Here we are in a society paralysed by the fears, anxieties and ennui of a culture that promised so much, yet has delivered so little. And here we are in churches that are in decline census after census, and which we will pull almost any lever we can find to ensure that the earthquake does not level us to the ground. Maybe, just maybe, God will rebuild something from the rubble.

There’s a religious earthquake coming. You can tell. The first rumblings were a few years ago. Despite the obvious decline in the number of people ticking a religion on the census data, something is shifting.
I’m living in Christchurch, New Zealand, at the moment, and the Anglican cathedral in the centre of town is still a tottering heap, it’s reconstruction still not underway following the dreadful earthquake here a dozen years ago.
In a sense it’s like a metaphor. The secular rumblings of society blew out to a full scale seismic collapse of Christianity in the West. So much fell down. All that was left was for the Four Horsemen of the Atheist Apocalypse, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett to kick over the final traces of religion with their invective, their wit and their intelligence.
In a century or so, modern men and women (if there are even such categories allowed in a century or so), will have forgotten what it was even like to oppose religion, never mind adhere to it. True, the occasional piece of rubble might wend its way to the surface, but merely to be gawked at and put in a museum, with a warning that it might not be safe for kids.
Yet here we are. Two of those four horsemen have, sadly, died (Dennett most recently, and Hitchens most famously), while Dawkins and Harris are dragging their now-lame charges off to the knacker’s yard. More glue anyone?
Dawkins is saying more loudly what he’s been saying since 2007 – that he’s a cultural Christian. And Harris? Well I’ll leave you to interpret the “atheist/not atheist” of his own website when plugging his new book “Waking Up” (notice how he can’t even find a title without stealing a deeply biblical metaphor):

My hope is that Waking Up will help readers see the nature of their own minds in a new light. A rational approach to spirituality seems to be what is missing from secularism and from the lives of most of the people I meet. The purpose of this book is to offer readers a clear view of the problem, along with some tools to help them solve it for themselves.

To which I would say, “Wake up Sam!” You’re playing with language you don’t own. You’re a squatter on a property for which you are not paying rent. Have the decency to evict yourself or start putting some greenbacks in the hands of the landlord. Or the Lord of the land, whichever nomenclature you prefer.
Far from a collapse following an earthquake, it’s a bit more like this:
“Hey we’re back!”
But lest we get too cocky, let’s just pause to think about what we want to have back. What do we need to leave in the rubble heap and what do we need to rebuild.
That dilemma crossed my mind as I read The Times today, and James Marriott’s piece:
Millennials are Bending the Knee to Religion:
Two which I would say “Duh!” Where have you been the past five years James? Probably in the offices of The Times of London, that’s where. The kind of place that has an alternate social imaginary, a way of looking at the world myopically: containing slightly warmed over preconceptions that came with a First at Cambridge, along with a healthy dose of skepticism birthed in a lifestyle that would be too challenged if God were on the table.
But hey, it’s a start, right?
Marriott’s newfound starry-eyed acceptance that while Boomers and X-ers were throwing it away in spades, Millennials have found religion all over again.
It’s as if those ungrateful brats couldn’t just thank us for giving them a world in which they are permitted – nay, required – to indulge themselves in every experience possible with no exceptions and no guilt (consent being required of course), but with absolutely no meaning and purpose attached to it all. Why couldn’t they just take the gifts, repurpose them for their own bodily orifices, and turn their back on the Giver?
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If you have a relationship with Christ, the righteousness of Christ, and will be called to life at the resurrection by Christ, it is enough. And if you have the resolve of Christ to live by his power to face whatever comes, it is enough. Don’t yearn for more when Christ is all you need. He is enough for you and me.

