Sermon Transcript — June 23, 2007
Today brethren, in the sermon I'd like for you to allow your mind to drift back to yesterday, yesterday being defined as yesterday, Friday, the day before today and how did you view the approaching of the Sabbath? Yesterday may have been a typical day for you or it may have been an anomaly as far as Friday's go. But how did you view the approaching of the Sabbath today? My real question is how do you view the approach of the Sabbath, not just yesterday to today, but how do you view the approaching of God's Sabbath, the holy day of God?
Now for you personally, I've got a couple of questions for us. How is the Sabbath for you? Is it a day of rest or is it a burden? Are you exhausted from a difficult week? Do you collapse into the Sabbath? How about our little kids? For those parents who have little children at home, how does the Sabbath go for you? Does it cramp your style as a little kid? How about our teenagers? When the Sabbath approaches, is the Sabbath day a day that really restricts you from the things that you'd rather be doing? Is the Sabbath a day for us to rejuvenate and to recharge our spiritual batteries?
Brethren I have changed my Sabbath keeping since I moved here to Fort Worth. The way I keep the Sabbath is different from the way I have kept it for many, many years before that.
The title of today's sermon is "Delight in the Seventh Day." The reason why I like to bring a sermon on this subject is to show that God's Sabbath is meant to be a delight. Now in this sermon I'd like to address three major areas with God's help, make that purpose clear. Those three areas or those three points; the first two really build to the point of the third one or the third one's established by the giving of the first two.
The three areas that I would like for us to see today from scripture; one the letter of the law; two the Sabbath is still binding and applicable and three how to make the Sabbath a delight.
Brethren if you'll turn in your bibles to Exodus chapter 20, there are two scriptures for the very first point. Exodus 20, the first point is, let's look at the letter of the law.
Exodus 20:8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Verse 9: Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
Verse 10: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.
Verse 11: For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
The first scripture we turned to brethren, the letter of the law, we are not to work on the Sabbath day. It is a holy day of God.
Turn with me now to Leviticus chapter 23. Let's begin in verse 1. This is a listing of God's feasts or holy days.
Leviticus 20:1 And the Lord spoke to Moses saying,
Verse 2: Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: "The feasts of the Lord which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations; these are My feasts.
So that which follows are holy convocations commanded by God. A convocation is where we are to convene together. We are to meet, we are to assemble and as you read through that the first one that is listed verse 3.
Verse 3: Six days shall work be done but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.
Now brethren, quite frankly we could stop right here but don't get your hopes up because we're not, but we could stop this sermon right here because you and I with our understanding of the bible, Old Testament and New, you and I know that the Old Testament scriptures were not done away with. You and I are aware of Second Timothy 3:16 that all scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, etc. etc. I didn't write down the rest of the scripture. But we know that all scripture is given for our benefit and instructs us and is not done away so we understand this, so when we read the letter of the law we see what God's commandment is regarding the Sabbath day. God commands us that we should not work and that we are to assemble. That's what God says.
Now as an aside, as pastor, it is beyond me why some people will come to the holy days and will not miss a holy day and will not miss the Passover and typically will not miss a Sabbath that has a potluck but they won't come regularly to Sabbath services. Now that probably doesn't apply to you because you're here, you're here today, no potluck, no annual holy day, you're here. But brethren it is beyond me why some people take that approach. Do they not realize that the same God that gave the commandment of the holy days to assemble gave the commandment to assemble on the Sabbath? They really show themselves (obviously there are accentuating circumstances, I'll put that on the table) all things being equal they condemn themselves by recognizing that you must assemble on the holy days and do, when they understand that commandment in the same scripture is listed the Sabbath day and it is the same God who gave the commandment to assemble on the holy days as He did on the Sabbath. So without accentuating circumstances why are there some who assemble on the holy days and maybe a Sabbath potluck but don't come regularly to church?
The second point: the Sabbath is still binding and the Sabbath is applicable for us. Now let's look at Exodus chapter 16 and notice verse 22. This is the miracle of the giving of the manna.
Exodus 16:22 And so it was on the sixth day, that they gathered twice as much bread (Or twice as much manna) two omers for each one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses.
