The Ebenezer Stone

What I want to talk about today in the sermon is, you know, we all know this. It's very common for human beings to build monuments. Monuments to famous people in the past, famous events, right? I've seen the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. And they're built to remember those things. Every little town has some statue to some person or some event to help create that town or that city in its history. We also build monuments to inspire people for the future. And one example of that is the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was supposed to inspire people when they came to the United States, because at that point we were a nation of immigrants. Millions of immigrants were coming into a nation that was, a lot of it was empty. And of course there was a legal process they had to go through to come into the country. And they would come by and see that statue, and Ellis Island was there where they would come in and have to meet the criteria to come into the country. Many people were actually sent back to where they came from, mainly because they had diseases. They would not let them in. Now, the Statue of Liberty is very interesting in that the original color was bronze. I mean, it shined, it looked like it was gold from a distance. It turned green from oxidation. In 1986, the 100th anniversary of it, they scraped, they got some of that oxidation off. And when they did, the U.S. government was always finding ways to make money, they scraped a little bit of that bronze off of there, melded it down, made it into two statues of the Statue of Liberty, set it up in a space shuttle, so it went through space flight, brought it back, put one of them in the Smithsonian, I think it's the Smithsonian, took the other one, melded it down, and for ten dollars, you could get this little piece of bronze that came off the statue. And I hate to admit it, but in 1986, I spent ten dollars and got one. It's like, man, I got a piece of the statue. I still have it in my office someplace. This little piece, the Statue of Liberty, a wee little thin piece of bronze. I did show it to my grandkids because they were amazed by it, because they were amazed by the color. And you see a picture of the Statue of Liberty, it's not the same color. So we do statues to inspire us for the future. So we put these things up, these statues, not necessarily statues, I mean Washington Monument, sometimes they're just plaques. We put up these plaques, these statues, as memorials of the past and to inspire us about the future. Well, there is a stone set up for a memorial in the Old Testament that I want to look at, and then apply it as an analogy for something we can learn today. Go to 1 Samuel 4. This is a time in Israel's history where King Saul had turned against God, the entire nation was not following God, and they were being oppressed by the Philistines. Philistines were a sea people that had come into what is now Gaza, they had settled five cities there, and they were a warrior people. And now suddenly they find themselves confronted, as they had now for hundreds of years, by the Philistines. Samson constantly fought the Philistines, and they were very warlike people. So, Samuel tells Israel that unless they repent, God is not going to protect them. So it says, in the word of Samuel came to all Israel. That's the first part of chapter 4, 1 Samuel. The rest of the verse says, now Israel went out to battle against the Philistines and it camped between Ebenezer and the Philistines, it camped at Ethech. So they camped beside Ebenezer and the Philistines camped at Ethech.

And so, this Ebenezer is a very interesting word. It's a place. No one knows exactly where that place is today. It must have been a town. It doesn't exist today. But they know about where it exists. Because all these events are going to happen in these next few chapters, they know about where it existed. And the Israelites camped outside that place. Now, this actually became a name that was used in Israelite families, that they would name their sons this.

And it's from two words that are mixed together, two Hebrew words. Ebene, which means snow or stone. So you have, I say Ebene. I have a hard time pronouncing these words because I can pronounce them in English. I think it's Ebene in Hebrew. So it's Ebene.

In English we say Ebene.

And Azar, or we say Ezer. It means the stone of help.

The stone of help. In other words, it's a monument. A monument of help.

So we have this place called the Stone of Help. And they camp there. And they are going to fight against the Philistines. And they have a battle against the Philistines and they lose. So they decide what they need to do is bring the Ark of the Covenant to the battlefield. Because the Ark of the Covenant had been with them ever since the time of Moses.

The Ark of the Covenant had been designed by God himself. It is where God came down in his presence in the ancient tabernacle. And they still had a tabernacle in Shiloh. There's still a tabernacle in Israel. And that same Ark of the Covenant, which is hundreds of years old, is there. Inside it are two tablets containing the Ten Commandments that Moses brought down. And Aaron's rod, which this dead piece of wood continues to bloom all the time. And jars of manna, all inside this box. And it's covered with gold. And it represents the very throne of God.

