The Bright Light of the Sabbath Day

The bright light of the Sabbath day. I want to bring to you today, and I've not been able to do it for quite a while, I want to bring you some very basic biblical instruction about one of the commandments of God. And one of the reasons why I want to bring this is it actually goes back to something that Susan and I experienced over the last month, while Susan was away from all of us and back there, and she was surrounded by a family that does not observe the Sabbath, and there were a lot of activities that were going on.

A lot of you know how it is. Have you ever gone back home to the Midwest? You've got to see these people, and you've got to see these people, and you've got to see these people. And if you don't see these people, you're in trouble with those people. And it goes on and on and on. And you can get in a whirl and a twirl of activity, and there were things to do and people to see. And you can kind of lose a sense of timing, and everybody begins to encroach on your time, and can, even if you're not very extra special careful, can even encroach upon God's holy time.

And, Susan and I kind of talked about that a little bit when we got back, because, you know, we're able to gather together where God has placed His name here, and we're with like-minded, like-hearted people, and we're in a retoon, because we're in our own established pace here in the Inland Empire. But to recognize that sometimes we can, not because we want to, but because of the swirl and the twirl of things that are happening around us, we can lose that focus.

And that's what I want to talk about today. And I want to talk about the shining light of God's holy Sabbath day. And I want to begin this message, and I think it's going to be encouraging to all of us. I want to talk about a lighthouse and what a lighthouse is for. A lighthouse is the one Oedipus that is built by man that is truly altruistic in every sense. It is built, and its purpose is to be beneficial to others, and not to itself.

Its design and purpose is simply for the well-being of everybody that will spot it. Its role is to guide people, but not merely to itself, but ultimately to safeguard others towards their ultimate destination. The lighthouse itself is not the destination.

Its purpose is to guide people towards their ultimate destination, and to not fully understand this. And to only aim for the lighthouse, and only hold on to the lighthouse, is to not appreciate what and why and where a lighthouse is positioned.

Speaking of a lighthouse, a lighthouse is not something that you come upon simply by surprise, but it's something that you look for. It's something that you prepare for. It's something that you delight in when you follow its light. Recently, we had the opportunity during the feast to go out with Mr. Lance McCartney of San Diego. Many of us know Lance. He was describing that, at times, just how important a lighthouse is when you're out in the ocean. We don't always appreciate that. We can appreciate lighthouses. They make for pretty calendars, if you've ever had a lighthouse calendar. Or they're kind of pretty to visit if you're on the coast of Middle California, or if you go down to Point Loma and see what they call the Old Spanish Lighthouse, which is neither Old or Spanish, but it is a lighthouse.

They call it the Old Spanish Lighthouse. It can look warm, it can look cozy, it can look quaint. But there really is a purpose behind all of this, and we need to understand that. That a lighthouse is a guiding light to help sailors move into a harbor, which is the destination, and or to move along the coast towards its ultimate destination. In using that analogy, friends, I want to remind us and let us know that God has also given us a lighthouse.

And He's given Christians a lighthouse. And this lighthouse was made and designed to serve man. It's a beacon to guide our spiritual journey. And that's the framework that I want to begin to discuss the Sabbath. It's a beacon to help us with our spiritual journey past the shoals of human nature, the darkness of this world's culture, and or the siren's song of Satan's wiles. It was not designed or built to be self-serving.

The Sabbath is not and should not be considered an end in itself, but to point to its Creator and to help point us to the Creator and to the ultimate destination. Just as much as a ship, its ultimate destination is not to spot the lighthouse, but to move into the harbor. Likewise, the lighthouse that God has given us is not simply to stay still and look at the lighthouse, but to move us towards the Kingdom of God.

So with all of that stated, the purpose of my message is to help us appreciate what a bright and what an encouraging beacon the seventh-day Sabbath is to our everyday lives, that moves beyond itself and points us to God and to His Kingdom. So let's approach this beacon that is created by God to understand what it is and what it is not, because both are equally important, not only understanding what the Sabbath is, but also to understand what it is not, and then to go away and appreciate it all the more.

Let's begin by looking at Exodus 20. Join me if you would in Exodus 20. Let's look at what is in the Scriptures known as the Ten Commandments, the ten great moral, eternal imperatives that God has given to covenant people, whether under the Old Covenant or whether under the New Covenant, those that would be seekers and followers of God, enabled to please Him and honor Him, would observe these.

