The Fourth Commandment - Part I

Being a father of two and working graveyard shift doesn’t really afford me the time to delve as deep into Scripture as a seminary student or theologians and pastors who do this for a living. I’m just a layman who tries to find time to study and meditate upon His Word, and God willing, understand it. If I am really blessed with time, I also read comments by other theologians and pastors on the Internet to help round out my meditations. Eventually, once I think I have done enough reading to cause the synapses in my brain to go numb (which really isn’t that hard with 2 kids and working graveyard), I post my thoughts here on the blog.

In a couple of my past posts, I’ve written concerning the Fourth Commandment, but not directly. I questioned the idea about a non-sabbatarian day of rest and wrote about what would be considered work on the Sabbath, but have not written about Fourth Commandment itself. Frankly, I haven’t done so because better and more dedicated theologians have written about it, to which I could not do justice in a blog posting.

But since I believe in keeping the Fourth Commandment, I should at least share the knowledge I have gained from my own studies, as little as they may be. This is not meant to be exhaustive, but informative of the general ideas that I have found to be prominent in the Fourth Commandment. Still, there is a lot to write about, so I have the need to break this down in parts. When I will get to the next parts, though, God only knows.

The Moral Nature of the Fourth Commandment

The Fourth Commandment is found within the context of Nine Commandments that are moral in nature. And in several areas in Scripture, there is a civil penalty of death tied to the breaking of the Sabbath. This certainly expresses the moral nature of obeying the Fourth Commandment, even unto death.

It is thought that the first 4 Commandments defines our ethics towards God, while the other 6 Commandments defines our ethics towards man. It would be odd to say that the Fourth Commandment does not deal with any ethic at all given its context and its penal sanction, but that tends to be the position of Christians who find nothing morally observable in the Commandment. It’s easy enough to trace the moral decay of a society that doesn’t observe the other Commandments (idolatry, blasphemy, rebellion, bloodshed, adultery, theft, false witnesses, covetous hearts), but there just doesn’t seem to be anything to trace from the Fourth Commandment. If the Fourth Commandment is moral in nature due to the context it is found, then what moral decay comes from it when it is not observed? Here are my impressions and thoughts on this:

Work begets more work - In the late 70's, I remember Sundays being like Christmas. Hardly any cars on the road, lots of stores closed, and everything was quiet and serene (minus the decor and gifts). Now, those days are gone. Could it be that as more people broke the Sabbath, the more people started to work on Sundays? After all, why not profit from all this extra time? Or perhaps with all this free time, demand rose for venues to open, like restaurants and stores. What CEO wouldn't want to cater to these paying customers? And they needed someone to work to cater to these people, right? Mammon for the win.

Making it hard to be a Sabbatarian - With all this need for people to work on Sundays, it has become a requirement on many jobs where prospective employees must work on Sundays. Not even the government's protection of religious beliefs can help the lone Sabbatarian, who is considered an anomaly, even by other Christians.

Relatively less study and fellowship - This is not to say that Christians out there aren't studying and fellowshipping, but I really wonder how much more they would learn if they had a full day to do it? Not an hour of quiet time (when you have the time) or a couple of hours a week with a small group, but a full day where your fellowship is not only with your friends, but the pastor, elders and deacons. Imagine that: A full day to sharpen your thoughts on the Bible with the trifecta of church officers. Or even visit another Sabbath-keeping church, still open for study and fellowship.

My pastor mentioned before that there was a time when all the stores were closed on Sundays, a remnant of Sabbath-keeping still having its effect in America. Now, Sundays are like every day. There is nothing holy (set apart) about them, except for a few hours of church and maybe a bible study or two. Though I may be speculating on the effects of Sabbath-breaking, which has become the norm, I do not believe it is too far off the mark. There is a definite effect on the church and its members, but after a long while of just letting things be, neither of them recognizes that they are being robbed of time and rest in Lord.

In my next post, I'll get into the two versions of the Fourth Commandment. I hope it will help accentuate more the moral aspect of the Sabbath.

In Christ,

Victor

"Emergency Contraception" Without Prescription

And so the country continues to go downhill as the FDA has announced that women 18 and older can now buy the "morning after" pill without a prescription. Of course, that's just not acceptable to those in Planned Parenthood who are "troubled" that there is an age restriction at all. How pathetic.

I remember about 5 years ago, I was debating with a Left-leaning Christian woman who actually argued for better contraception and sex education for kids because it will help in bridging the idea of abstinence. As she put it, it is like a person who needs dialysis until there is a permanent cure for her kidney.

Of course, her analogy fails to recognize that sinful people want their dialysis because having a healthy kidney just isn't fun. Sadly, I never got to reply to her analogy because I was never able to finish the 20+ page email concerning this subject, as well as education, gun control, and government.

And so the floodgate of unfettered promiscuity has been opened.

