Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Sabbath Rest

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Sabbath Rest

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 82

Dictation Name: RR171AS82

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Jesus said Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly father, we thank thee that thy love has been manifest unto us, in Jesus Christ. Thy presence made known by thy Holy Spirit, and thy grace and mercy day by day in our lives. Give us joy in thy care, in thy government. We thank thee that thou art He who hast made all things and are now remaking all things in and through us, that thou hast so ordained and ordered all things that all things shall praise thee, all things shall work together for good in thee, and all things shall be at their best, at their eternal destiny in thee. We thank thee that thou hast called us to a place in thy kingdom. Make us grateful and joyful, make us confident in thy purposes and distrustful of ours, that we might serve thee with humility and with knowledge. In Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is Exodus 23:9-13. Our subject: The Sabbath Rest. Exodus 23:9-13. “Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard. Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.”

Two weeks ago we dealt with Exodus 23:1-8. Much of what that passage deals with could be placed under the commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,” one of the Ten Commandments. The same is true also of Exodus 23:9. The rest of our passage today is related to Exodus 20:8-11, the sabbath law.

Verse 9, “Thou shalt not oppress a stranger” is a bridge between the two sections. The alien must have peace and rest also. When he is in the land, it must not be a place of troubling, but of sabbath rest. To be in the midst of God’s covenant people, God’s covenant land, must be a sabbath for the foreigner, the stranger, in a sense of a rest from oppression. Justice is essential to the true sabbath. A man may be able to retire from work, but in the land of injustice, true rest does not come from the mere absence of work. In fact, for many people, retirement, if they cannot dispense with their involvement with the world around them, becomes a curse, and for those who separate themselves from the world around them it becomes escapism, because they do not have the true rest which is Christ.

A form of this same law is in Exodus 24:21, or rather 22:21, and it is repeated throughout the Bible. It is clearly, therefore, a matter of importance in God’s sight. There is a phrase in this “for ye know the heart of a stranger.” It can be rendered “a soul” or “a life” of a stranger because they had been strangers in Egypt, and we are not to oppress the stranger or the alien.

But, the emphasis here is not on humanistic brotherhood but on justice. It is certainly not without significance that our present emphasis on world brotherhood and the family of man goes hand-in-hand with the neglect of God’s justice, and with a prevalence of injustice. Humanism stresses feelings, God stresses justice.

In verses 10-13, we have some sabbath laws. First of all, in verses 10 and 11, the rest requirements of the sabbath year are set forth. Then second, in verse 12, the weekly sabbath is described as all inclusive of men and animals. Third, our minds and our speech must observe a continual sabbath or rest from idolatry. There are boundaries to thought and speech as well as to action.

Now to consider the first of these, verses 10 and 11. In Leviticus 25:4, the sabbath year is called a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord. The first phrase here, a sabbath of rest unto the land can be rendered a sabbath of sabbatisms. It is a culmination of the weekly sabbath. Debts are not to be beyond six years, so that the sabbath time is not only a rest from one’s work, but also from debt. It is a freedom thus, from worry as well. Since debts were to be incurred for serious or emergency causes essentially, this meant that provident, debt-free living was the normal way of life according to God’s prescription. The advantages to men in such a way of life are very, very great. A debt-free society would be dramatically free from many social problems. But, while the human advantages are many, Leviticus 25:4 places the central emphasis elsewhere. It is a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord. Because the land rests, the environmental benefits are very real, but it is a sabbath for the Lord, for His purposes and for His kingdom. God establishes a law, and order, and this order greatly blesses man and provides for a just society. All the same, it’s focus is on God’s kingdom. More than our present peace and prosperity, therefore, is in view. Not only the future, but God’s eternal kingdom is the purpose and goal of this law. This law is based on God’s ownership of the earth, of all its resources and all its peoples. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein,” according to Psalm 24:1.

What the land produced in the sabbath year belonged to the poor and to wild animals. While the owner could pick some of the produce for personal use, it could not be marketed. It belonged to the Lord, not to the man who was his steward over it.

The secondary of these sabbath laws and their concern was, in verse 12, the weekly sabbath. Both the owner and his servants or workers, and also his animals were to rest each sabbath day. According to the Bible and its perspective, the sabbath is a blessing from God to man. It places a necessary restraint upon man’s work as a gift to him from God. This gift from God to man must be extended by man to all living things under him, both men and animals, and also to the land itself. Whatever God gives us, grace, or of rest, or anything else must go through us to those around and under us. Man must consecrate himself and all that he governs, and time itself, to God as his creator and redeemer.