And we notice in Exodus 20, in verse 8, where it says, Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days ye shall labor and do all of your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God, and in it ye shall do no work. You, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger, who is within your gates. And then it moves us to the importance of the Sabbath day, 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, and therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

So God takes the Sabbath beyond the sands of Sinai, and stretches it back to creation, and beginning to give these people that He's going to develop covenant with a scrapbook, as it were, a family scrapbook of looking back and seeing what God has done down through the ages, and what He would purpose for them.

Now, a couple thoughts just looking at these verses. Number one, it says to remember the Sabbath day. This is a specific admonition reminding us twofold of why the Sabbath was already enjoined on the people of God. It's not a creation that was established at Sinai. It already existed. It says, remember, remember the Sabbath day. So the Sabbath day was already in play. It wasn't something that just happened out of Moses' imagination.

That is incredibly important. Secondarily, it also reminds us that, yes, remember it because being human beings, we can just simply bump into it, and or we can forget it, and or we can diminish it. The word there, remember, is a word that from the Hebrew is zakar, which means to have an earnestness and or to be vigilant or to have it literally imprinted as to the importance of this day and to remember the Sabbath day.

Another point I want to make just looking at this commandment as it is, is to look at verse 11 for a second. For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea and the earth, and rested in the Sabbath day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and he hallowed it, and or he made it holy. Something very important as some of us are just beginning to observe the Sabbath day is something that we need to understand.

We don't make the Sabbath day holy because we keep it or how we keep it. Are you with me?

God made the Sabbath day holy. Only God can determine and make things holy. So God made the Sabbath holy. Our responsibility is to keep it. Therein lies a very specific difference. Therefore how we do keep this beacon in front of us to guide us towards God's kingdom is very important. How do we do that? Where is the light? Where is the way? Where is the focus? Point number one that I want to give you is simply this. We focus on the Sabbath just like a sailor focuses on a lighthouse to move him through the fog of life and the darkness of the culture.

We focus on the Sabbath as forever a memorial of God's plural acts of creation.

Join me if you would. Let's go to Genesis 1. Let's go right to the very beginning. And like I said, brethren, this is very basic. And I'll not apologize for that. We need to have a very basic, unified understanding of what the Sabbath is about. In Genesis 1, which is the very name Genesis means beginning, we understand that God began to create. And on those first five days of creation, as he made the light and he made the land and he made different items, he kept on going back and checking himself every time, and he would say, It is good. Every day there's kind of a check-off list, like almost an inspection. God kind of sat back and said, It is good. But it's a very interesting thing as the story builds. And as you move up to verse 26 now, let's notice what happens here in Genesis 1.26.

Now, I know Steve Richardson would like this. I know he likes his verse because it talks about all of the creeping things. And I think Stephen does think he has dominion over snakes and lizards. And if he doesn't, then Shalee does. But then notice what it says. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, and male and female, and he created them. And then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill all of the earth and subdue it, having dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, See, I've given you everything. And it goes on discussing what he had given. Then notice verse 31. Then God saw everything that he had made. This is not accidental. There is a design to the creation. Everything that he had made. And indeed, notice now, it moves beyond good. He says, It was very good. Very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. And so when we look at this, we recognize that God made a special creation. Not out of just simply vegetable fiber, not just simply mammalian, not just simply an animal, but he made something that was in his image and in his likeness. Now, to understand, it was only in part, and only in part, because this that was made, the special creation, was made out of dust. It wasn't made out of the spirit that we heard about in the first message. It was only made out of dust. But that was only the beginning. The creation had already begun. It was not over.

And to recognize that that dust, that's you and me, by the way, that there is a spiritual destiny that is in store for each and every one of us, based upon a relationship that God wants to have with each and every one of us. And again, that is one of the guiding forces of this beacon called the Sabbath day. And why we go back to Genesis? Because the Sabbath is not just simply a rule.

It is a rule that guides us towards relationships. If we only look at the Scriptures as rules, we lose the power and the purpose of Scripture. Rules define the relationship, and the rules point to the relationship. But to simply have rules without a relationship is like a postcard without a stamp. It's got a picture, but it's not going to go anywhere.

