Honor the Lord of the Sabbath

Well, good afternoon again, brethren. It's always a delight, always a delight to meet together with you and be able to share a church service, but also to share the time together, be able to fellowship, be able to draw closer together in love.

And I want to talk with all of us this afternoon about a topic that I know is very familiar to you. One that you are actively involved in, really. One that I know that you have probably thought about for years and years and years and years.

And yet, I also hope to add maybe a little bit more to our understanding of this topic. And this is actually a topic that is very familiar.

And I'm not really here to convince you about this, because I think you're already convinced. But again, there may be a little more. There may be a little more to it than what you might have thought.

And I know as I studied the topic, I thought, well, I surely know about this, or I know what this is, or I know what this doctrine is anyway.

But I found that there were some unique things that perhaps have always been known, and maybe are already known by you, but seem to have an impact on me.

And so, I thought, well, perhaps that could also be beneficial for everyone. And so, I want to talk to you today about the Sabbath.

See, all of you are here. I'm not convincing you about anything. I know that you are Sabbath keepers. You observed the Sabbath. You started to observe the Sabbath, maybe as you were brought into the church. Perhaps you did beforehand. I don't know. But see, I think it's important that I remind you, and I hope to elevate your respect for this Holy Day that God has created for us.

See, that's what we find, that God created the Sabbath for man. He created it for our benefit. He created it for our rejuvenation. He created it for our re-creation.

Not recreation so much. Re-creation. A rejuvenation. And I think, as you are busy working throughout the week, the six days that we are to labor, all of us look forward. We look forward to whenever it is.

The sun goes down on Friday night and then through the day and into Saturday evening, we look forward to the Sabbath. And that is very, very rightly the case.

But more than God just having created the Sabbath for us and picturing the future, kind of the Sabbath of rest that is ultimately going to come to this world, that's ultimately going to be known by not only those of us right here, but by many other people, and perhaps all other people are going to become aware of the Sabbath.

They're going to become aware that the Sabbath should be respected and actually aware of even when it is because some people wouldn't know. They simply would not know.

But I also want to point out, I want to highlight a purpose. A purpose of the Sabbath. And that is to honor the Lord of the Sabbath.

See, one of the purposes of the Sabbath, as we observe that from Friday evening to Saturday evening, is not only to delight in the Sabbath, as we're going to read here in Isaiah 58, but it's to delight in the Lord of the Sabbath.

To delight in Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and our Savior, and to be able to keep Him first and foremost in our mind.

We clearly know and see through reading the Ten Commandments that we're to put God before everything else in our life. He is to take a preeminent role. He is to be first.

And certainly the Sabbath ought to help us. It ought to help us if we're thinking about it. And as we're honoring the Lord of the Sabbath, then we ought to be improving in our understanding of how much we need help.

How much we need Jesus Christ to guide and direct and actually to inspire us and uplift us. And that's what we all want. We all need that.

And so it is something that I offer to you today. As we look at the Old Testament, you find that the Sabbath was highlighted to Israel, and at times they kept it.

Now they kept it whenever it was pointed out to them, whenever God sent Manah, in a particular way, he sent it for six days, he didn't send it on the Sabbath.

He said, don't even go out and look for it, because it's not going to be there. He pointed out to them something about the Sabbath that they really didn't recognize or acknowledge.

And so they learned at least a certain amount of compliance. They learned a certain amount of obedience with the Sabbath.

But then most often, you find in the Old Testament, what you find written about the Sabbath is that they forgot. They neglected.

And actually, in Nehemiah, you read about them profaning the Sabbath, because they were just conducting business as usual.

If you read the last chapter of Nehemiah, you find that that's what they were doing. They were ignoring and profaning the Sabbath.

But I'd like for us to look here in Isaiah 58, because this is a focused verse that we have, where actually God is pointing out some of the problems that Israel had.

And He tells them what they should do. He tells them how they ought to reinvigorate their lives.

He tells them, here in Isaiah 58, starting in verse 13, If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, is it your day? Is it our day? Well, it's given to us. It's given to man.

But what this says is that this is my, God's holy day.

And it says to go on, or goes on to say, and call the Sabbath a delight.

