Keep the Sabbath Holy and Make It a Delight

I was 16 when someone first told me that Saturday was the true Sabbath. It goes back a little ways. And at that time, I was observing Sunday because it was what I had learned from my parents. I say I was observing Sunday. We observed it the way Baptists often do, and that is usually we didn't go to church. And usually, we might go once a year or twice a year, Easter and on Christmas. But when I first heard that the Sabbath was on Saturday, the truth is it almost instantly registered with me.

Because I had been studying the Bible enough to know that the fourth commandment commanded that the Sabbath be observed. And, you know, keeping the Sabbath wasn't a convenient thing for me at that particular time because I faced opposition from my parents. I don't know if any of you have faced that kind of opposition, where what you were doing your parents were sorely displeased with. But at that time, I had parents that didn't want me to observe the Sabbath. Later on, of course, they softened their approach toward that, but early on it was not an easy proposition.

As well, the next year, my employer asked me to work on Saturday. And so I was tested on the Sabbath almost right away. And I faced losing my badly needed job because I refused to work. I remember one day, again, the employer came by, the boss came by and said, I want you to come in on Saturday. And I explained to him I wouldn't be able to do that. And he basically said, if you don't come in, you're fired. Well, it was a 72-hour standoff from Friday to Monday. And I prayed very, very hard about it and went in anyway. And God intervened for me and the boss backed down.

And I was able to keep my job. And as a result of that, I was able to go to college with the money that I made during that summer and be able to finish that particular year. There were numerous other challenges, and I've mentioned some of these to you, that I faced concerning the Sabbath and concerning the Holy Days at work and college at Northeastern State University. And so I know what it's like to begin to keep the Sabbath and to be tested on it in those ways. And I think we've all heard of stories of members in the church on how they first began to observe the Sabbath.

I must admit that when I began to observe the Sabbath, I was very, very careful, almost afraid to move, because I thought it would be breaking the Sabbath. I can remember spending, in fact, all day long when I was at Northeastern State University in the room, studying the Bible in my dorm room. And there are many stories about how people stayed in their rooms all day for fear that they would break the Sabbath.

And a few even spent much of their day in bed, because they thought the Bible says that you should rest on the Sabbath. And so some people actually stayed in bed all day long and didn't do much other than rest. And some felt it was wrong to rinse a dish in a sink on the Sabbath. Some felt it was wrong to have a fire on the Sabbath to heat food, and cold food was the order of the day.

How many of you know of people that went through that? I know people that did that, and they were just afraid to do anything on the Sabbath. You know, frankly, though, I don't hear of anyone starting out that way anymore. Maybe there are people that are still very careful like that, but I don't hear about that anymore.

And these things happen mainly because people are isolated from the ministry. They don't have anybody to talk to. And so they had to read the Bible, they had to study the Bible, and they came up with their own conclusions about it. And that was the only way that they could know. And that is to study the Word of God themselves, and they had no one to help them, no one to guide them in the way that they should go. And, of course, as understanding, I know as my understanding increased, so my observance began to come more in line with the intent that God had for the Sabbath, and the keeping of the Sabbath.

I think that's true of everyone, that they learn more and more, and they begin to understand how to keep the Sabbath, and do better at fulfilling the intent that God has for this holy time. And we come to see the Sabbath not as just a day of don'ts, don't do this and don't do that, but we see it as a day of do's as well.

Let's go to Exodus 20. I think that it's very fitting that we go to Exodus 20 in verse 8 over here, because this is the commandment. This is what the Bible commands is over here in Exodus 20, where God thundered His commandments from the top Mount Sinai to the children of Israel. And here, of course, if we had heard the voice of God speaking this, we would know He met business about these commandments. He wouldn't have whispered them to Israel, or they wouldn't have ran away, and they wouldn't have been afraid.

But in verse 8, notice it says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And again, God would have thundered that. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Eternal your God. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger which is within your gates.

For in six days the Eternal made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rest of the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. He made it holy time, in other words.

So He says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now, brethren, you can't keep something holy that has not already been made holy. It's impossible to keep something holy that has not been made holy. God hallowed the Sabbath. He made the Sabbath holy. You know, you can't again keep something holy that is not already made holy, no more than you can keep something cold. Somebody hands you a cup of cold water and they say to you, Keep it hot. Well, you can't do it, can you?