And they knew that. They knew that on the Day of Atonement, the high priest went in that Holy of Holies, where this was. It was the only time you could go into and appear before this representation of the throne of God. And so what happens here is the Israelites decide, you know what we need? We need God's throne with us. So they bring it out, and they bring it with their army now and confront the Philistines again. All the Israelite soldiers cheer, and the Philistines believe that they find out that the Ark of the Covenant is there, and they're afraid. I mean, they're absolutely terrified. Verse 5. And when the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came to the camp, all Israel shouted so loudly that the earth shook. And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What does the sound of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean? Then they understood that the Ark of the Lord had come into the camp. So the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God has come into the camp. And they said, Woe to us, for such a thing has never happened. Woe to us, for who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? They are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. Now, interesting enough, the Philistines knew that hundreds of years before, this Ark was where God came to and led the Israelites out of Egypt. And they are absolutely terrified.

But the two armies square up, and the Philistines win.

They kill the two sons of the high priest, Eli. Eli's sons, they kill both of them. Eli dies when the news hits him. He falls backwards off his chair and breaks his neck. He's a very heavy man. Israel loses the Ark of the Covenant. The Philistines take it. Now, there's an interesting part of this. We're not going to go into this, but Israel never repented. They never went to God and said, we repent. You don't have them turning to God for guidance and help. It's a superstition. God's in the box. Bring the box with us and we'll win. And the Philistines, being pagan, believe the same thing. Oh, they're God's in the box. They bring the box and we'll lose.

And the Israelites lost. God wasn't with them, and God didn't help them. Well, the Philistines were to find out in a very hard way what it meant now to show disrespect to the God of Israel. Because every place they took that Ark, people broke out in tumors. People were dying all over the place. And then they had rats. Just plagues of rats all over the place. And every place the Ark went, you had tumors and rats. And after a while they said, that God is unhappy with us, so send it home. Well, actually the first thing they did is they took it before the God Dagon, which was the chief God of the Philistines, and left it in front of a statue of Dagon overnight, came in the next day, and the statue had been knocked down and broken. So they said, okay, we don't want it in the temples. He seems to beat up our God, so we got to get it out of there. And they moved it around, and finally it's like, send it back. So they put it on a cart, got some oxen, and they just let it go. The oxen blocked off and took it back into Israel.

It's interesting that it goes back to Israel, and they go back to the place that they got it from, or the oxen do. Let's look at chapter 5, verse 1. Then the Philistines took the Ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.

So they took it from... I'm ahead of myself here. This is when they took it from the battlefield. They took it to Ashdod, and that's where they brought it before Dagon, and he ended up... their God ended up being destroyed. And so they send it back, and it goes back to Israel. And then in chapter 7, it comes back, and let's look at verse 10.

So it comes back to Israel. They now have the Ark. They don't take it back to the tabernacle. It's in some man's house. It's left in some man's house because they don't know what to do with it. It went there. Everywhere it went, people died. Nobody in Israel is sure they want it into their village, so it just stays there. On this man's property. But now it's back in Israel, and Israel cries out to God.

Samuel says, look, God's with us again. He sent it back. God's telling us something. So verse 10. So they do sacrifices to God, and Samuel cries out to God, please forgive us, please help us, please give us deliverance from the Philistines. Now, as Samuel was offering up the burnt offerings, verse 10 of chapter 7, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, but the Lord thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day, and so confused that they were, that they were overcome before Israel. So now they've actually repented. They've turned back to God, and because of that repentance and because of that turning back to God, God's with them again.

And the Philistines come, and before Israel can even go out to fight against them, the noise, the thunder is so loud that it just scrambles their brains. They're absolutely in confusion. Because there has to be a lot of fear here, too. We know what, wherever that Ark of the Covenant goes, wherever that box goes, that God curses people.

We set it back to the people that it belongs to. Now we show up to fight them, and there's a supernatural event. So the fear had to be tremendous. And the Philistine army just collapses. Verse 11, And the men of Israel went out to Mitzvah, pursued the Philistines, and drove them back as far as Bethkar.

Then Samuel took a stone. Okay, so they, God is with them now. Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mitzvah and Shem, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, Thus far the LORD has helped us. He set up a stone of help. And this is where this name really captures a powerful part of this story. He said, This is the memorial. It's probably a very large stone. And they put it in the grounds and be there a long time. And he said, This is a remembrance of God's help.

This is a remembrance of what God has done. So he has a memorial, just like we have statues. It also has a future intent. Because it is to remind people that God will help them in the future. So it's just like the Lincoln Memorial, the Statue of Liberty, has both intentions. But it is a memorial. It's very interesting where you look at where he placed this.

