I have no doubt that most of you are familiar with the story of Eric Lidell the Olympic runner, who refused to run because his race was scheduled for the Lord's Day. The Lord honored his decision by allowing him to take the gold in another race he hadn't trained for - and that in record setting time.
Now, the Scottish press is featuring the story of a local girl's football (soccer) team that won their way to the national tournament only to discover the game was scheduled for Sunday. They decided to honor the Lord and refused to play. Scottish Pastor Iain D. Campbell commented on the situation at the Reformation 21 blogsite:
"Them that honour me... Posted by Iain D Campbell
Some of today's Scottish newspapers are running a story about our local school's girls' football team. Against all the odds, they beat off older teams from larger schools all over Scotland, to reach the final of a national tournament sponsored by Coca-Cola - only to discover it was scheduled to be held on a Sunday. To not a little disappointment, the decision was taken to pull out of the opportunity to win the national tournament because of the religious convictions of our community.
I'm not sure how many communities would be featured in the press for this reason. Sunday has, of course, become this generation's sports day, and sports is the opium of this generation. It is the new religion, with its own heroes, its own songs, its own loyalties, and its own holy days.
I'm not sure what other evangelicals think of the decision of our local girls to pull out of the final: I suspect that on the whole issue of observing the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath, many evangelicals have capitulated to the world's way of doing things, and would see nothing wrong with holding, or attending, sports events on the Lord's Day.
If this week's headlines demonstrate anything, they show that there is one God-given opportunity for us to nail our Christian convictions to the social mast - to honour the Lord publicly by honouring his day, and making it altogether different from every other day of the week, whatever the cost."
