Tag Archives: freedom

August 19, 2024 · 4:50 pm

Smiling Wives, Obedient Children and Shostakovich

One of my favorite composers is Dmitri Shostakovich. He wrote his most famous and most moving works in Stalinist Russia. His masterpiece (in my humble opinion) is his fifth symphony, composed in Leningrad in 1937. It was triumphantly received and he became the darling composer of the communist regime.

But it was forced. The symphony is brilliant because on one level, the final movement seems like a joyous, triumphant march. It was interpreted as such by the powers that be and they loved it. The triumph of communist youth in the world.

But Shostakovich had a deeper message. He interprets it himself years later.

The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov. It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, “Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing”, and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, “Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.”

You can beat someone with a stick and teach them the rote memorization of the law: “Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing”. And if your gulags are terrifying enough, you will have compliance.

But you will not have love. You also will not have the obedience that God delights in. There is a difference between a slave and a son (or daughter).

In a recent flyer for a church plant (CREC, of course), I saw this and immediately thought of Shostakovich.

May be an image of text

I’ve lived that kind of “obedience”. The only way to achieve it is with a very large stick. The children cower behind the wife with a smile plastered on her face while the husband makes the rounds. She usually has stomach problems, ulcers, chronic pain, anxiety – but dare not allow the pain to show. The children used to scream and try to run whenever they saw the building, but they since have learned to keep their feelings to themselves. Now they just look scared and empty.

She will never break her smile to face her brokenness or deal with her pain and loneliness because she is too frightened.

And the children will finally break free when they are big enough to fend for themselves and want nothing more to do with Christianity, because they thought that this was what Christianity was.

But it isn’t. It’s what Paul calls the letter of the law written on stone. It is Shostakovich’s big stick – “Your business is rejoicing!”

And it kills.

It is funny to me how the conservative evangelical right wing church, on one hand so terrified of being taken over by commies that they cower in fear of elections, have become so similar to the chief communist dictator. Stalin would rather have the front of those rejoicing under threat than deal with any affront to his own power. This is the heart of Project 2025.

Sound familiar? “Your business is rejoicing!”

Smiling wives, obedient children, large sticks, human corpses waiting for a resurrection – pasting smiles on their faces in terror while the journalists from the west are touring.

How many of you have experienced church just like this: Paste your smile on. Terrify your children into staying small, quiet, “well-behaved”, and don’t you DARE let anyone know what you are actually thinking.

Home is the gulag. Church is the show.

When you see this and you see it used as an advertisement, you know something about the group:

1. They aren’t a church. The church is where wives sometimes weep and children are safe to ask questions and men are humble and all rely on the cross of Jesus, not manmade rules. Widows and single moms and addicts and those with broken sexuality and hurting bodies and confused minds come to find life, not to learn how to paste a smile on.

2. You know that they don’t understand the resurrection. The day will come when God will wipe all tears away, and today is not that day. As long as we are in this body of death we weep and mourn and hurt and comfort one another, longing for a resurrection.

3. And this is the big one. You know that beneath the smiles and obedience is someone with a very large stick. “Your business is rejoicing”.

4. They don’t know Jesus. Jesus never shamed the weeping woman, or the crying child, or the restless teenager. He came to save sinners, not to bring a stick to beat them with.

This stuff and these people have the smell of death, which is why they hate the cross. It is death to those who are dying.

But it is life to those who are ready to be free.It is life and peace to the one who weeps, the one who mourns, the one who is poor, the one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness.

But the one who is rich he sends away empty.

They are fine going away without Christ, anyway. Because the Jesus they want is one who knows how to keep the women in place, the kids quiet and out of the way, the men masculine and horny, and the girls pliable and under control, and the right politicians in power.

But this Jesus is just a figment of imagination. When they see that the least is the greatest, and the greatest is the one who serves and that there is only room for sinners at the table, the “rich man” scoffs and wants nothing to do with a Jesus who would hang out with people like that.

People like publicans and sinners. People with mental health struggles. People who are real and wounded and come for healing, people who cause fusses and make messes, and weep and mourn.