You have to combine it together to understand the beauty and the sanctity and the purpose of God's holy Sabbath day. Notice verse 31. Then God saw that everything was good, and it was good. Then notice chapter 2 verse 1. Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished.

Now notice, and on the seventh day, pretty clear, not the fifth day, not the first day of the week, but the seventh day God ended his work, which he had done. Now, I've got to ask you a question. What happened to God? Was he tired? Was he exhausted? Did he somehow kind of lose it after all of those six days of work? Does God get tired? God doesn't get tired. God doesn't get tired. His energy does not cease. He sees in a different sphere. He's spiritual.

What it means here is that he stopped. He ceased that which he had done to that point, which is the physical creation. But that doesn't mean that God's work is done. Notice what it says. And then he rested, or he ceased on the seventh day from all his work, which he had done.

His past tense, that which he had done up to that point. But God's work is not done. The creation is not complete. Are you with me? The creation is not complete. We were made of dust. We were made in God's image. We were made after his likeness. But there's more to come. The spiritual creation is not completed. And therefore, then, notice what it says. And he rested. And it says here then that he blessed the seventh day. And he sanctified it because he rested from all of his work, which God had created and had made.

The rest word there is Shabbat. And that's where the word Sabbath comes from. Sabbath means simply to cease, to stop. And do what? Just stop and be a couch potato? That's not the meaning of the Sabbath. It means to stop and observe and understand and consider what God is doing with this world and with each and every one of us. And the purpose that yet lies ahead, which is incredible. And so we see this, that spiritual labor continues. Join me if you would for a moment and join me in Ephesians 2 and verse 10.

Let's take a look at this from Ephesians 2 and verse 10. To show you that God is still working. He didn't stop on the sixth day of creation in Ephesians 2 and verse 10. Notice what it says. For we, speaking of those even today, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus, that second Adam, as the Bible calls him.

For good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. So God continues to create. God continues to develop. So he ceased from his physical labors, as it were, and now continues up to our time and our day with what he's doing.

The Sabbath therefore then reminds us that God is creator, that there is a design, that we're not just simply here by accident, that we're not just simply the end result of love-sick amoeba in a slimy pond, that all of a sudden photosynthesis had its way with the two amoeba and flash. That's why even today when you're reading the news about the Europeans sending up a rocket ship and landing on a comet, you know what they're looking for?

They're looking for life. They're looking for life. They want to know that we're not alone. All those millions, all those billions, and all the technogismos, what they're trying to determine is how this universe somehow came into existence. Because they will not and cannot accept that this is a creation. That's what's going on. And I do not believe that they're going to find life out there.

They're not going to find little green men, and they're not going to find men with little tentacles coming out of their head. God purposed this earth as His special creation. The Sabbath reminds us that creation was not accidental, but by design. And thus, therefore, are you with me? When we focus and as we move towards the Sabbath from Sunday to Saturday, as we go towards that beacon, as we go towards that light, we also recognize, therefore, then, if creation is not accidental, neither should our lives be lived accidentally. But there's a design, and God's showing us the way. Let's look at point number two that I want to share with you.

We focus on the Sabbath as a beacon of liberty to serve God, as a beacon of liberty to serve God. You know, we think of how the immigrants came across from Europe, and they would see the lady statue of New York Harbor, and she'd have that mighty torch in her hands.

And Emma Lazarus wrote the wonderful poem about, give me your tired and give me your poor, and speaks about that lady with the torch in her hand. That is exactly what the Sabbath is about to a New Covenant Christian. It's not about darkness. It's not about going back to Sinai. It is a beacon of liberty to serve God. You know, some people will say that, you know, that God no longer requires seventh-day Sabbath observance, considering the term even a sense of bondage, that somehow you're under the bondage of the law.

Let's think about this for a moment. Here's a big question, and I actually got the answer from my wife many, many years ago. And that is simply this. Here's what you have to ask yourself. Can a good God make bad laws? Can a good God make bad laws? In other words, can we talk? Let me ask you a question. What part of God's law don't you like from a good God that gave us His Son?

You've got to answer that question. It's just a straight-up yes or no. What part of God's law don't you like? And this is one of the Big Ten, the Sabbath day. What happens is the bondage that comes is over, perhaps is obsessing over, a law. And we can do that. We can be legalistic. Remember, a lighthouse is not self-serving. A lighthouse points beyond itself, points to the destination. And we recognize that the destination is the kingdom of God with God the Father and Jesus Christ there.

