History of the Christian Sabbath, Part 3

Well, Happy Sabbath once again. What I would like to do today is cover the third of a three-part series that I have been giving on the Sabbath. You may remember that part one was given on November 12th, and it primarily discussed the history of the Christian Sabbath from the Old Testament. And we talked about from the very beginning the Book of Genesis how God rested on the seventh day, and He ordained the Sabbath. And He followed the history of the Sabbath throughout the Old Testament. Then on November 19th, we primarily reviewed the Sabbath in the New Testament. We looked at the example of Jesus Christ. We looked at the example of the Apostle Paul. We looked at scriptures that are used to say that the Sabbath has been done away or somehow has been fulfilled. Well, today we're going to look at some final scriptures about the Sabbath and Sabbath observance for Christians. We're going to take a look at a scripture about the Sabbath being observed in the millennium. And then near the end of the sermon, what I would like to do is talk about proper Sabbath observance in our very hectic and complex 21st century, where we are just bombarded from everywhere. Everything demanding our time, everything pulling at our attention. More than ever before in human history, it's very easy to get distracted on the Sabbath day. But let's begin, first of all, today by going to Hebrews, Chapter 4. If you'll turn there with me, Hebrews, actually we'll begin in Chapter 3. Hebrews, Chapter 3, beginning in verse 14.

Now, because of similarities, I personally believe that Hebrews was written by the Apostle Paul. There are certainly others who have various opinions and who wrote Hebrews. Some say Barnabas, some say it's unknown. But if you look at it closely, I think you find a lot of Paulisms and similarities in the writing. And we're going to pick it up here now in Chapter 3 and verse 14.

Paul is writing, he says, For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. So he says, How do you become a partaker of Christ? Not if you keep your faith a year and an abandon ship.

Not if we do it for five years or twenty years or forty years and quit. He says, We are partakers of Christ. We really have Christ in us. We really have Jesus Christ living in us. If we hold the beginning of our confidence, that is our faith, that is our trust, that is our calling, steadfast to the very end.

Verse 15, While it is said today, if you will hear his voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, for who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all those who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom he did swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. So he brings an example. Here you have all of these Israelites. They left Egypt with a high hand.

Yeah! We're free! High fives! Life is good! Hey, look at this great God brought us freedom. Hey, look at that water departing. We walk on dry land. And we get on the other side, and Pharaoh's army comes and we say, Adios, amigos! God is good! God is great! And the very same people, after a period of time, Waaah! Waaah! Complaining, whining, negative. And worst of all, that's bad, certainly, and worst of all, they became rebellious.

They did not have faith. When times were good, they worshipped God. But when times got tough, when there were challenges, they abandoned ship. So what Paul is saying here is they did not remain steadfast at the end. They lost their faith. They lost their confidence in God Almighty. And because of that, they did not enter rest. Now, in their case, that was the Promised Land. What was the rest that they were looking forward to?

They were looking forward to going to a Promised Land, a place that was there was going to be milk and honey. And you had your own land, and you could grow your own crops, and you could raise your family. That is what they were looking forward to. But it didn't happen for them. The word rest used here in verse 18 is a Greek word called katapousis, and the Greek word simply means to settle down.

So they did not enter the place that God intended for them to settle down. The rest, they did not enter again, was the Promised Land. They didn't get there. They did not hold on to their confidence that God was a living God throughout their entire lives. And what happens in time if we lose faith?

We become unthankful. We become entitled. We become rebellious. And they lost their faith in God's promises as a result of that. They never went to the Promised Land. Now let's pick it up again here in verse 12. Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, so that promise hasn't been fulfilled.

Now for us, it's not just a physical Promised Land. It is a spiritual Promised Land. We call it the Kingdom of God, don't we? That's what we look forward to. He says, the promise remains of entering His rest. Let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the Gospel was preached to us as well as to them.

But the Word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. So they heard a limited form of the Gospel. They heard the message that God is good, that God was going to give them a Promised Land to live in, that they were going to be a model nation. That's what God intended for them.

He was going to give them His laws, His statutes to live by. Now we understand the complete Gospel, the spiritual aspects of the Gospel, but they certainly understood part of it. And because of that, they were held accountable for what they knew.

But He says they didn't mix it with faith. They might have had knowledge, but they didn't mix it with faith. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. If you can smell it, taste it, hear it, touch it, then it's no longer faith. You have evidence then. And you know something's going to happen. Faith is tough because there is no scientific, there is no physical evidence that something is true or that it's going to happen, yet you believe it.

Because why? Because this book says so. That's why. That's what the crux of faith is in our lives. Let's pick it up here. It did not profit them not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest.

As He has said, So I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. Again, this word rest here is from that Greek word, which means to settle down. Now we're going to see how He's weaving this beautiful analogy of rest, settling down and achieving the Promised Land with a certain day of the week. But Paul states that a promise remains for believers to enter His rest.

