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A "Place" in Time

SERIES: In Tables of Stone #5 of 11

2008-10-12

PRODUCTION #: 1124

SPEAKER: Shawn Boonstra

I know that for most of the world, slavery has been abolished. But in a very real way, there are still millions, maybe even hundreds of millions, of slaves right here in America. Don’t believe it? Then stick around, because in a moment I’m going to show you how you’re involved. You’ve been serving a ruthless tyrant, and there’s something you can do about it.

It was a cold December day, and even though the air was crisp, a crowd was gathering. Anticipation grew as each moment passed, and for young Pierre, standing in the crowd, the excitement was overwhelming. If everything went according to plan, he would witness history in the making. Because in just a few moments, the world record for land speed would be broken right in front of his eyes.

The speculation abounded, especially in the press. Could a human being really go that fast on land and survive? Could the vehicle really go at those amazing speeds without falling to pieces? Everybody weighed in on the discussion, from automobile engineers to doctors. And soon, just moments away, the questions would all be answered. And Pierre, he was going to see it.

A collective gasp rose from the crowd when the car was finally brought out. Pierre had never seen anything like it. What an incredible machine. It looked like something out of science fiction—from the future. With a sense of utter admiration and a little bit of fear, he watched the driver, all suited up, get into the vehicle.

When the engine started, Pierre thought he felt the ground shake. The engine roared and it was unbelievable. Soon everything was set, and then…bang! The car took off, building up speed, and Pierre, along with everyone else watching, just couldn’t believe how fast that car went.

When it was over, both car and driver were fine, much to everybody’s surprise and satisfaction. And when the news was announced, a gasp of astonishment rose from the crowd, followed by a loud cheer, because a new world record had been set. That’s right, that car, back in 1898, had just gone a little more than 39 miles an hour. Now, let’s think about that. Today, when somebody ahead of us on the freeway is creeping along at 50 miles per hour, well, we’re ready to pitch a fit and just scream, “Let’s go, come on! I don’t have all day.”

And yet back in 1898, the world was astonished when somebody went 39.24 miles per hour. So you’ve got to wonder what all those people would think of the latest record for land speed, set in 1997, when a jet-powered car screamed across the Nevada desert at more than 763 miles per hour. And of course, it’s only a matter of time before someone manages to go faster than that—because there’s just something about us that won’t let us rest until we can do things just a little bit faster. No matter how fast we get, no matter how efficient we become, it’s just never enough.

Maybe you remember those ancient telephones where you actually had to dial the number. Just imagine, you actually had to go through the hassle of putting your finger in a little hole and turning it clockwise seven times to make one phone call. The whole process of dialing might have taken 10 or 15 seconds every time. So somebody thought that took way too long, and they came up with push buttons so you didn’t have to turn your finger anymore, and now you can dial a number in half the time.

But of course, eventually, we thought that took too much time, so we came up with speed dial, and now all we have to do is push one button. And I’m not a licensed futurist, but I’m guessing that before too long, somebody is going to come up with something better than that, because it is just kind of wired into our system.

Just look at the whole phenomenon of home computers. My first computer ran at about 133 megahertz, but my new one runs maybe 30 times faster than that. And even though I can’t possibly imagine why I need it, the computer industry is already coming out with machines that run even faster. That leads some people to feel like the minute they take their new computer out of the box, it’s already out of date, because somebody just made one that runs faster.

Right now there are already computers that work in teraflops, which is a trillion calculations per second. That means those gigahertz computers you have right now are already headed the way of the eight-track player. There’s just no question about it, we’re doing things faster and faster and faster, at speeds our ancestors probably couldn’t even imagine. If you wanted to get a message across the Atlantic Ocean years ago, say from New York to London, it would take weeks at best.

But today you can push 10 or 12 buttons, and in seconds you’ll be talking to someone across the Atlantic. I really doubt that a few hundred years ago, people could even dream of a world like the one we live in. And we take it for granted. A little while back, I was flying from Toronto to Los Angeles, a trip that should normally take about four and a half hours.

Well, there was a delay before the plane took off, and the pilot suddenly spoke to us via the intercom and said, “It’s just going to be a few more minutes, folks, and then we’ll be taking off. Thank you for your patience.” Now, of course, you know what that means. It took a couple of hours to get that plane off the ground, and in the end, it took seven hours to get from Toronto to Los Angeles.

I can be honest. I was actually irritated at the delay. But 200 years ago, that same trip would have taken me a month. The speed of life is just getting way too fast, and it’s taking a toll on us. Years ago in Sweden, someone bombed a McDonald’s restaurant at night when it was closed. Nobody was in it. The bomber, from some Marxist/Leninist group, told the local newspaper something like, “The Americans are trying to rush us through everything, and now they want to rush us through lunch.”

We’re getting way too fast, and no matter how fast we get, we still want more speed. And here’s the really strange part: Even though we’re moving at speeds our ancestors would have deemed miraculous, even supernatural, most people still complain about the same thing.

No matter what we do or how fast we do it, the complaint is always the same. We just don’t have enough time. We’re all burnt out because no matter what we do or how fast we do it, no matter where we go, or how fast we get there, there’s still more to do, and more places to go, and just not enough time.