It was in between where they lost the first battle and won the second battle. So I'm sure what's written on there is the whole story at that time. At this point, we failed because we did not have God's help. And at this point, we succeeded because God gave us the victory. Because he helped us. And this, the name of the stone now, the name of the place, is the stone of help.

Now, that's a nice story. It can be a little bit inspiring. He said, okay, what does that mean to us today? There's a lot of ways to have memorials. It can be, like I said, a stone. We can have, and we call them memorials, at a cemetery. We have a stone that reminds us of somebody. And sometimes you will find on there, we'll meet the Lord in the air, or something that's on those stones, which is actually talking about the future.

There are days that we do that. I mean, that was the original intent of Thanksgiving. Sort of a not-so-perfect example of the memorial, but there's a lot of things in there that aren't exactly true in the old Thanksgiving story, but there's some. So you have something happened in the past, and something that's looking towards the future. And it has to do with God being with people. So we have days that are memorials. There's a day called Memorial Day, right? So we have, yes, stones of help, but we have days that act as days of help to remind us, you know, halfway in between the defeat here and the victory here.

You and I have a memorial established by God that we're here keeping today. And what's interesting is when the commandment was given, and it was given twice, it tells them, those people who first received it, what their memorial is. Let's go to Exodus.

I mean, I told the story in 1 Samuel. That wasn't a bait and switch. Here's the story. Now I'm going to switch the subject. No, this is to show how here's an ancient memorial created to remind people of what their failure won, and then when they did receive God's help, what happened.

There are other memorials. Now we don't have that memorial. That stone was destroyed a long time ago. Now maybe someday they'll find it. You know, they do find a lot of—it's amazing what they have found in Israel, archaeological proof that so much of the Bible is true. A study of biblical archaeology shows there's all kinds of things that historians said that didn't happen.

They've proved it's happened. The history of Israel that's in the Bible, that's pretty much proven. Babylon existed, Nineveh existed, because they found these places. In some cases they have found mention of Israel in other places. And the interaction between them that you find in the Scripture. So we have a memorial.

But I want to talk about this day as our Ebenezer, our stone of help. A memorial that looks at the past and looks at the future. Let's go to Exodus 20. We read this—you've read this many, many times. But let's look at it in a specific way. And that is, what does this day commemorate when the Israelites are first given knowledge of this day?

We actually have a whole lot more knowledge and understanding of this day than they did. Jesus himself taught all kinds of things about the Sabbath. So we have a lot, actually, deeper understanding of the Sabbath than they did. But he says, verse 8, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. It is the only commandment. It starts with Remember. Remember this. This is a time of remembrance. This is a time of remembrance. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. It is set apart by God for God's purpose.

This is different than any other day. I fear sometimes we take it too much for granted. We take this day for granted. We don't take for granted Thou shalt not steal. We can be very particular about making sure we're not dishonest. We don't take advantage of anybody. But how do we approach this day? It is holy. That means God set it apart.

But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. For any who should do no work, you know your son, know your daughter, know your male servant, know your female servant, know your cattle, know your stranger who is in your gates. So this is a day that we're supposed to rest. We're not supposed to do our regular work. We're not supposed to, as well, we could go through all kinds of other scriptures.

You know, this shouldn't be a day of merchandising and going to the store and shopping and doing all those kinds of things. And then He gives them sort of what they are doing. This is what they're commemorating. For in six days, verse 11, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

He made it different than any other day. And He says, because it commemorates creation, this day commemorates God as Creator. It commemorates us as creation and the relationship between the Creator and the created. Isn't that interesting? He starts, here's what you should do for, this is the reason, because this is a memorial, remember it, it is a memorial of who I am, God says. I'm the Creator of everything there is. Sometimes you ever wonder, I ask God, help me understand you just a little bit more.

Help me understand you just a little bit more. And the other day, late at night, you know, this is 11 o'clock and my brain is dead, I'll turn on YouTube and just watch something. And I'm watching a scientist explain why Einstein said there were ten dimensions. You know, we live in four, and it's all we can understand. I've often wondered, how in the world can I understand the other six? You know, I can only understand the four I live in. And so he was a mathematician, he was showing how they can prove by math that there's another dimension, because there's things interacting with each other, but they can't prove it to any other science.