A reporter once asked John D. Rockefeller, “How much money is enough?” The world’s first billionaire gave his famous reply: “Just a little bit more.”
Rockefeller’s answer strikes a chord in every heart. There is something in us that, even if we were to be given a billion dollars, we would still say, “Just a little bit more.” Left to ourselves, we would never be able to say, “It is enough.”
Enough. When is anything ever enough? Can you say of yourself and your situation, “It is enough”?
The apostle Paul once used a word that combined the pronoun “self” with the verb “it is enough.” It made for the adjective “content” in a verse most Christians know well:
I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
(Philippians 4:11)
If etymology for this word means anything, I suppose it means that Paul, whatever his circumstances may have been, found something true of himself that gave him satisfaction, something that was enough. What may that have been?
The Strength of Christ Is Enough
In the immediate context, his contentment came from the strength of Christ to face anything in life. Whether his circumstances were terrible or terrific, Paul claimed, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13; cf. 4:12). A truth about himself was that he was in Christ, and his strength through Paul was enough.
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Sabbath-keeping does not come naturally to me. It does not fit with my sensibilities; I much prefer believing that I may refresh myself in any way I please on the Lord’s Day. But as the Spirit has sanctified me to put my Sabbath-breaking to death, I am learning to delight more and more in it. Keeping the Sabbath teaches me to remember God’s covenant, to make him my delight, to express to others my resurrection hope, to declare God’s lordship over my life, and to demonstrate love for my neighbor. The Sabbath is vital to the Christian religion.