And understanding the kingdom of God is good, but it doesn't benefit us unless we live it now. Unless people see it in us, in our attitudes, in our lifestyles, unless they see us living the kingdom of God right now with an active faith. Let's now pick it up here in verse 4. For He has spoken in a certain place of this seventh day in this way.

Now, isn't that interesting? He starts out talking about resting and the fact that ancient Israel, that Moses' generation failed to have faith, and they never entered the ultimate rest, the Promised Land that God had for them. And then He weaves all of this in how that rest still remains and how yet there are believers who are entering that rest.

And who brings up and ties this together with the seventh day Sabbath? Is it me? Well, no. It's the author of this book who ties all of this together about the seventh day Sabbath. In this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all His works.

And again in this place, they shall not enter my rest, since therefore it remains that some must enter it. So whatever rest this is, it hasn't been fulfilled yet, has it? Some have entered it, but there remains that some must still enter this rest. And those to whom it was preached did not enter because of disobedience. So going back to ancient Israel, they never reached their Promised Land, which was physical. Will we reach the Promised Land? Will we have the faith to reach our Promised Land? Which of course is spiritual. It's the kingdom of God, not just a geographic nation or a geographic physical piece of land.

Verse 7 again, He designates a certain day, saying in David, today, after such a long time, as it has been said today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. And every day is today. And today, you are being encouraged to be faithful, to hold the confidence that you had in the beginning to the end. Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.

For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not afterward have spoken of another day. So I want you to notice here how Paul weaves this Greek word in that means settle down, translated as rest, into the observance of the seventh day of the week, what we call the Sabbath day. It is this author who is bringing this word together with the Sabbath day. He's saying that those who were part of Moses' generation didn't enter the physical Promised Land because of disobedience.

Will we enter the spiritual Promised Land? You see, the true rest that God speaks about has not yet been fulfilled. That's the Kingdom of God. But those He has called are entering the Kingdom of God. How do you and I enter the Kingdom of God now? Well, He's going to tell us in the very next verse. He's not going to leave us and suspense much longer.

Verse 9, He writes, There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. And there's a problem with that translation, and that is it's a whole different Greek word. The Greek word we were reading up to this point, and the Greek word used for the word rest for the rest of the verses here that we'll read, except in this case. That word, that Greek word, meant to settle down. But this word is significantly different. It's a Greek word, sabbathismos. I'm going to give you quickly four translations that translate this word correctly, unlike the New King James, if you've been reading along with me.

First of all, the New Revised Standard Version says, So then a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God. The New International Version says, There remains then a sabbath rest for the people of God. The Darby's New Translation says, There remains then a sabbatism to the people of God. And Young's Literal Translation says, There doth remain then a sabbatic rest to the people of God. So the author here uses a totally different Greek word that some translations, like the New King James Version, translate as the word rest in verse 9.

But it confuses people because it is intended to be talking about a literal observance of the sabbath. This word, sabbatismos, means a literal and physical observance of a seventh-day sabbath. It means from sunset on Friday night to sunset on Saturday night, you observe religiously a seventh-day sabbath. That's what the word means.

Here's what it says in the Anchor Bible Dictionary. It says, The word sabbath rest, translated from the Greek noun sabbatismos, is a unique word in the New Testament. This term also appears in Plutarch, who is a historian, for sabbath observance. And in four post-canonical Christian writings, which are not dependent on Hebrews 4 and 9, for seventh-day sabbath observance.

So what is he really saying here? The author is saying that there remains, therefore, the keeping of a seventh-day sabbath for the people of God. It's very clear. Verse 10.

Now, what were one of the ways that they were disobedient in ancient Israel when they came out of Egypt? Was it one of the ways they started trampling all over God's Sabbath day? Remember the story of the manna? He tried to teach him about the Sabbath day. And some went out on the Sabbath day and tried to collect manna after they had been told that no double will be given on the day before. They just constantly pushed God, pushed all of his buttons to make him angry because they were disobedient. You know, we can be that way, too, if we're not focused on the right things, if we're not focused on the Word of God. Verse 12.

I've had cuts. I've got scars in my body for dabs and all kinds of things in my body. But nothing hurts like being stabbed in the heart. Let me tell you, nothing hurts like the emotion of being stabbed in the heart, either by something that someone says or by learning something from God's Word. And you say, oh, that's talking about me. I'm so ashamed of myself. That's me that it's talking about. Nothing, no physical cut or bruise hurts as bad as being stabbed in the heart. And what Paul is saying here is that the Word of God is living and powerful and it's sharper than a sword. That's how much stabbing it can do to wake us up, to drive us to our knees.

So let's continue here as we looked at that Scripture. So how do we participate in this sabbatismos, rest, that still remains? Because remember, he says here, there remains therefore an observance of the Sabbath for the people of God. How do we do that? Well, we do this when we observe a weekly Sabbath rest as a reminder of the ultimate rest we look forward to in the kingdom of God, not just for ourselves, but for everyone. We weekly rest from our own labor, just as God rested on the seventh day after he had created the world. So the Sabbath day reminds us of God's grace towards us.