Jesus, the eternal Son of God, came to free those who are imprisoned by the big stick of the law. He came to teach us how to mourn, how to sing, how to laugh, how to cry out, and how to dance.

He desires, above all, that all of his children are released to be free. Free to feel. Free to speak the truth. Free to love. Free to exercise gifts and invest talents. Free to wiggle and to cry and hurt.

He came so that we might cry “Abba, Father!”

Yes, even the women. Even the children. Even the men.

I, for one, am sick of the peddlers of death under the guise of Christian pastors, and pray for their days to be short.

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July 4, 2024 · 9:04 am

July Fourth Ramblings

From the time of the ancient scribes, there has always been those who use the guise of religion to seek to assert power over others and establish laws designed to enforce a “Biblical World-View”, whatever that means.

Some of this drive comes from a simple fear of people getting away with things that WE want to do but don’t dare.

Some of it comes from a fear that God is going to punish us if we don’t do the right things or pass the right laws.

Some of it comes from our natural religion (which the Bible calls “The Flesh”) that we can buy our way back into Eden by doing proper things, offering the right sacrifices, making better choices, and driving out the sinners.

Most of it comes from the lust of pride – that if we could get people to do things OUR way, we can secure our own future; even if this means we have to dominate sinners and force them to obey or face the wrath of the law. God wants righteousness, does he not?

So for over 2,000 years, zeal for God’s law has sent millions to mass graves. Inquisitions, wars, genocides, enslavements, exiles…

It is precisely why our country was founded. Religious wars always end in mass graves, injustice, and cruelty, in the name of God. Exiles fled. But no one had ever thought of having a country without an official religion – until they realized something. If they were going to have an official religion, who gets to decide what that religion will be?

There were Congregationalists, puritans, separatists, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Quakers, Baptists, Reformed, Presbyterians, Jews, Atheists and Deists.

Who will choose where to worship, which religion to support, who will pastor…

Look at this this way…the recent law requiring the Bible to be taught in schools…

Who is going to teach it? Will the curriculum be Doug Wilson’s cult? Charismatic? Will the understanding be covenantal or dispensational? Will it be Baptist, Puritan, Reformed or Presbyterian?

If you say, “Well, we just want it taught as literature – the stories and such…

OK – which stories? Who edits them? Who interprets them? What will you say about Jephthah and Samson, and the Benjamite concubine?

If you think that Christians who think that this is a good idea will just get along and cooperate, then perhaps study early American History – Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, the women in Salem, or the Jesuit inquisitors – all who claim to seek a “Biblical world-view” and seek to serve the same Jesus.

The only way – the ONLY way – to politically stop bloodshed is by the enforcement of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court in the seventies did not “take God out of schools”, they stopped potential war over who writes the prayers in schools. Will they be Muslim prayers, Praying in tongues, Jewish prayers? Mother earth prayers?

And now, states that are seeking to “put God back in the schools” have done no such thing.

If Louisiana wanted to encourage behavior that pleased God, they would not have posted some archaic, ancient code that needs experts to interpret it (“If we aren’t allowed to kill, why do you support war? Why do you support capital punishment?) – see? Not as easy as you think.

To encourage ethical behavior, rather than political posturing, they would have posted age-appropriate and socially appropriate rules:

Don’t bully people. Honor your word. Be kind. Listen to your teacher when she is giving you instructions. Don’t call people names. Don’t betray your friends. Don’t spread rumors…

But the goal of the politicians was NOT to encourage ethical behavior. If that were indeed the case, they would not be championing the man who has openly and unabashedly broken every one of the commandments and boasts about it.

But I digress. The reason why I am very concerned about the religious right is that if they succeed, they will be undoing 250 years of American political thought. This political thought has given us many, many years of freedom – especially after the same rules were applied to women, minorities, native Americans and children.

If we embrace “justice for all” rather than “justice for some”, then we could truly be a beacon of liberty to the outcasts and the exiles.

But fear has caused us to regress. Millions are hell-bent on following power-hungry criminals over the brink. They believe that they will have special places in the new order, but the joy will only last until it is their turn under the guillotine. When you see Robespierre, ask him how it worked for him.

Because if there isn’t justice for all, there is only justice for none.