Presbyterians hold a distinctively high regard for the Sabbath, but officers of the Presbyterian Church in America regularly take exception to the Westminsterian view of the Sabbath. Men taking this exception may not see it as the mistake it is. To be clear, Sabbath-keeping does not come naturally to me, either. But I have learned to delight in the Sabbath and to see more clearly how it is the straight teaching of Scripture. The Sabbath has taught me to remember God’s covenant, to make him my delight, to express to others my resurrection hope, to declare God’s lordship over my life, and to demonstrate love for my neighbor. As such, I am now more convinced than ever that the Sabbath is vital to the Christian religion.
I. Remembering God’s Covenant with His People
First, the Sabbath is vital because by honoring the Sabbath, we remember God’s covenant with his people. In Exodus 31:12-13, the LORD instructs Moses to say to the people of Israel, “Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you.”
The fact that God singles out the Sabbath “above all” other commandments should be reason enough to esteem the Lord’s Day highly. But we ought to delight in the Sabbath not merely because God commands it, but because covenantal blessings are associated with keeping the Day.
The Sabbath is a day laden with blessings for God’s people, for God instituted the Sabbath as a covenantal sign between him and his people. For his people “throughout your generations,” the Sabbath is a distinguishing sign that sets apart his elect people from all others. We ought to take great delight in the day knowing that it is emblematic of his compassionate love for us.
II. Making God Our Delight
Second, the Sabbath is vital because by honoring the Sabbath, we learn to make God our delight. That God commands his people to lay aside their own pleasures is not an indication that he is a joyless deity, but rather an invitation that we might make him our greatest joy. The smallest child in our pews can likely tell us that our chief end in life is to “glorify God and enjoy him forever” (WSC 1). The Sabbath is instrumental to this chief end.
While we may be tempted to claim or believe that we delight in God through our hobbies and recreations, Scripture tells us just the opposite. Calling the Sabbath a delight means turning back from “going your own ways,” “seeking your own pleasure,” and “talking idly” (Isa. 58:13). It is precisely by honoring the Sabbath as God’s holy day that we learn to delight in God. “If you honor it, not going your own ways,” Isaiah 58:13 begins, “then you shall take delight in the LORD,” Isaiah 58:14 concludes.
Do we desire to be in God’s temple more than any other place (Ps. 84:10)? Do we rejoice in his day above all other days (Ps. 118:24)? Do we delight to be with his people above all other people (Ps. 16:3)? The Sabbath instructs us in all of these regards. To avert our gaze from an incomparable God (Ps. 86:8) and to draw pleasure from any other well dishonors God and does us no good.
III. Expressing Our Resurrection Hope
Third, the Sabbath is vital because by honoring the Sabbath, we express our resurrection hope. As Paul writes to the Corinthians, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). But in fact we have great hope that Christ is “the firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18) and that “we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5).
Against the objection that Sabbath-keeping is legalistic, if we truly keep the Sabbath, then we cast aside our legalism, resting not only from works, but from works-righteousness. The author of Hebrews helps us understand how the Sabbath helps us express our resurrection hope: “whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works” (Heb 4:10). The Sabbath reminds us that our only hope for the life to come is in the finished work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
We do not get a foretaste of eternal Sabbath rest by mere inactivity on Sundays. According to the author of Hebrews, we ought to “strive to enter that rest” (4:11). Thus, the Sabbath is an opportunity for us to experience heavenly bliss through worship (Rev. 5:13; 19:6-8), fellowship with other believers (1 Thess. 4:16-18), and service to God (Rev. 22:3).
In contrast, by clinging to the things of this world, we make ourselves to be pitiable, living as though we do not have a resurrection hope. By casting aside that which is lawful on other days, we demonstrate that we are eagerly awaiting the life of the world to come, rather than desperately clinging to the trifles of this world.
IV. Declaring God’s Lordship over Our Lives
Fourth, the Sabbath is vital because by honoring the Sabbath, we declare God’s lordship over our lives. The Westminster Divines note that the Sabbath has “less light of nature for it” (WLC 121). We can perhaps by appealing to reason or another extrabiblical authority more easily conclude that murder, adultery, or theft are impermissible. Indeed, the laws of many ancient Near East peoples reflect such sensibilities (e.g., Gen. 26:10). But it may be less apparent to our reason why we must keep the Sabbath.
When the Ten Commandments are first given in Exodus 20, the reason appended to the Fourth is that “in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” God pronounces his creative sovereignty over the day and commands his people to keep it holy.
The New Testament affirms God’s sovereignty over the Sabbath. Christ did not come to abolish the Sabbath, but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17) and in doing so proclaimed his lordship over it (Matt. 12:7; Mk 2:28; Lu. 6:5).
If our obedience to God’s commandments is limited to what we feel is reasonable, we are in danger of creating a God in the image of our reason or sensibilities, but not worshiping the God of the Bible. The connection between the Sabbath and creation (Ex. 20:11) cannot be diminished without also weakening other biblical teachings rooted in creation, including gender and marriage (Gen. 1:27, 2:18).
V. Demonstrating Love for Neighbor
Finally, the Sabbath is vital because by honoring the Sabbath, we demonstrate our love for neighbor. To keep the Sabbath is to love our neighbors by inviting them to share in Sabbath rest. In contrast, to reject the Sabbath is to hate our neighbors by oppressing them.
When the Ten Commandments are repeated in Deuteronomy 5, the list of those to whom Sabbath rest is to be extended is expanded and clarified. The reason for the commandment also differs. We keep the Sabbath “that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you” and that we might remember God’s redemptive work in rescuing his people out of slavery in Egypt (Deut. 5:14-15; cf. Ex. 20:10, 23:12).
Though I doubt anyone reading this keeps a servant in his employ, it is nonetheless true that a leadership principle is implicit in the Fourth Commandment. The commandment to keep the Sabbath “is more specially directed to governors of families, and other superiors” because they may, directly by employment or indirectly by example, hinder or help the Sabbath-keeping of those under their charge (WLC 118). Thus, nobles (Neh. 13:15-17), princes (Jer. 17:20-22), and priests (Ezek. 22:26) are particularly directed to keep the Sabbath and see to it that those under their charge are enabled to keep the day as well.
As part of the moral law, the Fourth Commandment is not circumscribed to believers. We are all superiors in the sense that we may command the labor of another through the promise of payment. We should not believe that we would remain guiltless by having another commit murder, steal, or bear false witness on our behalf. We should not deceive ourselves that the Sabbath is a unique exception in this regard.
Imagine the positive influence Christians could have on culture if we were committed to loving our neighbor in this way. As it stands, ignoring the Sabbath is most oppressive for workers in the service industry who end up working seven days a week. But if restaurants and big box stores discovered fewer patrons on the Lord’s Day, we could love even our unbelieving neighbor by helping him mortify this sin and partake in the blessings of the Day.
Conclusion
Sabbath-keeping does not come naturally to me. It does not fit with my sensibilities; I much prefer believing that I may refresh myself in any way I please on the Lord’s Day. But as the Spirit has sanctified me to put my Sabbath-breaking to death, I am learning to delight more and more in it. Keeping the Sabbath teaches me to remember God’s covenant, to make him my delight, to express to others my resurrection hope, to declare God’s lordship over my life, and to demonstrate love for my neighbor. The Sabbath is vital to the Christian religion.

Matthew Lee is a ruling elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, Ark.
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