Forget the consequences! You can pop a pill and play harlot without having God bless you! No longer will you be at risk of being on Maury Povich or any of the disgusting talkshows! DNA testings to discover who fathered your child will be a thing of the past!

This may not be the abortion pill, but we've already gone this far. Who is to say that the abortion pill won't be next to be approved? For now, this blatant stupidity on the part of government isn't going to solve the problem. It's just going to "cover up" (Ha! A failed attempt in preventing "unwanted" pregnancies!) the symptoms, and before you know it, it's a full blown problem! Oh wait...we're already there. Fuel for the fire anyone?

From The Desk Of Pastor Paul Viggiano

Bush's stem cell veto no surprise

You may argue with the president's line of reasoning on when human life begins. But it is consistent and Americans voted for him on right to life issues.

By Paul Viggiano

Delivered in Jeff Goldblum's inimitable style, the line castigating the scientists was, "They were so concerned with if they could do it, they never stopped to ask if they should do it." The next thing you know, the T. rex is eating the lawyer right off the toilet.

We laud those who dare ask such questions of certain types of progress. Yet our president has fallen under a guillotine of accusations for having the audacity to disagree with the ethics of stem cell research. Scenarios are fabricated where, in the generations to come, the arrogance of his decision will prove disastrous -- perhaps for his own offspring.

Will history vindicate the anti-Bush rhetoric? Will time vilify this president for this veto? I always find it interesting when people call upon quantum leaps to justify their position. When God rolls the videotape of history, will the one person healed justify the 10,000 sacrifices for the remedy? Play Stalin's tape "One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic."

Good thing embryos don't have mouths yet. And of course if you don't have a mouth, you certainly have no soul. And you also can't vote, so I'm not sure how this decision was politically expeditious for Bush.

Bush was accused of being cruel for defending the mouthless; cruel to future generations who, perhaps, would have benefited by their involuntary donation of their three score and 10. He was also accused of hypocrisy because of his lack of outrage at all the embryos destroyed in fertility clinics throughout the land.

Where's Spock (or Data for the "Next Generation") when you need him? What kind of logic is this? How do we know that Bush has no outrage? There are numerous things that erupt or burp outrage in my heart. My first priority is to fight the battles I think I can win; battles are fought in increments.

I voted for Bush because he shares my world view. (At least he was closer than Al Gore.) I must say that this veto was the least hypocritical presidential movement I've yet to observe him make. We have a representative form of government. We vote for people who most closely mirror our views. We voted for a president who views embryos as human beings. This was not hidden from the voters. He has now made a decision consistent with how he billed himself; how is this hypocrisy?

It's been said that Bush is trying to make this an abortion issue. I'm still scratching my almost-hairless head. I'm going to try to take responsibility for making this clear.

There are certain things in this crazy old world that cannot be empirically (scientifically) proved. Einstein said that we learn nothing from science -- it merely teaches us how to organize things we observe.

Science cannot teach us when life actually begins; it was a beating heart, then brain-waves, who knows what's next? They are all arbitrary lines in the sand. Science cannot teach us that it is wrong to take innocent lives. These are immaterial and abstract concepts.

Anyone who has an opinion regarding when life begins or that it is wrong to kill the innocent, has that opinion based upon unprovable, immaterial assumptions. This is not a faith-versus-fact issue. In a godless universe, one cannot factually state when life begins or that murder is wrong -- it's merely an opinion. I state this to head off at the pass those who thoughtlessly trumpet their "Keep your faith out of politics oratories." It is your immaterial faith or conviction that informs your opinion that my faith has no place in politics, and I don't see why your immaterial convictions trump my own.

We still live in a country where a candidate for president has no chance of winning without a profession of Christian faith. Biblical Christians hold a basic presupposition that the Bible is true in all it teaches. The Bible makes no distinction between the born and unborn baby; the Greek word for baby used to describe John the Baptist and Jesus before they were born is the same word used to describe the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling cloths.

Hypocrisy lies in those who make a public profession of faith and then exercise their powers in a manner inconsistent with the world view they held before the constituency. You may disagree with Bush, but in this decision his operations were quite consistent with his profession of biblical Christianity. And that is who we voted for.

Some Christians find theological message in Mideast fighting

(Article reprinted from the Daily Breeze)

Hundreds of parishioners gathered at a Hope Chapel service in Hermosa Beach last weekend to hear a sermon titled "What the Heck is Going On?"
By Kate McLaughlin
DAILY BREEZE

With war raging in the Middle East, the ominous words at the top of this page, which according to the Bible were spoken by Jesus to his disciples on the Mount of Olives, have a clear meaning for many evangelical Christians:

The birth pains signal the end times.

The apocalypse is upon us.

Pastor Mike Maffe is one of the believers.

Hundreds of his parishioners gathered at a Hope Chapel service in Hermosa Beach last weekend to hear Maffe deliver a sermon titled "What the Heck is Going On?" when he addressed the coming end times.

