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THE COMMANDMENT WE ALL BREAK #4
DIRTY TRICKS, PART TWO
I've got kind of a naughty question to ask you as we
begin our Thursday time of fellowship together. Have you ever watched
an old boyfriend or ex-girlfriend as they went out with the NEW flame
who had replaced you? That certain someone special broke up with you .
. . and a couple of weeks later, or maybe even a couple of DAYS later,
you see them at Shakey's Pizza Parlor with someone new. And something
just BURNED inside you. What a heartbreaker to watch.
And maybe, just MAYBE, something inside of you schemed to try to break
up that new relationship. What could you do to keep them apart? You've
read books about Watergate and Whitewatergate. Were there any dirty tricks
you could play? Maybe you could put sugar in his gas tank so he couldn't
go pick her up next Saturday night. Or maybe you could leave a message
on her answering machine that would cause her to not like HIM any more.
You know a guy who's good at imitating voices. Maybe it's worth a try.
Well, we hate to admit to thoughts like these, but
human jealousy will lead us into all sorts of mischief, won't it?
Here in California, voters recently voted on a statewide
initiative that would allow for "(quote) open" primaries. Democrats
could cross over and vote for Republicans and vice versa. We're recording
this program just a week before our California primary, so I can't tell
you how it turned out. But I can tell you one thing: an open primary DOES
allow for a certain amount of MISCHIEF in the voting process.
Is it possible that a loyal Democrat, here in a year where the President
is pretty much unopposed, might cross over and vote for the most radical
wild-eyed extreme Republican candidate on the ballot? Sure he would! That's
what we politely call wreaking havoc upon the enemy. Voters on both sides
might have a real interest in promoting, TEMPORARILY promoting, the least
electable candidate the opposition has. You might even send money to help
that goofball politician, put one of his bumper stickers on your car and
have his poster in your front yard . . . if you thought that might help
break up the opposition's game plan.
Well, what's the spiritual point of all this skulduggery? Friend, we're
getting to that right now.
I want to imagine with me that you're the Prince of Darkness himself:
Lucifer. Or maybe one of his evil angels. And there in the Garden of Eden
you watch as your enemy, God, creates a beautiful new world and then caps
it off with the crowning glory: a man named Adam, and a woman named Eve.
Immediately you hate them, of course. Because God seems to love them so
much! In fact, they're His treasure! And YOU USED to be His treasure.
You watch with a heart seething with rage as He creates them and caresses
them, and then as He speaks those first words of love. You hear God calling
them His beloved children. "This is terrible!" you say to yourself.
"This makes me sick to wach! What can I do to wreck this friendship?"
Well, it only gets worse. It's Friday afternoon by now, and the next thing
you hear God announce is that He's going to spend the whole next day with
Adam and Eve. He's going to fellowship with them and nurture this virgin
friendship. It's going to be a glorious time of joy and laughter and walks
through Eden and hours of worship and celebration. This new thing called
Sabbath will be filled with singing and with happiness and love. And for
a whole 24 hours, not just THIS week, but EVERY week, God's going to come
BACK to this tiny planet and spend the WHOLE DAY with Adam and Eve and
with all their kids and grandkids.
And you're the enemy watching from behind the nearest bush. "This
is a nightmare!" you say to yourself and to all the others in your
army. "If these people cozy up with God for a special day of joy
each week, we're finished before we start! Their love will grow and flourish
. . . and we'll waste away here on the sidelines."
So then you and your team draw up your battle plans, don't you? And this
new creation called "(quote) The Sabbath" is one of the highest
things on your TO DO list. Somehow you've got to ATTACK this business
of the seventh day of rest. Either head-on or from the side or by subterfuge
and dirty tricks, Lucifer and Company are hell-bent, no pun intended,
on getting rid of the whole concept of Sabbath rest and fellowship between
heaven and earth.
Now friend, let me ask you something. Does what I'm
suggesting make sense? Sometimes it's helpful to think with the mind of
the opposition, isn't it? "Know your enemy" . . . that's the
old battle slogan. And from a jilted lover's perspective, if you knew
that your EX was spending a whole day a week doing nothing but basking
in the love of someone new, wouldn't you start subscribing to Soldier
of Fortune magazine and begin thinking of strategies?
Let's just look at the record of history, shall we? The War Chronicles
are right there for our examination. The Sabbath, this wonderful haven
of communication and fellowship, was brought into existence in Genesis
chapter two. It's mentioned again in Exodus 16. But by the time we get
to Exodus chapter 20, it's clear that the Sabbath has largely been forgotten.