You don't want to just get stuck with the lighthouse. The lighthouse serves a purpose. It serves a purpose to help us to worship the builder of the lighthouse, the author of the Sabbath, the established of making it holy.

What happens is, when you look at the law, and some of you are just beginning to get the word, is to recognize that the law itself, the Ten Commandments itself, are not cursed. It is not a cursed law. That's a mistake that sometimes people make. Therefore, Jesus came along and liberated us from the law, and liberated us from the Sabbath, and we don't have to do that anymore. No, no, no, no, no. There's a difference between a cursed law and the curse of the law.

The curse of the law is death. The last time I thought about dying, it wasn't something that I was looking forward to, so I could say it's kind of like a curse. No, the curse, it's not a cursed law. It is the curse of the law, which is death. There can also be a cursing of observing the law if you're observing the law to save yourself. There's no amount of law-keeping or Sabbath-keeping that can allow us to enter into the kingdom of God.

It is merely and surely by His gift. It's by His grace. But by observing the Sabbath, by keeping the Ten Commandments, we show our faith towards God. Obedience. Obedience is the shadow of faith. You can't separate faith over here and obedience over here and put them on two separate griddles. They've got to be cooked within the same individual. Where there is faith, true faith, in God the Father and Jesus Christ, obedience will follow. It reflects your faith and your confidence in God. Let's take it a step further. Join me if you would in Deuteronomy 5.

One of the reasons I'm sharing these verses with you is just to show you what God calls His days, rather than what man calls His days sometimes. In Deuteronomy 5, verse 12, let's notice what it says. Observe the Sabbath of the day to notice, keep it holy. We can't make it holy, but we can notice again, keep it holy.

As the Lord your God commended you, six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work. And it goes back down again, talking about everybody being involved in keeping the Sabbath in the household. But now, notice verse 15, something is tied in that was not in Exodus 20, because now it's 40 years later. Deuteronomy, they're about to go into the land of Israel.

They're going from having been delivered, and they're now about to be established as a nation. Thus you see verse 15, and notice, remember, and it is tied into the Sabbath of the day. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Now, are you with me? The Sabbath day is not now just simply a memorial of creation, but it is a day that pictures liberation, of liberation, and not by what we did of and by ourselves, but because of the great saving God.

Whether it be Israel of old, or whether it be the Israel of God today, as Paul describes to church in Galatians 6, 16. The Sabbath day reminds us that we, even today, are delivered. We are a creation in progress. We're not an accident. And it was not accidental that God delivered us and gave us this great and this wonderful and this lively hope.

You might say that we, as Americans, we loved Him by July 4th. It's a wonderful holiday. Actually, Susan and I had more fun on this July 4th than any July 4th we've ever had. And we didn't light one firecracker and we didn't eat one hot talk. But we studied all of the founding fathers and what God inspired them to do, and we feasted on that.

And it was so rewarding to be able to do that a couple of nights and even that day thereof, of how God established this nation. Well, this is talking about God establishing Israel of old and that He liberated them. He gave them not... it wasn't by accident. You know, it's often been said that the Roman Empire was built by accidents. The British Empire was built by accidents. But the kingdom of God is not... you should say we should have such an accident, right?

When you think about Rome and Britain. But that God is not building His kingdom by accident, but by a design. So as we are moving from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday, and we are preparing spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and physically and life-wise for that Sabbath day. It's the beacon.

It's the lighthouse to help us move towards the kingdom of God. Let's go to point number three. We keep our focus on the Sabbath to provide physical and spiritual restoration. We keep our focus just as much as that sailor looks for the old Spanish lighthouse on Point Loma down in San Diego. Just as much as they're looking from a distance for that, we move towards the Seventh-day Sabbath. Looking towards physical and spiritual restoration. From the very beginning, the Creator, and there is a Creator, knew how the creation works best. And He gave us a manual.

It's called the Bible. Just as much as we that have cars or computers, I was going to say computers. I don't only look at a manual, but I call Mr. Larry Sharp. He comes over and helps me with my computer. Or Susan's computer. Larry, I hope I'm not putting you into more business. I'm sorry. But anyway, there's a manual that's there in the Globe compartment to tell us how to best operate. And that's exactly why God gave us the Seventh-day Sabbath. He knew that we needed to slow down to rest.