They can't prove it mathematically. And then he said something that I sort of turned it off and thought, I don't know, I'm just brain, my mind is blown because of that. He said the problem is, he says, let's take God. Oh, okay, no, I'm interested. God lives in all ten dimensions. Well, that would have to be true. What would it be like if you lived in all ten dimensions to deal with someone who is limited to four? That's a good question. He said, what if there was a living person who lived in two dimensions? Now that's impossible, but let's just make it up.

So they're basically a cartoon character. They're a two-dimensional cartoon character. And there's other two-dimensional cartoon characters, and somehow they're communicating with each other on a sheet of paper. They can't leave where they are. They're stuck there. And the person who drew them takes an eraser and erases something in the picture. Since that was three-dimensional, all they would see is things disappear. They wouldn't even see the eraser. And I'm thinking, I know this is theoretical, but that would have to be true.

If you can't see three dimensions, you couldn't see the dimension which is three-dimensional that's coming into any erasing. All they would see is things disappear. And he said, now, that's the way we live in. God interacts. We see things that he can do. He can heal somebody. How did he do that? Well, he was right there anyways. And he did it. And his point was, he was a scientist, but his point was, boy, do we limit God.

This is why God could be sitting on a throne in a literal dimension and with his spirit be everywhere at the same time. Because he lives in all dimensions. And I didn't say that. You're all thinking, man, that's boring.

What in the world is he talking about? The point I'm making is, for a few seconds, I got, oh, man! And he was like, yeah, maybe it's best I don't try to understand you that much, because this is so beyond me. He interacts with what we call miracles. It's child's play. It's just child's play to him. He can do all this. And so we enter, he comes in and out, and that's why what's so amazing about Jesus Christ coming.

He left those other dimensions and came here to be like us. And then went back. And the guy entered the talk. I turned off and I said, no, I gotta watch. I went back and watched. He entered the talk. Remember, he's a mathematician. He wasn't minister. He said, you know what amazes me about this? Is in John in the New Testament, where John says, or writes, and when we're changed, we will see him as he is.

Which it's impossible for us to see him as he is now. Because we will enter into this way beyond what we are. We'll just stick figures in this universe that God lives in. I mean, we know there's angels probably in this room, right? And unless they interact with us, we don't know that. And we shouldn't ask them to interact with us, right? We know there's demonic beings in this world. They interact with people all the time, coming in and out of our existence.

This is the Creator, folks. And we're here to remember Him, and He made all things through Jesus Christ. So it's the remember of the Father and the Son. We're here to remember that greatness. We take it for granted. We take it for granted. We drive around in cars, we have air conditioning, and we make fun of the ancient people who worship nature. Because we don't worship nature.

God tells us not to worship nature. Why did they worship nature? Because they had no explanations for anything. And our explanation for many things is we know there's a God, and He's doing things. He's personally involved. He's personally involved in your life. And He created all of it. You know, now they've found with this new telescope, they've gone out to what they thought was the edge of the universe, and found out that most theories about the universe aren't true.

In fact, a large number of astronomers are now saying the Big Bang Theory never happened. Because if it did, if this all came from one explosion and went outwards, what happened when you get to the edge of it? It would be a decaying place, moving outward. It's not. They got to what they thought was the edge of it, and there's new galaxies being formed.

And they have no idea how that could even happen. So there's just really crisis in that community. How do we explain certain things anymore? Welcome to the mind of God. I don't know...they can't explain it. Oh, they've come up with a number of different theories. Of course, I don't know how you prove any of them. But they're trying to find theories to explain what they're seeing. Welcome to the mind of God. This day is supposed to bring us back to the Creator. That's what he told ancient Israel. Now, how long is this day?

You know, there's always this...how can you people go from sundown to sundown, and not from midnight to midnight when you count the Sabbath? Because they started at midnight. Well, they starting at midnight are arbitrary. It's been around for a long time. I'm trying to remember. I think it started in ancient Egypt a long time ago. It's different societies accepted it. But we know in the Scripture, if we go back to Genesis, because here it tells us...Genesis tells us where the Sabbath started. So let's just go back to Genesis 1. It talks about how God began to create the heavens and the earth, verses 1 and 2. He creates light.

He says the light is good, and it separates the light from darkness. Now, my grandchildren will ask me things...now, they haven't asked this, but I wouldn't be surprised if I don't get it at some point. Okay, before God made light, how could he see? I get questions like that all the time. God doesn't need light to see. No, no, how does he see?