If a Muslim girl cannot attend a school without intimidation and bullying, then eventually no one will.

If the local Jewish community cannot worship in peace, then soon no one will.

If a black man does not have the liberty to carry a weapon without fear of being shot, then soon no one will have that liberty.

In other words, liberty only exists if it is liberty for all. And this liberty, the American Dream, is under attack. The Christian Right pretends that it is seeking to establish liberty and justice, but that is a smoke-screen. This is about power, domination, and control. They truly believe that only by passing “Biblical laws” – meaning, “those laws which I interpret as Biblical”, can we usher in a utopian age.

This was also the belief of the Inquisition, the French Revolution, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Cromwell, Hildebrand, Pol Pot, and the despots of every age.

It can and does only end in slaughter, mass graves and gulags. There can be no other end.

To sum it up simply, righteousness does not come by the law. If it did, there would be no need for Christ.

It seems to me that the first confession of a Christian should be “Righteousness could not come by the law. I plead for mercy.”

To then turn around and insist that righteousness will come by the law if my people enforce it with enough force, to me that seems the pinnacle of foolishness and irrationality.

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June 6, 2023 · 4:36 pm

Losing your very self

Thoughts over dinner:

The NIV translates this familiar passage like this:
24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Lk 9:24–25.

This is more accurate to the Hebrew way of thinking. They knew, of course, about the immaterial part of our essence, but the word in Hebrew translated “soul” means our very self, our personhood, our whole being. In Greek, that word is “psyche” (used in Matthew 16); in Luke, the apostle simple says, “loses himself”.

I think that is what Jesus was getting at.

As the disciples would be heading into the world and preaching the gospel, there will always be the temptation to speak what everyone expects them to speak.

To speak the truth often meant being cast out of your community, your synagogue, your guild. You lost your family, your friends, your church, your livelihood. And so many, like the parents of the man born blind (John 9) didn’t speak at all because they were afraid.

But the consequence is this: eventually you lose yourself.

I had lost myself. But then I stopped being afraid and began to speak. And I lost friends, family, my culture, my denomination. But I found myself.

And it is wonderful. The Lord has lifted me out of a miry pit and set me on firm ground. The Lord took me out of a narrow place and set me in a wide place.

So now I am me. In a wide place, on firm ground, I can leap; I can dance. I can praise. I can be myself.

In the mud and the narrowness, everyone is afraid of losing their place and they can’t even imagine life outside the mud. They have their things and everything stays the same, but they lose themselves.

It is far better to have yourself and God created you, even if that means the loss of everything else.

Anything or anyone that insists that you stay captive in the narrow, mire-filled pit, isn’t worth holding on to anyway.

Save yourself by being brave enough to risk losing everything to find yourself. It is worth it. And Jesus walks with you there, in the wide pastures, by the still waters. And those still in the mud will be sure that you are doing something wrong, because they are so afraid of finding themselves that they don’t dare ask to be set free.

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February 22, 2023 · 2:23 pm

So much to do….

So much to do….

The legacy of Charles Finney – who taught salvation by moral fortitude, the unofficial religion of America. It is the religion of Ben Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson and the McGuffey readers, and it is deadly.

So now when we think of Christianity, we sigh and say, So much to do, so much to keep track of, so much, so much…

Do I shop there, or not. If I shop there I might be accidentally putting money in the wrong pocket.

Is it OK to watch this show? Is it OK to listen to this kind of music? Is there a list somewhere of what music is OK and what music might lead me astray?

If I am a woman, is it OK for me to get a job? Can I speak to a man and keep myself pure? Is it OK to go to dinner with friends?

If I am a man, is it OK to take a woman to the hospital? Is it OK to speak to her? Can I have a conversation with her and still be pure?

How should we raise our kids? Should we home-school? Private School? Charter?

Who should I ask? Should I read this blog or that blog? Can I ask a celebrity preacher to tell me what to wear, where to shop, what to read, what to listen to?

How much am I supposed to desire God? Do I desire him enough? What if I die and miss the mark? What if I am caught in an R rated movie when Jesus comes again.

I’m depressed trying to figure it all out. Should I see a therapist? Should I take a pill? Should I just talk to my pastor and have him pray for me? What if I do it wrong?

