Dr Paul Allen

From creation onward, the people of God worshiped on the seventh day of the week. This was a "creation ordinance" that the Creator Himself established by His example, with the intent that His creatures would follow it. He worked six days and called His image-bearers to work (Gen. 2:15); He rested on the seventh day (Gen. 2:2; Ex. 20:11; 31:17) and called His image-bearers to rest. He signified this with His benediction, setting apart the seventh day as "holy" (Gen. 2:3). Later, when the Sabbath command was reiterated, we read: "In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed" (Ex. 31:17). The word refreshed (Hebrew, naphash) is used only two other times in the Old Testament: once in reference to giving rest to animals, servants, and visitors within Israel (Ex. 23:12), and once in reference to David and his men (2 Sam. 16:14). After God worked to make everything, it was as if His rest refreshed Him. Yet God...

Worshiping Jesus together with his church is an awesome privilege. God’s own voice sounds in the reading and preaching of his word. The community of the redeemed responds together in prayer and song. Pastors care for the souls of their flock through their preparation of the service and leadership from the front. Congregants offer, as an act of worship, their humble, but sacrificial, financial partnership in the mission of the church. Take a careful inventory, and you will find that most weeks this is the single most important hour of the week — and yet we are so prone to squander such a rich opportunity, sometimes even neglect it. Build a Sense of Expectancy We want to build a sense of expectancy, that we’re going to meet not only with each other, but also with God. That’s an amazing thing. There are no normal Sundays where we should simply go through the motions and expect very little. Rather, we should cultivate a sense of faith toward corporate worship which, develops over...

Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on My holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand   (Joel 2:1). In Genesis 1:5, God called the light “day.” Thus, day in the Bible means “time of light,” or “light-time.” Because God’s glory shines around Him, whenever He appears there is light. The expression “day of the Lord,” therefore, refers to a time when God appears. There is a second aspect to the “day of the Lord,” however. In Genesis 1, we are told repeatedly that God saw what He had made and that it was good. God was passing judgments. Judging requires sight, and seeing requires light. Thus, when God appears and shines His light, it is a time of judgment. The day of the Lord, then, is a time when God comes to His people. He shines His light upon them, exposing their deeds to His view, and passes judgment on them. At various times in the history of the church and in the history of nations, God chooses to pay a vi...

The first four commandments of the law teach us how to love God, even how to love Him in worship on the day of His choosing. It is important for us to understand the fourth commandment, in which God gives His command for the day of His worship: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" (Ex. 20:8). How are we as Christians to observe this commandment? From Creation to Re-Creation From creation until Christ, the people of God worked six days and then rested on the seventh day. This was a picture of their looking forward to eternal rest; the seventh day of creation was not structured with an "evening and morning" as the previous six days (Gen. 2:1–3), which signified that the seventh day had no end and was thus a foretaste of eternity itself. On the other hand, from the work of Christ until the consummation, the people of God rest on the first day and work the next six, looking back on the finished work of Christ. Yet we too look forward to the full consu...