Verse 23: Then he said to them: "This is what the Lord has said: 'Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept until morning.' "
Verse 24: So they laid it up till morning as Moses commanded and it did not stink nor were there any worms in it.
Verse 25: Then Moses said: "Eat that today for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field.
The other explanation of the manna and the way it was given was go out and pick it up, don't try to save it over to the next day because it will not last. You know it will rot, it will ferment, it will breed worms as it says here. So you have to go out every morning and pick up manna, but when you do it on the sixth day there will be twice as much manna; this manna you save over to the Sabbath because there won't be any on Saturday or the seventh day.
Verse 26: "Six days you shall gather it but on the seventh day which is the Sabbath, there will be none."
Verse 27: Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none.
Verse 28: And the Lord said to Moses: "How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My Laws?"
Now brethren, when God gave that miracle of manna, which in itself was a miracle that He would feed them supernaturally daily (for the forty years of wandering) and that became known as the preparation day for the Sabbath there would be a double portion and on the Sabbath they shouldn't go out in the field and look for it, it won't be there. That special manna on Friday as we would say today would last over for the next day and there would be twice as much. That Sabbath day brethren was a special gift from God. It was a special binding gift that God had given. That same seventh day is the day that we keep here in this 2007, it is that same seventh day. A way of looking at the double portion on Friday or the sixth day brethren signifies that God will provide for the physicalneeds of His Sabbath keepers. When that double portion came He was showing: "I will take care of you on the Sabbath, you don't have to worry physically, I am going to watch over you, I will take care of your needs, here's a double portion of that."
Now under the topic, second area, second point, the Sabbath is still binding and applicable, notice in Luke chapter 4, verse 16, speaking of Christ:
Luke 4:16 So He came to Nazareth where He had been brought up. And as His custom was He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read.
Here was Christ keeping the Sabbath and also he was teaching on the Sabbath.
Now notice over a few pages to the time of His death.
Luke 23:52 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Christ.
This was after Christ had been crucified.
Verse 53: Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock where no one had ever lain before.
Verse 54: That day was the Preparation and the Sabbath drew near.
Verse 55: And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid.
Verse 56: Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils and they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.
Now obviously this was right at the death of Christ. Let me parenthetically say if Christ had gotten with the apostles and said: "You know fellows as soon as I am dead, you don't have to do anything. You don't have to keep that old Sabbath, I fulfilled the Sabbath, it was a burden all these years, don't keep it." He's dead; let's not keep the Sabbath anymore. That's not what you find there and it's not what you find if you turn with me to the book of Acts that you see in the New Testament church.
Let me just very quickly read just a couple of these examples of the Sabbath.
Acts 13:14 But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down.
(This is Paul)
Verse 15: And after the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them saying: "Men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on."
First line of the next scripture and Paul stood up. Here's Paul, Acts 13, not one of the original apostles, not one who walked with Christ of the twelve during Christ's ministry on the earth and there he was keeping the Sabbath day. He assembled there and then he stood up and taught. Chapter 13 again, notice verse 42.
Verse 42: And when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath.
Low and behold, Gentiles. Gentiles wanting the words of God taught and spoken to them.
Verse 43: Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.
Verse 44: And the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God.
Verse 45: But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy; and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul.
Verse 46: Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said: "It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.
Verse 47: For so the Lord has commanded us: I have set you to be a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth."
Verse 48: Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.
Acts 17:2 Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures.
Now brethren, that's not an exhaustive look at Sabbath keeping in the New Testament but I trust that it does serve the purpose of establishing by example that the Sabbath was still kept. It was kept in the New Testament, it was kept by the apostles of God, it was kept by Paul, it was kept by those people who were being taught of God, it was continued to be kept. A point of information, every author of a book in the bible was a Sabbath keeper. Every author was a Sabbath keeper.
Now point number three. The first two points, as I mentioned given to establish or lay the ground work so we can go from there to see how to make the Sabbath special and a delight.