What if I make the wrong choices and am not masculine enough? What if I am not feminine enough? What if I die wearing the wrong color shirt or writing a poem?

I read the other day that worry was a sin. I wondered if I worried too much. Then I worried about it. That made me worry about worry, which made me anxious. And then a preacher shouted that anxiety was a sin. So I worried about that.

Worry, anxiety, depression, sin, trouble…

So many shouty people. So many ready to pounce and condemn. So much contempt for the outsiders.

What if they find out what I’m really like and throw me out? What if they already did, I just don’t know about it?

Stop. Rest.

This is why God gave us a Sabbath. That we might rest in him and know that he is the LORD God, and he alone sanctifies his people.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.

And rest.

The Jewish sabbath gives way to the everlasting Sabbath, where we learn to rest at the foot of the cross, and meet him outside the city, with the other outcasts. It is a good company. It is the company of those who learned to grieve this dying world and its lusts. So that we might gain Christ, and attain the resurrection of the dead.

Sing praises to our Redeemer and leave Finney’s legacy in the grave where it belongs. it is the old man. Crucify it with Christ and live.

Learn to walk in newness of life, and live!

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December 1, 2022 · 3:36 pm

Why didn’t she speak up?

What a remarkable, wonderful gift the gift of speech is! We were created wo commune with God and with each other with words. Think of it!!

God created us to bear his image, and that image is first seen when the first human named the animals. He used words and connected them to ideas and filled them with content. And thus he was able to receive the revelation of God.

Adam named the lamb, and when God became flesh and entered the world, he told mankind that he was the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

Words. With words we pray. With words we speak the truth. With words we encourage. With words we say, “I love you” and “your hair is beautiful” and “I love the shape of you and how you fit with me and the way that your neck smells like I belong.”

But sin is now in the world, and that which was meant for beauty and truth was twisted into ugliness and lies and silence. Satan was a liar from the beginning.

Satan does not want the image of God reflected in words. He twists the words to make them ugly and hateful, and he silences the cries of the oppressed. For the darkness reigns when the dark places remain dark. It is for the advantage of the evil one that secrets remain secret and crimes remain hidden behind non-disclosure agreements.

When you read through the Psalms, you see godly men and women crying out, lifting up their voices to the Almighty One, whose Voice called them into existence.

They speak of praise and joy, pain and sorrow, laughter and anger, oppression and helplessness, despair and elation. And all of it is expressed in words.

He hurt me. He plowed my back. He is telling lies. He oppressed and afflicted me.

Because when the light is on, salvation is near. When the light is hidden under a bushel, bondage still reigns.

God would have us turn the lights on, and he calls us to use words.

But the church, which is to be the place where the light is on, is using her voice to silence the oppressed, the plowed-under, those who are crushed under unspeakable sorrow. Instead of using the voice to bring light into darkness, the voice is silenced by guilt and shame.

When one is buried by decades of silence and the heart has grown numb and buried by walls, the soul sinks into despair. But then, where the gloom has buried hope, a light finally arises and the curtains are pulled back.

And the helpless one finally finds her voice. She is finally able to speak of the atrocities done to her and bring them out into the light and look for healing.

And then those who are appointed as overseers of the soul speak.

“Did you follow Matthew 18?”

“Did you have two or three witnesses?”

“What were you wearing?”

“Where were you when this happened”

“Why didn’t you tell people earlier?”

“Why did you call the police?”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“What did you do to cause this?”

And here is the mistake that the oppressed make. They think that if they do everything right, say it just right, dot all of the eyes and cross all of the ts, then the shepherds will HAVE to listen. After all, they are the guardians of truth.

But here is why it is a mistake. If they believe you, their whole world must collapse. The reality of the brutality that you have experienced doesn’t fit their worldview, and therefore it cannot be real. In their worldview, those kinds of crimes happen to other people, outsiders, gentiles, not in our own camp.

If they believe you, then they have choices to make, investigations, confrontation, and cutting out a cancer. And it is far easier to ignore the cancer, pretend that it isn’t there, and go on with life than it is to do what has to be done with cancer. It is easier in the short term to silence the one who warns of cancer than to deal with the cancer.

