In the
early hours of Saturday, 18th July, 2015, Nigerian time, I heard, in a dream, a
Voice say to me ‘tell My Children not to work on Sundays’.
Before I
talked a little more about the content of this dream, let me narrate an event
that happened some few days before I got this message.
There is a
minister of the gospel that works on his own and he works on daily basis. At
times, he makes only small amount of money that can only sustain his family for
the day. This man occasionally works after Sunday service to make some money to
cater for his family.
One day, the minister visited me in my house. While we
were discussing, the minister said that another minister of the gospel saw him while
he was working on Sunday and he accused him of working in Sunday. The Person pointed
to him that how would the minister preach to others that His God is God of surplus
if he himself worked on Sundays.
The
minister who works on Sundays was not really asking me for an opinion. He was
just telling me about what happened. And since he was not asking me for an
opinion, I kept quiet.
I kept
quiet for 2 reasons. 1.
The issue of Sabbath day has generated a lot of controversies among Christians.
2. I, also, work on
Sundays, occasionally.
I work in an
essential service company that must operate on 24-hour, all round the week.
So, this makes me to work occasionally on Sundays. Let me say that I joined
this company as an unbeliever and had been working on that arrangement before I
received The Lord, Jesus Christ, later. And immediately I received the Lord, I
began to ask the Lord in prayer if I should leave that job because it makes me
to work on Sundays occasionally. The Lord did not instruct me to leave the job,
So, I kept the job.
It was
based on these two reasons I refrained from giving my opinion to that minister.
And some few days after meeting with that minster, this familiar Voice came to me
in my dream and said ‘tell my children not work on Sundays’.
After
receiving this instructions, I felt a little guilt in me because with this instruction
I felt as if The Lord was telling me that I should have given my opinion to
that my friend-minister which I did not and perhaps because of that HE was now
telling me to go and tell HIS other children not to work on Sundays.
THE MESSAGE
8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy.
10 But the
seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,
thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor
thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and
earth, the sea, and all that in them is,
and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day,
and hallowed it.
From the Message scripture above, the Lord is telling us to keep Sundays
holy, dedicate Sundays to serving God and abstaining from doing
work on Sundays.
MY
OPINIONS
1. SABBATH DAY;
SATURDAY OR SUNDAY?
While there may not be any controversy among believers whether sabbath
day should be kept holy or should be dedicated to serving God, there is,
however, controversy whether the sabbath day should be Saturday or Sunday.
I am of the opinions that if you find yourself yet to decide on which
day you want to observe as the Sabbath day, please, pray and ask the Lord for
His Will concerning the matter. But I believe Sunday is His perfect Will. So,
do not work on Sundays. If you think otherwise, seek Him in prayer if you
can observe any other day as Sabbath.
Not only that you should abstain from paid work on Sundays, the day
should be kept as holy as possible. See Isaiah 58:13
Isaiah 58:13-14
13 If thou turn away
thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my
holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD,
honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways,
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
14 Then shalt thou
delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places
of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the
mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
From
the above, we can see that the Sabbath day should be used to honour God. It is
not a day to go about watching football matches from one arena to the other or
from one viewing center to the other. It is a day to serve The Lord and rest.
2.
ESSENTIAL SERVICES
Essential services are services that cannot be put on hold. It must run at all
times, no matter what. For instance, pregnant women must give birth on Sundays and
there must be nurses and doctors available to deliver them. Security men like
Police and others must be at work to secure the people and properties, even on Sundays.
There are many other essential services
that must warrant that you work on Sundays.
If
you find yourself in such situation, I think should still not work the whole
of the seven days that make a week. Make sure that you have at least one
day off work not to break the scripture, Exodus 20:9-10 that says ‘six days
shall thou do thy work’. You can then sort out the issue of the day with The
Lord. Make sure you use the off day for God and resting.
3.