If days were 30 hours instead of 24, I don’t think that would matter. I somehow doubt we’d feel like we now have enough time. At the bottom line, time is something of a dictator, a tyrant that demands everything we have. And the sad fact is, we never seem to have enough to satisfy our brutal taskmaster.

That’s actually a problem God anticipated. Thousands of years ago, God gave us a commandment specifically created to protect us from the tyranny of time. At the very beginning of our human history, the Lord carved out an inviolable and indestructible refuge called the Sabbath. And as you trace the fourth commandment through the annals of time, you’ll find it comes to us right from the opening chapters of the Bible, right in the story of Creation.

Now, if you’ve been watching It Is Written for a while, you’ll know that I’ve been talking about the Ten Commandments and how relevant they are for our present day and age. We’ve been talking about how the basic principles of God’s commandments are just as valid for us as they were for people thousands of years ago. And really, that shouldn’t be too surprising, because whether you live in the desert in the ancient Bronze Age, or in the United States in the 21st century, human beings are still basically the same. Oh, some of the terms of reference might have changed, but really, the issues haven’t changed.

We still ask the same kinds of questions. How do we live the best life possible? How do we relate to other people—our families, our friends, our parents and our neighbors? How do we know what’s right and wrong? These are questions as old as humanity itself, and as long as there are human beings, we’re going to be asking those questions. And really, many of the answers can be found in this ancient moral code found in the Ten Commandment’s moral law of God.

Every one of these commandments has our best interests at heart, and one of them specifically has to do with the important question of time, and how to personally manage the little bit of time that we’ve been given here on Earth. You see, even though time itself really has no limit, each of us has only been given a painfully small slice of that eternity, at least for now. And so the question is, how in the world can we make the best of the time we’ve been given? Well, part of the answer is found in the fourth commandment, the one that tells us to rest on the Sabbath.

Now, before I go any further, there’s something I should probably talk about, because there’s been a little bit of confusion when it comes to the fourth commandment. Let’s go back to the very beginning, right after God created the world. Now, follow this carefully from the book of Genesis. The Bible says (Genesis 2:1-3):

“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”

Now follow me very carefully. I’ve heard some people say that the fourth commandment no longer applies to us, and usually for one of two reasons. First of all, some people say that the Sabbath was part of the ceremonial rituals of the Jews, and it goes with things like the animal sacrifices that pointed to Christ as the sacrifice for our sins. The argument goes that since Christ has come and all those sacrificial rituals have been abolished, then the Sabbath commandment must be finished, too. And of course, up to a point they’re right.

The sacrificial rituals are done away with, because we no longer need them. But to say the Sabbath was part of it is simply wrong. The stuff that was abolished was all ceremonial, part of the sacrificial system established by God to teach us how He deals with sin. But the Bible shows us that God rested and blessed the seventh day before sin ever came into the picture. So it can’t possibly be part of the ritual system.

Now, secondly, some people have said that the Sabbath commandment was only for the Jews, and sometimes they call it the Jewish Sabbath. But that raises a pretty important question, because how can the seventh day be the Jewish Sabbath when it came from the Garden of Eden, and it existed for thousands of years before there was ever a Jew on the face of the planet?

Long before any Jews existed, God blessed the seventh day, so you know it can’t be an exclusive Jewish institution. That is one of the reasons why Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man.”

It wasn’t only made for the Jews—it was made for all of us. And that’s why you find it at the heart of the Ten Commandments, a moral code for the human race. And here it is, in the book of Exodus, chapter 20. It says (Exodus 20:8-11):

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do not work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”

Now, I want you to notice how this commandment is directly linked to the original six-day creation story from the book of Genesis. God tells us to rest because he sanctified and made holy the Sabbath day, almost the exact wording used back in Genesis. And that’s why God says, “Remember the Sabbath,” partially because it’s something that already existed. But I’m guessing it’s also the only commandment that starts with the word “remember,” because it’s just about the easiest one for us to forget.

When my wife tells me to remember to take out the trash, or says, “Shawn, remember to bring something home from work,” it’s because she knows I’m going to forget. And I suspect it might be the same way with the fourth commandment. Here’s what I want you to really think about. There’s a reason for this fourth commandment. If you study the other nine, you quickly discover that they’re all really good for us, and the same thing is true with number four.

If we only listen to God a little more, our lives would simply be better. This commandment is a critical answer to the tyranny of time. No matter how fast we move, no matter how much faster our computers go, no matter how much faster our cells phones can connect us to the world, no matter how much faster we can eat our meals, we just never seem to have enough time.

But then you open the Bible to the Ten Commandments and you find God asking us to rest. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I go way too long without rest, and we should probably notice that God isn’t making a suggestion here. He commands us to rest.

To devote one-seventh of our lives to rest is just as much a commandment of God as the prohibitions against murder, adultery or stealing. And that’s because God knows that if we’re left on our own, we could never find a break from the ceaseless flow of time. We would simply work and work and work, and do and do and do, until we’ve worked ourselves to death. God knows there will never be enough time. So once a week, God gives us a break, a refuge from the tyranny of time.