How often have we heard that phrase, Stop the world! I want to get off! And, or like the old country song, Make the world go away. I'm dating myself. I don't know if that was a part of the blessing of the service today or not, anyway. But we say, Stop. Take it off. God gives us that opportunity every seven days to separate ourselves from the world and to stop. He says, But I can't do that. Yes, you can. God says you can. And if you don't think you can, take him at his word and obey him. He says, But that's boring. What will I do? Do you realize, especially now as our leaves are beginning to lose their leaves, right?

And it's a beautiful time of year here in California. Our autumn is actually November and early December. And then those trees, they lose all of their leaves. And you go, What's that about? Nothing is happening. Oh, yes, a lot is happening when you study biology. A lot is happening. There is growth and there is life in dormancy. It is that dormancy in which the trees are still receiving nutrients and resting that brings the buds of green in the springtime. Winter and rest, as it were, is just as important as the moisture of spring and the sun of summer.

And by observing the Sabbath day, it gives us a rest. We stop. We are able to utter what David uttered in the Psalm, Psalm, when he said, What is man? What is man? That you are mindful of him. You're not normally thinking of that on Tuesday and Wednesday. You're on the 91 freeway saying, What's this guy doing in front of me?

Get out of my way. I've got to get to work. Are you thinking, I'm going to get to work late? The boss is going to be mad at me? Are you thinking of all the work that you have to do? Once you get beyond the guy that's in front of you in the freeway, and once the boss blows off at you, then all the rest of the work that you have to do, and you recognize that you're not going to get it all done, it goes on and on and on and on.

The Sabbath is just one of the greatest gifts that God has ever given humanity. To rewind ourselves. How often do people say, I'm about to snap? I'm about to snap. And they're not talking about their finger. You know, you can have the very, very best bow. Like a bow and arrow. A bow. But you don't keep that bow taught all the time. If you keep that bow taught, and just always at shooting strength, that bow is going to weaken. That bow is going to go flat.

That bow is not going to be there when you need it. And so when we say what the Sabbath does, it allows us to unstring ourselves. Spiritually, emotionally, and physically. And it allows us to stop and to consider why we were born. It's a blessing. You know, people say, I've just got to go take a vacation. I've got to go down to Veracruz. I've got to go to Cancun. I've got to go here, and I've got to go there.

Have you ever thought that a good God and a loving God says, I want you to take a vacation every seven days. But not to be a couch potato, but to be about your vocation. Your vocation of understanding why you were born and drawing closer to me by praying more, by studying more, by having the opportunity to meditate more.

Susan, I had a wonderful discussion this morning because there was nothing poppin' this morning. And that we're able to talk even more than we normally talk. And to discuss life, to discuss our goals together as a husband and a wife. Of planning our spiritual future not apart, but together. That's a blessing of the Sabbath. Isn't that neat?

We worship a good God. Let's go to point number four. When we consider this beacon, this lighthouse of this guiding light of the Sabbath, we are reminded that we will experience test of faith in keeping this day. It is a test. Join me if you would in Exodus, in Exodus, chapter 16. And what is very interesting, I'm going to take you to the story of Israel in the wilderness and the lesson of manna. But I want to back it up for a moment because how often does God, shall we say, challenge where our faith is that He is sufficient by the subject of food?

It's a challenge before me every day. I'm the only one laughing. I guess I'm the only one that's got the problem. Okay. But when you're in the Garden of Eden, remember what God said? You know Adam and Eve, Mr. A and Mrs. E? You can have everything that you want in the garden. You got it all. You can have every tree in the zoo.

Every tree! It's all yours. And he was also talking about the tree of life, which did not have a moat around it with live alligators. There was no barbed wire. You can have all of this. But he drew some boundaries. God doesn't make a lot of rules, but the rules that He makes, you have to think about. He only made one boundary. He said, But of this tree of the garden, you shall not eat. It was just one. Think about that. Everything else in the garden was there because He gave them dominion over everything. Remember what we read in Genesis? But just this one tree. But you know what? Curiosity got the cat, and it also got Eve, and it also eventually got Adam. God set a boundary. You do not cross this boundary. Now, why? Just to make a rule? No, not to make a rule. If you only make a rule to make a rule and not to define or to enhance a relationship, it's a worthless rule. God made that boundary to see if whether or not Adam and Eve would have faith that God was sufficient. That God was a shepherd in whom they shall not want. That God was one that they didn't have to sneak or cross over the border or reach into the cookie jar when somebody else wasn't looking. Because perhaps God was not able to take care of them. And what did it revolve around? Food.

