The Delights of Dominion: True Sabbath Rest Text: Isaiah 58:13-14
Introduction: The War on Time
We are living in a culture that is simultaneously frantic and exhausted. We are a people running on fumes. The modern world, in its rebellion against God, has declared war on every boundary and every limit that God established in creation. They have declared war on the distinction between male and female, between good and evil, and as we see all around us, they have declared a relentless war on time. The 24/7 news cycle, the endless scroll, the demand that every business be open and every service be available at all hours, this is not progress. It is a return to the slavery of Egypt, a slavery to the taskmaster of frantic, meaningless activity.
Our secular age believes that freedom is the absence of all restraint, which is like believing that a fish is most free when it is lying on the pavement. But true freedom is found within the glorious limitations established by our Creator. And one of the most fundamental structures He has given for our good is the rhythm of work and rest, the Sabbath principle. But for many Christians, the Fourth Commandment is a source of either embarrassment or confusion. They either dismiss it as some dusty piece of Old Testament furniture that has no place in the new covenant, or they treat it as a grim list of prohibitions, a day for not doing things.
Both are profound errors. The world is exhausted because it has forgotten how to rest. And the church is often weak because it has forgotten the engine of its power. The Lord's Day is not a penalty box where we sit for 24 hours until we are allowed to get back to "real life." The Lord's Day is real life. It is the center of our week, the source of our strength, the foundation from which all our other work is launched. Isaiah here does not give us a list of rules to be resentfully obeyed. He gives us a divine invitation into joy, and he attaches to it a promise of cultural dominion. This passage teaches us that the way to ride on the high places of the earth is to first learn how to sit still in the presence of God.
The Text
"If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your own desire on My holy day, And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of Yahweh honorable, And honor it, by not doing your own ways, By not finding your own desire And speaking your own word, Then you will take delight in Yahweh, And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; And I will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father, For the mouth of Yahweh has spoken."
(Isaiah 58:13-14 LSB)
The Conditions of Delight (v. 13)
The promise of verse 14 is conditional, and the conditions are laid out for us here in verse 13. This is a divine "if/then" statement. If you do this, then I will do that. God sets the terms, and they are terms of grace.
"If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your own desire on My holy day..." (Isaiah 58:13a)
The first condition is a conscious, deliberate act of cessation. To "turn your foot" is to stop your ordinary travel. It means you halt the frantic running around that characterizes your other six days. Your foot is what carries you to the marketplace, to your job site, to your various projects. On God's holy day, you are to stop. This is a boundary. You are to cease from "doing your own desire." Now, we must be careful here. This is not a command to be miserable. As we will see, the goal is delight. "Your own desire" or "your own pleasure" does not refer to all enjoyment, but rather to your own business, your ordinary work, the things that occupy you from Monday to Saturday. It is ceasing from your own little kingdom-building projects in order to turn your attention to the Kingdom of God.
This is a fundamental reorientation. For six days, we are to labor diligently, subduing the earth. But on the first day of the week, the Lord's Day, we work from rest. We stop our labors to commemorate the finished work of Christ in the new creation. He rose on the first day, and so our week begins where the old covenant week ended: in rest. We don't work for our rest; in the new covenant, we work from our rest.
"And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of Yahweh honorable..." (Isaiah 58:13b)
This is the heart of the matter. The Sabbath is not something to be merely endured; it is to be called a delight. This is a public confession. It is a testimony. You are declaring what you believe about the day. Is it a burden, or is it a gift? Is it an interruption to your life, or is it the very center of your life? To call it a delight is to say that worshipping God, feasting with His people, and resting in His finished work is the high point of your week. It is what you look forward to. And you are to call it "honorable." This means you treat it as weighty, significant, and glorious. You prepare for it. You don't just stumble into Sunday morning with your clothes rumpled and your heart distracted by the week's anxieties. You honor the day by anticipating it and ordering your affairs beforehand so that you might properly enter into its joys.