"What's going on in the Middle East is not a land grab or a political war," Maffe told the congregation. "It's a spiritual battle. [Christ's return] could be a week from Thursday or it could be 40 or 60 years from now. I don't know. No one knows. But I believe we're living in the last days."

After noting that war is unquestionably bad and that he had no political bias or geopolitical position to further, Maffe supported his position by citing scriptures from the Old and New Testament, including Matthew 24.

Maffe said the war between Israel and Hezbollah signifies the beginning of the end-time birth pains, and that as time passes the "contractions get closer and more intense."

Such belief in the power of the end-time prophecy, and in the centrality of the nation of Israel in that scenario, predates the current conflict.

Author Hal Lindsey has been analyzing biblical omens for decades. His best-selling Late Great Planet Earth came out in 1970 and went on to become the best-selling Christian book of the decade.

More recently, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins have enjoyed tremendous success with their Left Behind books, a series of apocalyptic novels that tell of the Rapture, a prophesied period when the righteous will be taken into heaven while sinners are left on Earth to suffer through the battle of Armageddon. The 16 Left Behind books have sold 63 million copies.

Basic to the views of an approaching apocalypse is the belief that the creation of the Jewish state in 1948 was a necessary precondition for the end times. Now that Israel is once again at war -- and missiles are raining down upon Haifa, 15 miles north of the biblical site of Armageddon (literally, the Mount of Megiddo) -- the stage is fully set.

The New Testament's book of Revelation, with its dramatic images of destruction and tribulation, of dragons and serpents and battling beasts, has been interpreted as a prediction of Israel's involvement in the final showdown between good and evil.

And Israel's importance is clearly stated in Old Testament prophecies such as Zechariah 12:3-9:

"I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves. On that day I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness ... but Jerusalem will remain intact in her place ... On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem."

Perhaps more ominous are the opening lines of the preceding chapter in Zechariah:

"Open your doors, O Lebanon,
so that fire may devour your cedars!"

Such passages are persuasive for believers such as Maffe.

"We are watching prophecy unfold on TV live," he told his congregation.

But not all evangelical Christians are convinced.

"I don't think the tension in the Middle East and the establishment of Israel have anything to do with biblical prophecies," said Paul Viggiano, pastor of Branch of Hope, an orthodox Presbyterian church in Torrance. "Anybody who has any understanding of Middle Eastern history knows that as long as there has been sand there, there's been trouble. It started 4,000 years ago with Isaac and Ishmael."

Viggiano said he believes Jesus will return, but only to preside at the last judgment, not to fight at Armageddon.

"The passages that are used in terms of Israel and the significance of Israel and the great tribulation, I think, are misused," Viggiano said, citing as an example the oft-used Matthew 24. "If you look at the time context of those prophecies used to argue [for the end-times scenario], they almost unanimously indicate that the cataclysmic things Jesus was talking about were going to happen in the generation that he was living."

In the passage from Matthew, Viggiano pointed out, Jesus listed the signs that would herald the end of an age, which included an increase in wickedness, nation rising against nation, famines, earthquakes and a worldwide preaching of the Gospel. In the scripture, he told his disciples that when these signs were evident, the end would be near and

"this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."

"Jesus was at the Mount of Olives talking to a group of people," said Viggiano. "When [Jesus] says 'you,' the second person plural, to an audience of people sitting there listening, are those people assuming he's talking to them or to a generation that wasn't going to be in existence for another 2,000 years? What Jesus is talking about [in Matthew] is the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 and the siege of Jerusalem. That was a gigantic event."

Ken Zanca, professor of philosophy and religious studies at Marymount College in Rancho Palos Verdes, shares Viggiano's skeptical view of the Bible's purported fire-and-brimstone predictions.

"When you see horrible destruction in the Holy Lands," he said, "it's easy to look in Revelation for the equivalents, but that's a very naïve, superficial understanding of revelation.

"It's anemic theology to think the world ends in destruction," Zanca said. "From the second century on up to the 20th century the Christian church renounced the idea of the world ending by destruction and hellfire."

Scripture, he noted, was interpreted as symbolically representing "the victory of good over evil; it was never meant to be a map for later centuries of the end of times."

"Armageddon was fought on Good Friday. Evil was vanquished on Good Friday. That's the good news of the Bible," Zanca said. "The end of the world in John's vision [in Revelation] is not the destruction of the world, it's the perfection of the world."

The message of the Bible, Zanca said, is one of comfort and consolation.

"Christianity is a religion of hope and confidence," he said. "The God of Jesus is one of love and creativity, not vengeance and destruction, and whatever the end is, it's not going to be a mushroom cloud.

"And maybe the world is not going to end," Zanca said. "Maybe the world is the stage for an individual to reach a relationship with eternity, and while each individual has an end of their world in death, the stage is always there.

"Like Jesus said, the kingdom of God is always within you."