I n an attempt to justify purchasing the services of restaurant personnel on God's Sabbath, the doctrinal committee of one of the largest COG associations published a paper outlining why they approve of this practice. In it, they claim that those who labor in restaurants are not THEIR servants but rather the servants of someone else. Therefore, because the commandment only mentions "your servant" God must approve of His people seeking out unbelievers who desecrate holy time as well as paying them for the fruit of this sacrilege. In other words the actual meaning of the fourth commandment in the eyes of these COG scholars would be something like this:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor and do all your work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God: in it you shall not do any work. You nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant. However, you may compel someone else’s manservant or maidservant to labor on your behalf, provided they are not under your direct authority or responsibility and would be working anyway. (Ex. 20:8-10 revised)

    This COG presents this phase of their case by posing two questions and then confidently providing the answer. Notice their words carefully. As you read them ask yourself the following: "Would I be comfortable advancing this argument before God Almighty?"

Isn’t it wrong to have someone serve you in a restaurant?

 

Are they working for you?

 

The answer to both questions is “no.”

 

The waitresses, waiters, cooks, etc., in a restaurant are not your servants. They do not live in your household. This was the principle given in Exodus. Those who live under your roof or are under your control were not to work on the Sabbath. This cannot be applied to a waitress unless you have control over her and can force her not to work.           

    Here, this prominent COG association adopts a very narrow view of the term "your" when offering their explanation of God's intent when giving the fourth commandment. We're just curious, but what do they believe God meant by the word "your" when He gave the ninth and tenth commandment? After all, those commandments only mention "your neighbor" with respect to bearing false witness and coveting. Are they suggesting that God's people can covet the wife of someone else's neighbor?

    Furthermore, what these men assert as the "principle given in Exodus" is totally UNTRUE!  Contrary to their claim, God's purpose when giving the fourth commandment was not to define who could work on the Sabbath and who couldn't. When the Almighty was presenting this part of the Decalogue He was not crafting some elaborate labor code. He was declaring in no uncertain terms that the Sabbath is HOLY and that work profanes this day no matter who performs it. That’s the PRINCIPLE!

    When the Almighty gave His Sabbath law to the children of Israel He prohibited them from personally engaging in or soliciting from others labor. Furthermore, there was no provision in His law for finding a way to circumvent the command. Any honest examination of God’s law leaves no other conclusion. Consider how all encompassing that law is as expressed in the fourth commandment.

     First, "you shall not do any work" (Ex. 20:10). That addresses your part. Secondly, no one who comes into your sphere of influence shall be requested by you to labor on your behalf. This includes family, servants, strangers, and even livestock (same verse). That part addresses all others His people would come in contact with on the Sabbath. Everyone else on earth was outside the camp and God had already forbidden His people from going outside the camp on this day (Ex. 16:29).

Whose Servants are They?

    Perhaps the greatest error in this COG’s thinking is in claiming whom the waiters and waitresses, as well as other restaurant workers, serve. Most think they serve restaurant managers and owners. But is this true? At this point, it is important to understand that those who labor in restaurants on the Sabbath are SINNING! That's RIGHT, it is a SIN. It may look like just another person trying to provide for themselves and their family, but looks can be deceiving. God calls labor on His Sabbath a sin, unless it is performed by those He specifically designates. This being the case, those who work on the Sabbath are actually SLAVES to SIN! The apostle Paul understood this profound truth. Notice what he said in a letter written to the Church at Rome.

Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (Ro. 6:16)

    Today, those who work on the Sabbath are truly slaves to sin—a sin that has been sold by mankind’s greatest enemy (Rev. 12:9). Furthermore, those in God’s Church who avail themselves of this sin are condoning both the slavery and the SLAVE MASTER (2 Cor. 4:4). This is what God was conveying when He gave the fourth commandment. This Great Lawgiver actually explained why His people were to release their servants from labor on the Sabbath. Notice the commandment:

But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shall not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor your ox, nor your ass, nor any of your cattle, nor the stranger that is within your gates; that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you.

And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day. (Deut. 5:14-15)

    Here, God is telling His people that labor on the Sabbath is a form of bondage. This is the very bondage He freed them from when He delivered them out of Egypt. This being the case, it is hard to understand why anyone would want to return to that bondage, even to look at it.

A Final Thought

    God’s plan is that all mankind will ultimately be free from the tyranny of ignorance and sin. The Sabbath pictures that freedom. It is not by accident that when giving the fourth commandment, God reminded His people that they were once slaves in Egypt (Dt. 5:15). It is for this very reason that every Sabbath God’s people are to be liberators. In other words, they are to declare everyone they come in contact with "FREE!" Nowhere in the command does it remotely hint that God condones of His people going back into “Egypt” to avail themselves of the very sin they were once a part of (Dt. 5:14-15). The Sabbath is about liberty, not slavery.

Excuse #7

Beyond Our Control

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