Remember the Sabbath: Spurgeon’s Views on the Lord’s Day | Ep. 89

Brandon Rhea: Very excited about that. I did my PhD work at Midwestern in Kansas City on Spurgeon and Sabbatarianism and was able to use the library there. I’m also teaching a class with covenant Baptist theological seminary over memorial weekend in Kentucky on the topic of my book, looking at Spurgeon’s use of the law and understanding of the Sabbath. So, if someone wants to really dive deep into that, they’re more than welcome to sign up.

Clay Kraby: Excellent. Well, that’s great. So how did you first get interested in Spurgeon? Did you have an interest in Spurgeon, prior to deciding to go to Midwestern and do your work there and that’s why you chose that as your topic? How did you get exposed to Spurgeon and what was your interest in him?

Brandon Rhea: I got exposed to him after seminary, really, around 2011 to 2012. I was in between jobs, and I was substitute teaching. And so, I took a volume of Spurgeon with me and read a sermon a day and was able to do that. And through reading the sermons, they really ministered to my soul, practically. And then also looking at his theology and how it was really coming through. And he’s such a gifted writer. And so, I just kind of put down the back burner and then I was thinking about going to this to do some PhD work, maybe doing open air preaching. And while my wife and I were on our honeymoon, in Florida, we went to RC Sprouls church. And he was still alive then in 2016, but he was on oxygen. And while there they had a bookstore and I picked up his lectures to my students. And so, I started reading it, during lunchtime at the job I had then before I was a pastor. And so that was really great. And his two chapters on open air preaching, so think about open air preaching and then, change course. I was thinking about going to Southern and that just wasn’t going to work out, with having a new family. And so then I said, well, maybe we should go to a midwestern after I came here and was able to take the pastor here. And, I was still thinking, all right, I’ll do Spurgeon and open-air preaching because of my experience in reading that book. And then eventually I decided to settle on the, Sabbath. my friend Ed Romine, he took up that mantle of that topic and he has his dissertation published on Spurgeon’s open earth preaching. What he taught people how to preach and how he preached himself. And so that’s a good work, but, theologically, I have always had an interest in it. How does the Old Testament, in the New Testament interact? should we look at continuity, discontinuity? And in all the reading that I’ve done, if, you want to know, where someone is at, you just ask about the Sabbath. And so, with Spurgeon, as I was reading about him and my early classwork, I picked up on that theme. He keeps talking about the Sabbath, and he calls people out like, you liars, you adulterers, disobedient to your parents and sabbath breakers. I’ve never heard a sermon where people talk like that before. And it just. That sparked my interest. And so, then I dived in.

Clay Kraby: Wonderful. Well, let’s start with some definitions for folks. Everyone’s probably familiar with the term Sabbath. but your book is about Spurgeon’s forgotten Sabbatarianism. Could you give us a quick definition? What is Sabbatarianism? What do we mean by that?

Brandon Rhea: What we mean by that is that God, has declared one day in seven to be set aside as holy, from our normal labors to focus on him. And in the Old Testament, this is from a Christian Sabbatarian view. In the Old Testament, that day was Saturday and in the New Testament, that day is Sunday. And that God has given us this great privilege of being able to set aside the six days of labor instead of laboring seven days, so that we can gather, so we can worship, and that it’s not just an hour or two for the day, but it’s the whole day that is to be set aside as an opportunity to commune with God or to serve him right.

Clay Kraby: And so, there are some differing views of how Christians are to keep the Sabbath today. There were differing views in Spurgeon’s own day. So, what are kind of the different sides of that discussion? And where did Spurgeon come down today?

Brandon Rhea: When we think about it, you think of, those from a new covenant theology or progressive covenantalism who, would emphasize that the Sabbath has been fulfilled in Christ. And I would agree with that. but we would then have to talk more about that. And so, because of that, there’s no obligation to set aside a day. Christ is our Sabbath rest. So that’s probably what most people are familiar with. And even talking about this subject would, maybe have their antenna of legalism come up. And I would assure you, that’s not what, that’s how Spurgeon viewed it. Then you have, you know, in Spurgeon’s day, or even in the backdrop of Great Britain, you had the Roman Catholics, who would certainly say that you should meet on Sunday, but they, would have a different understanding of how to observe it. They were much more inclined to having amusements, having the maypole, where you dance around the maypole with the ribbons and stuff and have all these things. And that’s why the book of sports in 1618, you had those who were, who are on one side of the Anglican church, under king, James, from whom we get the King James Bible. and the puritans of that time were like, no, no, no, we can’t. We shouldn’t encourage people to do this. So, you have people say, yes, there’s a day, but their understanding of how to keep it is different. And then, of course, you have those who are secular who say, no, there is no day. And why are you trying to encourage people and force people to go to church? And why are you advocating for certain amusements to be shut down on Sunday, instead of allowing people to go and make their decision? Yeah.

