Sabbath and Justice
When Sabbatarians speak about the Sabbath, they often defend the correct day. Sometimes they speak about the correct way to keep the Sabbath, but we often neglect the Spiritual power that comes to the Christian.
In this audio, Elder Cox, talks about the Sabbath and how it points you to victory.
A while back I wrote a post on “E. J. Waggoner as a Practical Theologian.” In it I quoted Waggoner who stated that “Every doctrine of the Bible is for our practical benefit, and should be studied for that purpose.”
This is a very interesting thought for much of our preaching and thinking. Often we think of “practical” and “doctrinal” as being on two sides with a chasm in between. We cannot go over the chasm. So sometimes we preach “practical” sermons, and sometimes we preach “doctrinal” sermons.
Members long for “practical” preaching that will help us live faithfully in our daily lives. However, there is also a call for us to know “doctrine.” We are to gain a deeper awareness and understanding of the truths that hold us up.
We cannot forget doctrine. When we do we lose something of who we are. The deity of Christ is a doctrine that is hotly debated in some circles today. However, the doctrine is an important one in our Christian heritage. The doctrine of the Sabbath also has a call on us as Seventh day Sabbatarians.
And for this reason, sometimes we teach and preach doctrines, while other times we teach and preach themes of practical living. E. J. Waggoner comes in and asks us why do we have this dichotomy? Why not preach doctrine by emphasizing its practical relevance? Why not preach doctrine by emphasizing its importance in our daily living? Why not preach and teach doctrine in such a way that we will immediately see its practical relevance just as we see the practical relevance of the traditional “practical” sermons?
In short, we ask the same question that Eugene Lowry, the homilitician, wrote in his classic preaching text The Homiletical Plot. Lowry asks of any doctrine before he preaches it, “What bind does the doctrine get you out of?” In short, how does this doctrine help me overcome a problem?
Certainly there are times for more didactic teaching, but all of our doctrinal preaching need not be in lecture form. If we truly are to teach the Sabbath more fully, then we must find a way to live out the implications of the Sabbath in our daily lives. To do that, we must listen to both Lowry and Waggoner by asking about the practical benefit of the Sabbath. Then we will be in a position to be the witness to the Sabbath that God has called our movement to be.
E. J. Waggoner, in Gospel in Creation writes:
The Sabbath is for the purpose of keeping in mind the creative power of God, which is His distinguishing characteristic. But creative power is the power of the gospel, so that that which celebrates creation also celebrates redemption.
The Sabbath is about celebrating creation and the creative power of God. The Sabbath is the time that we are called to remember what God can do. The Sabbath is about God’s ability to create something out of nothing.
In Hebrews 11:3 we are told: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
The Sabbath is our faith building device to help us understand that everything that is seen is made of things that we cannot necessarily see or even understand. When someone says that God is a “waymaker,” that one is simply talking about God’s ability to create a way out of a way that does not appear to be open.
The Sabbath reminds us that our deliverance from sin and holy living is not based in what we can see. We may have fallen to that same sin continuously, but the Sabbath reminds us that God is a creator, and creative power doesn’t require us to see what God is going to do.
When someone says that “God is able”, that one is simply stating that God’s creative power is not constrained by circumstances that “do appear,” but by God’s ability to create something out of nothing. And every Sabbath we come together to celebrate that power.
In the last days, God will have a people who will “worship him who made.” (Revelation 14:7). The day designed to remember this creative power is the Sabbath. Let us believe and live as if we are “Sabbath-keepers” who always seek to remember the Creative Power of God.