It reminds us every Sabbath of his favor. Now, without going into tremendous detail, the author of Hebrews brilliantly weaves in three analogies very quickly in the Scriptures that we just read. And here they are very quickly. First of all, the first analogy is he talks about Israel's incomplete rest. They didn't make it because of their disobedience and lack of faith. That's looking at rest from the past. Then he talks about the spiritual rest provided through Christ, who's living in each of us.

That's presently resting. And then he talks about how the seventh day represents the anticipation and the restoration of the kingdom for the benefit of everyone, all flesh. That is the future. So we weaves in this discussion of rest, talking about the past, the present, and the future. The conclusion of the author is that as a Christian, we continue to observe the seventh day Sabbath because it portrays God's master plan for each and every one of us. And that plan includes using special time to honor and to worship God.

The Scriptures say that God rested on the seventh day, and we do the same thing. We follow his example. And by resting on God's Sabbath rather than working, we proclaim. And I want you to get this because this is counter to what a lot of our critics say to us. Oh, you people believe in salvation by works. That's why you keep the seventh day Sabbath. That's why you focus on obedience all the time because you believe in salvation by works. And, brethren, that's simply not true. By resting on the Sabbath day rather than working, we proclaim by our conduct that we believe that salvation is a gift by the grace of God, not something you achieve by working.

Okay? So each and every Sabbath day, when we shut down, shut down our secular side of us, we shut down the world and we observe the Sabbath and we rest. We demonstrate by that example that we believe that salvation is a gift by the grace of God, not by something that we do. We are here today observing this Sabbath because we love God, because we seek to worship Him, and we look forward to the return of Jesus Christ and the restoration of God's government, His garden on this earth.

Please don't let anyone take from you the joy that we understand from the complete gospel message. And I'll give you an example of what I mean by that. Every Sabbath reflects the good news, the gospel message. We are now at a period at this time of year when the world, most sincerely, will be honoring what they believe is the birth of Jesus Christ.

But you know that it's only a small part of the gospel they'll be focusing on a little babe in a manger, won't they? And indeed, he was born. We covered that in a sermon recently, and it was an inspiring event. An angel sang that night, the shepherds, and it was actually a beautiful event.

But that's not the full story. That little babe grew up to become known as the Son of God, and he had a three and a half year ministry. And he taught disciples. And he died, and he shed his blood so that you and I could be forgiven of our sins. And he commissioned those disciples for the rest of human man's time on this earth, that they would go throughout the world and preach his message to all nations that a kingdom is coming.

That is the complete gospel. Not simply focusing on a little babe in a manger with sheep and shepherds and a star shining above the manger, as the world does today. You understand a full, complete understanding of what the gospel is all about. And it's weakly reflected on each and every Sabbath day. Don't let anyone take that away from you. We've looked at a lot of scriptures so far, the first two sermons and the beginning of this sermon.

We've looked at a lot of scriptures, and we can find no scriptures or examples in either the Old Testament or the New Testament that abolishes or fulfills the fourth commandment. Remember that the Sabbath is one of the ten commandments. So let me ask this question. Are there any scriptures that say the Sabbath will be observed in the millennium at the time of the kingdom of God?

Let's go to Isaiah 66 and verse 19. Isaiah 66 beginning in verse 19. Now I have to put this in context. This is a prophecy about the millennium. And I'm often asked these questions. It implies that God is going to establish the Levitical priesthood again.

It implies that there will be a temple in Jerusalem. Is that correct? And my response is that yes, it is. God, for his own reason, for physical people, desires to build a physical temple again in Jerusalem and to reinstitute Levitical priesthood. And there are other scriptures that even indicate that he wants to reinstitute offerings. That's God's decision, but there are very strong scriptures talking about the world tomorrow, biblical fulfillment, where God will reinstitute those things again. So let's pick it up here in verse 19. Verse 20.

So here it says that after the culmination of end time events, that God is going to go and he's going to bring back to Jerusalem Jewish people who have been scattered all around the world. And they're going to come back in various ways. You know, airplanes, traveling on horses, whatever mode of transportation, chariots, whatever it takes, they're going to come back to Jerusalem. That's one of the things that God's going to do in verse 21.

So he is saying that some of those individuals are going to be reinstituted again as Levites and priests. Does that mean anything to you and I? No. Because we won't be physical. We'll be part of the family of God.

