One questions often asked of Calvinists is why we believe anyone should evangelize if ultimately salvation is the work of God. It is a fair question but it is really a question for everyone.

Why does God use human beings to carry out any part of his plan? We are sinful, lazy, obstinate, bad at following directions, inefficient creatures. It seems that God could accomplish far more if he kept us from being the workers of his will.

For example, why doesn’t God surround the world with angels? From every part of the earth angels could proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. They saw the cross. They stand before God in Heaven. They would be visible evidence of the existence of God. But they would still preserve choice. Angels would not be able to force anyone to believe so they would not cause a conflict with those who believe salvation comes entirely through a free choice of human beings able to accept or reject the gospel.

Why doesn’t God use angels? Why does God use humans to carry out one of the most important tasks in his creation?

It is enough to say that God uses people because that is his will. We do not have to know the reason. God commanded us to go and tell, we go and tell. But we also know that God is glorified when he is proclaimed by those whom he has saved. When his praise is on the tongues of his people his holiness is magnified. Who better to demonstrate the value of his saving grace than those who have received it?

Whether Calvinist or not, I think we can (and should) agree that the role of humans in salvation has nothing to do with persuasion or the free choice of man. God uses us because he is pleased to do so and because by our proclamation he is glorified.

Some see evangelism as a burden but it is one of our most precious gifts. God has given us the opportunity to do something of eternal significance. This is part of having a life that is not wasted. While obeying God’s command to go make disciples we find that it is not a labor, a chore, but a tremendous joy and privilege to share with people the great grace God has lavished on us in his saving mercy. This is something the angels could never do.

So why are you still reading? Go and tell!

I’m slowly breaking my addiction to entertainment. That is, I am spending at most a few hours a week on television and games. A huge improvement over the way I used to spend my time. That’s not to say all of my time is now used productively, but perhaps it is used better than it had been.

John Piper is the big influence on this. And just today he wrote Why I Don’t Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies. Following are a few good snippets:

If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.

…
I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.

I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers.

…
But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.
…
One more smaller concern with TV (besides its addictive tendencies, trivialization of life, and deadening effects): It takes time. I have so many things I want to accomplish in this one short life. Don’t waste your life is not a catchphrase for me; it’s a cliff I walk beside every day with trembling.

Following the SBC convention, I’ve noted with many others that most of the motions were negative, showing what the individual is against rather than for. I also noticed many of those motions were critical of movements, leaders, and changes involving young people. This is discouraging to see. But what we need to remember is that anyone can make a motion and motions themselves do not represent the denomination. Those making motions were presenting their own views. As a rule, it tends to be that people with negative agendas that are the most outspoken in these venues.

That said, I wish the response from some of the younger SBCers has been more gracious. The comments made on the SBC Voices post [Edit: Referring to the comments following Matt's post, not Matt's post itself. And not all of the comments, just a few of them.] Questions and Quotes that demand an answer from the SBC are very unhelpful and will do nothing but make conflict worse.

Remember three words from Scripture. Blessed are the peacemakers (Mt 5:9); Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. (1 Cor 10:24); and For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. (Rom. 14:15)

I will continue to argue that casual alcohol consumption is not a sin. I will continue to abstain from drinking because so many of my brothers and sisters in Christ – those for whom Christ died – struggle with this issue. I will not allow it to be spoken of as evil, I will defend these as acceptable practices, but I will not value My Right To Alcohol over a brother for whom Christ died.

Controversy is best served by showing the love of Christ, not by flaunting controversial practices in the face of others. That is work best left to Satan, not children of God.

Al Mohler writes about the Virgin Lips Movement, a growing trend among young people to save not just sex for marriage but to also save the first kiss. Mohler presents part of the rationale of this movement:

While sexual abstinence until monogamous marriage is the biblical standard, these young Christians see virginity as requiring more than reserving sexual intercourse for marriage.  They see kissing as an act of physical intimacy — a gateway drug to greater physical intimacy and involvement.

Sound crazy? When my wife and I first started dating we set the ground rules for our physical relationship. We could hug, we could hold hands, nothing more. Kissing was out. Our first kiss was on our wedding day. I had dated girls prior to Sandra and did not have virgin lips but I wanted to do better with Sandra.

