In the Review Section of the May 8 / 9, 2021 publication of the Wall Street Journal, Sohrab Ahmari wrote an article entitled: ‘What We’ve Lost in Rejecting the Sabbath’.
In the article, Ahmari referred to the time when setting aside one day a week for rest and prayer used to be an American tradition. He reminded his reader that once business owners faced jail time and a fine for keeping their doors open on a Sunday morning.
You may remember the days or heard about the days when the Sabbath was honored by going to worship rather than going to work. And maybe you have commented or heard others comment on how things have changed in the past 70 or 50 or 30 or even 10 years in that Remembering the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy has become more of a choice rather than a command.
In this age of constant activity, I agree with Ahmari who reported: “We need a Sabbath Rest more than ever.” Because without ‘rest’ we will become weary. Without ‘rest’, we can suffer more than a physical sickness. Without a Sabbath Rest, we can become spiritually weak and vulnerable to becoming slaves, bound by Satan and our selfish desires.
In today’s culture, we have become very tolerant of people justifying bad behavior. We’re good at justifying the priorities we make. Many today have replaced a Sabbath Rest with a day sitting on bleachers or a day sitting in a boat. Because we work five or six days every week, we give ourselves a day to relax, but we forgo worshipping God on the Sabbath.
God’s Word teaches us many things about life and living and living our life for God. God teaches that His Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 119:105) Oh, how we need light in a world that is full of darkness. We need light to reveal how God wants us to live and to reveal what He did to save us from the wrong we do and the right we don’t do. When light is not shining, when God’s Word is not guiding, when the Sabbath Day is rejected, what happens to the Sabbath?
Everyone His Witness and ReVitality are great Witnessing and Outreach resources provided by our Synod which will bless in Remembering the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.
Pastor Dwayne Schroeder
OK District Evangelism Secretary