SELF BUSINESS OWNER
This
is the category that my minister-friend falls into. He is the owner of his
business. If you are in such category, try as much as possible to abstain from
opening of business on Sundays. You can tell the Lord in prayer to let you make
enough sales during the week so that you will keep off business on Sundays. The
Lord knows how to balance things out.
4.
UNFORESEEN SITUATION
Lastly,
it is lawful to do good on Sundays. Any unforeseen situation that arises on
Sunday that needs our attention should be addressed once it brings glory to the
name of God.
Luke 6:6-10
6 And it came to
pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught:
and there was a man whose right hand was withered.
7 And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would
heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him.
8 But he knew their
thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth.
9 Then said Jesus
unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is
it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to
destroy it?
10 And looking round
about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
KEEP THE SABBATH HOLY.
DO NOT FALL INTO THE HANDS OF GOD
The issue of profaning the Sabbath of the Lord is one silent sin
that many believers trivialize yet it is a very serious sin. Many Christians
believe once they attend church service on a Sunday, that is all. They think
how they spend the rest of the day does not matter. But it is far from being
the truth.
They believe they can return from the church and spend the rest of
the day playing games or chatting all through on social media. While those
things on their owns may not be sinful or if you do them on any other day, doing
them on a Sunday will be sinful because they will amount to seeking your own
pleasures on a Sabbath day rather than seeking the Lord and things that
bring Him glory or resting.
Let us consider some scriptures.
Exodus
20: 7 7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for
the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Among the ten commandments of God as found in the
book of exodus, chapter 20, three of them asked us to honour some things –
these are His name, His Sabbath and Our Parents. One of such was found in exodus 20:7 above. He
specifically says He consider you as guilty if you dishonor His name. Why
should God ascribe sins to you if you dishonor His name? The answer is found in
the scripture below, Luke 11:2, below.
Luke
11:2
2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in
heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in
heaven, so in earth.
We
can see from above that the reason why God will hold whoever takes His name in
vain as guilty is because His name is hallowed – something to be greatly
respected, honoured, revered.
www.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hallow
describes the word ‘hallow’ as the following.
- To respect or honor greatly; revere,
- Other definitions include to venerate
as being holy, sanctify, sacred, and so on.
And from those definitions above, we can see that His name
should not be taken in vain nor dishonored, nor defiled. If we did so, we would
be acting against what His name stands for. That is why God will impute sin to
whom dishonors His name.
Of course, you will not go to see the President of your country
and just stretch out your hand to shake him and then cal him by name and just
say ‘how are you’. You are going to address him as ‘Your Excellency, Mr.
President’. You may not be able to even call his name, not to talk of dishonoring
it.
But today, People give all manners of dishonor to the name of God. Many people use God's name to curse people, to crack jokes, to bear false witness, to exclame and
even to blaspheme His holy name. And God says, he will charge sins accordingly to
who puts His name to dishonor.
Now, Let us consider what God says, again, about His Sabbath.
Exodus 20: 8-11 8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy.
9 Six days shalt
thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh
day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor
thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle,
nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and
earth, the sea, and all that in them is,
and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and
hallowed it.
From the underlined scripture above, we can see that God blessed
The Sabbath Day and hallowed it. In other words, The Lord proclaimed
that the Sabbath day is hallowed. Because the day is hallowed, it is to be
greatly respected, honoured, revered and not to be abused. This is the same way
the name of the Lord was proclaimed as hallowed in Luke 11:2 above.
Finally, let us endeavor to live holy and righteous at all times and on all days. The Lord is coming. Rapture is imminent. Trumpet can sound at any time.
Shalom.
TO MAKE RAPTURE:
Confess
your sins to JESUS CHRIST and ask Him to save you.
Repent
of your sins constantly on daily basis and run away from sins.
Be
filled with The Holy Spirit.
Live
in Holiness and Righteousness.
Do
all Restitutions.
Cut
of all Worldliness.
Forgive
all people.
Pray
and Fast.
Consecrate
and Study the Bible
Watch.
0 comments:
Post a Comment