It's impossible to do that. So the Sabbath is holy time made so by Almighty God. And so He made the seventh day holy. Now, the implication here in Exodus 20, brethren, is pretty plain. We are to rest from our weekly labor and work. That's, I think, pretty clear, isn't it? Not only us, but our maidservant, our manservant, the stranger that is within our house is supposed to do the same thing.

And we read that Scripture, those Scriptures, in that commandment that God has given. So we don't allow servants, we have power over to work on the Sabbath day. But the Scripture doesn't just say to refrain from doing anything.

It doesn't say that we are to refrain from working and laboring, that which we normally do during the rest of the week. So it's a change of what we do on the Sabbath day, but it does not tell us that we should not do anything. Some people have misunderstood it, you know, and laying in bed all day long and sort of kicking back the whole Sabbath day. The command is to keep it holy proactively, to keep it holy proactively. It includes what we do as well as what we should not do. You know, it's possible, brethren, that we would not be keeping the Sabbath if we just simply slept and been all day long, in other words. So it's a matter of what we do on the Sabbath as well that keeps it holy.

When Jesus Christ went among the people of His day, the Jews of His day, the Pharisees focused on the don'ts about the Sabbath. No, don't do this, don't do that. And remember, brethren, the commandments are not a list of ten don'ts. You know, sometimes people view the commandments as being negative, but they are really not to be looked upon as being negative.

We should recognize the commandments are written in two forms so that we would understand that. That they're very positive in their approach. It does say, in the commandments, do not steal. But remember, it also says, honor your father and your mother. Very positive. So the reason why this is put this way in the commandments is so that we will understand there are two aspects.

Do not steal. What is the positive of this? To be honest as a person. In other words, you could go to the other side of the pendulum on it and see the positive side of it, but it's two different forms that it has expressed in. It says, do not lie or bear false witness. And then there is, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. So, proactively, keep it holy in our lives. It's not good enough just to strive to avoid sin, but we must proactively be striving also to do good on the Sabbath day. We can break the Sabbath by refraining from doing some things on the Sabbath day. One cannot keep the Sabbath by just resting, as I've already said.

We have pointed this out before that there are what are called sins of omission and sins of commission. The sins of commission are those sins that we commit. We know we commit. The sins of omissions are those things that we omit doing that we should do. In other words, the many things the Bible says, you should do this and you should do that. And if we omit doing them, then we can sin in the process. Certainly, if we understand and know what we ought to be doing as God's people, then we can be sinning in the process. Let's go over to John 5. Like I say, the Pharisees looked at the Sabbath with a list of dos and don'ts for the most part. And this is why they had a problem judging Jesus Christ right and left. They watched him like a hawk to see if he was breaking the Sabbath in some way. Let's notice here in John 5 and verse 1, and we'll go down to verse 15 here. But it says, after this, there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches. And it says, In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water. Then whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. What a long time to be sick and have experienced problems, physical problems, this way. And when Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be made well? And the sick man answered him, Sir, I have no man to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. But while I'm coming, another steps down before me. And Jesus said to him, Rise, take up your bed and walk. And immediately the man was made well and took up his bed and walked, and the day was the Sabbath. So here it was on the Sabbath that this miraculous thing had taken place. It's kind of interesting if you think about it. Here all these people were gathered around this pool. What was the purpose of their being there?

When the angel moved the water that they would jump in and they would be healed. Right? And so here he had done this on the Sabbath day. This man had not stepped into the pool, and he healed this man. And the Jews, therefore, said to him who was cured, It is the Sabbath. It's unlawful for you to carry your bed. And he answered them, He who made me well said to me, Take up your bed and walk. And then they asked him, Who is the man who said this to you? Take up your bed and walk. But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn a multitude being in that place. It was like, obviously, Jesus Christ had not made his face clear to the man. Maybe he wasn't even focused upon the man, Jesus Christ. And that looked at his face, even. He was more interested in the pool movie. And so he didn't know who he was, according to what this is saying. And afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, See, you have been made well. Send no more, lest the worst thing come upon you. And the man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who made him well. And so he told them who it was that it had done this thing. And so Jesus heals on the Sabbath and tells them to pick up his bed and walk, and he is dramatically healed. Let's go on down through here. And for this reason, the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him. Here he had healed somebody on the Sabbath day because he had done these things. In verse 17, Jesus answered them, My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.