God doesn't need light to see. He doesn't have eyes like we do. Our eyes are created things. God doesn't have eyes like us. He doesn't need light to see. I can say that, but because my reality is that I can't explain it, except He's not like me. He's a Creator. He didn't have to create His own eyes. He didn't have to say, you know, I've lived in darkness all this time. I'm going to create some light.

Well, then how do you figure out what light is? I mean, it just becomes bizarre, right? I have to have cones and rods in my eyes, and then I can see. God doesn't need light to see. He created light, and it says He separated darkness from light. Well, now we get planets and suns and moons and all kinds of things happening. So He says, let there be light, and there was light.

He separates it from darkness in verse 4 and 5. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. Now, those are specific words in Hebrew that mean light time and dark time. So He called part of it dark time and part of it light time. But then He says something very important here. He says, so the evening and the morning were the first day. The evening and the morning were the first day.

Now, you don't have to know a lot of Hebrew and Greek. I may someday just do a Bible study, an universe-sabbath Bible study, showing how to use the simplest Bible word dictionary and the simplest concordance. Because if you can do that, you solve a lot of problems. Just know how to use the concordance and know how to use the simplest dictionary. It doesn't go into complexity of words. All words are complex, right? The word run in English has like 50 different usages. You can run in your hose, a runny nose. You can run your car. You can run a race. You can run out of gas. I mean, all these usages. But the simplest dictionaries will just tell you, here's the primary use of this word. You can have other meanings. The word here, evening, means, well, according to all Hebrew dictionaries, it's the time when light diffuses.

You notice in, we're told about the Passover, it's between the two evenings. You know, before the sun goes down, it's getting dark, isn't it? I looked out the couple, last week sometime, I looked out the window and said, man, sundown has really changed. She said, well, it is earlier than it used to be, Gary, but there's a huge storm coming. So I looked out the window the other way and it was like, oh, there's dark clouds. So the sun was being partially blocked. But you know, as you're watching that sun go down, even on a clear day, it's getting darker while it goes down, right? After it goes down, it's still partly light.

That's why it says there's two evenings. And that's what the word literally means. It's when the transition is taking place. So sundown is a marker of time, but the evening here just means, so there's a transition where it gets dark, and then you have another word that means the morning, which means when the light comes, when now there's light. So there's a transition from light to dark, and then there's a point where the light comes. And there's light.

I'll show you. Just a couple places. I won't even tell you the Hebrew words because I'd butcher them anyways. Job 7.

There's a few Hebrew words I know, but you have to really get that kuh sound, you know, to really say it. So let's go to Job 7.4.

And you can see by the construct of the sentence, even in English, you have to be able to explain something. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise? And the night be ended. If I have my fill of tossing till dawn. So when I lie down, I can't sleep at night. I'm tossing and turning. And I think, When's the dawn going to come? But you know, the word night there isn't the normal Hebrew word for night. You know, what we read in Genesis, you have the day and the night, the light time and the dark time. This actually isn't that word. It is the word evening. So when the sun goes down, I'm tossing and turning, waiting for the sun to come up.

So morning, or I mean the evening, is that transition time that leads to darkness. So sometimes the whole night can be called evening. Because, but the transition time is the specific time of evening, because there is a different word night. This is used in Hebrew. Then you have the word that says morning. Let's look at Ruth 3. There are dozens. In fact, I got so caught up in this yesterday, I spent like an hour just looking at words for evening and morning. Because it's like, wow! Because sometimes you're not translating exactly the same.

So let's go to Ruth chapter 3. Now I only bring this out because there's something that I haven't heard here for, well I've never heard in the time I've been here in past, but it comes out every once in a while, that there are people that say the Sabbath begins at sunup. And then that becomes this thing. No, here, let me show you where it begins at sunup. The Hebrew words don't let you come to that conclusion. And no one who knows Hebrew, because I looked it up in Jewish commentaries, not just the dictionaries, they all say, well, this is what the words mean. So you can't make up a meaning of a word from a different language. Ruth 3, verse 13.