Clay Kraby: So, it’s really about, you know, maintaining and setting that part, setting that day apart for the Lord. And we kind of think back and we look at Victorian England, and we kind of assume everybody across the board is a proper puritanical Christian and this isn’t maybe an issue, but that’s not really the case. Right. How did Spurgeon’s context of Victorian England, industrial revolution, all these things, how did that impact his views as a pastor?

Brandon Rhea: First, just even going before that, I talked about the book of sports. Spurgeon saw himself in the tradition of the Puritans. So, the Puritans were battling that in the 1600s. Then when you had the glorious revolution in 1688, in 1689, you had the Baptists meet in London. And one of the things that they were discussing was, with dismay, was that people were not keeping the Sabbath like they should. And so they had a real debate about that and then called for fasting and prayer, to encourage churches to get back to that. So this is a part of his heritage, his theological upbringing. But then you get in the 17 hundreds, late 17 hundreds, and people became very lax. Even though it was a Christian culture in the sense of Christian ideas, not everyone was born again, and people had differences of opinion on this. But you had two major events that took place that really shook the elites of Great Britain. The first was the French Revolution in 1789, where you had king Louis XVI, who eventually, and his wife, Marie Antoinette, who were beheaded, and the whole foundation of Europe, of European, leadership, diplomacy, how nations were ran, was completely overturned. And out of that came great, anarchy, bloodshed with the guillotine. And then that gave birth to Napoleon. And of course, the great, Britain and others battled him for 15 years. So that was something they did not want to have as a fire that would jump across the narrow channel to England. And then, of course, the king himself would get, and the queen would get killed, and that would be the end of it. So that was a major factor. So how do we keep people? How do we encourage people to live ethical lives? The second issue was the industrial revolution, when people were moving to the cities from the country. They were taking part in these jobs, and they were working six, seven days a week. And, you just had a huge influx of people changing places. And because of that, it transformed just the daily rhythm and life, going from an agrarian context to, cosmopolitan context and just the different work. So, society was in a great change, and because of that, there was a lot of stuff going on, a lot of things that were taking place. And in the midst of that, what has happened, is that people said, okay, life is changing, and we don’t like how this is negatively affecting the morals of the people. So, in the 1820s, you had different movements that came up. You had, like, the teetotal movement that came up, where you had societies that were saying, let’s advocate for the abstinence of alcohol. You also had the Sabbath, observance movement that actually really started with an anglican pastor preaching some sermons. And so, the elites and Protestants, for different reasons, some for theological, others for how do we have good citizens? Advocated. We need to get back to promoting, a Christian Sabbath, because people need to be in church in order to hear good preaching. That would instruct them that you need to, love God, you need to obey your civil magistrates, you need to be good citizens. Of course, that’s the moralism of it. Spurgeon, though, he was theologically driven by it. That, no, the fourth commandment still continues today. And in that context, there was a lot of talk and discussion of the Sabbath up until the, it peaked probably in the 1850s, and then it started to go down, as the century progressed. So, this was a hot topic debate that was happening and taking place, both theologically, culturally, and how do we apply it in laws, for the greater population?

Clay Kraby: And was this long, standing conviction that Spurgeon had. What did this look like growing up in his own household when he’s living with his grand folks out in, Stanborn. What did this look like? In Spurgeon’s own life, prior to his.

Brandon Rhea: Ministry, he was taught to keep this Christian sabbath from the very beginning. So, for a period of time when he was quite a young boy, he was raised by his grandparents, and his father and his grandfather were pastors. His grandfather, a congregational pastor. So, he believed in infant baptism, but he also believed in the separation, independency, of the church and his actions. And he would hold to, you know, the basic framework of the second London, what we would call the Savoy. But he would. He observed his grandfather, on Sunday mornings, walking in the garden for half an hour, back and forth, preparing to preach to the people. He saw them in his study, on days when he couldn’t be outside getting ready. And he’d have to tell young Spurgeon, quiet down so I can focus. He also was privy to hospitality on the Sabbath, where they had the deacons come over and they would enjoy fellowship, over the things of God and talking about what the Lord has done, and also sermon and other topics. When he was in his own home with, his parents, he had fond memories of his mom on Sunday nights, reading the Bible with them, pleading and praying to God to save their souls, and saying, if they don’t come to know you on the day of judgment, I will be there as a witness against them, that I told them all the things of the truth, of the gospel and of who you are. So, yeah, this kept coming up and up. Of course, that all assumes that they made attendance at church the priority. They weren’t going once a month, once every two weeks. That was always the day to go. And they made sure they wouldn’t miss unless weather or sickness.