Therefore, the Jews sought all the more to kill him because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. And so Jesus was accused of basically working on the Sabbath. You know, we know that that would have been something that they did not want him to do on the Sabbath, to heal. And Christ did not deny that he was working on the Sabbath. You know, right here, in fact, we see that Jesus Christ came for the purpose of doing the work of God. Now, this is why he came. So Christ did not deny he was working on the Sabbath, quote-unquote. I'm sure none of us would probably look upon his work if we were anointed and we were dramatically healed of something. But Jesus was, in fact, doing a work, was he not? And, you know, what Jesus Christ, of course, we see as we read some of the other things written about Jesus and what he does in healing on the Sabbath, is he claimed that certain types of work were appropriate for the Sabbath. There are certain things that are appropriate for the Sabbath. To heal somebody is appropriate for the Sabbath. You know, the preach on the Sabbath is appropriate for the Sabbath. And, you know, when one speaks before congregation, that's work, isn't it? Energy being expelled. And, you know, oftentimes our ministers, as you know, not only speak once on the Sabbath, but twice. Sometimes, you know, I've been to certain circumstances where I've spoken four times on the Sabbath. We end up doing a Bible study in one church area and a sermon and then go do the other church area and do the same thing.

And so it can be a pretty labor-intensive thing. But Jesus Christ talked about how some things are appropriate to do on the Sabbath day. Let's go over to Mark 2. Mark 2. By that, by the way, he wasn't saying that to go out and, you know, apply your trade on the Sabbath, nothing of the kind.

He was talking about, you know, doing good on the Sabbath day. Mark 2. And down in verse 27.

Mark 2. And down in verse 23.

Here it says, And he said to them, Have you ever read what David did when he was in need and hungered? He and those with him. How he went into the house of God in the days of Abathir the high priest and ate the shobred, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him. And he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. You know, if somebody asks you, When is the Lord's Day, you ought to say the Sabbath. Because Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath. He's not the Lord of Sunday, as some in the Protestant world says, but he is the Lord of the Sabbath, as we see here. But the Sabbath was made just for man. It was given for man. If something is specifically made for you, it should fit, shouldn't it? It should be comfortable for you. The worst thing in the world is to wear a pair of shoes that don't fit. And even worse is to wear a pair of underwear that don't fit. I'm just being facetious here about it. But maybe not so much if you have...if I've got six brothers, you know, so I know what that can be like. It can be a tough thing. But, you know, when something fits, it tends to feel good. It feels good to us.

When I was a senior at Ambassador College, a Hong Kong tailor came through town, as he did each year. And anyway, came through it, and he would come to this campus, and he would sell suits to the young fellows that were there.

And if you could get several students to go to this get-together, which usually include beverages and snacks and things like that... ...wasn't...was it just to be fitted for a suit. But you could get a complimentary suit. Well, I didn't have much of a wardrobe when I was at Ambassador College. I bought my sport coats from the Goodwill, by the way, or, you know, thrift shops.

And I remember I had one coat that was...it was a wool coat that was so hot. Down in Texas, I'll tell you what, I could have a sauna on any Sabbath that I wore that thing. And I wore that, by the way, when I went to the field ministry, as well.

And I had that sport jacket, I think it might have one more, that I could use from time to time, as well. Well, whenever I got all these students together to buy...and they bought suits, the Hong Kong tailor gave me a suit. And it was fitted for me. And, you know, how they measure and all of that. And anyway, that suit fit me better than anything I had ever worn up to that time.

And, you know, it felt good on me. And I wore that suit, by the way, it served me well in the ministry. I think I wore that suit up until the time that...sometime after my wife and I got married. And she started feeding me, and then I couldn't fit into the suit. And then it didn't fit me anymore. But then I think I gave it to somebody else, and they wore it for a while until their wives fattened them up, and they couldn't fit. But in the same way, the Sabbath fits us, brethren. It's just perfect for us. You know, it is something that is so important to us and fitting us.

