Welcome. Welcome to Truth for Life where today we begin a study looking at what the Bible says about the Sabbath.

There was a time when even local businesses closed in honor of the Sabbath. Today it's hard to

distinguish this day from the other six days of the Sabbath. Today, it's hard to distinguish this day from the other

six days of the week. So is this day of rest a gift or a hindrance to our busy calendars?

We'll consider the answer as Alistair Begg examines the Fourth Commandment.

I invite you to take your Bibles and we'll turn to Exodus.

And there in Exodus chapter 20 we read in verse 8 and following the words of the Fourth

Commandment.

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy six days you shall labor and do all your work but the

seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God on it you shall not do any work neither you nor your son

or daughter nor your man-servant or maid-servant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them,

but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Shall we bow in a moment of prayer? Our gracious God and Father,

this commandment, perhaps more than any other, is militated against both outside the church and inside the church. And if we're going to come to terms with it,

if we're going to bow beneath the weight of its instruction, we're going to need the

enabling power of the Holy Spirit to convince us of the truth of the Word of God. And so we ask for that today.

Nothing more than that and nothing less than that, so that we may be renewed in our inner

being regarding the truth of Holy Scripture. And we pray in Jesus' name asking this. Amen.

Now, there are two things that mitigate against any good understanding of this commandment.

And there are these. On the one hand, an almost complete lack of conviction

about any notion of the abiding significance of the Fourth Commandment. And we'll address that

...