No Iron on the Lord's Day

Charles and Evelyn Bradley have been members of the Laywell Church of Christ in Hurricane, West Virginia for many years.  Charles is a master blacksmith, having worked that craft as a hobby for a long time.  Over the years he has perfected the art of “blacksmithing” having become quite the expert on the history and processes of the craft.

A fort is being reconstructed in Point Pleasant, West Virginia as a place for tourists and students to come and learn of life in the 1700 & early 1800’s.  Charles and Evelyn are involved in building a blacksmith shop at the fort as part of the lesson on life back then.  They are building a working blacksmith shop so as to demonstrate to folks the kinds of things that were built back then and how they were built.

Being on the Ohio River, riverboats often stop by to let tourists off to tour the fort.  Unfortunately, these boats often stop by on Sunday and the developers of the fort wanted Charles and Evelyn to work on Sunday to entertain the tourists.  Being members of the church, they declined because they would be at worship.  One can imagine the ensuing battle that occurred.  So Charles came up with a clever way to get his point across.  On the keystone at the entrance to his blacksmith shop, he engraved the following:

Cursed be the man who beats iron on the Lord’s Day

What an ingenious and brilliant way to make a point.  There won’t be any thing going on in Charles’ blacksmith shop on Sundays.  God is first!

People will read the phrase on the keystone and, not even knowing the circumstances behind it, will still learn from it.  They may not see “blacksmithing” going on but they can learn that in the 1700’s, there were things more important than beating farm implements and such out of iron.  There was a day set aside to worship God.  Maybe the tourist will even learn that they should be at worship instead of cruising on a riverboat on Sunday.

The historical fact is that there would be no work on Sunday in the 1700’s.  In fact, recent history shows that this was the case.  In my lifetime, I can remember when no stores were open and everyone took a break from the “rat race” of the world.  Church buildings were full to capacity as folks made it a point to worship God on the first day of the week (See Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 for evidence of the early church meeting on Sunday.)  It truly was a day to recharge the spirit and enjoy the bounties of God’s blessings.

Sadly, our generation has lost this great quality.  No one closes shop on Sunday any more.  There is too much money to make and the rat race has become a 7 day affair. There is no weekend any more.  Saturday used to be the day to tend to personal business while Sunday belonged to the Lord.  No more.  And guess what is sacrificed first?  God!  Now we have to take care of business on Sunday or use the day to please ourselves.  How about saying:

Cursed be the man who shoots birdies on the Lord’s Day
Cursed be the man who fishes on the Lord’s Day
Cursed be the man who entertains company on the Lord’s Day
Cursed be the grocery store open on the Lord’s Day
Cursed be the shopper on the Lord’s Day
Cursed be the man ___________________________ (you fill in the blank.)

We put many things ahead of God on Sunday but it was not always so.  I will forever remember the saying that Charles put over that blacksmith shop. I hope we all do!