When we dated we were attending a small Christian college in a very conservative part of Mississippi. There of all places, what we did should have found support. But it was quite surprising to see the level of incredulity we faced when people learned we would not kiss. Since then the response among Christians has been more or less the same. Christians agree not to have sex but seem to have difficulty seeing that when dating couples kiss that in itself is an act of sexual intimacy even though it is not intercourse itself. Just how far are you willing to go in sexual activity? Mohler says:

As any minister who works with youth and young adults knows, the “how far is too far question” is a constant.  The Virgin Lips Movement represents a determination to stop that train before it leaves the station, so to speak.

What makes kissing easier to justify is that it is not always an act of sexual intimacy. But in a dating relationship how can it be considered anything else? What feelings – physical and emotional – are stirred when a couple kisses? Why is it that a certain kind of kissing is considered first base on the road to having sex?

Too often Christians are willing to follow the letter but not the spirit of God’s commands. Thus you have questions like “how far is too far?” or “how much can I get away with?” For many Christians the answer is kissing is okay, anything more is too far. But a growing number of Christians are recognizing that even kissing is going too far, that the first kiss should be saved for the wedding day. Anything else is playing with fire in a world full of gasoline.

As promised, here is a fuller treatment of the subject.

What does the Bible say to Christians about the Sabbath? Quite a bit, but not necessarily what many Christians expect. I will discuss this under four headings: Beginning of the Sabbath; Meaning of the Jewish Sabbath; The Christian Sabbath; and Personal Practice.

Beginning of the Sabbath

The Sabbath practice originates in the Old Testament and is connected with God’s work in creation. Genesis tells us that in six days God created all things and on the seventh he rested. Genesis 2:3 tells us So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. The command to honor the Sabbath day is later found in the Mosaic law as one of the primary requirements for the people of Israel. The command is found in 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 a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

The Sabbath becomes a very important sign for the people. Like circumcision, it was a sign that these are the covenant people of God. In Exodus 31:12-17 God gives a longer explanation about the Sabbath where he shows it to be a sign for the people. Verses 16-17 read: Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. The Sabbath was an eternal sign, something about Sabbath observance was to always be a part of the people of God.

The word Sabbath is from the Hebrew tB’v; which means rest or cease. The Sabbath was not a day of worship for the Jews, it was a day of rest. A day of reduced activity. Throughout Old Testament history the Jews had no regular, uniform day of worship. Everything centered around the feasts and sacrifices on various days throughout the year. Uniform, regular worship doesn’t occur until the synagogue appears during the inter-testamental period. As part of the Mosaic law there was a Sabbath sacrifice (Numbers 28:9-10) and the sacrificial system was itself an act of worship and obedience, but no sort of Sabbath worship that we would be familiar with began until the synagogues.

Commands for the Sabbath included: no buying or selling (Nehemiah 10:31); no burdens carried (Nehemiah 13:19); people could not travel far (Exodus 16:29, the Sabbath journey in Acts 1:12). This last one has been hard to nail down – how far were the people allowed to travel? What the teachers of the law changed some over time. Early on the allowed distance was 2,000 cubits from home (or, later, from one’s home city; later the distance was also expanded based on various arguments from outside the Law) based on Joshua 3:4-5. 2,000 cubits is just over a half mile. Assuming God intended for the Israelites to remain close to their houses, by Mosaic law most people would not be able to attend church because of the distance involved.

By the time of the New Testament there were many restrictions on Sabbath observance. The Pharisees were good at two things: (1) expanding the Mosaic law so that even those laws intended to benefit the people became a burden; and (2) finding loopholes so they did not have to carry the same burden as the people.

Meaning of the Jewish Sabbath

The Jewish Sabbath practice seems to have been intended to communicate three things to the people. First, it showed God’s care for his people. As strange as it might sound to us today, the establishment of the Sabbath was not so much to get the people to spend the day focused on God as it was so the people would receive rest. God should be the focus of all we do, but the Sabbath was not specifically set aside as a day of worship. It was a day of rest, a day to protect the people by giving them a break in their week. I am not aware of any other culture in history that set aside one day each week so the people could rest. Even our weekend is based on this practice, the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Lord’s day.