So here we see delight connected with Sabbath. We see the Sabbath being to be something to look forward to, something to be thankful for, something to be excited about.

To call the Sabbath a delight. The holy day of the Lord. Honorable.

And then it goes on. It's not only a matter of realizing the Sabbath is to be a delight, and it's to be a, to look forward to it.

But it says the holy day of the Lord, calling that day honorable, and honoring Him.

That's what we're doing when we celebrate the Sabbath, and not just when we come to church service, but whenever, you know, you don't even have to know what the technical time is.

I think it was, I don't know, 607, I think, last night or last week. I can't remember what it is. You know when it is, because, you know, the sun's going down.

I know I was thinking about that yesterday. I think I had looked that up, I think it was 607 yesterday, and I was thinking right about that time.

And I was looking at the sun, and I could say, well, you can tell. You can tell exactly, you know, how it is.

Not that you can know exactly the time, but you just know, you know, the sun is going down, and a different day is beginning.

And that I want to honor that day. I want to be thankful for that day. I want to thank God for giving me that day.

I want to call that day a delight, and I want to call it a holy day of the Lord and honorable, and I want to honor Him.

And in the New King James, it says, not doing your own way, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words.

And in verse 14, it also adds that you shall delight yourself in the Lord.

Not just delight in the Sabbath. We want to delight in what God gives us in this particular law.

But we want to delight ourselves in the Lord.

And He says, I'll cause you to ride on the high places of the earth.

Now, the new Revised Standard Version covers this in a little bit different way, very similar.

It says, if you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests.

I think that's actually probably an understanding that is a little bit easier for me to comprehend, not just a matter of pleasure, because is God against all kind of pleasure?

Well, no, He's not. But keep from pursuing your own interests on my holy day.

If you call the Sabbath a delight in the holy day of the Lord, honorable, if you honor it, not going your own way, not serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs, then you shall take delight in the Lord.

And so, we're told that this is one way that we honor, one way that we respect, one way that we grow in our appreciation and gratitude for God, and more specifically, for the Lord of the Sabbath, as we're going to find in a little bit.

Let's turn back to Exodus 31. You know that this chapter is dealing with Israel, of course.

And in Israel, it was directed that the Sabbath would be a sign between God and the people of God.

Exodus 31, verse 12, it says, It says, And so here, the Sabbath is one day that we observe, one day that we meet on, one day that we delight in.

We recognize that it also can be an identifier. This is what this is talking about, that in a sense, the people of God are going to respect the Sabbath.

And even beyond that, they're going to respect the Lord of the Sabbath.

And that's clearly what we find back here, not only in the Old, but we will be studying here in the New Testament in just a second.

But as soon as you shall keep my Sabbath, this is a sign between me and you.

Given why?

Given in order that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.

He has been given, and of course, in Israel's case, he was setting them aside as a nation that he was physically working with.

But for all of us today, God has called us out of the world. He has called us out. He has called us together.

He is setting us apart. He is sanctifying us.

And as it says, in order that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. See, a part of our observance of the Sabbath, and a part of our celebration of the Sabbath, is to appreciate what God has done.

What He has done in setting us apart, in giving us a certain amount of understanding and knowledge, and be able to enjoy that.

Down in verse 17, he says, it's a sign forever between me and the people of Israel.

And so here he points out just that a part of having this sign between us and God is that we come to know God more clearly.

We come to delight in God, and actually delight in the Lord, like we read back in Isaiah 58.

And so I'd like to encourage all of us today to honor, as we celebrate the Sabbath from week to week, that we grow in an understanding of our need to honor the Lord of the Sabbath.

I'd like for us to start here, first of all, Mark chapter 2, because this is a chapter that includes this direct statement.

In Mark chapter 2, you find an example of Jesus and His disciples on the Sabbath running into a problem.

They ran into a difficulty because they were being criticized for eating some of the corn or grain, whatever type of grain it was, plucking that out of the field and then eating it.

That's what the disciples were doing.

Mark 2, verse 23 starts that section.

And down in verse 27, the conclusion of the discussion is that Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man.

Man was not made for the Sabbath. There wasn't a turnaround there. The Sabbath was made for the benefit of mankind.

