Argument III
Whose Servants are They?
A t one point in his letter Mr. George goes to great lengths in arguing that he may engage in business with restaurants on the Sabbath because those working there are not his servants. He argues that because servants in antiquity were slaves over whom their masters had total control, the comparison between them and restaurant personnel today is simply the product of human reasoning on the part of A Sabbath Test and its authors. Mr. George then points out numerous reasons why restaurant personnel are not remotely close to under the control of God’s people who dine out on the Sabbath. Below are Mr. George’s comments followed by our response.
Mr. George:
Your sermons cleverly and plausibly assert that to allow waiters to "serve you" on the Sabbath, they become "servants under your control." Thus you are illegally "forcing them to work."
Based on human reason, this does sound plausible. But this is entirely human reason, with no scriptural support. It reveals a complete misunderstanding of what servants were in Bible times, and with whom we might have such a relationship today.
Note From Blow the Trumpet:
Which of the two positions below looks more like human reasoning?
I
The authors of A Sabbath Test believe that the enduring moral principal reflected in the fourth commandment is that work profanes the Sabbath. Therefore, they will not direct the labor of others on this day even if they cannot prevent them from profaning what God has made holy.
II
Mr. George argues that because he does not possess total control over the lives of restaurant personnel, he does not have to exercise any control he might have. For example he has the power to prevent them from laboring for him on the Sabbath by simply refraining from dining out at their restaurant. However, Mr. George reasons that because he cannot prevent them from working for others on this day it does not matter to God if he purchases their labor for his benefit. This, even though that labor desecrates God's Sabbath.
Repeating the Question
Which of the positions above more closely reflects God's view and intent when presenting His Sabbath law to His people? And which one reflect human reasoning? We don't think this is even a close call. Sadly, neither does Mr. George.
Mr. George continues:
Servants in Bible times were slaves, over whom their master and owner exercised total and complete control. Masters could make some life or death decisions. Masters could provide a mate or prohibit slave marriage. They could legally sell their slaves or their slaves' children. Luke 17:7-8 shows a hungry slave should expect to prepare food and feed his or her master before getting his or her own meal. Although the control is less, you can still properly apply most of the Bible's master/slave rulings to employer/employee relationships today.
We should not hire household help or business workers to work for us on the Sabbath. Do we have that kind of supervisory control over waiters and waitresses? No! We cannot hire them into the employ of the restaurant. We cannot fire them if we are dissatisfied with their service. We cannot tell them when to go on break, when to remain on duty. We do not specify the hours they work, their employee benefits, the kinds of uniforms they wear, or what kind of ticket on which to write up our order.
Those decisions all belong to their master! Though we do describe them "as servers," in all these things, they are servants of their employer, not the customers. How plain the truth really is. This is not trick language to justify evil. These are the plain facts, the reality of our relationship with all sorts of Sabbath-breakers upon whom we depend. The trick language is pretending that we become master of everyone who somehow "serves" us.
Note from Blow the Trumpet:
Noticeably absent from Mr. George's comments is an acknowledgement of the authority God's people do have over a restaurant and its personnel. When describing this relationship the authors of A Sabbath Test rightfully put it this way.
Whether one wishes to believe it or not, those who go to restaurants on the Sabbath are engaging in a commercial enterprise. This enterprise involves the purchase of goods, the contracting of labor, the agreeing on a price, as well as appropriate methods of payment. There is even a provision for the payment of bonuses (tips) in this business transaction. Furthermore, in this business relationship the restaurant patron possesses a considerable level of authority over personnel. These patrons define what they will purchase, how it will be prepared, and when it will be delivered. Additionally, they have expectations of personnel as well as products, and reserve the right to exercise disciplinary action if expectations are not met. Patrons can lodge complaints, refuse payment, and even engage the services of governmental agencies that protect the rights of consumers. They can do this because they ARE CONSUMERS. They are participants in a very real business transaction. The restaurant understands this principle well and to think otherwise is simply untrue. A Sabbath Test pp. 31-32.
Mr. George is correct when he asserts that God's people do not have the authority over restaurant personnel that an ancient Israelite had over a slave. However, he is totally wrong to suggest that God's people have no control over the labor these people perform for them. The truth is that we have absolute control over that labor. By refraining from going to a restaurant on God's Sabbath, God's people can prevent that labor from being done for them, and that is the point. This is not an attempt to run the lives of restaurant personnel by cramming our beliefs down their throats. It is running our own lives based on the enduring moral principles reflected in God's law. That law declares that work profanes the Sabbath. Mr. George wants to direct that labor based on a narrow application of the commandment. We choose to honor the clear intent of God's word.