Clay Kraby: Yeah, well, that brings a good point. You mentioned this earlier, is that sometimes in his day, in our own day, people hear about keeping the Sabbath, and they, kind of have this knee jerk reaction of legalism. Ah, but the Sabbath is not a call to complete idleness. it’s not a call to literally be in the pews all day long. So what are the things, practically speaking, that Sabbatarians, Spurgeon, would advocate what should and should not take place on the Sabbath. Are there some categories you can help us with?

Brandon Rhea: Yes, Matthew twelve is a great place. I think verses one through 14. Spurgeon doesn’t just pick up off this. This is prior to him, but he appeals to it and he talks about it in his commentary. On the book of Matthew, that there are three things to focus on. The works of piety, necessity and mercy. So, it’s not an idea that it’s a day of inactivity, which, the Pharisees unfortunately picked up. No. We are to stop our normal labors, to labor for the Lord with zeal. And Spurgeon was all about this. So, in terms of piety, we’re thinking about our own personal piety. That if I have. If I’m behind on my Bible reading now, I have time to catch up, if, I have time to pray more, when I’m too busy on the other days of the week to really spend, 30 minutes in prayer, getting that book that’s a puritan book, a theological book that Pilgrim’s, progress, that I don’t have time to read. So, there’s that personal piety. There’s also family, worship, catechesis. that’s a part of this too. That you have opportunities to do that. Now, as far as public piety, then it also would include making the assembly of the saints the most important thing. And before we go, prepare our hearts, to be ready to hear God’s word. When we go there, we are there to minister to others and to receive ministry. So, if you see a visitor, make an opportunity to talk to them, and then maybe through that, you can have evangelistic conversation with them. For the pastor, his job is to feed the flock. So that’s why he’s working. But it’s a work of piety. God has called him to do that. Just like in the Old Testament, the priests had to make sacrifices on the sabbath, too, because that was an appropriate work that God had done. So those are some things also. He encouraged people to do ministry, with Sunday school. So please, we need Sunday school teachers to teach these kids from lost families the things of the Lord. To do street ministry. We need men to go out in the street and to preach to these people and to hand out tracts, to have hospitality, have people over. So, filling the day with things that are service to the Lord, not just. Well, I have to worry about what, is it okay if I cook this or if I. Okay to do that? No, no, no. Focus on. I have a whole day to serve the lord. I don’t have to feel guilty because I have six other days to get my work done. So that’s piety, then. When you look at necessity, there are things that we have to do. So, if your cow gets out of the fence. You need to go do that. You need to get them back in the fence. So, like today, we need doctors on Sunday because people have heart attacks on Sunday. We need nurses. We need nurses in nursing homes. We need prison guards. We need, soldiers and police officers and firemen. Those are things that need to happen, that are necessary. And then you have mercy, where we are to help others. So, visiting widows, helping the poor, doing hospital chaplaincy, you know, those types of things where you’re helping people, or a mom stays home from church because her four-year-old child is sick. Well, she breaking this up? No, she’s showing love and kindness to her child. That’s. That is necessary and it’s merciful. So, if you have these categories in your mind, then it’s not like a straight jacket. These are broad principles, but this is what Spurgeon would encourage. And this is also what is typical of the Christian Sabbath position.

Clay Kraby: That’s very helpful. So, people can get a right understanding of what it is we’re talking about, what it is that Spurgeon tie. And also what you do in your book is you walk people through the second London Baptist confession of faith, and you use this as a bit of a framework to teach through these things and then bring Spurgeon’s teachings in on that, particularly chapters 19 and 22. So did Spurgeon hold to the 1689 confession? And if not, what was his kind of relationship to it?