It was made for the benefit of each and every individual who would be brought to God, brought to an understanding of how much God means in their life, and who yield to God and who respect God's Word.

See, that's a part of what we all are doing as we respect the Sabbath. We are respecting God's Word. We're drawing closer to God.

And so he said the Sabbath was made for humankind, or mankind, and not man for the Sabbath.

So he says, the Son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.

See, he made that statement. He gave that instruction.

And I think it's important that we acknowledge that, that we honor Jesus Christ as the Lord of the Sabbath every day, that we observe it.

Every week as we come into the Sabbath, that we think about how the Lord of the Sabbath has guided our minds in understanding the need to keep the Sabbath day, but also to understand that it allows me to have a closer walk with Jesus Christ.

Now, I want to back up to chapter 12 of Matthew, because this same account is over here in Matthew chapter 12.

And I want for us to just think about what it is that Jesus teaches in this section more than what we read in Mark.

Here in Matthew 12 in verse 1, it says, So when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.

So here you find a number of things identified. You find several things going on all at once.

Certainly the disciples who were with Jesus were doing something that was apparently out of line compared to what the Pharisees thought.

Clearly, Jesus was also allowing them to do that. He wasn't preventing them or telling them to do something else.

What he said in answer to their accusation, He said to them, Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry, and he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, the showbread, which is not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priest.

Jesus brought up a question that the Pharisees were aware of.

They knew what it said back in the Old Testament. They were aware of what David had done.

I went back and read that, and I thought, Okay, well, that seems like a very small, maybe not well-noted section.

Actually, as I read through that, if I read it correctly, if I understood it right, it sounded like they gave them day-old bread.

They didn't give them the real thing, but they gave them the day-old showbread.

Sometimes, we may day-old bread, you can get it at bakeries sometimes, they have stuff that's discounted.

I don't know if that was exactly what David was running into, but he didn't care.

He said, Whatever you have, give it to me.

And, of course, what Jesus was bringing up was that, well, that wasn't quite kosher either.

And, of course, he was asking the Pharisees, What do you think we ought to do? How is it that you view that? He went on to say, Or have you not read in the Law, in verse 5, that on the Sabbath, the priest in the temple break the Sabbath, and yet are completely guiltless?

He says, There is a certain amount of work that the priest has to do on the Sabbath.

And yet, according to what God says, or how He views it, how I view it, those priests are guiltless.

The Pharisees had nothing to say back.

They had absolutely nothing to say. All they could do was criticize.

All they could do was condemn.

All they could do was to point out the flaws of these disciples of Jesus.

That's what they were really good at. Actually, they were very good at doing that.

And yet, verse 6 and 7 and 8 are really what I want to get to.

Jesus said, I tell you, something or someone greater than the temple is here.

I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple.

Now, who was He talking about? Of course, He was talking about Himself.

He was talking about the fact that He was the Son of Man, He was the Son of God, He was the Lord who had dealt with Israel in the Old Testament, the Lord who had given the Ten Commandments to Moses, the Lord who was the Lord to be honored and delighted in on the Sabbath.

And of course, all the Pharisees could do was pick at Him.

All they could do was criticize. All they could do was condemn.

And so He very rightly said, Yet I say to you that in this place there is one who is greater than the temple.

And He says in verse 7, if you had known what this means, then you would not be condemning the guiltless.

He actually said His disciples were not guilty of anything.

They may have not followed the tradition that the Pharisees wanted them to follow.

But according to what Jesus had said, and if they were with Him and they were respecting Him and honoring Him, He was telling everyone else, they are guiltless.

But He says, if you have known what this means, that I desire mercy.

I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

See, that very simple statement of what Jesus was pointing out was that there are some things that are far more important than whether I happen to pick some grain on the Sabbath.

Now, He's not saying the Sabbath shouldn't be observed.

He actually is saying completely the opposite. The Sabbath should be observed.

But perhaps the way that the Pharisees viewed it and how they were so intrinsically set on all the little do's and don'ts of what should be done, that they missed the big picture of honoring the Lord, of delighting in the Lord.

They clearly weren't doing that.