So they don’t want to hear, and it won’t matter how it is said, they will find some reason not to believe you. They will twist words, they will pull out their verses, they will hire a PR firm, they will issue statements, they will do everything they can think of…

Except believe you.

And this is actually encouraging for the psalmist of every age, crying out for justice.

Listen closely: It isn’t you. It isn’t because you did something wrong, or said it wrong, or didn’t say it at the right time, or didn’t follow the right procedure or whatever other excuse the gatekeepers throw at you.

That isn’t it.

It is because they are of their father the devil and the works of their father they will do. He was a liar and a murderer from the beginning and the truth was not in him.

Speak anyway. Because when you speak, you shine a little light into the darkness.

But even more than that – you show yourself to be a child of the light.

Arise, shine, and Christ will give you light.

And the darkness hates the light. It always has because it loves the darkness. It is easier to hide in the darkness that to be exposed by the light.

Speak anyway. You will find that there are those who walk in the light who hear you. Who understand. Who see you.

Jesus sees you. He knows. He wants you to speak to him. He calls you to come down from the tree. Come out of hiding.

“Who touched me?” he says.

If that was you, tell him everything. He knows already, but he created you with a voice. Don’t let the Evil One silence that voice, because that voice is beautiful in your Father’s ears.

He hears you. He keeps your tears in his bottle, and every one of them will be avenged.

So speak. Write your own psalm. Speak your truth.

You won’t ever do it correct enough or have enough witnesses for the children of the devil to listen. They aren’t going to listen, not even if you sent an angel from heaven to thunder in their ears.

Speak anyway, because you are a child of light.

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November 1, 2022 · 10:00 am

Nationalism: Who makes the bricks?

Moses wrote the book of Genesis to the nation of Israel who had just been delivered from the oppression of Egypt. In Egypt, they were slaves who made bricks and built buildings for their oppressors. They made bricks day and night to build cities for Pharaoh.
Moses wrote about this when he wrote about the tower of Babel:

Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth (Gen. 11:3–4).

They were building a kingdom to regain what they had lost in Eden. After mankind was exiled from the presence of God, they were scattered. After Noah departed from the Ark, they began to scatter. It didn’t take long for them to organize and seek to build what they had lost.

We will fight the grave. We will make a name for ourselves. We will establish ourselves.

Isaiah later takes this idea and adds to it. Lucifer, by the way, refers to Babylon, not Satan.

Isaiah 14:12–15 (NKJV)
12“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations!
13For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north;
14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’
15Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.

Notice the echoes of the same themes – the tower reaching to heaven. We will be like the most high. We will exalt our throne. We will sit on the mount of the congregation of the Lord. Read the whole chapter. Isaiah is speaking about the spirit that drives Babylon, and every kingdom of this earth.

In other words, “We will establish the kingdom of God on this earth. We will build cities. We will pass laws. We will deal with evil-doers. We will create a society, a City on the Hill. And there will be no more curse.”

View it from the backdrop of the description of Babel. This is a major theme throughout the Bible, but I only want to focus on one aspect of it.

The Tower was built with bricks and mortar. And the original readers of Genesis would have known exactly what that meant. Someone had to make the bricks and build the buildings.

That would not have been Pharaoh, the one with the grand plan. It would have been the slaves.

And so comes the downfall of every single scheme to build the kingdom of God on this earth. Someone has to make the bricks.

Even the founding of our own country, which many claim is the “City on the Hill”, using the phrase of the puritans. Who did the work?

Dabney complained after the slaves were set free that he hardly had time to write anymore because of all the menial labor that wasn’t getting done.

In our own state, the California Indians were enslaved to harvest the crops and build the cities. The adobe houses weren’t going to build themselves.

The “City on the Hill” is a grand idea, until you think about who is making the bricks. One thing is for sure. The one who says, “Come let us make bricks” is NOT the one who is actually making the bricks. The one who holds the whip is the one giving the commands. The one at the other end of the whip is making the bricks.

At the end of Genesis 11, there is a contrast. We are introduced to a new character. Abraham. God gives Abraham a promise, and Abraham believes it. And he learns to wait for it.