Point number three: How to make the Sabbath special and a delight. I believe for us to be able to accomplish that we first have to understand the origin and the purpose of the Sabbath day. We read that we are not to work; we read that we are to assemble; we've seen that it was done by Christ, it was done at His death, and it was done after His death. But what about the origin of the Sabbath day? I believe once we understand that; there are many scriptures we could turn to and if you would turn to Genesis chapter 2. Once we understand the giving of the Sabbath, the literal creation of the Sabbath, once we do we can make the Sabbath be what God intended it to be and that is the opportunity to pursue some of the very highest ideals of life. Once we understand His purpose, once we're faithfully keeping it we can understand some of the highest ideals that a man can ascribe to achieve in what God has in store. If you notice in Genesis 2, verse 1, let's see what the origin of the Sabbath was. This was during the creation week.
Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished.
Six days God recreated the surface of the earth, set in the spinning of the earth and the different things of the celestial bodies, created the grasses and the fields and the animals, the fish and fowl etc.
Verse 2: And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
Verse 3: Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, (He blessed it and set it apart) because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
Brethren, God did rest, He did set aside a time which would be holy. He blessed that seventh day and brethren He sanctified or set it apart through blessing and making holy by His presence all future seventh days. All future Sabbaths would be blessed, they would be holy, they would have the stamp of God upon them.
Now brethren when we rest on the Sabbath day we are imitating God. We are not imitating the Jews; we are not imitating Mr. Armstrong, we are imitating God. He established it, He set it up for us, it was something for us that was a gift. Does God get tired? Does God get worn out? You can search other scriptures and He does not at all. He made that whole next day which began then a seven day cycle of time for our benefit, for us; He set it apart, He separated it, He made it a blessing, He stamped His name upon it. He said: "As special and holy all future seventh days."
Now notice in Mark chapter 2 and Christ sets the record straight as to the purpose of the Sabbath. Now we will be going into a discussion about the Sabbath day and when Christ had encountered, if I just mention very briefly and I know most are aware of this, but what Christ encountered was a society that was led by the Jews, by the Pharisees, by the Sanhedrin who could make law and over the past several centuries, the inter-testament time, the time of Malachi, you will see that there were man made laws that had been given that described and set forth the conduct of what one would do on the Sabbath day. They were laws, they were guidelines, and they were ways of life that had been established that were not established by God in the Old Testament. They were established by the religious order that came upon the earth and had come down to the time of Christ. So here was Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God, the One through whom God, as Colossians shows, made all things; all things that were created were created by Him and now when He encounters this society that was ruled by Judaism which was not Old Testament law of God, there's a vast difference between Judaism and the law of the Old Testament. He came now and He makes His comments, He makes the record clear and very concise and precise as to what was the purpose of the Sabbath. Notice in Mark 2.
Mark 2:27 And He said to them: "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath."
When man was created, the pinnacle of God's creation on the sixth day, God created a whole next day in the weekly cycle of seven and that seventh day which we've read about already was made for man. Man on the sixth day was not created for the Sabbath. The Sabbath day was created for His benefit and it would be a blessing to him.
Brethren this Sabbath day was made for man, not the converse, it was made for us; it was made for our benefit. You read through Genesis 1 and 2 you'll see everything that God made was good. He didn't make anything bad, what He made was good. The gifts of God are good and this Sabbath day was created to be something desirable. The Sabbath day should be something which mankind should desire to have, to participate in, and to be a part of.
Now let's look at Isaiah chapter 58. Now brethren it's from this scripture that the sermon has received its title.
Isaiah 58:13 "If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your own pleasure on My Holy Day (So let's just say we're walking in what we choose to do for six days, then we get ready, figuratively speaking to step into the Sabbath. If we will take that foot and turn it from what we have been doing for six days; our pleasure, if our pleasure is business, if our pleasure is whatever pursuits that we have and instead of stepping down on that Sabbath day with that same footprint that we made for six days, turn that foot from my own words trampling on the Sabbath day, doing our own pleasure, then God says there's going to be a blessing. Here's what we need to do, here's how God views that Sabbath day for us.) "If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day and call the Sabbath a delight. The holy day of the Lord honorable and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, not finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words,
Verse 14: Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken."