Mr. George continues:
We have no obligation to try to run their lives on God's Sabbath. They would object loudly if we tried. If that explanation is not clear enough, refer back to the example in Luke 14 already discussed, where our savior freely accepted meal service on the Sabbath from servants who were working on the Sabbath, paid for by a Sabbath-breaker. The idea that we dare not accept [Notice Mr. George uses the word "accept" as oppose to "purchase" which is what he is really doing] meals on the Sabbath from a Sabbath-breaker clearly arises from a too-negative interpretation of these sacred regulations. The law is holy, but by logic and Christ's example, it does not apply as you claim it does.
Throughout your material, you decided and declared repeatedly that Sabbath dining church members were keeping restaurants open and controlling servants. Now we've seen -- by plain definitions and logic, with no trick language -- we don't have the master/servant relationship and authority God's commandments call for to rule their actions.
Our Response:
Here Mr. George advances what is arguably the most popular explanation presented in defense of doing business with restaurants on the Sabbath. Those who engage in this sin reason that because the fourth commandment only mentions your servants, God’s people may avail themselves of the servants of others on this holy day. In other words, here is how Mr. George and those who hold to his view interpret God’s Sabbath law.
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.
Mr. George seems to think that God was only concerned with who works on His Sabbath as opposed to the fact that all labor, other than that performed as a levitical service, desecrated this holy time.
When God gave the fourth commandment it covered everyone His people would come in contact with as a new nation. Additionally, God commanded His people to not go outside their place (community) on the Sabbath (Ex. 16:29). Today, our community is with God's people. Furthermore, Mr. George's claim that restaurant personnel are only servants of their boss is not true. In truth they serve a much more sinister slave master.
Below is an excerpt from an article entitled A Slave in Egypt, written by Dennis Fischer, a co-author of A Sabbath Test. It was inspired by a message given by Mr. Fischer, also called “A Slave in Egypt.” To listen to the message click below. To read the excerpt continue.
A Slave in Egypt
Perhaps the greatest error in this (Mr. George'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! 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? (Rom. 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. 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. Now think of this in terms of our own lives.
The scriptures reveal that just as the children of Israel were enslaved in Egypt until God miraculously delivered them, those whom He has called in this present age were also once enslaved in “spiritual” Egypt. God’s people today were once in bondage. We once believed the things the world believed, taught the things the world taught, and practiced the things the world practiced. We even profaned God’s Sabbath and holy days. We did so because we served the same Slave Master the world serves today.
However, our calling reveals that a Great Deliverer has again rescued His people from a world that does not know Him or His way. For this reason, God’s people today should never compel the unbeliever (a slave in Egypt) to work on their behalf on the Sabbath. We must refrain from this practice because we were miraculously delivered from this very practice ourselves. Remember, YOU were once a SLAVE in Egypt.
With this in mind, God’s people must understand that their Great Deliverer would no more permit His people today to return to this world and avail themselves of its sin, than He would permit the Israelites of yesterday to return to Egypt and avail themselves of their sin. As much as Richard George may want to go back to Egypt, God forbids it and warns of its consequences. Notice what He says.
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, My people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues. (Rev. 18:4)
Consider these words in the context of dining out on the Sabbath. In order to engage in this practice, God’s people must return to a world that does not know Him—a world that tramples on this great day. In the Old Testament that world was called Egypt. In the New Testament it is called Babylon. But make no mistake about it; these worlds are one and the same.
When God commanded His people to cease from working on the Sabbath and to not compel others to work on their behalf, He was making a powerful statement. He was commanding His people to COME OUT OF EGYPT, to COME OUT OF BABYLON! In other words, God’s people are not to be a part of the very sin that once gripped their lives. This is because they are now FREE!
Although the world today is truly in bondage, God’s people stand as proof that it will not always be that way. By refusing to allow the slave of this world to labor for them on God’s Sabbath, His people are proclaiming a great hope – a hope that one day all who are enslaved will be FREE. At that time they, too, will “remember the Sabbath and keep it HOLY.”
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 commandment does it remotely hint that God condones 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.
Those who work in restaurants and are ignorant of God’s law may not understand why the faithful would be so considerate of them. But God’s people do understand. By releasing the unbeliever from labor on the Sabbath, they are acting out what their King will ultimately do when He returns to earth.
They declare all the slaves FREE
Dear Brethren