 » Site Navigation | | | |  | 
03-14-2009, 06:14 PM
|  | Puritanboard Professor | | Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: RADFORD VA.
Posts: 5,088
Thanks: 1,306
Thanked 1,583 Times in 688 Posts
| | | Another blessing of the sabbath.
http://www.ipcsav.org/terry-johnson/...of-moderation/
The Disciplines of Moderation
by Terry Johnson Dec 01, 2008
When I was growing up in Los Angeles in the 1960's and 70's, there was one college football game broadcast on television each week-"the game of the week." It might be a Big Ten game, a Notre Dame game, or an SEC game, but there was just one. That was it. On Sunday, two NFL games were broadcast, an east coast game in the morning and a west coast game in the afternoon. Almost all local games were blocked-out unless sold out, a criterion almost beyond reach in LA's massive Memorial Coliseum.
In the 1980's the NFL added Monday Night Football. Then Sunday Night Football. In the 1990's and 2000's, the NCAA and the cable channels added multiple Saturday games, extending from noon until after 2:00a.m. Saturday morning. "Game Day" starts at 10:30a.m. on ESPN. A Thursday night game was added just a few years ago. One could easily watch 5 college games and 4 NFL games a week, consuming 30 hours a week, not counting "Game Day" and countless sports highlights and commentary shows. Many sports fans do just that, bleary-eyed by late Saturday night, but by Sunday morning eagerly anticipating the next round of games. This devotion to football is immoderate if not idolatrous, gobbling up time that ought to be devoted to family, exercise, vacation, charity or the cultivation of the soul.
What can be done about it? Observe the Sabbath and abstain from all competitive athletics, whether as a spectator or athlete, on Sunday. The Sabbath, like tithing and fasting, are disciplines of moderation. We are tempted to make idols out of our secular passions, whether vocational or avocational (spectator sports, hobbies, food, etc.). Sabbath, tithing, and fasting (all sorts of fasting) draw a line and say "thus far and not further." Inclined to make money your god? Tithing requires that you turn 10% of your increase over to God. Inclined to make food your god? Fasting requires that one abstain from all food for a period. Obsessed with hunting, fishing, golf, reading detective novels, gardening or whatever? The Sabbath demands at least the moderation of Sunday abstinence, 24 hours without your obsession.
These disciplines are not a cure-all. They don't solve the problem of over-indulgence. These are heart issues that must be resolved, that only the Holy Spirit can handle. Rather, they should be seen as one weapon in the arsenal of sanctification. They provide regular, structured reminders that we are called to higher ends and therefore to moderation to all the pleasures available to us in this world.
__________________
Psa 55:16 As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.
Psa 55:17 Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
James Farley
Husband of Melissa and father of Ann.
Members of Redeemer Church ARP, Blacksburg Va. http://www.redeemerblacksburg.org/ | | The Following 14 Users Say Thank You to Blueridge Believer For This Useful Post: | Backwoods Presbyterian (03-14-2009), Classical Presbyterian (03-14-2009), Dearly Bought (03-14-2009), Ex Nihilo (03-14-2009), greenbaggins (03-14-2009), Hamalas (03-14-2009), Herald (03-14-2009), kvanlaan (03-14-2009), rescuedbyLove (03-14-2009), Rev. Todd Ruddell (03-14-2009), Scott1 (03-14-2009), Scottish Lass (03-14-2009), w (03-14-2009), whitway (03-14-2009) |
03-14-2009, 06:34 PM
| | Inactive User | | Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 1,046
Thanks: 706
Thanked 192 Times in 100 Posts
| | |
Terry Johnson is spot on.
Sports in America have become Baal worship you know basketbaal, footbaal, basebaal.
Here is a sad note, there is a PCA Church down the road from us that has a golf tournament on Sunday.
__________________
w
| | The Following User Says Thank You to w For This Useful Post: | |
03-14-2009, 06:43 PM
|  | Reformed Dane | | Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Breum, Denmark
Posts: 6,349
Thanks: 2,713
Thanked 1,014 Times in 736 Posts
| | | |
03-14-2009, 06:48 PM
| | Moderator v. Madison | | Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Cambridge, MA
Posts: 2,813
Thanks: 1,452
Thanked 727 Times in 361 Posts
| | |
I am not much of a sports fan, but this is a timely reminder to put aside other pursuits tomorrow!
__________________
Evie B.
New Members Class, RPCNA, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. -- Isaiah 43:18-19 (ESV) |
03-14-2009, 06:52 PM
|  | whippersnapper | | Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Purcellville, Virginia
Posts: 2,758
Thanks: 1,476
Thanked 541 Times in 329 Posts
| | Quote: |
Terry Johnson is spot on.
| He almost always is! 
__________________
Ben Franks
I attend: Ketoctin Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC)
in Purcellville, Virginia
I'm a member of: Heartland Community Church (PCA)
in Wichita, Kansas
I blog here (along with my Dad): http://rrfranks.blogspot.com/
And I'm a student here: www.phc.edu "Remember the speeches we have spoken so often over our mead, when we raised boast on the bench, heroes in the hall, about hard fighting. Now may the man who is bold prove that he is."-Aelfwine at the Battle of Maldon |
03-14-2009, 07:35 PM
| | Inactive User | | Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 1,046
Thanks: 706
Thanked 192 Times in 100 Posts
| |
I love his family worship book.
I know  | | The Following User Says Thank You to w For This Useful Post: | |
03-14-2009, 09:31 PM
|  | Puritanboard Postgraduate | | Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Cary, NC
Posts: 4,882
Thanks: 1,911
Thanked 1,854 Times in 1,099 Posts
| | Quote: Blueridge Believer
What can be done about it? Observe the Sabbath and abstain from all competitive athletics, whether as a spectator or athlete, on Sunday. The Sabbath, like tithing and fasting, are disciplines of moderation. We are tempted to make idols out of our secular passions, whether vocational or avocational (spectator sports, hobbies, food, etc.). Sabbath, tithing, and fasting (all sorts of fasting) draw a line and say "thus far and not further." Inclined to make money your god? Tithing requires that you turn 10% of your increase over to God. Inclined to make food your god? Fasting requires that one abstain from all food for a period. Obsessed with hunting, fishing, golf, reading detective novels, gardening or whatever? The Sabbath demands at least the moderation of Sunday abstinence, 24 hours without your obsession.
| I've noticed this in practical application as well.
Few things interfere with "our" life more than constraining ourselves to earn our living and seek recreation and entertainment in six, but not seven days. Quote: Westminster Confession of Faith
Chapter XXI
Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day
VIII. This Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their wordly employments and recreations,[38] but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.[39]
ISA 58:13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words.
| Similarly, few things interfere more than constraining ourselves to live on 90% or so of "our" money. Quote:
Malachi 3:10
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
| While the sabbath is part of God's fundamental moral law, and tithing is applicable more from equitable principles, both will greatly effect the way you live. "Your" time and money is not really "yours," it belongs to God and these both reflect that.
Incredibly, generously God blesses obedience and it seems that lack is somehow overcome by God's goodness, and provision in ways we cannot imagine.
Oh, may God's people come to seek God's grace to live this way, and enjoy the blessing that comes with obedience!
__________________
Scott
PCA
North Carolina
"Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised)"
Hebrews 10:23 | | The Following User Says Thank You to Scott1 For This Useful Post: | | |
| Thread Tools | | | | Display Modes |  Linear Mode |
Posting Rules
| You may not post new threads You may not post replies You may not post attachments You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
| | |
|