The very people we wanted to enjoy the fruits of our success in the first place—our loved ones, our families, our spouses and our children—get left behind. With the Sabbath, God is giving us a special place in time, a sacred place, where the things of this world—the boss, the bills, the chores—are not even allowed to intrude, because this is sacred and holy time.

Let’s pretend that there is this guy named Max. Max is a self-made millionaire, a man who went from rags to riches through sheer grit and determination. And if you define success the way that most people do, well, you’d have to say that Max is a really big success, especially when you look at his bank account. Now, imagine, it’s toward the end of his life, and Max is looking back, and as he is thinking about his life, he has this one big regret. “If only,” he says, “if only I had spent less time with my family, if only I had spent less time with my children, my spouse, my grandkids. If only I had spent more time in the office.”

Now you know I made Max up, because that’s not real. Who in their right mind, when he gets to the end of his life, would ever wish he had spent less time with his family? I can tell you for sure it’s usually the other way around. And that’s why the Sabbath is such good news. It gives you this block of time—every single week without exception—that can be dedicated in a special way to the people you love.

Now there’s something fascinating about the Sabbath commandment. Remember how I mentioned that it really came before sin at the foundation of the world? Interestingly enough, there is one other institution that comes from the Garden of Eden just like the Sabbath, and that’s the institution of marriage.

Adam and Eve were husband and wife before the problem of sin. And that means that the Sabbath and marriage both date back to the very birth of our world. If you really study it, you’ll find that both of them are really about relationships. By not allowing anything worldly to intrude on this time, the Sabbath gives us a valuable resource to help us develop our marriage and other relationships.

One of the biggest problems in the 21st century is for married couples to find enough time for each other. And when you open the Bible, you discover that God has something set aside every single week. The same thing is true for your kids, especially when your children are young. The Sabbath provides special time for them to be with their parents, because again, many of the adult things—the boss, the job, the bills and the chores—they’re just not allowed to intrude. They’re not allowed to take away from the time that children want and need with their parents.

Ask yourself, how many children grow up resentful that their parents were busy with everything except them? The Sabbath provides an antidote because—if kept right—it doesn’t allow everything in the world to intrude (Exodus 20:8):

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

The bottom line is that the Sabbath provides us with the opportunity to build the one thing that so many of us need, and that’s good relationships. And of course, it also means time for the most important relationship of all—the one you have with God. You know, a lot of Christians tell me they don’t have time for a good spiritual life. But here it is, right in the fourth commandment. God has set aside a whole day every single week for you to get to know Him more. And I guarantee, when you come to the end of your life, you’re never going to regret the time you devoted to your relationship with God, your spouse or your kids.

Nobody crosses the finish line feeling sorry that they built those relationships that make life worth living. And nobody comes to the end feeling sorry that they spent so much time with God. Now, I know, every time this one commandment comes up, some people think of it as legalistic, but I’ve got to say, it sounds pretty nice to me—a whole day off from worry, a whole day off from stress and fear, and every single week.

And I know that some people will try to say that the only reason anybody would ever keep the Sabbath is because they’re trying to earn brownie points with God and earn their way to heaven. But that just means they haven’t really read the commandment. They haven’t read in the context of the whole Bible. It’s absolutely impossible to earn your way into heaven.

You’ve got to have Jesus if you’re going to make it. And that’s not what any of the Ten Commandments are about anyway, because none of them is going to buy your passage there. The law was meant to point out sin, not to fix it. The only remedy for sin is Jesus Christ and His perfect obedience to the law, which is credited to us by faith. As Paul wrote in Romans (Romans 3:20-22):

“Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.”

There is no question. We obey God’s law—not to be saved, but because we are saved. We obey the law because God asks us to, and because it gives us a better life, pure and simple. It has nothing to do with earning your way to heaven. The fourth commandment is all about rest. During the Sabbath, we rest from our works, we rest from the things of the world, we rest in what Jesus has done for us.

Now, let me ask you a really important question. Do you need rest? Not just from the daily grind, not just from the tyranny of time, but rest from guilt, from sin, from the knowledge that you haven’t been what you really should be? Do you need rest from the burdens that are weighing on your heart and soul? I know of only one answer, and that’s Jesus, who says to each of us (Matthew 11:28):

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Life really is just a little too fast, isn’t it—a little too hectic. People are scraping, looking for enough time to actually live their lives. And right here in the fourth commandment, God says that every week you’ve got a whole day with Him—a whole day with your family. Why don’t we bow our heads and thank God together?

PRAYER:
Gracious Father in heaven, as we look at the way you designed life, we can see that you had our best interests at heart. Teach us to rest. Teach us to rest in your love. Teach us to follow your will for our lives. And we believe by faith that today you’re offering us a more abundant life in Jesus Christ. And we accept that in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Scriptures Used in “A "Place" in Time”

“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”
—Genesis 2:1-3

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do not work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”
—Exodus 20:8-11

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
—Exodus 20:8

“Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.”
—Romans 3:20-22

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
—Matthew 11:28