Brethren a part of the reason why the Sabbath was given, it was to be a day of delight, it was to be a delightful day, a day that was a benefit, a day that we would call the Sabbath a delight; not a day that we pursue our own business, not our own pleasures, not our own thoughts or our own deeds or our own works. But this day is a different day, just as the original creation week that we read of when God did all of that work, some of which He spoke creation into being, others He shaped mankind on the sixth day with His hands and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life imparting intellect to him. When it came to that seventh day it was a different day and God ceased His work, He stopped working. God said: "I will create a day just of and by itself and there's no work and its holy and I sanctify it or I set it apart." You come to Isaiah teaching the people because they had been the recipient of the Sabbath command and they had to learn once again what was the Sabbath to be? It was to be a day of delight, a delightful day called the Sabbath a delight. Then He gave perimeters of what we should not do on it.
Now brethren, pleasure does not equal doing business. The scripture does not mean though that we can't have pleasure on God's Sabbath. In fact the Sabbath day should be a pleasurable day. Now how do we make the Sabbath a day that we look forward to? Now I believe as I look upon members of this congregation, I firmly believe that the vast majority of the members here do look upon the Sabbath day as a delight. They don't look upon it as a burden. This is a day that we look forward to. This is a day that we participate in, that we need and we want. We've learned to be on that seventh day Sabbath cycle of getting our things done and coming to the Sabbath day. I believe the vast majority of all of us really look forward to the Sabbath.
Now if I can comment in a personal way, in a personal position to share this with you. On a personal note for the New Testament pastors, unfortunately the Sabbath day is a very demanding day of work. Now I don't state that to illicit your sympathy. I don't state that for you to say: "Oh woe is him." There might be a jaded one or two among you who might say: "Well he doesn't work six days, he might as well work one of them." Oh I wish that were true. But unfortunately the New Testament pastors, the Sabbath day is a very demanding day. It's filled with hard work and it's a very stressful day for the most part. Obviously there are exceptions, again I don't want to paint a dire picture of New Testament pastors Sabbath keeping. But unless you've been one, it's hard to understand the stress and the pressure that is on the New Testament Sabbath pastor keeper. We work very hard on the Sabbath.
Our Old Testament counter-part; the Levites of the Old Testament, they were retired from the vigor's of Levitical work by age fifty. When that commandment was given people lived, (I forget now how long Moses lived, was it one hundred twenty years?) I think they were living more than seventy. The age had not dropped down to seventy to about the time of David and David was an old man at age seventy.
If I could give you just a little personal history as a Sabbath keeper since age eight. I view being blessed by being a Sabbath keeper since I was eight years old; a mere thirty or so years ago. You know, as a Sabbath keeper since age eight I hate to admit it but the first time that I looked forward to the Sabbath day was the summer before I went to college, when I worked six days a week, fourteen hours a day, eighty-four hours a week, all summer. That was the first time I looked forward to the Sabbath day. Now the summer before I worked ten hours a day, six days a week but there's a far cry difference between sixty hours and eighty-four hours. I always looked forward to church, even when it went on forever and ever; two hours and forty-five minutes was typical; three hours, but I always looked forward to that. But once I had that type of work schedule; that was the first time I really looked forward to the Sabbath. What happened on the Sabbath? I collapsed into the Sabbath. Friday night when I got off work, I would come home and eat, then I went to bed. I slept twelve to fourteen hours; got up went to church, heard the sermons, saw my buddies at church, went to bed, got up and worked another six days.
When it came to the time that I went to college in East Texas and trying to reflect upon it, I really think that was the first time that I looked forward to the Sabbath and viewed the Sabbath as a delight and that was keeping the Sabbath there at Ambassador College. If I give you just a little bit of history, the best of my recollection how the Sabbath went there at college; I think all of the students at least when I went to college; all the students worked at least twenty hours a week. We had classes, fifteen to eighteen credit hours a week, we had all type of activities at nighttime and if you played sports you had practices and games and clubs and all those types of things and when it came to the Sabbath, when it came to Friday night, it was a time that even though you were young you were still tired but you were able to go to bible study that night. I personally enjoyed the bible studies in general, not every one was electrifying but in general I really enjoyed the bible studies; I felt that I learned from them. After the bible study was over, I think it was over at nine o'clock, you would walk back to your dorm or booth city and typically what the fellows did over at Brickett Wood where I attended, not college there but I was on the campus a couple of different times, they called it a bull session. The fellows would typically sit together, a bunch of friends and somebody would pop popcorn. It was one of the days I bought a Doctor Pepper for fifteen cents; I had my Doctor Pepper that I looked forward to, had the popcorn or care package from home and we would sit down, a group of two to ten or fifteen and you would just talk; you'd have a chance to visit. You weren't working, you weren't doing that, you've already been to bible study, you worked all week, you sat down and you had a chance to visit and you had the chance to really draw close together with your friends.
