Where are you today? Is someone quarreling with you? Are you experiencing someone’s hatred? As hard as it is to hear, you are being given opportunities for faithfulness. Don’t shrink back from them. Don’t wish them away. Don’t curl up in the fetal position and engage in self-pity. See these moments as opportunities to be faithful knowing that the Lord who is faithful is with you. 

I was recently struck anew by reading Genesis 26. It’s the story of Isaac dwelling in Gerar. The story is familiar. We might read it in “like father, like son” fashion. As Abraham told Abimelech that Sarah was his sister, Isaac did the same. Yes, we sometimes learn from our parents. Even the patriarchs passed on what was not good.  But that’s not what struck me.
There was a famine in the land and the Lord told Isaac not to go down to Egypt but to dwell in the land of Canaan. There is direction and wisdom here. In other words, Egypt was forbidden by divine precept, but the land of Promise remained open before Abaraham’s heir.  So, he thought it wise to go to Gerar. While there he prospered but also encountered conflict. The Philistines were quarreling with him and displacing him. They chased him from water, which was needed in the best of times but especially during famine.  But eventually we read in Genesis 26:22,
And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.”
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My pastor has long used the phrase, “Preach the Word and let the chips fall where they may.” In a nutshell, this encompasses his philosophy of ministry (and my own). The central task of the preacher is to preach. This should be a relatively uncontroversial statement to make in one sense, but in our current church culture, where the pastor is more often seen as a CEO or “brand builder” rather than a shepherd, it is an unpopular statement to make. The expectations placed on pastors are often flatly unbiblical ones, partly owing to the congregant’s lack of biblical wherewithal, yet partly owing to the pastor’s neglect to preach the full counsel of God (Acts 20:27).
There are obviously many other duties tasked to the shepherd of God’s flock, but they all invariably flow from the ministry of the Word and prayer (Acts 6:4). Visitations, funerals, weddings, counseling, even administrative duties, all must fall under the auspices of this primary duty. When they don’t, these duties invariably transform into something other than what is intended of them. In other words, these duties, when done rightly, are an extension of the pastor’s primary task of preaching and teaching. Counseling, marrying, burying, and more, are to be born out of the pastor’s obligation to the Scriptures rather than simply a perfunctory duty, and especially the main duty.
There are constant temptations to let the central task of the preacher be something other than the ministry of the Word and devotion to prayer. The obvious example of becoming the next big name in celebrity evangelicalism is relatively low-hanging fruit to identify, but it is nonetheless something the broader church culture places high currency on. However, the more subtle examples of this abound in the various ministries that churches can participate in. That is not to say it is inherently evil that someone desires the church to have a soup kitchen, for example, but good social deeds are not the primary focus of the church. Rather, the Great Commission is (Matt. 28:16-20).
Yet if you were to ask the average layperson what the primary duty of the church is, it is highly doubtful the Great Commission would come to mind for many. Some would say social justice is, others would claim that a vibrant youth group is what’s needed. For many though, the last thing that would come to their mind is making disciples of Christ. Even for those who would lift up the Great Commission as the primary task of the church would not adequately define what that actually means or would place heavier emphasis on one of the three means Christ has given us rather than encompassing evangelism, baptism, and teaching as the way one makes a mature disciple. I have sincere doubts that many pastors would even adequately define this as the church’s primary duty; after all, the positions of those in the pews is often a reflection of what comes from the pulpit.
It is of no small consequence that Paul’s dying exhortation to young Timothy was to, “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction” (2 Tim. 4:2). The reason? “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths” (2 Tim. 4:3-4).
Brothers, we are living in this “out of season” time, where the multitudes prefer fables fit for old women to sound doctrine.

The 4th Commandment is not just for Christians. It is what we call a Creation Ordinance, just like the positive call to marriage between one man and one woman. That means that the Sabbath was a part of God’s good work before the entrance of sin into the world. Honoring the day of rest was always central to helping those made in the image of God give thanks for the LORD’s act in making us. 

This week we only have one question to look at and with good reason, because it is long. I know I said about a dozen times in the past several weeks that the Third Commandment is the most misunderstood of the Ten. If that is the case, and it is, then the Fourth is probably the most (to be charitable) explained away of all the statutes of God which summarize the moral law. It’s not so much that folks just ignore it whole hog. All Bible-believing Christians worship the Lord on the first day of the week. However, the reasons behind why the 4th Commandment is a forgotten treasure in the kingdom, and why, on a positive note, we set the Sabbath apart from the other days of the week are less well-understood for myriads of reasons, some we will get into this morning. The next four weeks will be taken up with explaining in more detail what practically all of Christendom until about sixty years ago agreed upon when it comes to how the Lord’s Day (not the Lord’s hour) should be sanctified.
This morning I want to take some time and give some background and surface-level reasoning on what Jehovah intends with this commandment. Another thing I hope to help us to see, not just today, but through the next several weeks, is why the sacrifices (which aren’t really a sacrifice once you think about it) those who claim Jesus as their Savior and Lord make to keep this law are worth it in the short run and the long term.
But before that let’s look at the next question of the catechism:
Q. 57. Which is the Fourth Commandment?
A. The fourth commandment is, Remember the sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath-day and hallowed it.
All the first table commandments of the Law have in one way or another to do with worship, and this statute is no different. In fact, the second and the fourth are usually ground zero for all the wars that take place around what we are allowed to do and not allowed to do in our gatherings on Sunday morning and evening. To be sure that is what the 4th Commandment is about, however, when we restrict it to just that we miss the holistic nature of what God intends with it.
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