"So How Did That Interpretation On The Lord's Day Turn Out For You?"

             Well it's a little less than twenty-four hours until pastors either walk up a few steps into the pulpit....or step behind a transparent plexiglass lectern....or just stand there on the stage....or altar or whatever it is....and maybe move around a little working the crowd.
              It was a Kim Novak/Kirk Douglas film....the name of it slips my mind....for I have not watched it in over a half century....and I'm not interested enough to look up the title....and there is only one scene that sticks in my mind....and that only partially....as some character in the suburb development....is upset with another character in the same suburb development....for washing their car on a Sunday! That was the 1950s...and early 1960s as I remember them. It was a grossly distorted take on the topic of the 'Lord's Day'....from essentially a lost church and culture. 
               Putting this very simplistically....after the 16th century Reformation....the European protestant countries....generally downgraded the historic Christian sabbath....(they had their scriptural reasons....and some of the most wonderful theologians were behind developing this)....while a little later in time....the Puritans in England said that they see it differently in scripture....(that's just one of the reasons 'enlightened' Americans today despise what is their concept of the...."Puritanical'....Puritans)....and the American church followed the Puritans more than the European church.....or the 'continent' as they liked to refer to it. Looking back on all this....and the history of....'the continent'....and if the Lord's Day was designed by God as a hedge of protection....the 'continent' may not have come up with the best interpretation. England as a culture also eventually discarded the importance of the sabbath or the Lord's Day....and then came their 20th century. It is a similar situation here in America....for there was a time when we in general honored the day....and then it morphed into the Novak/Douglas film type of fake honoring of the day.....and now....here we are.
               The sabbath had also morphed into absurdity in both old and modern Israel....as we read in the New Testament....and as we see today where....as I understand it....elevators floor buttons in Israel do not function on their sabbath.....for that is work in having to push the button!
               There are far too many stalwart Christians of the past....Calvin for example....who take a different view on this for us to just discard their opinions....and I would hope that Christians today would say the same thing about our side of this....that there are far too many stalwart Christians of the past....Spurgeon and Edwards for example....who hold to it....to just discard it. (one of Edwards well-known 'resolutions' was...."Resolved, never to speak anything that is ridiculous, sportive, or matter of laughter of the Lord's day")
                To me....the absolute least of the least....(but I still have a mind and an opinion)....the Lord's Day seems to have been designed in part as a hedge of protection upon our discernments.....cut that hedge down....which is what we have done....and we make more mistakes. So...being in peril as we are today....it would seem to me that if we build up that hedge once again....we might begin to have discernment once again....both individually....and corporately. Please pray for pastors today....as many of them are right now working on their sermons....that God's Holy Spirit might have mercy upon them....and therefore us....and endue them with not only discernment....to the glory of God and His Word....but the courage to speak that discernment from their pulpits.