Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy…Remember you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a outstretched hand. Deut. 5
This issue of Sabbath is a global problem – from Africa to North America to Asia to Europe to Latin America to Australia/New Zealand. We as pastors and leaders must come out from the slave driver, the Pharaoh, that lives inside of us and dominates our culture.
Imagine the violent anxiety the Israelites must have felt for 430 years in Pharaoh’s workaholic system. They were always busy and frenetic. They constantly had to prove they were worthy of being alive based on producing more bricks. We may be free physically from Pharaoh, but he continues to live inside of most of us. Our families of origin, along with Western culture with its emphasis on “bigger and better,” keep us working faster and faster. We simply have to achieve and accomplish more – whatever it costs us personally. Others seem to produce more bricks more quickly. What’s my problem? We are called to take a 24-hour period each week to stop, rest, delight and contemplate God. We are to resist the powers and principalities that define us, and our people, as cogs in a machine or simple means of production. God calls us to declare boldly through Sabbath-keeping that we will not participate in the dehumanizing system that pervades our culture and the church world. For no other reason, practice Sabbath to resist the principalities and powers of hell.