The weekly sabbath is a part of that consecration, and its purpose is not a mindless time. Verse 12 concludes by saying that one purpose of the weekly sabbath is that all may be refreshed. There are two aspects to this phrase. It is an idiom and a way of saying it is a time when all may catch their breath, but second, the word “refreshed” is related to the word “soul.” Thus, the sabbath rest is more than physical. It is a time for the renewal of our being. Time and the earth are alike God’s creation and so, too is man. By resting in the Lord, and by being freshly reminded of God’s priority, we catch our breath and we are renewed.

In Acts 2, or rather 3:19, we have the same idea as Peter declares, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.” Again, the time of refreshing, and this can also be rendered as the time of re-souling, an amazing phrase. God says rest and be re-souled. Catch your breath. Be re-souled, it has that double meaning. The sabbath is therefore, presented as the means to the health of the community. We are out of soul. We are out of breath if we keep going endlessly, and we need to rest.

The sabbath rest includes the animals who have no religious duties to perform, and workers who may not be believers. There is all the same some benefit to them, and the sabbath is to be a blessing to all.

In verse 13, the concluding verse in this passage, “And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.” This verse calls for a continuous rest, from all mental and verbal consideration of or concern with other gods, or with false religions, or with ourselves, because we are, according to Genesis 3:5, the primary idol, or god, whom we worship and obey. We seek to be our own god, and that is the essence of our sin. But whatever the gods whom we honor, we are not to be impressed with their power, nor tied up with endless negation or fear. This law is related to Revelation 2:24, where Christ, in his message to the churches, condemns concern endlessly with conspiracies, with Satanic hidden things, because then we wrap ourselves up in a fear of the enemy’s power rather than in the greater power of all, the all power of God. The power of God far exceeds all false gods, all conspiracies, and it is He whom we must serve, understand and obey.

In Hosea 2:17, God declares, “For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.” What is in our mouth and what is in our heart govern us, and it is the zeal of the Lord of Hosts which must possess us. To mention the names of other gods means using their names and {?}, curses, prayers, and the like. It means invoking them. David had this law in mind in Psalm 16:4, “Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god. Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.”

We cannot allow our lives to be governed by anything other than God. What may consume our attention may be something which is good sometimes, or it can be evil, but if it takes priority over us, then it becomes idolatry. We have a reference to the same general concept in Ephesians 5:2. There are things that we must keep our distance from because not to do so means a growing toleration. The concern of these laws, in brief, is the sabbath, or rest, resting in the Lord. Isaiah 57:20-21 deal with this and tell us that, “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” This is one of the most telling passages in scripture, because it tells us that when our hearts are not stayed upon the Lord, and this applies to all of us at some time or other, and to some all the time, then we are like a storm sea that is constantly stirring up the depths and bringing up dirt. Is restless, does not flow properly. Rest is a religious matter. Isaiah tells us that the wicked cannot truly rest because their minds constantly cast up the past, or the present, mire and dirt other words, because they do not look to the future under God. Perpetual dissatisfaction marks them, and they resent having to live in the world that is troubled or in evil times, as though heaven should be their rightful place and privilege. They resent having to live in a world they never made, a time they did not shape, so that there is no peace for them, God declares. It is impossible, because they can never be God.

The godly are told that rest in a very troubled and evil world is their privilege if they will have it. If we are fretful, our Lord tells us, it is because we are striving vainly to serve two masters, and very often one of those masters is ourselves. We are our own favorite god.

However evil the times, we are commanded to trust in the Lord. We are not to be consumed by anxiety. “Be not anxious about the morrow,” our Lord tells us, but rather “seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” or justice. The sabbath rest, in other words, must be more than a weekly observance. It must be a daily fact. But how do we rest if we are presently overwhelmed by ugly burdens and problems. These can leave us sleepless and even shattered. The answer is given to us in Romans 8:28. God makes “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” If we look at God’s sovereign purpose and grace, rather than to our own hurt or pride, we are enabled, step by step, to rest in Him who is our peace.