Brandon Rhea: Yeah, that question all depends upon what you mean by hold to. If you use the terminology of being a strict adherence, where he would line up with every single thing, then the answer would be no. If it’s more of a. He has a framework understanding and holds to it. A framework, then the yes. So why would I say that? First, in chapter ten, it talks about elect infants, who go to heaven, who die. he removes the word elect because he had the second London republished in 1855 when he was a young man. And that was one change that was made. Ah, also he makes a comment in his Matthew commentary about oaths and vows that you shouldn’t take any oaths today in the New Testament era, which would go against what the second London says on that point. But overwhelmingly, yes, he does hold to it. When he republished it, he encouraged all Christians to read it, as this is a sound doctrine. And he also encouraged his own church members, his church family to read it, that this has the gospel, this will be instructive in the Christian faith. So, the vast majority of it, he would agree with and heartily say amen.

Clay Kraby: So, what is the argument that the London Baptist confession of faith and that Spurgeon, what are they making that the Sabbath is this perpetual commandment for Christians? Because you do hear things, that it’s no longer binding and that Jesus didn’t, repeat that for us in the New Testament, things like that, where there’s a little bit of confusion as to whether or not this is a perpetual commandment. What is the argument that the confession, for example, lays out in that regard?

Brandon Rhea: It begins with the Sabbath being a creation ordinance in Genesis two. that God on the 7th day rested and that we are to and made the day holy. And that that is a pattern of six days work, one day, to be set aside for rest. And that composes the week, a seven-day week, just like we would look at marriage between Adam and Eve, one man, one woman, that, that set the pattern in, creation. Secondly, that God has written the law on our hearts, romans 214 and 15. So the natural man, even a person not exposed to Christianity, knows, what it has, a semblance of right and wrong. That’s why even non-Christian cultures have, do not steal, do, not commit adultery, honor your parents, because, that’s written on the law, on your, on the heart. Now, they may not get every dot and tittle right, but they have those principles there. So that’s written on the law. And then when God gave Moses the ten Commandments, he didn’t give those commandments as some new commandments, but because they were already present and written on the law, he gave those commandments after, he talks about the Sabbath and Exodus 16. So, this was something they already knew about, already understood. And by having it be written on stone tablets instead of parchment, it’s showing that this is perpetual. This is going to continue. Now, that was part of the Old Testament covenant. But what Spurgeon is teaching and what the second London teaches is that you have this law that was already in place. It got incorporated into the old covenant. The old covenant has passed away, but that law continues into the New Testament. And that gives our compass on what it means to glorify God. How do we please God? And then when you get to the New Testament, you have the Lord’s Day, revelation one. You have the example of the apostles meeting on Sunday because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. So, the principle of one day in seven still remains. But now the observance of that one day in seven has shifted from Saturday to Sunday because Sunday is the day that Christ was raised from the dead. And so by meeting on Sunday, we are automatically identifying with the risen Lord. And then there are some debates about Hebrews four. But, if you look at John Owen, Hebrews 4910, that passage, I would take that as teaching that a Sabbath day remains for the people of God, is referring to a present Sabbath day. People would have differences on that, but that would be a text to look at. If people were to say, well, God doesn’t say the Sabbath is to continue in the New Testament, I would say, wait a minute, I think it does, based upon that text. So that’s a broad framework. And that basically, the purpose of the Sabbath day is, one, that gives us a day to gather, to worship. Two, it is God’s grace to help us as we are traveling as pilgrims into this world, to the celestial city, to the promised land. That is, the antitype of the type of the promised land in the Old Testament for the Israelites in the wilderness. And that God uses us and gives this stuff as a foretaste of paradise in heaven, because we are looking to the eternal Sabbath that will come. We are striving to that eternal Sabbath, but we haven’t yet attained it. That’s why God encourages us. Be watchful, watch out for others. Encourage others, because you haven’t attained it yet, but by God’s grace, you persevere. You will attain it when you cross from this life to the next.

Spurgeon emphasized the joy in the Sabbath in his teaching

Clay Kraby: Yeah. And you just touched on something that is important, too. Understanding the teaching on the Sabbath, and Spurgeon in particular, is that it’s a gift, man. It’s a blessing. So how did Spurgeon emphasize that in his teaching, this was not, a straight jacket. This was not something to be tolerated by faithful Christians. It’s something to be enjoyed. And he emphasized the joy in the Sabbath. How did he do that? What did that look like?