This is something that God is going to do for the physical Jews that are returning to Jerusalem at that time. Verse 23, So here in this prophecy about the world tomorrow, it indicates very strongly that from month to month and from week to week, all flesh will come and worship before God on the Sabbath day. We see here in this prophecy that in the kingdom of God, all peoples will be taught to observe and respect the Sabbath for the first time in history. All humankind will universally worship God on the Sabbath day. Everyone will worship the Christ, both every Sabbath day. And it indicates that even on the new moons at that time, even though the new moons are not required for us to observe today, remember we are under a different covenant, but at that time these physical people, all flesh will come from month to month and from week to week to worship God.

The prophet Ezekiel also mentions in the 46th chapter of his writings that in the future the Sabbath day would be observed. So those are some indications of the Sabbath being observed in the millennium in the world tomorrow. So here we are. That was a long time ago. We've talked about the past. We've talked about the future. What about right now? What about those of us living in the complex 21st century? We have many things to pull us away from God and the Sabbath, don't we?

We have common everyday things in life. I mean, once we get beyond our physical job and labor on the Sabbath, then there are things like the TV. There's the Internet. There's cell phones. There are email. Social networks like Facebook. And living in a very secular culture. I have to mention something that I think is important because this is just in my lifetime the change that I have seen in our culture. When I grew up as a boy and came aware of life in the late 50s and early 60s, the United States was a religious country. Let me explain what I mean by that.

Now, obviously, I don't observe Sunday, and I don't think that Sunday is the proper day of rest. But in American society in the late 50s, Sunday was a day that was dedicated towards God and towards family. You couldn't shop on Sundays. When I was a kid, there were no places you could go and shop on Sundays because that was considered to be inappropriate on Sunday.

Sundays, primarily, when I was growing up, and I wasn't from a deeply religious family, but even from a cultural aspect, Sundays were a time when you would go to grandma's house and you would enjoy a big meal together and you would spend time as family. And if you were Catholic, you went to church, and if you were Protestant, you went to church. But at least it was a culture that took one day a week and said, this is special time.

We're shutting down our society today, and we're not going to be running to the mall. Now, we're not going to be trying to find another day to spend my money. We are going to honor God. Now, again, they did it in all sincerity, and I don't personally believe that Sunday is the proper day of worship, but at least as a culture, it tried. So what do we find today in the 21st century? We find no appreciation or no respect towards a deity. People shop 24-7. Mark Scoporo was telling me before service that he'd been very kindly calling hotels, trying to find a nice place for us for the Kingdom of God seminars.

He had a few situations where he would talk and he'd want information, and he'd say, well, what's your event? Well, it's a seminar. Where are you from? He'd say, the United Church of God. They'd say, oh. Now, not that they have anything. They don't even know the United Church of God. But you happen to talk about a religious event. You see, that immediately is incredible. That immediately does not have any, oh, you must be religious.

Oh, you must believe in God. That's how far our culture has collapsed in the 50 years since I was a small child. We have just become so secular, so self-absorbed, so materialistic, where everything is bye-bye-bye-bye that Americans no longer have time to acknowledge any designated day to worship its God. We're already in Isaiah 66. Let's take a look at verse 10.

Verse 10. Now, I have to tell you that in context, the prophet is talking to a very degenerate society that has no longer has respect for God, no longer has respect for people, the poor, those who are struggling in society, even the religious people, Isaiah condemned strongly because they had this veneer of righteousness, but their conduct revealed that they were truly corrupt. And here's what God tells the prophet. And I think it relates to the Sabbath day, verse 10. If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight. He says, if you'll stop walking on this day that I gave you as a gift, and you say to yourself, wow, I look forward to this day. This day is a gift instead of, oh, now I have to stop doing stuff for the next 24 hours. Now, I have to talk to my wife. Now, I have to go to church and talk to people. Now, I have to listen to another one of Mr. Thomas' sermons.

He says, if you stop having that attitude, and you look at the Sabbath as a delight, as something that you look forward to, the best day of the week, if your attitude is you come home Friday afternoon, late afternoon, and you've had a long week, and you sit down in your favorite chair, and you say, oh, I'm sure glad the Sabbath is here. God says, that's the kind of attitude that I'm looking for. If you call the Sabbath a delight and a 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. Notice the word own. You know, it's all about you. He says, this is a day that should be all about God. It's not a day that's all about you. Your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord. And I will cause you to ride in the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, the mouth of the Lord has spoken. I'm going to read this, the new Revised Standard Version. Follow with me here.

I think these verses help us, can help us a lot, to differentiate the sacredness of the Sabbath, and what our approach should be to it, in comparison to the other days of the week. You know, there are two types. Basically, in the world, there are two types of interests and pleasures.

Two types. One type is the way of get. It's selfish. It's self-concerned. And the other is the way of give. I'd like to talk about the first type. Here's the first type. It's the way of get or self. I have my personal interests. I have my personal pleasures. And you do too. And God said that these can be enjoyed six days a week, and they include a lot of things. For me, it includes a full day's work.