Thus, as Israel was facing entrance into the Promised Land, they were told again and again, we read it in Exodus, in Leviticus, in Numbers, and in Deuteronomy, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. To rest in the Lord, and not to believe that we know the present and the future, or that our minds have all the possibilities in mind, or that our minds are the determiners of all things. This is why the sabbath commandment is spoken to us again and again. Not only as a weekly rest, but a continual rest in the Lord. Let us pray.

Our Father, we give thanks unto thee for thy word. Teach us to rest in thee. Thou hast commanded us to come unto thee, to cast our every care upon thee who carest for us. Take away from us the pride and the arrogance that leads us to be fretful, to worry, to assume that unless we turn things over endlessly in our own minds, thou art incapable of doing a thing. Forgive us for our pride and arrogance. We thank thee that thou art our peace, that thou hast, in thy providence so often been good to us who cannot be good to ourselves. Give us grace therefore, our Father, to rest, to take hands off our lives and to commit them into thy keeping. In Jesus name, amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] I just returned from Austria and eastern Europe where I had an opportunity to observe {?} and biblical approach to the refugee problem there. Would you say that verse 9 is a good verse to provide guidance for establishment of a refugee policy?

[Rushdoony] I couldn’t get that last sentence.

[Audience] Would you say that verse 9 is a good verse to guide refugee policy?

[Rushdoony] Yes, it is, and I think we can analyze the whole of the world problem today in terms of the sabbath law. God says there is no rest to the wicked, that a regime that insists on injustice, and works against the true worship of God is creating an explosive situation. The wicked are like the restless sea which cannot rest, which casts up mire and dirt. So, the explosion comes, it cannot be suppressed. Either there’s the sabbath rest, or there’s revolution. That’s what God tells us, and man is determined that he alone can create the sabbath rest. He will create a paradise on earth, and the Garden of Eden was a kind of sabbath, as the eternal kingdom of God is, and this is what we are to represent. We are the people of the sabbath and it means more than a day a week. It means the principle of resting in God, of knowing that His will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. Sabbath or revolution, those are the alternatives. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] According to this then, the atheist university professor should be willing to give up their paid year of vacation, called sabbatical.

[Rushdoony] Yes, a very good point. Because what they represent is the relic of Christianity, or biblical faith which created the university, and which believed in the sabbath, and which once was observed. There’s almost nothing you can read anywhere about it, only here and there do you occasionally find reference to the fact that the sabbath premise was once operative in Christendom. I don’t know how much is left of it, there are just hints here and there that it once existed. To what degree we don’t know.

[Audience] They all devoutly believe they could have that year off with vacation.

[Rushdoony] Of course, and they have no regard for the rest of society. They teach two to four hours a week for six years and then have a year off with pay. Yes?

[Audience] And Benjamin Franklin was shocked when he went to England the first time. He discovered that the trains, and the ferrries, and everything else was functioning on Sunday, because when he was a young man in the United States, that was not true.

[Rushdoony] Yes, that is the case, and that type of thing to a degree prevailed in Canada longer than here. Christopher Hill, during his Marxist days, wrote that one of the things that made the working people favorable to Puritanism is the Puritan view of the sabbath, because they were working seven days a week, and the Puritans were the champions of the workers, so there was a great deal of pro-Puritan feeling on that ground. Yes?

[Audience] Verses 10 and 11 focus on an agricultural situation. How does this sabbath year principle apply to a wage earner in a modern industrial economy?

[Rushdoony] It applies. It means that in one way or another, it must be there. And as I pointed out some time ago when we were dealing again with the sabbath laws, that if the sabbath from debt were also recognized, it would mean that you would have no long-term debt, and if you lived normally debt-free, you would accumulate just in terms of the interest payments on debts as they are today, enough to live not only one year but two without working, because the average person today who is in debt for his property, is paying $50,000 to $70,000 in a six year time, in interest, just on his house. This is not counting anything else that he’s paying interest on. That’s a lot of money. It takes up the biggest single item on most family budgets and is never even considered. Any other questions? If not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, be merciful unto us, poor sinners. We are fretful in our work. When thou hast commanded rest, we rebel against rest. We will not do those things which thou hast commanded us to do and then complain because of the consequences. Give us grace to see ourselves in our sins, to lay hold of thy mercy, to be faithful to thy word, and in Jesus Christ, to be more than conquerors. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.