“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” These words that Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1-4 get to the heart of the third commandment in order that he may preserve the elect and keep any from falling.
What is the third commandment? Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. (small catechism)
We are certainly in the days of people not enduring sound teaching, having itching ears for preachers who will tell the hearer what they want to hear. Too many people have rejected the truth and believed myths, that is, they embrace concocted stories of wicked people as good.
Thus, the third commandment is important and reiterates why it is important for the head of the family to teach this simply to his household. As the head of the house does, so also will the family. Therefore, the third commandment is God teaching you to make time (and not excuses—that’s what the devil teaches) to have the freedom to come together to hear and use God’s Word, and in response, to praise God, to sing and to pray. (LC I, 84)
The Jews had lost the purpose of the Sabbath. They made strict laws about what one could do and not do, how far one could walk, or anything that might be considered work. Jesus one time in Mark 2 finds the Pharisees accusing his disciples of breaking the Sabbath as they plucked heads of wheat and ate the grain. Jesus concludes, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
You see God does not need the Sabbath day. Man needs the Sabbath day. We need our rest and not just physical rest. We need a holy rest, a rest in the Lord as Luther says, “For the day (any day) needs no sanctification for itself. It has been created holy in itself. But God desires the day to be holy to you. Therefore, it becomes holy or unholy because of you, whether you are occupied on that day with things that are holy or unholy.” (87) God has made it holy, It is our profane use of it that makes it unholy.
You need your rest and nourishment in the Lord. You need what God seeks to deliver to you for on the Sabbath. He delivers to you forgiveness, life, and salvation through the means of grace on this holy day. This is particularly important in the midst of your “busiest” time for the devil seeks to make you believe that you can do without this holy day.
So what constitutes a holy day? It is to occupy ourselves with God’s Word and exercise ourselves in the Word. Who, then, is this for? Luther states, “We don’t keep holy days for the sake of intelligent and learned Christians. They have no need of holy days. We keep them for the common people, manservants and maidservants, who have been attending to their work and trade the whole week. In this way they may withdraw in order to rest for a day and be refreshed.” (83)
Who are the intelligent and learned? They should obviously include the pastors but also during the days of Luther, they included the rich who were the patrons of the pastors. They could attend the daily offices and receive the sacrament every day of the week if they so chose! Today there is hardly anyone so intelligent and learned though, because in our mammon inflated world, man is more concerned with making more money and accumulating more belongings. Moreover, man allows every excuse to entrap themselves inside the devil’s kingdom, this world. Satan seeks day and night to kindle in your heart unbelief and wicked thoughts against this and every commandment.
One such excuse is the false belief that I can worship whenever, wherever, and however I want. In such a belief they flee to their gnostic, false insights and interpret Scripture to suit their itching ears saying, “Jesus says, ‘For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.’” Now obviously that is passage from Scripture, but you would be wrong to say, “See, God says I can worship however I want.” But this is a false teaching. The words “are gathered” is not permission by God to go to your hunting cabin, or your lake home, or your basketball tournament and say we are worshipping God. You are not the decider of how you will gather. But rather it is God who is the decider as the verb is clearly passive thus denoting that you are gathered where God would have you be gathered. And God has decided how you will be gathered, around Word and Sacrament with your called Pastor. So that you may be devoted to the hearing of the Word.
Secondly, do not abuse yourself to think that if you put in one hour you have thus fulfilled this commandment. It is not remember the sabbath hour, but day! Therefore, hear Luther, “Likewise those fussy spirits (people) are to be rebuked who, after they have heard a sermon or two, find hearing more sermons to be tedious and dull. They think they know all that well enough and need no more instruction. That is the sin that was called akadia (better known as sloth). This is a malignant, dangerous plague with which the devil bewitches and deceives the hearts of many so that he may surprise us and secretly take God’s Word from us. (99) For example, this is what the devil does in the parable of the Sower. This spiritual laziness has been exacerbated by the Corona virus, which is not a plague upon the world, but upon the church. When we encourage people to watch the Divine Service online and not participate in the holy things of God we teach people to profane the Word of God by being couch potatoes.
A final example of the wicked rejection of remembering the Sabbath day by keeping it holy is this insistent belief that I can worship God however I want. Thus, I am free to work on Sunday, because Jesus has fulfilled the law. This antinomian (anti-law) view abuses what Scripture teaches. For example, Paul says in Romans 14:5-6, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord.” This is not a permission to abandon going to the Divine Service. Rather, it teaches that every day is actually a sabbath day. Thus, if you absolutely believe that you “need” to work on Sunday, you, as a Christian, are called to observe another day as the Sabbath. Because again as Jesus said in Mark 2, “The Sabbath was created for man.” Therefore, routinely set a day as your Sabbath. If you absolutely MUST work on Sunday, talk to your pastor and set up a day in which you may hear the Word and receive the Sacrament.
There is no excuse. Work, play, family, or any other good gift from God will be abused by the devil to make you think that you do not need a weekly Sabbath. In fact, if you think of yourself as an intelligent and learned Christian, you will ask that every day be a day in which you may hear the Word of God from your pastor, but since this is not possible in most of our churches let us set aside several hours a week for the sake of the young and at least a day for the sake of entire multitude to be concerned with being engaged with God’s Word so that we may carry it in our hearts and upon our lips as Psalm 119:11-13 teaches us.
“For the Word is so effective that whenever it is seriously contemplated, heard, and used, it is bound never to be without fruit. It always awakens new understanding, pleasure, and devoutness and produces a pure heart and pure thoughts. For these words are not lazy or dead, but are creative, living words. And even though no other interest or necessity moves us, this truth ought to urge everyone to the Word because thereby the devil is put to flight and driven away. Besides, this commandment is fulfilled and this exercise in the Word is more pleasing to God than any work of hypocrisy, however brilliant.” (101-2) These concluding words of Luther give Christians the sincere hope of the Gospel and a deep love for our God who would not want us despair, but live in the sure promise of the forgiveness of sins delivered to us in the Divine Service. See you on Sunday so that we may be encouraged and lifted up by God through his most holy means.
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