Brandon Rhea: Well, first, he had a high esteem for it. So, there’s one quote where he said, there are the two greatest gifts to man is marriage and the Sabbath. And he had a great marriage with Susanna. So that wasn’t a sarcastic remark at all. That was a high mark. And then to put the sabbath in the same category as a gift. Yeah, it’s a day of joy. God has said, you don’t have to work. Come sit at my feet. Like with Jesus, with, Mary, come sit at my feet. Come worship me. Come hear from my word. And that’s why it really exposes how we use our time, exposes really, our hearts. Do we want more of Jesus? Do we want more of God’s teaching? do we just long to have time to serve and to do it with thanksgiving, when we look at our hobbies, if, someone’s a fisherman, if someone said, you know what, you need to go fish, saying, once a day, I’m. Per week, people are like, yes, I get to go fish every day. Or, growing up, I love the NFL, watching football all day, like, you just have to watch football. Oh, that is great. The NFL draft comes up, oh, I’ll watch it for two days and just sit there on the couch. If someone said, you need to do this, it’d be like, this is great. This is wonderful. I get to do this. And in the same way, that’s what Spurgeon’s saying, Christ has saved you from your sins. Christ is raised from the dead. Come worship him. Come praise him. Come serve him out of gratitude for what he has done. Come do this. May your hearts be stirred. And so he’s not taking the stick upon you to go do this. Instead, he’s encouraging you. In contrast, you have someone like Charles Dickens. I write about this in my book. Dickens was of the mentality. He wasn’t a Christian; he was a secularist. He wanted to see museums open on Sunday. He thought the Sabbath, what was presented as the sabbath, was dreary and was boring and, were chains around the working man who worked six days. Then on the 7th, he can’t go and have amusements and fun. You’re trying to force him to go to church. And so, he had just a completely negative view of it. But it makes sense. He wasn’t a Christian. Why would he want to go worship God? Why would he think this is the greatest thing that could happen? Why would he want to encourage others to do that? He didn’t have the Holy Spirit in him. So as people who have the Holy Spirit, we should be encouraged that, oh, we want more of God. And so, God says, you can, once a week, you have a date with me, and it’s called Sunday. Enjoy it.

Clay Kraby: Yeah, it just strikes me, too, that in order to find joy and delight in the Sabbath, you need to cultivate a joy and delight in Christ, and the Sabbath will help you do that. So, it’s almost this flywheel that’s going to make you get more out of it as you do it. If you set apart this time, as you say, for piety, worship, for rest, for acts, of mercy and love, all these things, you’re going to cultivate that more and more and get more and more out of it. So, it’s just interesting to think of, the means to find light in the Sabbath is in observing the Sabbath.

Brandon Rhea: Yeah. Let me just give you an example. This past Sunday, our church is on rotation to do ministries at two nursing homes and at the jail. Well, somehow, we had all three responsibilities on Sunday. So, I assigned one person to do one nursing home. I did the second nursing home. And then a couple other people did the jail service in the afternoon. And after I was done with one nursing home, I went to the second nursing home because it’s right down the road and was able to sit there for the end of it. And it was just a joyful day that we had time together as a church in the morning. And then we split off and went and ministered the word to these different people in the afternoon because we had the time off to be able to do that and to serve these people who normally, who can’t come to church and can’t be a part of us.

Clay Kraby: So, the Sabbath doesn’t mean you’re not busy. You might be real busy, you might be pretty tired at the end of the day. But the point is, you are setting aside for the lord not only to rest in him, but to serve him as well. So that might look different from week to week. And I don’t think Spurgeon would advocate. I don’t hear you advocating. You know, sometimes a nap is pretty good idea on Sunday. but that’s not the purpose. I think a lot of people see, you know, the idea that the Sabbath is merely for sit up, don’t move, don’t smile, don’t laugh. Like, that’s the kind of caricature that we get. And it’s important, as you’ve mentioned several times in this conversation, that’s just not what we’re talking about.

Brandon Rhea: No, no. Ah, absolutely not. And that’s. That’s why we have to. That’s why I think Spurgeon is so instructive here, because joy just exudes from him. And I think some people tend to reject Sabbath keeping because of the caricature, instead of seeing how people did it in the past. And that’s why Spurgeon and retrieving him is so helpful.

Clay Kraby: Absolutely. So, what was something that you found surprising as you were researching, preparing for this? That was your dissertation. Ultimately, this book.