The next morning, no school, got a chance to sleep in, they had a special Sabbath brunch that you would dress up for, the men went down in suit and tie or sports coat and tie, the co-eds had on their Sabbath wear and you went to that. If I remember correctly, I think it was after brunch then you had the option of going to what they called a Sabbath sing along which was where the men in the college would be called on, kind of one at a time to go up and lead a hymn. It wasn't mandatory but there would probably be, I don't remember a hundred or hundred and fifty students there and that's where a lot of the fellows learned to lead songs; you were together with them. Then you'd back to your dorm, I'd typically sleep for an hour, then you'd get up and come to church and then you would have church services, then you'd go back and you'd have the time from church services till the evening meal. For me it was a chance to study, not study for a test but study biblical things that I was interested in; I wouldn't be tested on, it was just a chance to study. A lot of the students, a lot of the fellows used that time to date and for young people among us, dating at that time was different then dating today. Dating at that time would mean a co-ed would walk with you to church, walk back from church, maybe have you into the dorm and give you a cookie, or something like that, or have a chance to visit or whatever, it was more delightful than the way I'm making it but it was something different, it was something nice and enjoyable. I found during that time I not only looked forward to the rest of the Sabbath (rest, to rest) and the assembling on the Sabbath day, but the Sabbath day was a delight and I delighted in the Sabbath and it was different from all the other days during the week, probably some of my closest friends, we bonded more during that time, because you had a chance to talk and visit and all of that and it was just very nice.
From age 21 to age 42 (I'm sharing this with you personally) I cannot say that the Sabbath was a delight for me. Now I'm not anti-Sabbath, I wouldn't be here if I was anti-Sabbath but the Sabbath was no longer a delight. Now part of it was because of my calling into the full time ministry, pastoring churches, etc. but if I could continue just a bit further to share that with you. I have pastored two churches for the majority of my time in the ministry for thirty-five years; not all the time, but the vast majority, I've gone to two church services and brought the sermon in both and counseled. I used to bring announcements all the time, I give that to Alton now; Alton does a very good job in that, but up until age 42 and a little bit beyond, the Sabbath day had always been physically and mentally wearing on me. The Sabbath day itself still is but I have a different approach. What has changed for me personally? If any of you have ever done any public speaking, some people come across as just naturals at public speaking, they can stand up here and they appear very comfortable and may very well be. You're very comfortable listening to them, you're not nervous because their nervous or appear nervous and wow is he going to fall, is he going to say something wrong and all that and you kind of sit back and hear that and you're not worried about that. For the most part, public speaking is a terrifying endeavor. Most people would rather and you may know the quote, I don't have it in mind, but most people would rather take a beating, be fired from their job, whatever it is other than public speaking. Fellows, those of you who are on the sermonette list, you fellows who bring split sermons and bible studies, you know the effort and the time that you put into that. You go back a number of years, you guys who were in spokesman club, you remember what it was like to prepare a six and half minute speech, you know what it was like when you prepared that and worried about it and all of that? We do have that. You know every Sabbath and what I had done until shortly after age forty-two, I had done my best to have that sermon done before Friday night but I did not succeed. I did not succeed from age twenty-one to age forty-two. Now there would be exceptions. Now when that sermon was done and I came upstairs at time for dinner, my wife would know if it was done. She could tell you there was a different look on my face, a different tone in my voice, etc. If it wasn't done which was 95% of the time I ate my Sabbath meal and then went right back down to my office and continued to work on it until to bed, eleven, twelve, one in the morning. If I ever went to bed without the sermon done, my wife would say I would flop back and forth, back and forth, watch the clock and have to get up at one or two or three and work on that sermon. I did that until I was age forty-two. Now what happened at age forty-two was I was transferred to Fort Worth? I came down here, our children were older, we had a daughter who had just left for college and got with myself; had this long talk and I told my wife, we discussed it, and I said: "With God's help, I will have the sermon done before supper on Friday night." I set that as a goal and I have met that goal virtually every Sabbath for fourteen years. Now there have been exceptions to that, but for the most part before I come to dinner that sermon is done. Yahoo the Sabbath is here!