Now this is where Ruth goes in and lies down at the feet of Boaz, right? Because he's gone to sleep. He's been working all day and he goes to sleep. He wakes up and here she is laying at his feet. And she explains, I'm here because you're the next of kin, my husband's died, according to the law, you should marry me so I can have a child. And he, being a good man, didn't take advantage of her. He said, no, there is a man that actually is closer relative than me. So according to the law, he should be given first choice. But you know through the story by this point, these two were, there's some sparks flying here, okay? But you know, he just, but then he says something here, he says, Stay this night, and in the morning it shall be that if he will perform the duty of a close relative for you, good, let him do it. But if he does not want to perform the duty for you, then I will perform the duty for you as the Lord lives, now lie down until morning. The word morning there is the same word that's used in Genesis, the morning and the evening.

For the evening, the morning, I'm going to put him in the right order. Evening in the morning.

Obviously it's night. Obviously he's asleep. Obviously he says stay because the elders get together in the morning, in the daylight. They don't meet in the middle of the night. So in the morning, when the elders of the gates come together to do all the legal things that they would do every day, I will talk to them in the morning. It can't be sun-dowed. It has to be sun-up.

And then after sun-up, because sometimes the whole day could be called morning, like the whole night could be called evening. But they did have a term for day and a term for night.

But here specifically he's saying stay till the sun comes up. Don't go wandering around out there.

And then you go back home and algo could talk to the elders of the gates. So the word has to be sun-up. So when you go back, I just bring this out because there are no reputable Hebrew, people who know Hebrew, that says the Sabbath starts in the morning, starts in the evening. Days are from sundown to sundown.

Now, there's something that makes very important I brought out before that I believe, personally I believe this is one of the most important things that we do not emphasize. And in the church of God we have not emphasized it much. I mean, we know it. We know and we teach all the time, every year, that Jesus wasn't resurrected on Sunday morning.

Over and over and over again. And you can find now Protestants who agree with us. There's a Baptist who has just done printed a Bible with notes, and he's famous enough that people are buying his Bible with notes, you know, study notes. And as he study notes, he proves that Jesus wasn't resurrected on Sunday morning.

Because he puts it together. Okay, hey, we got to be wrong here. So, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is important, right? There is no salvation without it. So when was he resurrected? Towards the end of the Sabbath.

Now, when you stop and think about it, God creates the Sabbath day. It carries out this plan of salvation.

The Passover was instituted not just to have Israel commemorate coming out of Egypt, but to commemorate the coming of the Messiah who would die as a Passover lamb, right? So that day is fixed. That day is marked. That day or that ceremony is commanded.

The 14th day of the first month is commanded because that sacrifice is absolutely necessary.

Well, the resurrection of Christ was absolutely necessary. That's why we have a seven-day Sabbath. It's all part of the plan, and he was resurrected on the seventh day. We should shout that from the top of every building. We do commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, not on some pagan day, but we do it every single week on the very day he was resurrected. Boy, this Sabbath, you think about that, that means this Sabbath, when he instituted it and rested on that day, it was already put in motion that Jesus would be resurrected on that day.

So this thing, when people say, well, you don't believe in Jesus because you keep the Sabbath, I mean, I understand where they come from with that, but it shows a remarkable misunderstanding of Scripture, a remarkable misunderstanding of Scripture.

So we're here commemorating the Creator and Jesus as being resurrected, as part of this plan. Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 5.

I had thought about covering some Scriptures about how we should keep the Sabbath, but to tell you the truth, if we understand this, it is going to truly motivate us to consider how do we keep the Sabbath, not because we're trying to set up a whole set of Sabbath laws. We'll have our own Talmud here. That's not what we're trying to do. But we have to understand why God created it. This isn't just something, you know, when you look at the Passover and the Holy Days, God did not create them at creation. This day, He created at creation. It's an integral part of creation because it is when He said, this day you and I have a special relationship, God says. We have a special relationship with God on this day, and first is because He's Creator. We understand God created all things through Jesus Christ, God the Father created all things through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was resurrected on this day. This all fits together now. There's another reason. When He gives the Ten Commandments a second time, God gives them another reason for doing it. Deuteronomy 5.

Verse 12, observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Then verse 13 and 14 are basically very much similar to the first time He gave the Ten Commandments. The second time, the Commandments are the same, but He adds something to it. He doesn't distract or detract from what He had already done. He now adds something to it. And remember, oh, it's a memorial. This is another memorial day, or another reason for this memorial day. Another reason for this monument, another reason for this stone of help He gives us. And 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. Remember the help God gave you when He took you out of your slavery and started you towards the Promised Land. Not only is it a memorial day of the past, but like the Statue of Liberty, it's a memorial of a future. The first time He said, I'm your Creator. I brought you out of Egypt, and here we are. And this day was created at the very foundation of creation. It was created when I created human beings. The next day I created the Sabbath. And now He says to them specifically, when you keep this day, remember the journey you're on. Remember where you came from, and remember where I'm taking you.

