preparing of their hearts and ordering their common affairs beforehand, did not only observe a holy rest all day from their own works, words and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but are also taken up the whole time and the public and private exercises of his worship and the duties of necessity and mercy. Generally, I think that is a good statement. I will say though, I do not believe the Confessions have solid biblical support for the idea that we must refrain even from recreation on the Sabbath. I think you would really struggle to convince me that picking my daughter to the nearby playground on a Sunday would be violating the Sabbath and thus sinful. You would struggle even more to try to convince me that watching TV or playing video games on Sundays violating the Sabbath and thus sinful. My wife and I do not do much of either. The closest thing to watching TV is sometimes watching YouTube on our phone or Nintendo Switch and the occasional movie. And what video games we do play is mostly limited to a couple evenings a week. And since we don't do much of either, it was easy for us to go strict on a no video game on Sunday rule. We don't think it is simple to play video games on a Sunday. And that a strict prohibition on recreation on Sunday cannot be supported scripturally. So we won't be dogmatic on our no video game on Sunday rule. But right now it is working well for us and we have no intentions of changing this anytime soon. My wife said that she feels like Sundays are more respoal since we stopped playing video games on Sunday probably two or three years ago. But I will also say that if for your family taking some time to play video games together as a family on a Sunday might be a thing you find respoan relaxing. Especially if that is something that almost never happens the rest of the week because of busy schedules. And so if that is respoan relaxing for you, who might have told you that is somehow violating the Sabbath because of some strict rule about recreation. If your recreation brings you rest and relaxation and does not involve labor of another person's or intensive labor on your part if it did then that doesn't exactly sound very respoal anyways. Then I think that is a good way to spend some of your time on a Sunday. On this topic of worship I mentioned how our rest on the Sabbath is ultimately rooted in our rest and God in his gospel. It is important to recognize Christ as our Sabbath rest. On this topic, Russian Eurites, the essence of the Sabbath is our rest in Christ and our growth and the knowledge of that salvation by his grace. A couple of pages before where we read that quote, Russian Eurites, the merely external rest of the Sabbath was important for an even deeper and more basic rest was the rest in the authority and work of God and man's delight in it. The commandment does not merely require a cessation of work but remember to keep it holy, exist 20 verse 8. Both work and rest were under authority and set apart or sanctified into the Lord. Holiness in itself implies authority. It is separation and dedication in terms of God. All of our rest, whether the weekly Sabbath or nightly sleep, reminds us of our lack of self-sufficiency. It reminds us that we need rest and thus it points to our need for rest in God which is only possible by repenting and believing in the gospel. The unbeliever, the unregenerate person has no resting God and thus no true rest. All of his earthly physical rest might accomplish a lot for his body but he has denied the very thing it was created to point to. Hebrews chapter 4 addresses the believer's rest and how the Old Testament Sabbath foreshadowed our rest in the gospel and our eternal rest that still awaits us in the future. So the idea that our Sabbath rest but also our nightly rest, point to our need for resting God is very important. I remember a few years ago I wished that somehow listening to James White's The Divine Inline could somehow count or sleep for me. Like if I listened to it for seven or eight hours a night, my body would recover like I had slept those seven or eight hours. I could get the equivalent of a good night sleep and learn a lot in the process. But now I recognize how that would not be a good thing. Our regular need for rest and sleep reminds us of our dependence on God and our need for rest in him. And so wishing for some magical scenario where I do not need sleep anymore is wrong. No matter how many good things I could accomplish with that extra time. God knows all of the productive things we could do if we no longer needed to sleep. And yet in his sovereign ordaining of the world, he made us need to sleep. Who are we to question that? No matter how seemingly noble our motives in doing so. Ouzah had seemingly noble motives when he wanted to make sure that the Ark of the Covenant did not touch the dirt. But as Arcee Sproul taught us in the holiness of God, Ouzah did not take into account that his hand was far dirtier than the ground. Because the Ark was holy, his hand was the hand of a sinful human and the ground is ethically and morally neutral. Forget the germs, his hand was dirtier because of sin. We should be careful, less our supposedly noble motives lead us to sin or to desire sin. There is so much more on the Sabbath I have thrown into my notes over the last several months to cover. A few sentences on one point here, a sentence on another point there. But this episode already makes this the most episodes on a single commandment in this series thus far. And I am still doing one more after it. So some of those points will be left unaddressed, like spending some time on the 50 year Sabbath or the Jubilee. Though I have talked about that some before back in episode 67 from a few years ago. Maybe this 10 commandment series will go longer than I initially thought it would. And four or five episodes per commandment will be the norm with the rest of them. I guess we'll have to wait and see. With this episode, however, I am planning to close with my favorite Valley of vision prayer, continual repentance. As even fitting with this episode having more of a focus on the gospel. And also since I specifically use the term continual repentance at one point in the episode. Oh God of grace, thou hast imputed my sin to my substitute and hast imputed his righteousness to my soul. Clothing me with a bridegroom's robe, decking me with jewels of holiness. But in my Christian walk, I am still in rags. My best prayers are stained with sin. My penitential tears are so much impurity. My confessions of wrong are so many aggravations of sin. My receiving the spirit is tinctured with selfishness. I need to repent of my repentance. I need my tears to be washed. I have no robe to bring to cover my sins. No loom to weave my own righteousness. I am always standing clothed in filthy garments. And my grace am always receiving change of rainment. For thou, dust, always justify the ingodly. I am always going into the far country and always returning home as a prodigal. Always saying, Father forgive me. And thou are always bringing forth the best robe. Every morning, let me wear it. Every evening, returning it. Go out to the days work in it. Be married in it. Be wound in death in it. Stand before the great white throne in it. Enter heaven and it shining as the sun. Grant me never to lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. The exceeding righteousness of salvation. The exceeding glory of Christ. The exceeding beauty of holiness. The exceeding wonder of grace. That was this month's episode of Theonimoney. 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 in light of the gospel of Christ, atoning death and resurrection to every area of life. Grace and peace, friends. You are gone. You are law is sweet and it satisfies my soul. It reminds me and satisfies me. You are law is sweet, oh you satisfy my soul.