And yet, brethren, that's what we're asked to do. He says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

If you really understood that, that you would not be condemning the guiltless.

See, that's actually what He pointed out to them, that your attitude of criticism, your attitude of condemning, your attitude of looking down on others, your attitude of simply always trying to point out flaws.

Now, that is horrible. That's despicable. And He went ahead to say in verse 8, For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

And see, brethren, that's what we want to keep in mind. If we're going to honor Jesus Christ as the Lord of the Sabbath, then we certainly want to fall on the side of those who are learning to be merciful.

Those who are learning. See, how do we view others who do not keep the Sabbath?

Well, for the most part, I view them as simply not knowing that they ought to.

Not having been brought to an awareness that that's what they should do.

But clearly, those of us who are doing this, we're following the Sabbath.

We don't want to be condemning others. We don't want to be condemning each other, either.

We want to understand and come to understand the mercy that is extended to us.

And to come to understand more and more who the Lord of the Sabbath is and how He needs to live His life in us.

That's the first point that I'd like to mention.

The second thing regards, it starts back in Exodus 20.

Again, from a listing of the Ten Commandments that we have here in Exodus 20.

See, what else can we learn about honoring the Lord of the Sabbath?

Well, in Exodus 20, verse 8, it says, Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

But the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God.

And you're not to do any work.

And in verse 11, it says, For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that in the midst.

But He rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and He hallowed it or consecrated it.

See, here we find in this particular account of the Ten Commandments, a connection between the Sabbath, looking back to creation, and looking back to the Creator, the one who had brought into being the reformation of the earth. Because that's what we read about in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. We look back to Genesis 2, the first few verses.

Genesis chapter 2, it says, Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude, and on the seventh day God finished the work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all the work that He had done, and He blessed the seventh day, and He hallowed that day, because on it God rested from all the work that He had done in creation.

See, here God is pretty clear. He's pretty explicit about the seventh day being the Sabbath. Or actually, next to this 20, it's very clear. It mentions the seventh day, and then it mentions hallowing the Sabbath. Here, it mentions the seventh day to be blessed and to be hallowed by God. We're following God's example. We're following God's pattern. But see, what we read in Exodus 20 actually points us to the fact that we are respecting and honoring not just the Lord of the Sabbath, which we are, but we're also respecting not only the creation, but the Creator.

See, I think I've mentioned to you before it's important. It's important that we always remember our Creator. It's important that we remember that we're created beings. That God breathed into Adam the breath of life, that each and every one of us have been given life. We're not autonomous. Any time we fast, we find out how puny we are. It doesn't take very long. It doesn't take just a few hours and you start feeling a little bit shaky or a little bit weak.

At least I do. Actually, I'm finding that that's more the case today than it used to be. When I was young, I didn't have too big a problem fasting. I thought, this is not that hard. And because it didn't affect me a whole lot, I was pretty strong and I could do it.

But anymore, I find, I'd better think about this a little bit more. Because it brings to mind my limitations. And it shows me that without food and without water, over just a very short period of time, I'm kaput. I'm just down the drain. And certainly, even after you fast for a day, or if you did fast for longer than that, I'm sure that would point out very quickly how limited you are. But see, a part of what we should do on the Sabbath is to remember that it is a reminder of creation and that to honor our Creator, maybe that should be a part of our prayer.

Maybe we would have that as a reminder every week to be able to remember. See, that was Satan's problem, or Lucifer's problem, where he rebelled against God. How did he get to that point? That is just almost incomprehensible to almost any of us, perhaps.

How would he forget? How would he ignore? How would he be no longer reminded of the fact that I am just a created being, and I have been created to honor the Great God. See, he was given every advantage. He had every talent, every ability available.

He was given authority over a third of the angels, and yet, I would assume it probably very gradually – this is one thing Tom Robinson up in the Fulton congregation up there was telling me this morning – he has lots of ideas about lots of things as far as how they came about, but he was saying, I think it has something to do with it evolving over a period of time, and maybe many, many years, many, many longer period decades, not just decades, but maybe thousands of years, and I don't know how long the earth has existed prior to the time of Adam.