I get great satisfaction by working a full day. I find fulfillment and satisfaction in hard work. It includes my hobbies. I enjoy tearing computers apart. I enjoy software in the summertime. I enjoy working in my yard. I enjoy growing roses and growing flowers. Those are my hobbies. I enjoy running my secular chores. I run the staples and pick up office supplies. And I do different things during the week that are my household responsibility. Then there's house maintenance, changing filters in the house, changing light bulbs, doing things around my house.

And also during this period of time of my pleasure and my interest, it also includes the fact that I communicate about secular events for those six days. I talk about problems. I send emails to potential clients. I market myself. I solve problems. I do those things for six days. Again, I am welcome to do these things for six days.

These are common activities. As a matter of fact, the Scripture encourages us to enthusiastically work for six days. That's fine. Those are my interests and my pleasures. But there's another type of interest and another type of pleasure. And it requires a sacrifice. Are we willing to be a living sacrifice? Let's go to 2 Samuel 24 and see a comment that David made here that I think ties in so well with this second type of interest and pleasure. 2 Samuel 24, beginning in verse 22. David wants to buy a piece of land. He's interested in future temple. He's interested in doing things.

So he goes to a man who owns a piece of land. Aruna, and he says now Aruna said to David, he goes there and he wants to buy his land. And Aruna said, Let my Lord the King take and offer up whatever seems good to him. Look, here are oxen for a burnt offering and threshing implements and the yokes of the oxen for wood.

All these, O King, Aruna, has given to the King. He says, Sure, you don't have to buy it. I respect you, O King. You don't have to pay for it. Sure, it's a freebie. Verse 24, The King said to Aruna, No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price. Nor will I offer a burnt offering to the Lord my God, which cost me nothing. You see, to sacrifice to God cost you something. There's a very powerful lesson there.

Authentic worship cost you something. It cost you your time. It cost you gas money. It cost you giving up your personal interest one day a week. It means giving up your personal agenda one day a week. One thing about worship is that it's intended to take our minds off of self-centeredness. It is hard to exalt God in yourself at the same time. Real worship means we deliberately take the focus off ourselves, off our interests, off our own personal agenda, and that we stop and we focus on something that pleases God.

And this leads us to the second type of interest or pleasure. Remember, the first type was me. It's about getting. It's about my agenda, my interest, my pleasures. The second type is God's interest and what makes God happy, what honors Him, what pleases Him. He requests that I honor His desires on one particular day of the week called the Sabbath, and He wants me to publicly worship Him.

He wants me to come and fellowship with other people of like mind. He wants me to rest physically. He wants me to spend some extra time with my family. He wants me to get in some additional prayer, and He wants me to dedicate this day to His honor. That's what makes Him happy. That's what gives Him pleasure to see us doing that because on that day we say, God, it's time to stop.

It's time to reboot. It's time to think about You. For six days I thought about me. For six days the world revolved around what I think, what I want, what I desire. And it's good for me to step off and say, stop, reboot, and focus on the great God who made all of this possible.

Have you ever thought about it that way? And even our communication. You know, on the Sabbath day, God wants me to communicate about spiritual things and Biblical events more than the secular, more than, you know, who's running for the president, even though that's fine and in balance. But primarily He wants us to be talking about spiritual things. He wants us to be encouraging one another, to be motivating one another. He wants us to be there for one another and not be focused on political corruption and all the secular cares and problems of this world. Because you can do that Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday until you're sick of it, if that's what you want. But on the Sabbath day is a day to honor God. Say, what is your agenda? What gives you pleasure, dear God? What is of interest to you? And I will do that because I honor you and I love you and I respect you so deeply. And another thing that we can do on the Sabbath day, we read about it so much in the example of Jesus Christ, is we can involve giving special attention to widows or to someone who has a need. Because that's what Jesus did. Jesus had a very humanitarian focus on the Sabbath day. When someone needed healing, when someone needed help on the Sabbath day, He helped them. That's a good thing. But I also might add that doing a good thing for another person is not an excuse to skip worship services and fellowship with your spiritual family. You say, Jesus didn't skip going to the synagogue to heal people. He healed people after He left the synagogue and worshiped. You see, that person was just as sick after He left worship services as they were before He left worship services. So He worshipped. He did what His responsibilities were to honor His Father. And He didn't use helping other people as an excuse not to go to church and not to worship His Father on the Sabbath day. That's how important worshiping God is. Let's go to Mark 12 and verse 28 and see a scripture here in which Jesus talks about commitment and dedication. Mark 12 and verse 28.

It says, That's a lot of alls there. That means completely. Totally. 100%. This is the first commandment. And the second is like it.

We are not always convenient. We travel over long distances. We may be tired. We may be unmotivated. We may be suffering from emotional burnout. But I'm going to tell you the best way that I know of to do exactly what Jesus Christ said right here. I'm going to give you a twofer. You know what a twofer is? That's a twofer one. I'm going to give you an idea of how you can fulfill both parts of this at the same time. You can love the Lord your God and show him that you love him with your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength. And here's the twofer. At the same time, you can love your neighbor as yourself. You know how you can do that? You can come to church on a regular basis. And every time you walk through that door and you worship, you are fulfilling the first commandment by worshiping your creator. And you're fellowshiping with people. You're learning to love your neighbor as yourself.