Second, the Sabbath was a way of reminding the people of who created them. Every week they had a day of rest. Why a day of rest? Because on that day God rested from his creating work. The God who cares enough for them to give them rest each week is also the God who loved them enough to create them. He is sovereign over his creation and every week they had a reminder of their creator God.

Third, the Sabbath showed the people of God to be distinct. No one else had a Sabbath. No other society gave a day of rest. This showed something different about the Israelites. Since that time many people have copied the practice, but it originated with God’s command to the Jews. Surrounding nations knew who the Jews were since they were the ones who stopped any activity on the Sabbath, refusing even to travel on the last day of the week.

The Christian Sabbath

So how does all of this carry over to the church today? I have two primary responses to this question.

First, it carries over – but is fulfilled.

This follows from the Sabbath being part of the Mosaic law. There is a reason Christians don’t hold to the Mosaic law – it was fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Christians are not free to live any way we please, we must still obey God’s expectations for human behavior, but we are not bound to the regulations and principles of the Mosaic law. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus says, Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. We do not have to fulfill the law since Jesus has fulfilled it for us. The law of Moses has not passed away, it has not been discarded, but it has been fulfilled. The law continues to exist for Christians but we are not under the law since it has been fulfilled for us by Jesus Christ. As such we live not bound to the requirements of the law but living in liberty and freedom. This is why we do not offer sacrifice. This is why we can eat shellfish and pigs and other foods forbidden in the law. This is why we are not required to circumcise our sons, why we do not have to have a beard or keep it cut a certain way. We can wear clothing with more than one type of thread in it. On and on – all of the requirements of the law are lifted for us because Christ has fulfilled those requirements. One of the requirements is Sabbath observance. We do not have to observe the Sabbath because it has been fulfilled in Christ.

There are a few places where we can see this in Scripture. One of the clearest is the practice of the Christians throughout the New Testament. Christians worship on the Lord’s Day, Jews gather on the Sabbath. The Christian Lord’s Day practice comes from the fact that Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week. Many Jewish believers in the New Testament continued to participate in the Jewish Sabbath, so we find them in the synagogues with the Jews, but this is never commanded. Gentiles who come into the church are never expected to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and they are never commanded to treat the Lord’s Day as though it were the Sabbath.

Paul must have shocked some of his Jewish readers when he wrote in Romans 14:5: One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. Sabbath observance becomes a matter of conscience, not a matter of command. Those who wanted to continue observing the Sabbath were permitted to do so. Those who did not feel it necessary were not required. The Old Testament Sabbath practice was no longer a requirement on the people.

There is something else at work here as well. We are very inconsistent when we seek to follow the Sabbath. Earlier we saw a few of the requirements of the Sabbath, things that could not be done. Most Christians are not consistent in following these. Even driving to church violates the Sabbath for most of us. There is no merit in keeping only part of the law. Likewise there is no merit in keeping only part of a command. Those who want to continue to observe the Sabbath should do so completely. Even a small violation of Sabbath practice means one has violated the whole Sabbath.

So we see that the command to observe the Sabbath is still in effect as part of the Mosaic law, but Christians are not under the law and do not have to fulfill the requirements of the law. If we were obligated to observe the Mosaic Sabbath then we would be obligated to observe all aspects of the Law. Anything else would be inconsistent.

Second, it carries over – and takes on new meaning.

The author of Hebrews wants Christians to understand how the requirements of the Mosaic law are fulfilled in Christ and what this fulfillment means for believers. One of the topics that comes under discussion is the Sabbath. We find this in Hebrews 3:7-4:14.

The passage focuses on 3:11, As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’. This comes from Psalm 95:11 and is a reference to God judging the Israelites in the wilderness by keeping a generation of them out of the promised land. The author if Hebrews makes a connection between the rest we can have as the people of God and the Sabbath, the day of rest given by God. Those who refuse the blessings of God – in this case, those who refuse Jesus Christ – will not enter his rest. But we are told in Hebrews 4:3, For we who have believed enter that rest.