"And honor it, by not doing your own ways, By not finding your own desire And speaking your own word..." (Isaiah 58:13c)
Here the prophet elaborates on what it means to honor the day. It is honored by a kind of consecrated inactivity. "Not doing your own ways" refers to your vocation, your trade, your commerce. "Not finding your own desire" refers to your recreations, your hobbies, your personal amusements that are disconnected from corporate worship and fellowship. This doesn't mean you can't take a nap or enjoy a walk. It means the day is not yours to schedule for your own entertainment. The day belongs to the Lord. And "speaking your own word" means ceasing from the talk of business, the chatter of the marketplace, the endless analysis of politics. It is not a command for silence, but rather a command to redirect our speech toward God and His people, toward things that are true, honorable, just, and pure. Our conversation on the Lord's Day should be different from our conversation on a Tuesday afternoon at the office.
The Covenantal Consequences (v. 14)
If the conditions of verse 13 are met, not in a spirit of legalistic drudgery but with a heart of joyful faith, then the consequences laid out in verse 14 are certain. Because "the mouth of Yahweh has spoken."
"Then you will take delight in Yahweh..." (Isaiah 58:14a)
This is the glorious paradox. When you cease from seeking your own delight on His day, you find the ultimate delight. You find your delight in Him. This is the chief end of man: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The Lord's Day is a primary means of grace that God has appointed to train our hearts to do this very thing. When we call the Sabbath a delight, our hearts are tutored and conditioned to delight in the Lord of the Sabbath. He becomes our greatest joy, our highest pleasure. The things of earth grow strangely dim, not because they are bad, but because He is so much better.
"And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth..." (Isaiah 58:14b)
This is the language of victory, exaltation, and dominion. This is not spiritualized escapism. It is a promise of tangible, historical, cultural blessing. To ride on the high places is to be in a position of authority and influence. God is telling His people that when they honor His time, He will bless their time. When they get their worship right, He will cause their culture to prosper. This is a postmillennial promise. The meek shall inherit the earth, and that inheritance is worked out in history. The people who know how to rest in God are the people who will be equipped to rule in the world. A frantic, exhausted, Sabbath-less church will be trampled underfoot. A church that delights in the Lord's Day will be made to ride on the heights of the earth.
"And I will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father, For the mouth of Yahweh has spoken." (Isaiah 58:14c)
What was the inheritance of Jacob? It was the land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey. It was a tangible, physical inheritance. In the new covenant, this promise is expanded. The inheritance of Jacob is a type of the inheritance promised to Christ in Psalm 2: "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession." We, as co-heirs with Christ, are promised the world. This promise in Isaiah is about being fed, being satisfied, being made prosperous and fruitful in this world as a consequence of our covenant faithfulness. When we feast on God on His day, He promises to feast us on the goodness of His creation on the other six. And this is not a flimsy hope. It is as certain as the God who spoke it. "For the mouth of Yahweh has spoken." You can take it to the bank.
Conclusion: From Rest to Dominion
The Lord's Day is not an arbitrary rule. It is woven into the fabric of creation and re-consecrated by the resurrection of Christ. It is the new creation's birthday, celebrated every week. It is the central hub from which the spokes of our entire week extend. We have it backwards. We think we need to work hard for six days so that we can earn a day of rest. The biblical pattern, the new covenant pattern, is that we begin our week with rest so that we can be empowered for six days of fruitful work.
Our problem is that we see the Sabbath as a restriction on our freedom, when in fact it is the very source of it. We are commanded to turn from our own ways and our own pleasures so that we might find the way and the pleasure that is ultimate. When we do this, when we call His day a delight and an honor, God promises two things that the world desperately wants but can never achieve on its own terms: joy and victory. We will delight in Yahweh, and He will make us ride on the heights of the earth.
So let us not neglect this gift. Let us not treat the Lord's Day as just another weekend day for errands and entertainment. Let us honor it, delight in it, and teach our children to do the same. For in doing so, we are not just obeying a command; we are laying hold of the engine of Christendom. We are starting the engine of true cultural transformation, which always begins when the people of God gather to feast and worship their risen King.