But undoubtedly, Lucifer probably thought about this, and it probably gradually grew to be something where he ultimately would choose to defy God. He would ultimately choose to reject his Creator, and no longer be in submission to the Creator, but actually defy the Creator with the rebellion and actually encourage a third of the angels to follow him.

See, that's taking your eyes off of the fact that you are a created being and that you exist because of God, because of his blessing, because of his breath of life, and because he wants us to worship him as the Creator. See, that's what Jesus is.

He's the one who brought this world into existence. He says he's the Lord of the Sabbath. We want to honor him as that. We also want to honor him as the Creator, because he was the God of the Old Testament who was working with Adam and Eve, and later Noah and Moses, Abraham and later Moses, later the children of Israel, David. He was working with them, and yet we want to be reminded that he was the Creator.

And certainly, one thing we can remember here as we read this, the seventh day being the Sabbath, it's not just any seventh day. We can't start counting on Tuesday and come up with Monday being the Sabbath. You just can't do that. The weekly cycle, the seventh day, is a particular day of the weekly cycle, the seventh day. You even find that not only here, but you find it confirmed in the New Testament where at Jesus' death, the women who came to work with him right at the end of Luke 23, it talks about them resting on the Sabbath day as they followed the commandment.

And then, on the first day of the week, the next day, they came and found that he was already gone. It's very clear that the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath day, even though some people perhaps would dispute that, but I hope that most of us would agree that that is the case. And that we are honoring the Sabbath day and honoring the Lord of the Sabbath as we celebrate this day each week. The last thing, or I guess the third thing at least, that I want to mention is that we want to honor the one who delivers us from bondage.

See, in Deuteronomy 5, we have another account of the Ten Commandments and another directive about the Sabbath. It's a little different. It doesn't mention creation. It doesn't mention the Creator. It says, in verse 12, observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You shall not do any work.

In verse 15, it doesn't give the illusion like we read in Exodus about creation, pointing back to creation and pointing back to the plan of God in that regard. It says, remember, in verse 15 of Deuteronomy 5, remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. And the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

Therefore the Lord your God commands you to keep the Sabbath. Why a little different reference? Well, it still points to Jesus Christ. It still points to the one that we are to honor. It still points to the one that we are to respect. And I can very clearly show that to you. Of course, you're familiar.

And we can read it here in Romans 6. See, all of us have been bought with a price. All of us have been bought with the price of the blood of Jesus Christ. We have been brought out of our spiritual bondage. Here in this case in Deuteronomy, it mentions having been brought out of slavery in Egypt. And of course, that is clearly a type of what all of us have been brought out of as we are brought into an awareness of our need for God and our need for forgiveness of our sins.

Here in Romans 6, verse 16, do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But it says in verse 17, thanks be to God, thanks be to God that you, having once been the slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you are now entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become the slaves of righteousness. Brethren, all of us have been brought out of spiritual blindness. All of us have been brought out of spiritual slavery. We have been enslaved to sin, and certainly we have to struggle against sin. But that's not a way of life for us any longer. We're striving to obey, we're striving to honor God, and we're acknowledging when we fail and when we fall short.

But see, Jesus Christ, in His sacrifice, is the one who empowers, the one who enables us to be forgiven. And I think it's amazing. It's amazing when we look at the Scriptures here in the New Testament. I want us to turn to Luke 4, because this is, again, a chapter you would probably go to if you were wanting to prove something about the Sabbath.

Because it talks about Jesus observing the Sabbath. It talks about Jesus preaching and teaching on the Sabbath. And so that would be a likely place that you might go to explain to someone or to talk about the observance of the Sabbath as you do in your Christian life.

Here in Luke 4, verse 16, when He came to Nazareth, where He'd been brought up, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was His custom.

That's a verse I'm sure you probably have highlighted in some way in your Bible, because it talks about the custom of Jesus Christ. It wasn't something You just happened to do that particular day. It was something He ordinarily did.

In respect to the Sabbath, but also in reaching out to the Jews who were in the synagogue. That's what He was doing. And if you turn back to page 836, it's the next page in my Bible. Oh, down in verse 31, it says He went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and He was teaching them on the Sabbath.

They were astonished at His teaching, because He spoke with authority.