Some have entered that rest, some have not. Those who rebel are not in his rest, those who believe have entered that rest. From all of this we learn that the Old Testament Sabbath points toward a new experience for the believer. There is an eternal Sabbath rest for God’s people. In the discussion on the Jewish Sabbath we noted that Exodus 31:17 speaks of the Sabbath as an eternal sign. This is how the Sabbath carries into eternity. Our rest now as Christians and later in Heaven is an experience of the eternal Sabbath rest God promised in Exodus 31:12-17.

As Christians we live in tension, what has been called the already-but-not-yet. We already experience the joys of eternal life with God but we have not yet entered into it completely. We have already entered into our Sabbath rest but we are not yet enjoying it fully, in Heaven with God. Living now as those who have entered our Sabbath rest, we see that we are already able to rest from our work (4:9-10). The work in mind here is not worldly striving and labor, it is the work of salvation. There is no work for us to do so that we might be saved. We have entered our Sabbath rest, we have entered the grace of Jesus Christ who accomplished for us everything necessary to be saved. We still anticipate the great celebration and full rest of entering Heaven and seeing all striving come to an end, but even now we enjoy the joys of Sabbath rest.

This means we already and always experience a degree of Sabbath fulfillment. We don’t rest on Saturday because every day is our Sabbath. There is something confessional in this. Why don’t we celebrate the Jewish Sabbath? Because for the Christian every day is a day of rest. We have true rest in the Lord every day of the week. We do not enter that rest once a week, but as the writer of Hebrews says, all who believe in Jesus Christ have already – and from now on – entered that rest. We anticipate with eager expectation the full consummation of the Sabbath rest with God in Heaven, but we rejoice that even now we are in our Sabbath rest.

Personal Practice

From all that I have said I hope it is clear that I do not believe there is any expectation in the Bible for Christians to observe the Jewish Sabbath. What Sabbath observance actually serves to do is to place on us a restriction of the Jewish law. It is like the Galatians who wanted to force the issue of circumcision. We are free from the law! Put that requirement down.

That said, I do believe in the value of worship on the Lord’s Day. I appreciate businesses like Chick-fil-A that do not open on Sunday. This allows workers to attend church. I have no general objection to people working on Sunday but I do have a specific objection to people being unable to attend church. This is one reason it is good to have multiple church services throughout the week. Those who are unable to come on Sunday will have other opportunities. Still, I wish more people kept Sunday available as a day of worship. Not as a matter of lawful obligation but as a matter of joy, of privilege, and of necessity. Christians need fellowship with one another, and we need times of community worship. Sunday offers a good opportunity for that.

So I have no issue with someone wanting to do work on Sunday if it does not interfere with church. Work would violate the Jewish Sabbath, but we are not under that law and at any rate have already entered our eternal Sabbath rest. But I have been reminded of another principle of Christian living: thinking not just of what you find acceptable but also of what others find acceptable.

Earlier I quoted Paul in Romans 14:5 where he leaves Sabbath observance as a matter of conscience. But he goes on in Romans 14:13-23 to instruct believers to avoid doing those things that might cause another person to stumble. Some other specific examples he cites are those who object to eating meat and those who object to certain drinks. As Christians there is no biblical prohibition against such things but Paul knows many believers would have a hard time seeing other Christians eating pigs or some such thing. So he says in verse 15 For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. Later, in verse 20, he says: Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. Applied to the Sabbath we could say no day is more significant than another, but do not for the sake of lawn care make another stumble.

Since many do believe Christians should observe the Sabbath and would be distressed by those who do not observe the Sabbath, wisdom and love should lead us to be careful in how we act. I hope and pray Christians come to a biblical understanding of the Sabbath but it will not help people have that understanding by displaying my liberty without explaining it. Much better to restrain the exercise of liberty – to treat the Sabbath (or, more specifically, the Lord’s Day) as they expect me to while I try to help them see what the Bible says about Christians, the law, and the Sabbath. In the future I will be more careful with what I do on Sunday.

Preacher, when you exhort your people to do evangelism, be careful to instruct them in the use of Scripture. The Bible is our primary witnessing tool. Tracts, evangelistic presentations, and the testimony of personal experience *might* have their place, but they will never replace or supersede the Bible. Please, please don’t leave your people thinking that relating their own experience of salvation is a more effective, more important method of evangelism than sharing the Bible.