With that now, let's go to Exodus 16. Exodus 16, the story of Israel. Now no longer individuals, but entire people. He says in Exodus 16.4, Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will reign bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day that I might test them, whether they will rock in my law or not. So it was a test. He puts it right out there.

And it will be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. And then Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, At evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt. And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, for He who hears your complaints against the Lord. But what are we that you complain against us? And Moses said, This shall be seen when the Lord goes on doing this or that. But the one thing is that they could not go out and gather on the Sabbath day. So every day in the wilderness they picked up manna that God would supply. He would give them their daily bread. On the Friday, before the seventh day Sabbath, they were to pick up double. And that's where we get the concept of what we call the preparation day. Just as much as that sailor that's out to sea, moving through the fog, moving through the shoals, has to prepare himself moving towards the guiding light of the lighthouse. You just can't stumble into it. If you're not looking, if you're not preparing, if you're not keeping your eye on what's coming up, you're going to have a shipwreck. And so God said, This is what you will do. Now, what's very interesting in this story of Exodus 16, this time, unlike Adam and Eve, it wasn't just about food, but now he adds the element of time. In the garden it was only about the matter of food and creating a boundary there, but now he creates this boundary of time that you could not go out and collect it on the seventh day. Notice verse 4 here. It says, Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will reign bread from heaven, and the people shall go out, gather it, that I might test them. God does place a test on them and placed a test on us regarding His law. There's no way around that. And I realize that that has been a challenge for many of us over the decades, in a world that is 24-7 and works around the clock, and for us to go in and say, I really love my job, I really appreciate you as a boss, and in this economy I really need to work. But I also report to somebody a little bit higher, and I need to take Friday night to Saturday night off, that I might honor God. It's not about you, it's all about God. And many of us have had to go through that. But the one thing that we want to reach, so you say, well, what am I going to do? I don't know if I can do that. Well, that goes right back to Adam and Eve. I don't know if I can do that. That goes right back to Israel, when God said you can collect and collect, and on Friday you collect twice, but on the Sabbath you won't. You will not go out and do that. What happens is this moves beyond just simply about bread, because the bread back then was merely an instrument. It's about having faith that God will supply your needs. Adam and Eve did not have faith that God could carry through on what he had promised. They had to reach and move beyond something which was a no-no. The Israelites of old, some of them did go out, and they did gather on the Sabbath day. And to them it was disobedience.

So we look at this and we ask ourselves, let's go right back to that. Yes, the Sabbath is a test. Is it about obedience? Yes, it's about obedience. But obedience is a shadow of faith. When we have this challenge of going before somebody, it's not just simply about it's a rule, it's about a relationship of how important God is to you, and that his special creation is still being developed in you. Let's go to point number five. Point number five is simply this. We need to focus. Just as much as that sailor focuses on a lighthouse, we need to focus that God blesses us as we delight in the Sabbath. As we delight in the Sabbath. Again, the Sabbath is delight. Join me, if you would, in Isaiah 58. Let's use the words that God uses about his holy day, and not words that man uses. It's always best to go to the Bible and see what God says about his own word. Sometimes we have people that are critics, we have art critics, we have movie critics, and they can talk all day long about a piece of art on a wall, or they can talk about how a movie was made, but how much more interesting to actually go to the source and talk to the artist, to talk to the person. Susan and I will often not offer, we don't watch that many movies, trust me. But anyway, we will watch something, and Susan will want to push on the 15 or 20 minutes of how the movie was made, the trailers, where you have all the background. Then you get all of the background, and you hear it through the mouth of the director, or the producer, or the composer. And what was behind it, I remember one time we saw one on Andrew Lloyd Webber. I like that name, by the way. Not Andrew, last name. But no relationship. But Andrew Lloyd Webber was describing how he produces music. And it's not only him, it's a whole team. It's like Edison. Edison was an inventor, but he had a hundred men under him, all working together towards any invention. Same with Andrew Lloyd Webber, when he's produced all those Broadway plays. He had an idea, but then he was describing it in his own words. And that's why we have to always go back to the Bible and filter out all of the voices that are telling you what God is thinking, or telling you what God is saying. Look at what God says himself of why he did what he did. Notice Isaiah 58, verse 13.