Let's now go to Hebrews 10 and verse 23. Hebrews 10 and verse 23. You may remember I started out this sermon in Hebrews chapter 3, in which Paul was talking about those who did not hold the beginning of their confidence steadfast to the end. They became disobedient and they died in the wilderness. It says their corpses rotted in the desert. They never reached the promised land. Remember when I talked about that? Let's go to Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 23 and see what I sadly believe is a prophecy about the condition of the church at the end time.

Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 23. He says, He says, In contrast, he doesn't say, He doesn't say, My interest, my agenda, how I'm feeling. No, he doesn't say that. He says, Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching.

The closer you get to the return of Jesus Christ, the more zealous that we should be in assembling together. I can remember many years ago, I will never forget this. I was in Ambassador College, it was probably like 1978, and some, Mr. Armstrong was giving the sermon that day, and some poor sap, who was giving announcements at the Ambassador Auditorium. He walked up, and he had announcements, and one of his announcements is, Now that it's summertime, we will be suspending Bible studies on Tuesday nights, and we'll resume them again in whatever less August or September, and he sits down.

Mr. Armstrong gets there, and you can just see he's read. His jowls are shaken. He's found the podium. He says, I should just cancel this church. He says, those Bible studies will happen if I'm the only one here giving them. He just, he lost it. He just could not believe the casual attitude.

Well, now summertime's here, and the girls are pretty, and the beaches are warm. We'll just do away with Bible studies and catch you next fall. He just exploded in rage, and he read this very scripture. And guess what? He gave those Bible studies, and the hall was pretty well packed, because I don't think anyone dared not show up for Bible studies in those evenings. That is an experience that I will never forget in my life. So, brethren, I have to ask us, how are we doing regarding our commitment to serving one another?

You know, this scripture I just read in Hebrews 10 could very well be a prophecy about the condition of God's church at the end time. Paul states that we need to hold fast to one another. We need to hold fast to what we know to be true and not waver. We need to encourage and we need to motivate one another to develop greater love and good fruit.

Brethren, I can't do these things for you. I can't encourage you. I can't stir you up. I can't help you if you're not here. I am a mere, weak human being. I need your encouragement. I need your support emotionally and otherwise. And you can't help me if I don't show up.

If I just choose I'm going to quit coming. Then you can't help me. You can't have an influence in my life if I go AWOL. We need one another. We need to consider not just how I feel, but the fact that there are other people counting on me. There are other people who need to be stirred and encouraged and loved and motivated.

And that's why he says, let us consider one another to stir up love and good works. I believe we should be finding more ways to assemble together at the end times. We get closer, not less ways. The difference between a church attender and a church member is not some piece of paper that a minister fills out and sends to an organization. Whether it's called headquarters or calls itself a home office or whatever it calls itself. That's not membership. Not in the eyes of Jesus Christ. That's paperwork. But the difference between an attender and a church member is commitment.

Just absolute commitment to observe God's Sabbath, the worship with people of like mind. And I encourage each and every one of us, either here today or listening on the audio tape or the CD, to hear this message and to take it. I'd like to talk a little bit more now about Sabbath observance. I believe the key to Sabbath observance, as in most areas in life, is balance. Now this is real hard because you're being tugged on two sides. First of all, you're being tugged by the extremely liberal people who have a liberal mindset, who believe that the Sabbath really isn't that valuable. Let's just keep it from midnight to midnight. Let's do it our way. Let's keep the Sabbath when we want to. Let's do a Protestant version of Sabbatarianism and we'll just show up for the Holy Days. Instead of Christmas and Easter, we'll just show up for the annual Holy Days. Let's do the Protestant version. So you've got that wing. And then on the other hand, you have a very conservative, self-righteous wing who want to make a hundred rules and want to condemn everyone who isn't exactly like they are. Or don't do things exactly like they do it. And we need to have balance. Unfortunately, the modern Pharisees have no desire for balance because they're self-righteous. And when you become self-righteous, you acquire a chronic, fatal spiritual disease. And that forces you to crave attention. It forces you to create artificial rules about do's and don'ts regarding the Sabbath and every other issue. I'm not going to do that today. And if you think that's what I'm going to do, I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint you. Let's go now to Romans 4 and verse 8.

