[AI translation] My Christian Brothers and Sisters!Not so long ago, a sermon was preached from this pulpit on the basis of the same Word on the sanctification of Sunday, and we are speaking about it again now because the organizers of the National Protestant Days have asked that every Protestant congregation in the capital city stand under the judgment of the fourth commandment this Sunday. There will also be a joint Protestant rally this morning for the sanctification of Sunday. Let us now join in this great struggle for the Lord's Day and listen to God's message on the sanctification of Sunday. Whichever commandment of God we hear, He always judges us first. We are also judged thoroughly by the fourth commandment. Oh, it is not just because we do not sanctify the Lord's Day sufficiently, for that is a symptom of a much deeper problem.
We all know the origin of the biblical Sabbath, the day of rest. The great work of creating the world was completed on this day. In the story of creation we read: 'And the heavens and the earth and all their host were finished. And when God had finished His work which He had made on the seventh day..." (Genesis 2:1-2a) - so the work of creation was not completed at the end of the sixth day, but on the seventh day. It is true that on the seventh day He no longer created a new creature in heaven or on earth, for all that was finished, yet on the seventh day the creation of the world was completed. It was on the seventh day that the whole created universe attained the purpose for which God created it. For the purpose of the whole created world is to glorify God, to praise its Creator, to please God, so that God may be pleased to see that what God has created is beautiful and good. This is the Sabbath of God's rest. This Sabbath was His purpose, and it was with this purpose in view that He did the whole work of creation from the beginning. He created everything so that He could then rest and see His glory in it. It was this Sabbath, this purpose, which determined the work and the direction of the preceding days.
By creating everything in six days for the purpose of seeing His glory in it on the seventh day, God has also set the order of the life of the created world for eternity. And this world order consists in the fact that, even on the six working days of the week, all work and all endeavour is directed towards the Sabbath, towards the glory of God. This Sabbath also gives direction and purpose to the whole week. There is one purpose for every day of the week, the same purpose that finds its most glorious expression on the day of rest: that is, to consecrate our lives and our work to the glory of God.
God's original idea was that man's whole life should be one great Sabbath, from which the Sabbath of rest would emerge every seventh day. Such was the life of Paradise man before the Fall, one great Sabbath. This does not mean, therefore, that he spent his life idly, but that he did his work with the purpose and the schedule which God gave as an example in the work of creating the world. The life of the first man was a life consecrated to God, and therefore a happy state of rest in God and peace with Him. For him, the seventh day after the six working days was a day of rest, but it was not in contrast to the other days. His weekly feast day was similar to the weekdays, except that it was like a little rise on a plateau, but the whole plateau was actually a Sabbath, a state of rest, peace and surrender to God. Yes, that is how God imagined man's life on earth. This was the creation of the world.
This order of life was disturbed and confused by sin. The destruction of sin is perhaps nowhere more striking than when we compare the eternal Sabbath of the first man with the life of man today. The restlessness, the inner and outer restlessness, the nervous scramble that makes the life of man today so unbearable, is the very opposite of the ancient Sabbath, the Sabbath of rest and peace. Look out into the world at large, or even into our own small world: our lives are diametrically opposed to God's ancient order of creation. What remains of the eternal Sabbath? Only a weekly day of rest, a painful reminder of the glorious state of yesteryear. How even this only day of the week dedicated to God has been marred by sin! It would be the divine order that even the working days should be pervaded by the direction of the day of rest, the turning to God - and the actual state of things is that even the Lord's day is disturbed by the nervousness of the working days, by the spirit of rebellion against God.
There is no sadder caricature of the eternal Sabbath than that the worship of God is reduced to a single hour of one day of the week, the church service. The rest of the Lord's day is devoted to the service of the week: rest, relaxation, entertainment after a week's toil, the weary man recompensing himself for the pleasures he has missed for six days. On the seventh day, he wants to make up for what he has missed all week: sleep, fresh air, outings, cinema, company. And so the seventh day becomes a day of fun after the working day. Often, even that one hour dedicated to God is just a programme of fun - or if the exhausted person doesn't find it fun, he or she will find other fun instead!
Behold, the commandment on the sanctification of the Lord's day accuses us of this. Or do you think that you, who are here in the temple, are sanctifying the day? Do you think you have paid God with this, and now you can live the rest of the day for yourself? Is not our whole life contrary to the creation of the eternal Sabbath? Can God allow this subversion of his creation to go unpunished?
Behold, here again we are at God's mercy, for we would be lost without it. Here again, this grace is given to us in Jesus Christ. For He was the only one on earth who lived completely according to God's plan, that is, according to the order of creation. He was the only one whose life was truly an eternal Sabbath. This does not mean that he spent his days in idleness - that is not what the Sabbath, the Sabbath of rest, means - but that in all his work, in all his life, he never served his own glory, but the glory of God. His coming into the world was a great worship, for so the angels sang: Glory to God! Jesus, twelve years old, said to his parents, "I must occupy myself with the things which are my Father's" (Luke 2:49). At the end of his life, on the Sabbath of his life's work, he offered up his whole redemptive work to the glory of God, "It is finished." (Jn 19,30) Thus Jesus fulfilled the form of life that God wanted us to live in the fourth commandment, which we were unable to do.
At the same time, he carried out the punishment for us for breaking the fourth commandment. He suffered the ultimate antithesis of the eternal Sabbath, the total agony of abandonment to God, when He cried out on the cross, "My God, my God! (Mt 27,46) Thus he was punished for the fourth commandment, so that we might be brought back to God and never again be separated from Him, so that we too might have the Sabbath again, a life in which we might once again taste the eternal Sabbath, reconciliation with God and peace of mind.
If you believe in Christ, Brother, if you believe that God has forgiven the breaking of the Sabbath law and the other laws for the satisfaction of Christ, you will feel that the peace and rest of that first Sabbath will flow into your soul. This inward, spiritual Sabbath will then flow out in the everyday life of such a redeemed man, even in his everyday life. In gratitude for his salvation, such a man devotes not one day, but his whole life to the Lord. And the Lord's day, the Christian Sabbath, Sunday, is particularly helpful in this, when he can turn his attention to God with all his efforts undisturbed. Sunday is like the heart in the body for a week in the life of a redeemed man. It is the heart that beats in the whole body of the week, the heart that pushes the life-force into the artery of each day. For the redeemed man, Sunday is like an oasis in the wilderness, where he is refreshed, where he draws new strength to continue his journey.
Sunday is therefore a blessing, as it is written in the Word that God has blessed this day. For the redeemed man, then, it is not a strict law to keep the Lord's day holy, but a precious gift, a majestic privilege, to have a day when, putting aside all other things, he can turn to God and be filled with power from above for the whole week to come. The redeemed man, desirous of God, needs no special explanation of how to hallow this day, for he is happy to have a day when he can enjoy a foretaste of eternal rest.
There is, therefore, only one way to truly sanctify Sunday, and that way is the way of repentance and conversion. It would be in vain to impose a new way of life on our old sinful selves. This is only possible through renewal from within. And only the Lord Jesus Christ can renew us with His Holy Spirit! If you are hurt, if you are really hurt by the profanation of the day which the Lord has sanctified, then pray that the Lord may glorify Himself in our conversion and sanctification.
Amen.
Date: 7 November 1943.