To the editor:

The letter writer in the June 23rd Public Forum attested to the seeming fact that she and her six siblings, “memorized the Ten Commandments and knew the first three tell us how God wants us to love him and the rest, how to love our neighbor.”

Memorization requires remembering correctly so it is interesting to note that the fourth commandment is spoken of by God in Exodus 20:8-11 as follows: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”

We need to study to show ourselves approved by God and we need to be spending a bit more of our limited time “working out our own salvation with fear and trembling” and rightly dividing the Word of God. Our busying ourselves judging and condemning others is really not best use practice of our most precious resource in human life, time. We shouldn’t use any of it trying to do God’s work for Him. God is the Judge — he knows ALL — we are not qualified!

Does anyone really know what time it is? Probably not if we don’t even know what day is God’s Sabbath! Using a Bible concordance and doing electronic searches of words in the Bible, like Sabbath, might be a more fruitful pursuit and better use of our time until ‘Thy Kingdom come.” Not only are we living in unprecedented times, it could be later than we think! When did God rest from all His works, what day is holy? Will we ever rest from our works and spend some time communing with Him, Our Creator, while we can?!

Keith VanOverbeke

Marshall