Paul writes here, The church at Rome, for if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lords. God owns us. Jesus Christ bought us with a price, and that price was His shed blood. And He completely owns us. We are His slaves. We belong to Him. Verse 9, So what is Paul saying here? He's saying in most areas of religious life, stop judging someone else who isn't exactly like you. You have no right to judge a mother man's servant who owns that person, who owns that brother or sister. Jesus Christ owns them. They have to, in Judgment Day, they have to answer to Jesus Christ. And we need to stop judging. We need to stop splitting and re-splitting, and causing all of these problems to ourselves as a people, because of the minutia of constant judging over and over again. Verse 11, So what does this mean? This means that if you are convicted in your mind, that to do something is wrong in the Sabbath, you certainly should absolutely not do it. Paul even says himself in verse 23, So if there's something you feel uncomfortable with, is there something you do not feel good about, then you shouldn't do it. Years ago, I had a man tell me that he would not have intimate relations with his wife on the Sabbath day, because he defined that as his pleasure.

I said, well, you're welcome to your opinion, and if you feel that way, go for it. Well, in your case, don't go for it. And that's fine. I mean, if you want to believe whatever, if you, for example, believe that talking on the telephone is a sin on the Sabbath day, then I encourage you, don't violate your conscience. Don't violate your faith. Please don't talk on the telephone. But here is the key. We have no right to judge or condemn another person because they don't do exactly what we do or what we don't do. There are some very clear teachings. Scriptures teach us we should not ply our trade or occupation on the Sabbath day. We should not be working, whether we're in the service sector or factory job or whatever. I don't know how more strongly I could emphasize in these sermons that the Sabbath is a day of rest, and we cease all the labors of our job and our occupation. But we need to understand that God always expected humanitarian acts of service to be accepted on His holy day. Jesus healed on the holy days. We have people who come in here and set up the hall. They set up food prep sometimes, and we're going to have a potluck. There are people who do things, who work on the Sabbath day because they're serving other people. I work a lot on Friday nights and Saturday mornings to prepare the finishing touches on my sermons. The Levites, they slaughtered animals on the Sabbath day, and that was no easy job being a butcher and slaughtering animals. So we need to understand that there is always a balance. For example, the Scriptures teach us that we should not market ourselves or our profession or our trade on the Sabbath. The Scriptures are very clear about that. Yet, we do live in a secular world. Many people work on the Sabbath day to provide us services in our modern society. Have you ever thought about that? The post office will deliver mail to my PO box today.

Somebody's driving a vehicle. He's working on the Sabbath to deliver my mail. I will have electricity into my home in here today. Why? Because there are people working on the Sabbath to provide that service to me, to maintain those electric lines, to maintain those telephone lines, so that I can enjoy the Sabbath day. There are people working at the gas company. There are a lot of things that people do that I would not do, but I don't live in a perfect world. I live in a secular society. People do things to serve me.

Now, I could go down to my basement on Friday night. There's a thing called the main circuit breaker, and I could throw that. But that would not be balanced. Now, if your conscience says to yourself that no one is allowed to serve me on the Sabbath day, then maybe you should throw that breaker.

If your conscience is going to be violated because someone is serving you on the Sabbath day, then maybe that's something we should consider. I don't have a problem with that. I might also add that the people who work for the telephone company and the post office and the electric company and all those people who serve me are not my servants.

They are somebody else's employee. They're not my servant. I don't tell them what to do. I don't control their time. They work for someone else. So I want to emphasize that. Again, the key, brethren, is balance. You know, sometimes I'll be honest with you. I've been forgetful. Not often, but I've been forgetful.

And I didn't get gas in my car on Friday. And Sabbath morning, I had a choice. Either stay home or drive down to the first gas station I ran into and fill up with gas and get to church and worship God. And I chose to fill up with gas, drive to church and worship God because I'm a human being and sometimes I'm forgetful and I don't always do things in an ideal way.

We do not live in an ideal society. We are not Sabbatarian Amish. We just can't make ourselves totally self-sustained. I suppose there are some who try. There are some on the Sabbath day who won't light a fire in their fireplace because they can go to Scripture and say in their minds that you should not light a fire on the Sabbath. Well, I have a fire in my fireplace virtually every Sabbath because to me that Scripture is talking about industrial application of a furnace, not building a fire to warm yourself on a cold day.

See, that's my faith. That's my belief. But on the other hand, if you feel that it's wrong to build a fire, if you believe that it's wrong to have intimate relations with your spouse in the Sabbath, if you believe that it's wrong to talk in the telephone, then you certainly should not do those things. But please, don't judge other people who do talk in the telephone and do those other things that I just mentioned.

Do build fires in their fireplaces. Let's go to Acts 16, verse 11. I'd like to just talk about balance for a few minutes. I'm not going to go into the details of rights or wrongs regarding the Sabbath. I went through that period in my life. When I was a young man, I was real big on rights. I was big on lists, rights and wrongs, dos and don'ts. The minutia of how everybody should think and behave and act.

I want to talk about principles. I don't want to talk about minutia or doctrines of men. Again, the key is balance, and I think this is a good example of Scripture, of balance. The poll ad. Acts 16, verse 11. Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace. The next day came to Nicopolis from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city in that part of Macedonia, a colony. We were staying in that city for some days.