Hebrews 11 tells us this:

Hebrews 11:9–10 (NKJV)
9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise;
10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

Abraham lived in tents his whole life, because he waited for another kind of city. A city where God makes the bricks and builds the city.

Dwell on that for a moment.

There is no oppression, no vanity under the sun, no pain and toil.

And truly no more curse. No curse for anyone, for God will take it on himself.

HE makes the bricks and prepares a place for you. And you can dwell in a tent while you wait, if that is what it takes.

THIS is the kingdom of God.

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September 25, 2017 · 9:40 pm

“I will give you rest…”

2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (Gen 2:2-3 KJV)

The seventh day, God rested. Of course, we finite creatures cannot possibly understand what this means for an infinite God, but it was written for our benefit. God rests, and created man to enter into that rest.’

But man fell, and was driven from the Garden. I am one of the few that take the history of Genesis literally. I can’t explain men and women, their desires, their loves, their hates, their unfulfilled longings any other way. Man was created to enter into God’s holy habitation. But man became unholy, defiled and corrupt, with a memory of what was lost.

But God did not cast them into hell. Instead, he provided a way of salvation. He provided a way of restoration. We call this the covenant of grace, and it was first announced after man’s fall in the Garden of Eden.

The bondage that mankind put themselves in was illustrated perfectly in Israel’s hard bondage in Egypt. They were slaves to Pharaoh and there was nothing that they could do about it. Pharaoh was too strong, and Israel was too weak. So also with all mankind. Sin is too strong and we are too weak.

We commit our way to God and tell ourselves that today we are going to live righteously. And if you understand God’s holy law, you realize that your commitment lasted until your feet hit the floor. We sin because we are born corrupt and twisted, serving ourselves and our own lusts continually. We hate our sins and yet continually return to them. We loathe ourselves at night and make more resolutions. And break them again first thing in the morning. Over and over again. Sin is a harsh and undefeatable task-master.

Unless God intervenes.

God intervened with Israel in Egypt. He gave them the Passover lamb. They put the blood of the lamb on the door of their houses, and that night the firstborn of Egypt died and Israel was free.

Think of it – they had their first day off in their whole lives. They were free from their taskmasters. And that day, their first day of freedom, marked the first Sabbath. From them on, every seventh day Israel rested.

God told them why in Exodus 31:

13 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you. (Exo 31:13 KJV)

Israel was given the Sabbath as a sign – that Jehovah is the only one that sanctifies his people. God himself makes us holy and fit for the holy habitation of God. Only then can we enter into God’s rest. Just as God delivered them from Pharaoh, so also God promised that he would deliver them from the bondage of sin. But just as Israel could not deliver themselves from Pharaoh, so also mankind could never deliver themselves from the bondage of sin. But that which is impossible for God is possible for man.

This was also signified in the land of Canaan. Joshua led them around Jericho once for six days and on the seventh, he led them around 7 times. On the seventh time of the seventh day, the walls fell flat and Israel entered their rest.

But those who didn’t believe the promise – the God would give them rest – their bodies fell in the wilderness:

10 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:
11 Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

(Psa 95:10-96:1 KJV)

By the time Jesus came into the world, the Jews had changed the meaning of the Sabbath. Instead of the Sabbath pointing to Jehovah sanctifying his people and giving them rest, the Sabbath day became a harsh burden of a thousand different things that could or could not be done. They had 39 categories of work, each with 6 sub-categories – all of which were forbidden. And the different Rabbinical traditions had their own interpretations and their own rules. All were inflexible. All were merciless.

To the Pharisee, the Sabbath meant that if you worked really hard, did the right things, and separated from those horrible sinners then you could perhaps convince God to begrudgingly allow you entrance into Abraham’s bosom.

As long as you didn’t miss anything.

The conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees over the Sabbath wasn’t over which works were allowed and which were not allowed. The point was over the meaning of the Sabbath to begin with. The one promised who would give them rest, who would sanctify his people, who would bring his people into his eternal rest,  was standing right in front of them!