Now I talked with a very close friend of mine, I won't mention his name, he's been in the ministry a little bit longer than I have and we were at the Feast in Kerrville together, I hadn't seen him for a while and we talked about some things and I was kind of relating this to him. I said: "My life has changed, I am able to enjoy my Friday night with my family and before that I really couldn't do that." He said: "Brett, I have tried to do that for thirty-nine or forty years. I cannot do it." A lot of my friends, I don't mean this in any condescending way at all, but they haven't been able to. Now I won't get into all the reasons what I do so that I do have it done by then but I have paid the price to have that done so that when that Sabbath comes I am able to be with my family and what makes that Sabbath special for me and I trust my family, is that virtually every Friday that we're in town and we're not in someone else's home or whatever, we, my wife and I make a wonderful Sabbath meal. Now granted, she does almost all of it and if you've read the thing about the husband barbequing, honey would you get the meat, honey where's the flipper, where's all that, that does fit into it but I typically grill on Friday night and we have our children over, two of them are married and their spouses over. For years we had my Mom over, a long time we had Barbie and John, family members over and we would have a very delightful meal. We had chosen to have wine with the meal and we sit down and we talk and we visit and we talk about the family past, we talk about the present, we talk about the future, we talk about the upcoming Feast of Tabernacles. That normally starts about now, and the Feast is way off and it is something that is just a delight.
Now the Sabbath day is still stressful, it's still physically tiring but coming into the Sabbath day, I can now call the Sabbath a delight because I have chosen and have been blessed in it to be able to spend the vast majority of that time with my sermon done and being able to be with my family or close friends of church members. It doesn't mean that on the Sabbath morning I don't have to review my sermon. I call it in the can. In the can means, it's now that we have computers, it's printed; it's in my briefcase. I normally spend about three hours on the Sabbath reviewing it. For all of our public speakers, is there not a whole lot of difference between reviewing something you prepared and not having it prepared a whole different animal?
I share that with you, giving you personal insight on that but antidotically what can you do if you're not already, what can you do to make the Sabbath a delight? How do you view the approach of the coming Sabbath day? The Sabbath is to be a delight, a delightful day. We've already seen the history of what we're supposed to do on it and what we shouldn't do on it.
If I might add, if you have children, you do bear an extra responsibility to help your children to make the Sabbath a delight. I might suggest you might consider, depending upon where you live proximity to other church members etc. you might allow them to have friends over from church for that night, to go over to other people's home that night, to spend time with them, be it a walk in the park or a walk in the woods, to talk together, to be together so that they really enjoy that; that it is different for them. I know the Whitlarks with their children growing up and they're all grown now, but since they've been here, since I've known them; this might be a slight exaggeration, but I think probably just about every Friday night when their kids were at home and even after some of them left, when they had teenagers, they had teens over their house, they had young adults at their house virtually every Friday night. Go to the Whitlarks and have a meal and be able to sit and talk and they did bible studies and all of that. Larry and Polly, Larry would from time to time whenever he's leading songs, he'd talk about his Sabbath walk with Polly and how much he enjoys that and how he's able to reflect on the creation and to be able to enjoy that. Each of us are different, our circumstances change. When I'm officially a senior citizen and able to go to these things, we are going to raise the age as I get older let me add, maybe my approach what is a delight for me on the Sabbath may be different from what it is today; I don't know that it will be but I want to leave that open.
Brethren, we have to with the minds that God has given us, we have to think through our needs, we have to think through what God says about the Sabbath being a delight and should be a delight and how do we make that Sabbath day a delight? How do we do that for ourselves and for our families, those of us who have the responsibility of children? How do we do that? The Sabbath day is a day to set priorities. The Sabbath day is a time of twenty-four hours that we have the ability to set and keep our priorities. Our priorities should be drawing closer to God, resting, praying, studying, and meditating.