If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and notice, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, 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.

God speaks of the seventh day Sabbath, not as a burden, not as a fossil of the past petrified in Sinai, but he calls it a delight. The word actually comes out of the Hebrew, which means it's a luxury. It is soft. It is delicate. That's hardly a burden.

And then it says that if you will honor it, the word honor there comes from the word kabed, which means if you will put weight to it, if you will put value to it, and then if you will do these things that I ask of you. You know, it's very interesting. A lot of people try to figure out how to keep the Sabbath. God doesn't speak to a lot about keeping the Sabbath in the Scriptures. Don't let me shock you for a second, all of you Sabbatarians out there. He gives overriding principles, overriding principles, and then he allows us, you and me, to make choices. He says, out of excess, he says, you shall not work. You shall not perform your industrial labor on the Sabbath.

Now, why is that?

Well, that goes to speak of why the Sabbath is a tool of grace and points us to grace. What the Seventh-day Sabbath reminds us every seven days is as we put our arms down and we cease from our industrial labor, we're saying it's not by our works. Are you with me? It's not by our works that we are going to sustain ourselves.

You see, the Sabbath is actually, when you consider it, a tool of grace. It points to grace that our sufficiency and our blessings come first and foremost from God and not by the works. Works? People really like to talk about works. It's not by the works of our hands. The Sabbath is a gift. It is a lighthouse that ultimately points us to the gift of eternal life and relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ in the Kingdom of God. Then it gives these broad principles, then. This is what you shall do.

If you're going to put weight into this, you shall not do your own things. You need to figure that out. Not to do your things. There are many things that are good to do six days a week.

But there are things that you don't do on the Sabbath day. It's like Moses, when he was out in the wilderness and called up the Sinai. I think if you were in the wilderness of Sinai with all those scorpions and gravel, it's probably a good thing to wear sandals.

But as he entered the holy presence of God, he took those sandals aside. Are sandals good? You're nodding. Okay. Talk to human beings out there. Okay, you're nodding. They're good. But when you're in the holy presence, there are some things... I'm not telling you you can't wear sandals on the Sabbath. Don't take this too far. Okay. But you recognize there are things that are good, and there are just certain things that you leave apart from the Sabbath day. The Sabbath is a day to do good. If your activity on this earth is shrinking and not expanding as a Sabbatarian, you have a problem.

Jesus, the Son of God, the one that Mark 2, 27-28 says that He is the Lord of the Sabbath. You see, Jesus, when He came to this earth, did not do away with the Sabbath. He did not abolish the Sabbath. He did not abrogate the Sabbath. He endorsed the Sabbath. He wrote His signature over it. He put His autograph over it. He said, I am the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man, not man made for the Sabbath. People, thinking they were doing God a favor, and actually being more righteous than God, developed legislation for 400 years.

You can do this, you can do that, you can't do this, you can't do that. And so much so that if you sucked in a gnat mistakenly, it was a sin. Somehow, by swallowing a bug, it was work. It probably does take work to swallow a bug. But anyway, if you ran into somebody, and you saw them on the way like the Good Samaritan did, and you saw somebody that was bleeding or hurt, you could go over and pull them away from the ant hill. You could maybe kind of stop the bleeding, but you couldn't enhance their well-being to feel better than they were at the moment, and or that was work.

Okay? Interesting. Therefore, it's not going to move. There's not a spider in it. Okay. So therefore, here's the point that I want to make. Jesus came to this earth and showed us how God would keep the Sabbath if he were a man. Have you ever thought about that? How would God, maybe you've asked that question, how would God keep the Sabbath if he had two legs and two arms? And all you find that Jesus was doing during his earthly ministry, he was using those arms to reach out to others. He was using those legs to walk towards others. He was healing on the Sabbath.

