Call the Lord's Holy Day "Honored"

 

Sabbath Mosaic in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem
by zeevveez

I had been kind of drifting on the topic of the Saturday Sabbath. Beyond really obvious things like don't work and don't engage in commerce, I was and am unsure how to keep it, for one. Turn off my refrigerator, like some Orthodox Jews do? Plus, a billion Christians keep the Sabbath, to the extent that they keep it at all, on Sundays.

Am I right and a billion Christians wrong?

Yes, that's exactly how it is. Or rather, to put things in their proper order, the Bible is right and a billion Christians wrong. This should not be a shocker at this point. 

There are some mysteries of one's communion with the Almighty that are not for discussing. Let me say that I was informed that I was not keeping the Sabbath in a worthy manner. Indeed, while I was wondering about the relevance of the Sabbath in the modern day, and while I was also wondering if a billion Christians are wrong about the Sabbath, I also did feel this myself. A shortcoming in the midst of some confusion does not stop being a shortcoming. There are some things I know I need to do that I have not been careful about doing. 

The Sabbath is on Saturday. It's been on Saturday for like 3000+ years. Nothing Jesus said indicated that the Sabbath has ceased to be a thing, and certainly not that it changed days. The jist of what Jesus said about the Sabbath is that it needs to be approached with a spiritually enlightened mind, not that it has disappeared. Certainly not that it has changed days.

I have also begun to understand what worlds of potential come into existence with obedience. With submission to the Lord. I feel like I see horizons I did not see before, and I have begun to taste of what it is like there. Things have started to "collate" in ways they didn't before, things arriving in life when or before I need them. It's hard to describe without being specific, which I can't be. It's between you and the Lord, you don't talk about it.

For someone who is probably regarded as a religious person if not a zealot, I actually haven't been praying that much. I had been praying the same prayer at meals, that's about it. I pray if there is trouble in my life.

Well that's pretty piss-poor, isn't it? Not suitable. As of the last couple days, prayer is on my daily schedule, like feeding the chickens. This was from today's Bible reading:

"If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath
from pursuing your affairs on my holy day

If you call the Sabbath "delight"

the Lord's holy day "honored"

and if you honor it and go not your ways

nor look to your affairs, nor strike bargains

Then you can seek the favor of the Lord

I will set you astride the heights of the Earth

and let you enjoy the heritage of your father Jacob-

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."

~Isaiah 58:13-14

And reading this, I had a sense of recognition. This is the will of God. The will of God for me (and every believer.)

I still don't know the particulars of Sabbath observance really. I mean, we all work every second of our lives in some sense, pumping blood through our veins if nothing else. But there are definitely areas where I KNOW I have done wrong and fallen short, and those areas must be corrected. 

The Sabbath is Saturday
Don't work at a job
Do not do commerce
Pray on the Sabbath
Revere His Day, keep it holy

These parts I know, and so it is sinful if I do not do these things I know to do. I probably also need to research how Jews celebrate the Sabbath, not that I feel I should be 100% guided by whatever they say, but obviously they have been doing it for a long time.

But more than anything, I am beginning to understand the incalculable consequences of obedience to God. We cannot understand what those bounties are, either in this world or the next. 

The Mother of Nightmares

 

Illustration of the Devil on Codex Gigas, early thirteenth century.

People may look at my life as a rural hermit and say, "Aren't you really a coward? You have fled from the spiritual battlefield. You're running away."

And I say, you have no comprehension of what spiritual evil is, if you don't think that running is not sometimes a valid response. 

We are speaking of the mother-father of all nightmares. The only true real-life horror story. Ontological horror that would make H. P. Lovecraft soil his britches.

I unfortunately do have some comprehension of what spiritual evil is, and I hate it and I also fear and flee from it. That is a healthy reaction, to fear evil, and also moreso to fear the Lord's displeasure and separation from the Lord if you fall into it. Since the Lord is the source of all good, all light, all truth, to be separated from Him is horror even if the demons leave you be. Which of course they won't. 

Now, sometimes you are forced to fight. You don't have a choice. And when you are forced to fight, you can't let fear dominate you. You've got to do the smack-dab in the face of that devil. To use an obscure wrestling reference, you've gotta do the Swanton Bomb on it. But if you are hanging around devil-town when you could leave, you probably should leave. 

“Come out from them
    and be separate,
says the Lord.

Touch no unclean thing,
    and I will receive you.”

~2 Corinthians 6:17

So yeah, you fight when you have to. You do a fighting retreat to get to a better place when you need to. The Israelites were called out to be a holy people, and holiness implies separation. You don't go tracking in the mud and the blood into the house of the Lord. 

It is right and proper and wholesome to fear and hate evil, and more so to fear God. This does not mean you are paralyzed with this fear: after all, the Almighty is your advocate if you are His. I cannot believe how uncomprehending and unknowing people can be that they do not understand this evil and the price of having truck with it. You are having a dalliance with the same forces that invented torture and killing people to steal their organs and abortion and somebody's daughter dead in the street with a heroin needle in their arm and... ugh, things I probably don't want to imagine and don't want to speak on further. The word "ontological" means concerning being itself, and this is ontological horror in total. All other horror traces back to this, the mother-father of all lies.

So no, I don't think I am a coward (more so than other men.) I think I see things truthfully, and that can be a horrifying thing. But however afraid I am of evil, the Devil is more afraid of God.

Submit yourselves, then, to God.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

~James 4:7