It never ceased to EXIST . . . but it certainly was buried and forgotten.
Long centuries of slavery in Egypt will tend to do that; the confusion
of sin and a flood and a tower of Babel contributed as well. In the book
we're sharing with each of our listeners, entitled A Pause For Peace,
author Clifford Goldstein notes with colorful insight:
"If, in ONE GENERATION, American TV can
go from censoring Elvis's jiggling hips to allowing Madonna to parade
around in nothing but a black teddy — imagine what four CENTURIES among
the idols, pyramids, and gods of Egypt did to the Jews!"
So our enemy has used the strategy of just plain FORGETTING.
No wonder the Fourth Commandment begins by saying:
"REMEMBER the Sabbath day to keep it holy."
But Lucifer, prince of lies and lapsed memories, had other campaign tricks.
He could pervert the Sabbath, make it wearisome and a burden to keep.
He could quietly move upon men to bury God's special day with a million
tiny rules and regulations and codes and codicils. Instead of the Sabbath
being a DELIGHT, as it's described in Isaiah 58, he could pile on the
rules until it became the worst day of the week.
And you know, by the time Jesus Christ our Savior arrived on our planet,
Plan B had pretty much worked to perfection. The Sabbath was there, all
right. Nobody in Israel was FORGETTING the Sabbath; no way. You COULDN'T
forget the Sabbath with the nine million billboards all around Jerusalem
posting the restrictions. As Clifford Goldstein points out in his book,
two of the Jewish tractates in the Talmud, Shabbath and Erubin, deal specifically
with the Sabbath and all the minutiae that now surrounded it. There were
more rules than you could READ, let alone observe. And the Sabbath being
a delight? Not a chance. All the innocent joy, the happy shrieks of children
playing by a mountain stream, the savoring of a love relationship with
God . . . all that was gone. Chalk one more up for the enemy.
Friend, how about today? Let me open up my heart to you right here.
Together we praise God for the cross of Calvary, don't we? Every Christian
around the world owes his or her spiritual life to that magnificent Friday
at Golgotha and the resurrected Christ. Let me say plainly: NOTHING we
can ever do, NO AMOUNT of obedience or commandment-keeping can qualify
us for heaven. CALVARY qualifies us for heaven . . . PERIOD. That's bedrock
Christian truth, and here at the Voice of Prophecy, we hold unswervingly
to that gospel pillar.
But I have to openly tell you something else. I truly believe it's a strategy
of the devil if we THEN come to the conclusion that of all the Ten Commandments,
the FOURTH one is the ONLY one that grateful Christians in the 20th century
should no longer keep. "Oh, we're not BOUND by that Commandment any
longer," some say. They obey the law of love as summarized by Christ
in the New Testament in places like Mark chapter 12. "Love God and
love your fellow man." Which, of course, continues to cover beautifully
Commandments One through Three and Five through Ten. But as interpreted
THAT WAY, somehow the gift of the Sabbath . . . is lost. The restoring
power of that DAY, that full, wonderful, beautiful, complete DAY of fellowship
with our King Jesus and with our God . . . is lost.
Now, however you want to interpret Scripture, and no
matter how you choose to read and apply the gospel message to your own
life, this much is true, friend: the disappearance of the Sabbath is ALWAYS
a victory for the enemy. If he steals from you that DAY, that sacred time
of hand-in-hand, heart-to-heart FELLOWSHIP with God . . . listen, that's
victory. Every time, it's victory for the enemy. He delights and celebrates
whenever we FORGET the Sabbath, or choke it with rules, or even if we
read into our own Bibles ANY interpretation that erases the Sabbath from
Christian life here in the year 1999.
That's why I'm so glad that Christians in many different
denominations are being seized with a renewed conviction on this matter.
"Wait a minute!" my Baptist friends are saying, and my charismatic
brothers and sisters, and my fellow ministers in the Methodist denomination,
and even my fellow Seventh-day Adventists who may have fallen into the
trap of KEEPING a Sabbath but losing the joy of the experience. "Something's
been lost here! The devil's won a battle, but let's not let him win the
war."
Friend, six thousand years ago God PURSUED His children Adam and Eve like
a jealous lover. The Sabbath was His gift to them because He loved them
so much; He CRAVED their friendship and their fellowship.
He's just the same today, you know. He feels EXACTLY that way about you.
RIGHT NOW. What do you think about that?
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