You know even when I was a child in the church, probably the longest Sabbath days I would keep whenever we were in St. Louis and church was on a Friday night. Then you had all Sabbath day to go nowhere, I might just put it that way. I was extremely physically active as a child. Back in those days in school there was corporal punishment. I could never stay in my chair, I would crawl between things; the teacher would catch me. This wasn't every day but on occasion she would take me back to the cloakroom, smack me with the ruler or whatever it was, a yardstick, turn me loose again. In those days as I was a kid you had one T.V. Everybody sat down to watch it, the whole family was together, I could only sit long enough till it came to the commercial. At the commercial my sister Barbie, she still says she grabs her neck like that, because I'm going to leap at her from somewhere and go sit on her or choke her or my older sister or run around until the commercial was over, I'd sit down again and I could make it another eight or nine minutes and then another commercial came. I was just extremely active. Can you imagine what it was like when it came time for the Sabbath? You didn't go outside, you didn't play and you didn't watch T.V. You didn't have people over, you didn't go anywhere. You know how kids are even back in those days, you'd get up at seven in the morning; the sun didn't go down in St. Louis in the summertime till eight thirty at night. I read the Plain Truth cover to cover. I read it so many times I felt I had written it. I read all of those bible story books with the illustrations by Basil Wolverton. I knew which page they were on, over and over again. Then when we had church on Saturday it was a matter still of studying and reading and those type of things. But for our family as well as ourselves we have to set priorities. I went through the correspondence course before I went to college on the Sabbath day studying; that was something very important to me to be able to study that. Brethren we do have that twenty-four hour time. We need to set priorities obviously.
Point one: We don't work, we do assemble. It is holy time. But how do we make that Sabbath day a delight? Most in the world worry about problems, business problems, difficulty, how to make a buck, how to get ahead, how to make money, seven days a week. God tells us that we're not supposed to do that; we are to turn our foot aside from our own business, our own pleasure; those things which we seek to do for ourselves. Those who don't keep the Sabbath day, those who don't keep the Sabbath correctly, the result of that typically is anxiety, ulcers, emotional upset, being wound up tight as a drum. The Sabbath was designed to be a day of rest; it was designed to be a day where we would be free from the daily cares of life and we have the physical time set aside by God by command to draw closer to God; twenty-four hours that was what God designed for us.
Let me share a principle with you that I think you'll read in most any management books and most of you are probably familiar with this anyway. Any management book that you read they will always emphasize the roll of exercise and in the roll of exercise they say that the manager should definitely take time (he or she) to exercise because it is a diversion. Exercise is a time of change from your daily; if you're an officer or manager or whatever it might be, you can take your thoughts off the problems at hand and go and do something totally different. Let's just say if you have an office job and your sitting in your chair, now you get up and you go and exercise for thirty minutes of whatever it might be, it's a change of venue, it's improving yourself physically.
Now the Sabbath, if I can just draw from that parallel although the Sabbath is far greater obviously than that, the Sabbath is to be a day that is different from the other six. It's supposed to be a totally different day; different venue, different things that we do, different thoughts that we have and different pursuits. The bible does say six days may work be done. Six days to pursue our own goals, six days to labor, six days to go after mammon and physical things but the seventh day is to be different. We are not to be a slave of the pursuit of materialism be it our own avocation, our hobbies, the things that we like to do or our real vocation, our work, we should have that break from them.
Notice in Nehemiah; let's learn the lesson that is given here. Nehemiah is after Chronicles and Ezra; Nehemiah 13 and then verse 15. If I can just give a little bit of historical context. This is years after the Israelites had been taken into captivity; the reason cited for their going into captivity was the breaking of the Sabbath, not only did they break the Sabbath, that was the primary thing but they went after other gods, etc. but they didn't keep the Sabbath. The same thing with the Jews, they were taken into captivity for seventy years and the prophecy was given, now they were permitted to come back to, as we would say today, Israel or Palestine, the holy land, they were able to go back there and now they had a Governor and they had a High Priest. The Governor was Nehemiah and Ezra was the Priest and they were there to set them back on the right track. So if we focus on the setting of them coming back; they knew the reason why they'd been taken into captivity, uprooted from their land was because they broke God's Sabbath. They had the lesson of Israel, this is Judah, they had the lesson of Israel of breaking God's Sabbath being taken into captivity, they went and didn't learn their lesson, broke it themselves, taken into captivity, now they're brought back. Now after they're there for awhile, notice was Nehemiah had to face:
Nehemiah 13:15 In those days I saw people in Judah treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves and loading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs and all kinds of burdens which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, and I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions.