Here's what I wanted to focus on, verse 13. And on the Sabbath day, we went out of the city to the riverside where prayer was customarily made. And we sat down and we spoke to a woman we met there. So here they come to a great city. Paul is not concerned about a, quote, Sabbath day's journey.

He takes a walk. He leaves the city proper. And he goes down by a riverside. He's taking a walk. And he meets a woman there who eventually, the good news is she becomes a disciple. So here we see that taking a walk in the Sabbath is good. Taking a walk, enjoying nature, enjoying the birds singing in the air on a brisk winter morning if you go out and the world is blanketed with white. And you take a little walk and you see the snow clinging to the roofs of the houses and trees.

And, oh, what a beautiful morning. How inspiring. You see, that's good. But on the other hand, to go and jog five miles to keep in shape, you see, would be out of balance. Because that morphs from what God wants me to do, which is to enjoy his Sabbath to what I want. That morphs from pleasing God to my own interests, keeping shape or my own desires. If you want to know what God wants us to do on the Sabbath day, all you need to do is read the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

That's the kind of conduct, that's the kind of things that God wants us to have in the Sabbath day. I've known many brethren over the years who basically make themselves hermits on the Sabbath day. They don't even want to smile because it isn't godly to smile. One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is joy. We should be in the festival mood on the Sabbath day. Not somber and so, oh, I've got to be so serious because I can't have any pleasure. I can't smile because that might reflect pleasure, might reflect delight.

And that's not what God is talking about. He's talking about delighting and giving him pleasure. We do that when we demonstrate all the fruits of the Holy Spirit. So what about routine activities? Like watching TV, the internet, cell phones, email, visiting social networks like Facebook on the Sabbath. Well, again, the key is balance. First of all, we should not be involved in any of these things if they concern our job, our career, our work. We shouldn't be checking email on the Sabbath.

We shouldn't be dialing and find out if I get any voicemail messages on the Sabbath day. That certainly violates God's teaching. We shouldn't be doing those things. But to communicate with friends or family using the internet, using the phone, using email, using social media, to communicate with your family is fine. That's the balance. The key here is not to abuse the time. If you're doing any of those things, which of themselves is okay, if you're spending five, six hours doing those things and you're not getting any extra prayer in, you're not meditating, you're not getting any extra Bible study in, you didn't say hello to your wife that morning and now it's four o'clock and you're leaving for church, you're out of balance.

So the key, again, is balance. How about something like television? Is it okay to watch TV on the Sabbath? Well, again, the answer is balance. If it's an occasional news or education program, there have been times when there have been very educational programs on a Friday night and I would watch them. I will often watch the news, the evening news, on a Friday night. But on the other hand, to watch the Browns lose another football game, to watch the Indians choke one more time in the bottom of the ninth, you see, that would be my desire, especially to see them lose.

That would be my desire. Those would be my interest. That would be my pleasure. And it would be out of balance on the Sabbath day. When my children were small, we sometimes, on Friday night, would put in a biblical movie. Our children have wonderful memories of watching The Ten Commandments together as a family on Friday night. There was also another family-oriented movie and a Green Gables series. So together there was a lot of great morals and the story of an orphan girl, and we would even watch that together at times on a Friday night.

That's part of our family culture, and if that would make you uncomfortable, then I encourage you, don't do those kinds of things. Because my intent here, again, today isn't to lay down rules of rights and wrongs and good and bad. My intention is to emphasize the sacredness of the Sabbath day, and the fact that we are trying to honor God on the Sabbath. And like any important thing in life, that requires balance. Don't go off the ditch to the left and despise the Sabbath or begin to compromise on it. And on the other hand, don't go off the ditch to the right and begin to create in your mind all of these doves and do's and don'ts and doctrines of men and judge.

Point the finger and judge everybody who doesn't do or keep the Sabbath exactly like you do. Final Scripture, Numbers 6, verse 22.

Numbers 6, verse 22. I thank you, each and every one of you, for coming here today and worshipping God on His holy sacred Sabbath day. And because you've done that, I would like to close the sermon today with a blessing. A blessing that, anciently, Aaron and his son said to ancient Israel, and you are God's people today, you are His first fruits. And I'd like to give this blessing to each and every one of you to end this sermon today. Say to them, it says, beginning in verse 24, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His continents upon you and give you peace. So, brethren, thank you for your commitment to observe the fourth commandment today and to keep the Sabbath day and come here and worship with people of like mind. Thank you for understanding that the Sabbath is a gift of God, needed more than ever, in a hectic world that pulls us in so many directions and tries to make us lose contact with God. We live in a world of perpetual motion where everybody is expected to do it. Thank you for standing in the gap and being faithful. The Sabbath reminds us to stop, reflect, recharge, and to get back to our foundation, which is Jesus Christ. Thank you for making the commitment to do that today, and have a wonderful Sabbath.