And while on the subject of evangelism, never promise people that if they follow a particular method it will result in a definite conversion. Salvation is in God’s hands, not ours, and he has made no guarantees.

In his book In Christ Alone Sinclair Ferguson discusses four points about Christian liberty:

1. Christian liberty must never be flaunted.
2. Christian liberty does not mean that you welcome fellow Christians only when you have sorted out their views on X or Y.
3. Christian liberty ought never to be used in such a way that you become a stumbling block to another Christian.
4. Christian liberty requires grasping the principle that will produce this true biblical balance: “We… ought… not to please ourselves… For even Christ did not please himself” (Rom. 15:1-3)…

He closes the chapter with the following quote from Martin Luther:

A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.

May we use our liberty for the glory of God and the good of others and not as an excuse to serve every selfish desire.

On the drive to the church this morning (while listening to an online sermon) I was thinking about public vs private devotion and study in the family. By nature I am a very private person and my personal devotional activities are always done as privately as I can get them. This fits well with my strong introvert nature. But what example does this set for my family?

We do family devotions. Every morning after we wake up and every night before bed we round everyone up and read the Bible and pray together. That’s what we do as a family. But what example is set for how we should behave as individuals?

I am now feeling challenged to be with my kids where they can see me doing more Bible reading and prayer and even study and preparation for Sunday morning. It might cause my concentration to break more than a few times but it means my kids seeing one more example of what we do to grow in the Lord. This sort of practice might go against my nature, but God has changed my nature once, he can do it again.

I spent part of last night watching one of God’s children slip closer to eternity. At this point the lady is still with us but her body is slowly failing. A clinical diagnosis would point to several ailments she has had lately along with her old age. The real cause of her death, however, is sin.

Death, that great enemy, that old intruder on life, that fruit of the fall creates a reality that will be experienced by every living thing. But for Christians death gives us tragic hope. The point when we can shed ourselves of sinful flesh. It says something about how pervasive sin is in our lives that it takes death to completely rip it from us. Sin is conquered but we still haul its corpse around and only death will remove the corpse from us.

This is why for the saints it is not death to die. That old enemy gives us hope of a life free from sin. Death is the curse of the fall but death is also promise for believers.

Sovereign Grace Music has a wonderful song called It Is Not Death to Die on their CD Come Weary Saints. The words of the song describe Christian death very well.

It is not death to die
To leave this weary road
And join the saints who dwell on high
Who’ve found their home with God

It is not death to close
The eyes long dimmed by tears
And wake in joy before Your throne
Delivered from our fears

O Jesus, conquering the grave
Your precious blood has power to save
Those who trust in You
Will in Your mercy find
That it is not death to die

It is not death to fling
Aside this earthly dust
And rise with strong and noble wing
To live among the just

It is not death to hear
The key unlock the door
That sets us free from mortal years
To praise You evermore
O Jesus, conquering the grave
Your precious blood has power to save
Those who trust in You
Will in Your mercy find
That it is not death to die

There are many questions a pastor should ask himself about his ministry. Here are two:

1. Am I preparing my people to die well?
2. Am I preparing my people to suffer well if they should face persecution?

These questions are related. Are our people prepared to die? Not are they eager to die, but are they comfortable with the idea of death? Young or old, are they trusting enough in their Savior that death is not something that stands as a Great Unknown or Mighty Enemy against them? If death is still an enemy, are they ready to face persecution for their faith?

I am no prophet but I believe hard times are coming for America and the world, and I believe hard times are coming for Christians. Will we stand in the face of persecution? Can I suffer for what I believe? Am I training my children to suffer? Am I preparing my people to give their lives in brutal ways in order to glorify their Savior? If I do not make this part of my work, I am failing. What in our lives is so great it is worth betraying the Savior for? What are we putting before him so that we would cast him off in order to hold on to it? Money? Comfort? Family? Our lives? Am I ready to trust God with all of that? To cast it all off and sit under the executioner’s blade? Am I willing to suffer that He might be exalted?

And, pastor, are you helping your people be ready for the same?