Systematic Theology – Creation and Providence

Providence and the Sabbath

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 14 of 17

Track: #14

Year:

Dictation Name: 14 Providence and the Sabbath

[Rushdoony] Providence and the Sabbath. Our scripture is from Hebrews four verses 1-12.

“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.

2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.

5 And in this place again, if they shall enter into my rest.

6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:

7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, today, after so long a time; as it is said, today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

8 For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.

9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

11 Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Sabbath of course means rest, and entering into God’s rest is the meaning of the Sabbath. But what practically does that involve? The church has overstressed the Sabbath as a day of worship, but under stressed it as a day of rest. The Sabbath is a day of worship, but it is far more. Salvation, like worship, is a communal, a kingdom fact, not a solitary fact. But the Sabbath is more than rest in the sense of cessation of work, it is more than worship, and while it is salvation it is more than salvation. First of all it is indeed a cessation of work, this is an elementary fact that scripture stresses. On the Lord’s day we rest from our labors. But second it is also a rest from planning. What does that involve? In the most elementary fashion it means that on the Lord’s day we do not sit around and plan our future. But it also means, as far as the basic planning of our lives at any time, we first of all rest in the Lord and in His plan; for he that has entered into His rest he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His.

In other words we recognize that what we do is effective in a very limited sense. Not effective at all unless God blesses and by His providence so directs it. So that it is not our planning, nor our willing that determines things, although God requires us to do these things, but His plan and His will. So that whatever we do we do it in the Lord and unto the Lord. We do it in the knowledge that God requires us to recognize that His planning comes first. So taking thought, being anxious about the morrow is refusing to rest in the Lord. IT means that we have no Sabbath; it is a denial of the Sabbath and of the atonement.

Now our Lord in the parable of the rich fool does not tell us that the rich fool was ungodly, or that he was an unbeliever, but simply that he felt that the government of his life was entirely upon his shoulders, and that he could make such and such plans totally unmindful of God. Thus the basic plan in our lives has to be God’s plan. Then third to enter into God’s rest means, not only more than no work, it means he promised land, it means heaven, it means power, regeneration, our salvation. Again and again some of the great hymns of the faith have stressed the keynote of these meanings of the Sabbath. In fact some of our most joyful hymns have to do with the Sabbath and with Christmas. Think of some of the beautiful, joyful hymns, that are about the Lord’s day, day of all the week the best; emblem of eternal rest. Or John Newton: “From our worldly cares set free, may we rest this day in Thee. Here afford us Lord a taste of our everlasting peace”, or Charles Wesley in 1763 calling it “Type of that everlasting rest, the saints enjoying heaven.” Other writers of hymns saw creation, resurrection, salvation, and the day of Pentecost all as setting forth the meaning of Sabbath. Isaac Watts wrote in 1719 “today He rose and left the dead, and Satan’s empire fell. Today the saints His triumphs spread, and all His wonders tell. Christopher Wordsworth saw the day as the day of the manna from heaven. It’s this note of the joy in the Sabbath as emblematic of our salvation, and of our rest in God, that too often has been lost in our church today.

And then fourth, all of this means that to rest in the Lord is to trust in His providence, to recognize both in our praying and in our daily living, that the government is upon His shoulders, not ours. We deny God’s government and providence when we worry. In other words it’s our planning, versus God’s planning, our trust in ourselves as against a trust in that which God does. Paul tells us that those who enter into God’s rest cease from their own works. Now they do the works of the Father who has sent us, even as Christ did. So it is not our work, but the Lord’s, it’s not what we are trying to accomplish, but what we are letting God accomplish through us. Then we do not work, nor plan, nor continue our activities in anxiety, then we are content to trust in God and to work in Him. And so even as Paul says we cease from our own works, he goes on to say “let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” We labor to enter into that rest, and our work is a part of that trust and of that plan. The word translated as unbelief in this verse is rendered as disobedient in many versions. It means obstinate or unpersuadable; someone who simply will not have it that way, because it is not his way. So the word unbelief stresses the individuals unwillingness to trust any other, it’s sheer obstinacy, and that’s unbelief. And it is this obstinacy that says “I will be anxious about tomorrow. I will worry because God doesn’t see things as clearly as I do.” Now that’s what worrying involves, is it our unwillingness to believe that God has half the brains we do; and so if we don’t worry and nag God about it, it will never be done properly.

The alternative thus to a true Sabbath is to try to work out our own salvation, and to be disobedient to God. It is to say that all our anxiety, our drugs, our headaches, our tensions, our stomach upsets, our ulcers, our indigestions, will accomplish more than a Sabbath rest in the Lord. When there is no trust in God’s providence, not only is there no true Sabbath, but the Sabbath that we find and is all to prevalent today, is a cold, dead, Sabbath. We have a restless society then outside of the church, and a stagnant one within. The state then seeks to be the source of providence, and to say, rest in our government, in our protective care. But when man seeks a humanistic Sabbath what happens then is a frenzied kind of recreation, and fretful work. Man finds no rest then either in work or in play; and today a great many people are killing themselves over their attempts to rest, their attempts to be healthy, their attempts to do things the right way. The number of joggers who drop dead, and the number of people who are half-killing themselves over their health by playing tennis and doing this, that, and the other thing; and churning inside all the while because they’re so intent on accomplishing a humanistic goal, and thereby perpetuating their health and their peace and their strength, is growing. Fretful work and frenzied recreation as man tries to control everything around and within him, and to gain rest.

Where there is no providence, there is no effective work. In fact there is a correlation between faith and productivity. In the non-Christian world productivity is at a very low level. Some years ago a very brilliant political observer, {?} whom some of you know, spoke of his experiences the world over. The Hindus for example will work long hours daily, and accomplish about 30 minutes worth of work. Nowhere in the world is there the same productivity as you find in a Christian culture, and as faith wanes the productivity of the west wanes also. Men cannot work if they cannot rest, and men cannot rest if they do not believe in God’s providence. In Isaiah 57 verse 20 and 21 we read “20 But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. 21 There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Providence thus is a very important doctrine; because it tells us that every hair of our head, and every moment of our lives is a product of God’s direct and very personal government. It tells us that we live and move and have our being in the Lord. It sets forth the fact that God is not a remote first cause, but a very present help in time of need, that He is the very personal and totally personal God that we cannot live a second of our lives apart from Him. This gives us confidence and certainty because it tells us while indeed in a sinful and fallen world things are not to our liking, and often involve suffering and grief, yet God makes all things work together for good to them that love Him, to them who are the called according to His purpose, to believe in providence is to know that we as Christians can never lose. Are there any questions?

[Audience member] Are you familiar with John Flavel’s work The Mystery of Providence?

[Rushdoony] I would not say I’m familiar with it, I read portions of it some years ago and I’m very fuzzy now on what he had to say. You find it a good work?

[Audience member] I haven’t read it, I have it but I haven’t got around to it. I’ve heard good comments about it.

[Rushdoony] Any other comments or questions?

Well if not we’ll meet again on the ninth of March Friday the ninth, the second Friday.