So it wasn't just that He happened to do that in Nazareth, that He went to the next city and He did the same thing. He was still observing the Sabbath, but I think it's interesting to see what it is He had to say.

See, maybe even more important than to see, okay, well, He was observing the Sabbath, or He was reaching people and preaching to people on the Sabbath.

What did He have to say?

Here in verse 17, again of Luke 4, on the Sabbath day in Nazareth, Jesus stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him, and He enrolled the scroll, and He found the place where it was written.

And so here we find Jesus teaching Isaiah 61, verse 1 and 2.

What did He have to say?

What He preached was that the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

See, now that was only a part of what it says back there in Isaiah 61. But as you go ahead and see it says, in verse 20, He rolled up the scroll, He gave it back to the attendant, He sat down, and everybody looked at Him. Because this was not something that was an ordinary thing to be preaching or teaching, and He went ahead to say in verse 21, today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

See, what was Jesus Christ sent to this earth to do? He was sent to this earth to provide a sacrifice for sin. He was sent to this earth to release the captive and to give sight to the blind. He was sent to the earth to preach the good news to those who need that good news so much.

See, He was sent to deliver people from spiritual bondage. And that's what He had to tell them. In verse 22, all spoke well of Him and were amazed at His gracious words that came from His mouth. Now, I don't think they really received what He had to say, but they had to be impressed with what He was saying.

And so, should we honor the Lord of the Sabbath? Should we honor our Creator? Should we honor the one who delivers us from bondage? Jesus Christ? I think the answer to that is clearly yes. If we look to the book of Acts, Acts 13, you find several examples here in the book of Acts where the Sabbath was being observed.

And so, in the book of Acts 13, in verse 42, it says, As Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people urged them to speak about these things again the next Sabbath. And when the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews in devout converts of Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who spoke to them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.

And so here, this is what Paul was talking about. This is what Barnabas spoke about in verse 44 in the next Sabbath. Almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. See, what did they need to hear? What did those people need to hear on these Sabbath days where Paul and Barnabas were preaching to them and teaching them, and they were actually finding this somewhat intriguing? Well, if we back up to chapter 13, verse 32, we find exactly what Paul was teaching. He says in verse 32, We bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors, he has fulfilled for us their children by raising Jesus Christ from the dead. See, this is what he was preaching to them. He'd already given them a good amount of information, kind of leading up to that point. But he says, we bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors, he is fulfilled by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, by raising him to be our Lord, by giving him, once again, the prominence that he had with me before the creation, before the physical creation that he was involved in bringing into existence. And down in verse 38, he says, Let it be known to you, my brothers, that through this man, forgiveness of sin is proclaimed to you. By this Jesus, everyone who believes is set free from all the sins, their sins, from which they could not be freed by the law of Moses. See here, amazingly, this is what Jesus was saying, I'm the one who can release you from spiritual bondage. I'm the one who has that authority and capacity. This is what Paul was teaching them. He said, you need to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. You need to believe the power that comes with the Son of God. You need to understand that it's through him. Your sins can be forgiven. If we go on to chapter 17, we find a pretty similar thing here. Chapter 17, verse 1, Paul and Silas were passing through. And Phippilos and Apollyon and they came to Thessalonica and there was a synagogue of the Jews.

And Paul went in as was his custom. And on three Sabbath days argued with them from the Scriptures. And so here, again, Paul's custom was as Jesus' custom was. These are verses you would normally use to show that the Sabbath ought to be observed. But I want to point not only simply to that, but to what it was they were teaching on those Sabbaths. See, actually, Paul was trying to convince the Jews about something out of the Scriptures. And it says in verse 3, he was explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead. And saying that this is the Messiah, the Christ Jesus, whom I am proclaiming to you.

See, not only was he on the Sabbath doing this work, he was proclaiming the Lord of the Sabbath. He was proclaiming the forgiveness of sin. He was proclaiming that they could be brought out of spiritual bondage. And again, I think we want to be acknowledging that as well.

And of course, a similar thing is mentioned here in chapter 18 when he went on over to Corinth. Again, another verse that we might use to say the Sabbath was being observed. Verse 18, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And of course, what we find, we look over in verse 10, that there were many in that city that God was going to draw.