Brandon Rhea: Several things. One, that it’s just everywhere in his writings. when I was starting to get into it now. He doesn’t have, like, a Sabbath sermon where you can just look it up and go, oh, here’s the Sabbath sermon. It’s just peppered throughout. And so it’s not something where you have a doctrinal statement like, yeah, I believe that I’ll sign off on it. But then you really don’t talk about it. This is something that kept coming up over and over and over. Second, no one had written about it. That really shocked me. It was like the wild, wild west. I could go in there and it didn’t matter how good of a job I did, the fact that no one ever done it before, I was breaking new ground. And then third, in the context of that, how he engaged in Sabbath controversies in his sword and trial magazine. He discussed this about the controversy, in Scotland, when there was the riot, at Strom Ferry, where the fishermen, on the west coast of, Scotland were interfering with the fishermen from the east coast of Scotland who had come over to the west coast and who were trying to ship their fish haul Sunday morning by rail down to London so that it would be ready for the market Monday morning. And so about 200 people came in and a mob stopped it all. And Spurgeon came in, and some of those men got arrested and were in jail for three or four months. And Spurgeon, in his magazine said, I wish the English were as concerned about the Sabbath as them, even though they crossed the line. So, there’s stuff like that. Or he advocated for the government to stop requiring their postal carriers to work on Sunday and give him a day off. So, he just kept engaging in this. And then in his sword. In the trial, he had 1516 books, book reviews, just on either the Ten Commandments or on the Sabbath. It was a constant interest and subject for him. It wasn’t just something that he addressed, then moved on, but it was throughout his life on his radar. And so that was. I thought that was fascinating since no one had really ever written about it. And people wouldn’t have thought of Spurgeon as being a Sabbatarianism before this book.

Clay Kraby: What do you hope is the takeaway that people will have after reading Spurgeon’s forgotten Sabbatarianism?

Brandon Rhea: I hope they see that it is a biblical doctrine that they would remove the caricature of it being legalistic, and that they would see as a means of cultivating joy and greater love for Christ for, our triune God. And that by having Spurgeon in the midst of so much change in that society at that time, which is much closer to us than the Puritans, we can take those principles and say, it is good to have a day just to focus on the Lord. This is spiritually healthy for us. Let us make gathering together at the local church, our local church, and being members and serving the priority of the day. We already have an appointment every Sunday upon Sunday, and this is good for us, this is a blessing for us. And we are excited to come, we are excited to hear, and how can I serve others? How can I show hospitality? How can I cultivate my own spiritual life instead of seeing Sunday as well? I’ll go for an hour, hour and a half, check that off. Now I have the day free Sunday Funday. Or you go on Saturday night at five and you will get it out of the way. Now I can go out to eat after that and I have the whole Sunday. You do whatever. You’ve completely missed it. Why do you want so little of the means of grace? Why do you want so little that don’t, why don’t you want more? And so hopefully that will be what is conveyed, and it will help people, to reconsider, the importance of this doctrine for, the health of the church and for the health of individual Christians.

Clay Kraby: So just practically and pastorally, if you’re talking to someone in your congregation that through a study of scripture, through looking at the confession, through reading your book, is convinced that this is something that ought to be observed in their home, but they just never have, what’s the practical advice that you would give to them on how to start?

Brandon Rhea: I would start with saying, focus on what you should be doing and fill your day with it, instead of trying to focus on, well, is it breaking the Sabbath? If I go on a walk, we go on walks on Sunday, and of course, we have young kids, but you go on a walk and you enjoy God’s creation. Like, wow, look at what God has created. This is amazing. Make church attendance a priority. Serving there or serving others is a priority. Have a book that you want to read through that can be edifying to your soul in the evening. Of course, this literally looks different depending upon if you have little kids, teenagers, if you’re an empty nester, if you’re a widow, a widower. So, there are a lot of different things, things that come into this. But I think one of the things we see in our culture is people don’t see the importance of being committed to the local body to come and to be and to gather. And after COVID, you have online church, which that’s not church. And you have people who say, who maybe go once a month, once every couple of weeks. It’s whenever it’s convenient. Instead of, no, we need to be committed to this. And I think by starting with that, that will be a huge step in the right direction. And then you can start adding these other things to fill up the day. And that would be a blessing. So, look to the positives of what, how, what you can do, and then, that will allow the rest of the day to take care of itself.

Clay Kraby: Excellent. That’s wonderful. So where can folks go to pick up a copy or book and learn more about Spurgeon’s forgotten Sabbatarianism?

Brandon Rhea: Founders Press published my book, so you can go to founders.org. Also, Reformation Heritage Books has it for sale on their website for about the same price. And then you can get an audio version of the book and kindle version at Amazon. They don’t have the physical copy yet so those are all options for you.

Clay Kraby: Wonderful. I’ll be sure to link to all those in the show notes for this episode. Our guest for this conversation has been Pastor Brandon Ray, and we’ve been talking about his new book, Spurgeon’s Forgotten Sabbatarianism. Brandon, thanks so much for joining me.

Brandon Rhea: You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.