He was doing good on the Sabbath. He was meeting people on the Sabbath. He was about his father's spiritual work. If you're becoming a hermit on the Sabbath, you're missing the point of the Sabbath. Because the Sabbath is not only your relationship between you and God upward, but it's also horizontal as to how you interact with your fellow man. Let's go to the last point here, and thank you for your forbearance. The last point I want to bring to you is simply this. We focus and respond to this bright light of the Sabbath, to a call to assembly with God and with others.

A call to assembly. Join me if you would in Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23, notice what it says here. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, The feast of the Lord, which you shall proclaim, to be my holy convocation, these are my feast. Now, did you notice the pronoun? Considering feast. It didn't say they are the feast of Moses. It did not say that they are the feast of Israel. It did not say that they are the feast of Judah. They are not Jewish festivals of and by themselves. God puts his stamp on it and says, These are my feast. Now, let's then notice what the first one is that he talks about.

When you turn the page here, then it says, These are my feast. And then it goes right into verse 3 and talks about the seventh day Sabbath as a solemn rest and repeats what it says in Exodus 20. It's very interesting when you consider this, that the word feast there is the word mo'ad, M-O-A-D-E, which means an appointment. It means an assembly. It means to congregate. It is a summons to appear. Appear before who? Mr. Sharp? Mr. Sharp? To appear before Mr. Carlisle? No.

It's a summons to appear before God Almighty, where He's placed His name. What do you do when you get a summons in the mail? You know, you've done the old daisy, She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me. So what do we do with the summons? I'll appear, I'll appear not. I'll appear, I'll appear not. Now, it's kind of laughable when you think about it, but when you get a summons from superior court, you better do something about it, or they'll be on your doorstep, rather than you being on their court step. You've got to go into motion, you've got to go into movement. And we have this holy convocation. The word comes out of the Hebrew. It's mai-gra. It means to be called out. It's a meeting. It's inferring an inference of coming together to worship God. The other night in the Bible study that we had at Brenda's home, going through 1 John 1, beautiful verse, where it speaks that our fellowship, our fellowship is with God the Father and Jesus Christ. It's not just simply with us. We're coming into His presence, in that faith and in that same confidence. A confidence of which we will not always understand, just as much as the Israelites didn't understand what the manna was. Do you know what manna means out of the Hebrew? That's it. What is that? It could have been what's going on. And sometimes we can come to church, maybe, because we bring the weekend with us or our latest. And we're in church and we can say, what's going on? Be here because God says to be here. Not because Mr. Weber says to be here. You be here because you have a faith and a confidence that God has called us to assembly. That God has summoned you to have the Bible open, His Word spoken, to have it interpreted. God willing the way He would have it interpreted. To sing praises to God and to interact with one another. Yeah, but I can do that at home. I can talk to God at home, but that's not Christianity. Talking to God is only half of Christianity. Having a passion towards God above is only a part of Christianity.

There are two parts of Christianity. One is passion towards God, and the other is compassion towards other people. And that means, therefore, then what you learn in your passion towards God through your study and through your research and through your prayers is then put into the arena of life as you come into practice of our Christianity, of loving people, loving church people, sometimes even when they're not lovable, but to learn to love beyond that which is coming your way. And then practice makes perfect. And that's why God summons us to come and worship Him, to give Him His worth, and to interact with people of like mind and like heart, and to assemble and to come together. If you want to put it simply, a moat, a mai gré, the convocation, is a demand cause for you to appear before your God. Now, I hope all of this has been helpful to you today. I hope it's invigorated your understanding of the Seventh-Day Sabbath. Do we worship the Sabbath day? No, we don't worship the Sabbath day. We worship on the Sabbath day towards He who is worthy of worship. I have a question for you. Here's a good one, can I? Is the Sabbath day the only day that we worship God? No. God is worthy. There's a song for you. If you've ever heard of songs, God is worthy. We worship God every day. We worship God every day. But God, in His grace and in His greatness, placed eternity into this time of 24 hours to be a guiding beacon, to move us past the shoals of human nature, to move us beyond the fog of worldliness, to move us beyond the siren's song of Satan, and to guide us to the safe harbor of God's kingdom. I remember my mother taught me something when I was very, very young about the Sabbath. It goes like this. God made the Sabbath, and God made me. God blessed the Sabbath, and God blessed me. I remember that for 50 years. There's a blessing. It's a delight. It's a wonderment. It's a guiding light. What is the seventh-day Sabbath?