When we come here, it is not just to say, oh, I'm a Sabbath keeper, and it's one of the Ten Commandments, and you know, it's a day I don't go to work.

My, the guy, I have a guy this summer I've been using to mow my lawns since I've been gone so much. So he wasn't able to do it because it was raining. Then he texted me and said, I'll be there Saturday. So I wrote back and said, nah, that's okay, you know, come next week. So he came the next week, and he had to go a little bit out of his way because he has a rout, and he had to go out of his rout a little bit to do my lawn. I said, I appreciate this, I really do. I said, but I pastor a church that keeps Saturday as the Seventh-Day Sabbath, and we don't hire people to do work for us like this on the Sabbath, and I wouldn't mow my own lawn on the Sabbath. He said, oh, okay. I thought he's probably gonna say something weird, no problem. I'll just, I'll never be here again to do it on the Sabbath. I'll just let you know. Just let me know when you want it done. Okay.

Because it is a special day.

Now, there is one time, I remember, we hired somebody to come to our house on the Sabbath because we were in Texas. It was a terrible rainstorm, and the water was literally running down the chimney into the house, into the fireplace. It's like, I can't fix that. So I did have to hire somebody to come do it, so our house didn't flood.

That was the ox and the ditch, right? There is a provision for something that's happened beyond your control and will be destructive. You don't want the ox to die, so you can save it. In this case, the flooding of the house would have been terrible. We did hire somebody on that day. So once again, I just bring that out to say, we can't get to the place where Pharisees, we have a thousand things we can't do. There are certain things that happen that the Bible gives us a little leeway in.

Because it's the way God is. Now, you go hire somebody to put a new roof on, and you don't need a new roof at that moment. Of course, they didn't. It was just a little patch. It didn't take them long to do it. But he went up there in the rain. I'd have killed myself. I'd have fallen off the roof. In the rain? He got up there in the rain, fixed it, came down, so it went.

He charges hardly anything.

So it is a memorial of what God has done for us and where He's taken us. You and I lived in the slavery to sin. Satan was our Pharaoh. We talk about that at the Days of 11, bread every year. He took us out of that, and when we come here today, He says, remember that. Remember where you were. Which brings us back to Christ being resurrected on this day. And He says, now remember where I'm taking you. He was taking them to the Promised Land.

So that message that's specifically tailored to them applies directly to us in a grander way, because you and I aren't going to some place in the Middle East where they have date, nice date trees and vineyards, and that's not where we're going. We're going into the Kingdom of God to be changed so that we will see Him as He is.

Which I imagine will scare us to death.

It will probably be absolutely overwhelming. Not just fear, but all of who God is.

Samuel raised a stone of help, a memorial between two battlefields. I say, God didn't help us then. God helped us here. Let's always remember our need for God. The stone of help. The Sabbath is, in a way, an Ebenezer stone for us. A memorial, a reminder of the past and the future. It is a memorial of God's unfathomable genius and power as Creator.

It's a good time on this day to take some time.

It's hard for us to even, you know, I go out and sit on the back porch to watch the birds. But after about five minutes, I'm doing this.

I've got things to do. On the Sabbath, we should commune with God by looking at His creation.

We should commune with God, not because He's in His creation. He made it. And said to us, look what I can do. And we're supposed to say, wow! But, you know, after watching three action hero movies, God could perform the opening of the Red Sea, and we'd just say, that's pretty good. We're so inundated with this stuff that we're missing what God's doing. So it's a day to remember Him as Creator, and Jesus Christ as being resurrected on this day. And then it's also, we know from the second time the command was given, a reminder of God's great work and history in our lives now. He took ancient Israel out of Egypt by destroying Egypt, and He's taking them toward the Promised Land. He says, remember that every time you keep the Sabbath, every time we keep this day. Remember where we were, and how God has called us and worked with us. Some of you, some of you God worked with since you were born. Remember that. God's worked with you to take you where you are. And then you're here to celebrate that, and you're here to celebrate a whole other reason that the Sabbath is tied into, but we don't have time to cover today. And that is, the Sabbath is a type of the Millennial Rule of Jesus Christ on Earth. But that's the subject for another sermon.