Many that God was going to bring into being a part of the church. Part of the people who would be called out and who would be given an understanding of the truth of God. But here we find, as Paul was working with Priscilla and Aquila, it says in verse 3, that they were of the same trade as Paul. He stayed with them and worked together. By trade, they were tent makers.

And in verse 4, it says, every Sabbath, he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince the Jews and the Greeks. Do you know what was he arguing about? Well, the same thing he was contending over in the other cities. That forgiveness of sin is available through Jesus Christ, our Lord. See, that's why I say, I think we should honor the One as we recognize Jesus Christ as the Lord of the Sabbath and as the creator of the universe, as our creator individually, and the One who delivers us from bondage.

You know, those are, I think, significant things about our respect of the Sabbath. When we're told to delight in the Sabbath and to delight in the Lord of the Sabbath, those things should come to mind. Those things should be a part of what we recall. And then the final thing I want to mention is over in Hebrews 4, because we have a section here, of course, that also mentions the Sabbath.

And it points to the fact that the Sabbath looks beyond this world. It is, in a sense, the Promised Land. It is, in a sense, the seventh day, the thousand years after the six thousand years of man's rule, the thousand years of the rule of Jesus Christ on earth. Ultimately, He's going to bring this rest to the entire world. Here in chapter 4 of Hebrews, starting down in verse 8, if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later about another day.

So then a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God. For those who enter God's rest also cease from their labor as God did from His. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one may fail through disobedience as they did. This is, in many ways, an encouraging statement, because when you read through from verse 1 on down to where we are there in verse 11, you find that, in thinking about the people who didn't go into the Promised Land, the reason they didn't go into the Promised Land was because of their disobedience, but it also says in verse 2 that their concept of God did not involve faith.

And brethren, our concept of God has got to involve faith. It's got to involve our adding to respecting the Sabbath, obeying the Sabbath, but having faith in God. Faith in God that He's going to intervene in world affairs. As we watch the Middle East torn apart, Mike and I were talking as we came back this morning, how the whole world just seems to be, it seems like Satan is just agitating people.

You find unrest in Egypt, in Bahrain, in numerous other countries around the Middle East and around Israel. You find up in Wisconsin whatever anger and unrest is going on there. You'd find different levels of unrest and dissatisfaction and anger and hatred against one another.

It almost seems like people are just being stirred up and inflamed. And we might also think, well, we can pray even more thoroughly that God will bring an answer to that. He'll bring an intervention in world affairs, which involves the rest. Not just that we enter into as Christians today, but as the whole world can enter into a time of rest, a time of peace, when the Kingdom of God can be established here on this earth.

We read about that in Isaiah 66. Isaiah 66 is the last verse or two of the book of Isaiah. It's kind of a summary of what Isaiah had to write, and of course he is often giving a vision of the world tomorrow. You read through many different chapters in Isaiah that talk about the coming Kingdom of God. They graphically describe transitioning into a new era, the rest that God has promised. And yet it says in verse 22, As the new heavens and new earth I will make, may it shall remain before me, And shall your descendants in your name remain, from new moon to new moon.

In verse 23, From Sabbath to Sabbath all flesh shall come to worship before me. As the Eternal. Ultimately, everybody, so you might feel alone today, your neighbors probably don't keep the Sabbath. They don't understand that there's an important thing going on here. As you respect the day, as you delight in the Sabbath, as you call it an honorable day and a holy day of God, as you honor and delight in the Lord of the Sabbath, as you're honoring and reminding yourself of your creative status, as you are thankful that Christ has given us forgiveness of our sins and brought us out of spiritual bondage, and that ultimately He's going to bring the entire world out of the spiritual bondage that it is enslaved in right now, and is laboring with, and it seems like it's almost a gasping for breath.

Thankfully, the new world is coming, and the result of that is going to be all flesh will come to worship before me. That's the time that we look forward to. That's the time that we're reminded of on the Sabbath. I hope that we will, all as we celebrate every Sabbath, remember it's the Holy Day of God that He has designated and set apart for us to respect and observe, but that we will also, very clearly and maybe even more, with more understanding, honor the Lord of the Sabbath.