How could they have known he was the one promised? Isaiah wrote:

4 Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
6 Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: (Isa 35:4-6 KJV)

Israel would know that God had come to their aid when they saw the eyes of the blind opened, the tongue of the dumb loosened, and the lame man walking. And this was exactly what Jesus did. And he did it on the Sabbath day. What was more fitting? The lamb of God sanctifying his people and preparing them for heaven on the very day that was a sign of that reality?

The reason Israel was forbidden to work on that day was so they would always remember the sign. God sanctifies his people. God delivers his people. God saves his people.

We don’t save ourselves; God saves us. What a tremendous promise! To rest on the Sabbath meant that you had to trust God for your daily bread. And if you lifted your eyes upward, you would see that you also were to trust God to fulfill his promise to sanctify his people. God would give us His righteousness if only we accept it with a believing heart.

30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith;
31 but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law.
32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,
(Rom 9:30-32 NAS)

The Pharisees of every age, on the other hand, followed the natural religion. If we are good enough, God will bless us. And they worked hard at it. They slaved for God’s approval. And they despised Jesus for being gracious to those who didn’t work near hard enough for that favor.

“We have worked, and slaved, and done hard labor our whole lives for God’s favor, and you are telling us that this beggar, this sinner, this publican, this “loose woman”, this Gentile, can just waltz right in and God will accept them??”

This is a big study, but a worthwhile one. A modern Pharisee won’t see the point, and will probably get irritated. But here is why I am telling you about the Jewish Sabbath and the conflict between Jesus and the Jews: We still have the same conflict today.

We have experts of every stripe telling us how to sanctify ourselves to make ourselves worthy of God’s favor. We have annual conferences on how to be manly husbands, feminine wives. We spend millions of dollars on books on how to pray, how to gain God’s favor, how to act, how to marry, how to live. We have our celebrity preachers who will tell you, for a cost, about their schemes, and their soundbites and their plans and their programs. Here’s how you must raise your kids. Here is how you must homeschool. Here is what to wear, what to eat, what to watch on TV, what not to watch on TV. Here’s is how to be a good wife. Here is how to be a good husband. Here is how short your skirt must be; here is what kind of blouse you must wear and what material it must be made of.

All for money or power. We have made Christianity so complicated and so full of so many rules and regulations. And every church has their own rules and regulations.

God only gave us Ten Commandments, but we have multiplied statutes to ourselves and ignored the law completely. We kill, maim, slander, rape, assault, and give approval to those who do the same. But we make sure the skirt is the right length, the wrong beverages are avoided, the appropriate demeanor is put on the face.

The message is clear. Grace is free and unmerited, as long as you do all of the right things, act the right way, go to the right conferences, and do what you are supposed to do. And I will tell you what those things are, as long as you fill out this registration form and send your check or money order to the registrar on time. Can we not see the contradiction? Is the righteousness of God freely given, or bought with money and works?

What has happened to the gospel of Jesus Christ? I don’t even recognize it anymore.

Aren’t you tired of it? Aren’t you tired of self-appointed prophets gaining wealth over the backs of the poor and downtrodden? Aren’t you tired of watching your every step, making sure that you are manly enough, feminine enough, righteous enough, a good enough parent, a good enough citizen? Are you weary of the constant vigilance? Don’t you need a Sabbath rest?

Then here is the message of the Sabbath again:

4 Say to those with anxious heart, “Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; The recompense of God will come, But He will save you.” (Isa 35:4 NAS)

To you who have been made afraid, you who have been abused and cast away like garbage, know this: God is gathering a people for himself. He is sanctifying those people and preparing them to enter into His rest. And he will come with vengeance. Egypt, Jericho, Babylon and earthly Jerusalem all fall to the ground.

It is the meek, the oppressed, the poor, that inherit the earth. And nothing unclean will enter in.

And you cannot barge your way through the gates. The only way is through the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

So don’t be afraid. There aren’t a thousand different rules by a thousand different men. There is only one way to salvation, only one way to sanctification.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Act 16:31 KJV)

And

20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.
21 “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
(Gal 2:20-21 NAS)

And here:

28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Mat 11:28-30 KJV)

If you have not found rest for you souls, you have not yet found Christ. Come to him, I urge you, and rest.

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