Verse 16: Men of Tyre dwelt there also, who brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah and in Jerusalem.
Verse 17: Then I contended with the nobles of Judah and said to them: "What evil thing is this that you do, by which you profane the Sabbath day?"
Verse 18: "Did not your fathers do thus and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath."
Verse 19: So it was at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath. Then I posted some of my servants at the gates so that no burdens would be brought in on the Sabbath day.
Verse 20: Now the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.
Verse 21: So I warned them and said to them: "Why do you spend the night around the wall? If you do so again I will lay hands on you!" From that time on they came no more on the Sabbath.
Verse 22: And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves and that they should go and guard the gates to sanctify the Sabbath day. Remember me, O my God concerning this also and spare me according to the greatness of Your mercy!
Brethren, what a tremendous lesson from history. What a lesson; those people had been given a second chance; they were brought back to Jerusalem and while they were there they were going right back into Sabbath breaking that cost them their captivity in the first time and here through Nehemiah they were given a second chance.
Now brethren, what about us? The vast majority of us here today, we've been given a second chance in our Sabbath keeping. We saw a little more than twelve years ago now, the doing away with the Sabbath day and among many people the keeping of the Sabbath day had slipped and it had waned in the pursuit of personal pleasures and work and those type of things were taking place among the lives of some.
We had the opportunity to revisit that and see that, now we assemble together. For twelve years we've had the chance to walk again in God's truth. Brethren, has our own personal Sabbath keeping slipped? Has it changed our approach to the Sabbath? Do we break the Sabbath? Do we pursue our own pleasures on the Sabbath day? Is the Sabbath a burden? Is the Sabbath a chore? Is the Sabbath a day of rest, a day of delight?
Final scripture; turn with me once again to Mark chapter 2. I think it's also of interest and important to note the Sabbath was the last act of creation. It was the last act of creation; it was a gift by God to each and every one of us who obey His words. Now here's what led up to Christ being the Lord of the Sabbath and the Sabbath being made for man:
Mark 2:23 Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.
Verse 24: And the Pharisees said to Him: "Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?"
Verse 25: But He said to them: "Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him:
Verse 26: how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests and also gave some to those who were with him?"
Verse 27: And He said to them: "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.
Verse 28: Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."
Brethren, the Sabbath as I mentioned, the last act of creation God created a whole day so that man could rest and the whole day that man could eat on the Sabbath day. It is one of the feast days of God, it is to be a pleasurable day, a day that we could delight in and all of the myriad laws that had been set up from the time of Nehemiah's time and that inter-testament time was when as Nehemiah closed the gates to the city, set his guards about that, about the city, during that time they began to come up with their own laws because they didn't want to break the Sabbath again and those who became, as we would say the orthodox among them added so many laws to the Sabbath, so that when Christ came on the earth and He was going to heal a man of a withered hand on the Sabbath day, they wanted to put Christ to death and Christ who was not a Sabbath breaker, He was giving the example that yes there could be good done on the Sabbath day and there could be. We can do good on the Sabbath day and Christ set the example in that. That Sabbath day brethren is to be a blessing for mankind. You and I are Sabbath keepers; we have little ones among us, we are responsible for them. What do they do on the Sabbath day? Is the Sabbath day a delight for them? Do they delight on the Sabbath? Are they delighting because they do the same thing on the Sabbath that they did the other six days? How different is the Sabbath for them and how profitable is that Sabbath day?
Well brethren that Sabbath day is important, God does want us to be able to call it a delight. We should view it as a blessing. I do believe the vast majority of us of course do. Brethren, when the Sabbath day is properly understood and kept, the Sabbath day is an utter delight. Brethren, God does want us to enjoy one of His greatest gifts to mankind and the gift was and the gift is the holy Sabbath day.