It allows us to achieve our purpose for existence. Without the Sabbath, we couldn't do that. It would not be possible for us to achieve our purpose in life without the Sabbath day. And it meets our needs. Look at the world today, brethren. And how the world is going around 24-7. People work, work, work, work, work. And they do not have a spiritual aspect to their lives. And look at the problems in this country. The problems of marriage, the problems with mental problems that people experience, and it goes on and on. And it's an item. The kind of problems that come because men do not have, men and women do not have a day where they focus on the spiritual things that help them to achieve their purpose in life.

You know, brethren, if the Sabbath feels like a burden to us, then we may not be seeing the benefits that God intended for us for the Sabbath. And what He wants us to do on the Sabbath day. Let's go to Mark now. Mark chapter 3. Mark chapter 3. So it's important that we see the benefits of the Sabbath. And that we understand again that its purpose. It was an institution that was given by God, as we read in the commandment, at the creation itself. And God Himself, who created all the universe, took the time to rest on the Sabbath, setting as an example.

Sometimes we think we're too busy. We're too important. Well, God set that example for us, brethren, of resting on the Sabbath. In Mark chapter 3 and verse 1, speaking of Christ again, and He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand. And so they watched Him closely, whether He would heal Him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. And He said to the man who had the withered hand step forward.

And He said to them, is it lawful in the Sabbath to do good or to do evil? To save life or to kill? But they kept silent. Isn't that amazing? That with those two decisions to be made, you know, is it better to save life, to give life, or to kill? They said nothing, that there was no response. And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, stretch out your hand, and he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.

And then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with their rodents against Him how they might destroy Him. And so they wanted to kill Christ because He healed on the Sabbath day. You know, what is lawful, brethren, to do good or to do evil? Christ was showing that it was more important to do good on the Sabbath than just refrain from activity as they did.

The Sabbath is more than just a day of rest. In many ways, it's a day of special duties that God wants us to perform and to do as God's people. You know, the Sabbath experience should be a wonderful time. I must tell you, brethren, that my wife and I have not had very many normal Sabbaths since we have been in the ministry. I have to be honest and up-read at the front about that.

And we're not the only ones. I mean, ministry around the world is in the same boat, so I'm not complaining about that. But, you know, when I was in Master College, being on the Master College campus, the Sabbath was always a quiet time. It was always a pleasant time in the sense of the atmosphere. Sabbath wasn't laying around, but it was a day of prayer and study. Getting up in the morning, going to the prayer closet, having your Bible with you, kneeling down in that prayer closet or in your room, wherever, I would end up praying.

Spending the time on the Sabbath, doing that. Often, after that, you might go down and you would either eat or you would have to get there a little advanced to serve in the dining hall to make it possible for others to have a good meal on the Sabbath and enjoy a good meal and the fellowship in that way on the Sabbath. Sometimes, you know, we would serve in security as well on the Sabbath. Not all the time. It was divvied out among all of the students, so, you know, all of us had responsibility like that from time to time.

And the reason why, by the way, that was done is on the Sabbath. The reason why the students spelled those who were full-time is so that they could enjoy the Sabbath. They wouldn't have to do that, but those that served would be able to do that. On Friday nights, we would have a Bible study. We'd walk down, usually, to the studies. And then, you know, after that night, we would go the next day to services.

That would usually be in the afternoon. And, you know, often Bible studies and services were combined with dates for the students to get to know one another. And at times on the Sabbath, you know, we would go to rest homes and we would talk with the elderly. No one, particularly by the way that any of us knew, we'd just go by a rest home and go through the, you know, the homes and talk to the elderly. And they always enjoyed it. You know, nobody ever said, what are you doing here? You know, they always enjoyed talking to the young people that were there.

And, you know, so it was something we looked forward to every week. You know, after you study all week long, most of the students had to work 20 or so hours every week as well on top of studying and going to classes and clubs and different things during the week. So the Sabbath was something you looked forward to because it was a special time. It was a very special time. And, you know, it didn't get in the way.

It was a reward. And, brethren, all of us should look upon the Sabbath as being a reward for us at the end of a hard week. You know, that we can shift gears, as it were. Maybe a spiritual gear that God gives us when we're baptized, that we can shift into that gear. So it's wholly devoted to the spiritual things that take place on that day.

You know, if the Sabbath, brethren, is a burden to us rather than a delight, then maybe we're not keeping it wholly the way it should. You know, God says if we make the Sabbath a delight, then it becomes a blessing to us. A real blessing to us. And God wants us to look at it that way.

Let's go to Isaiah 58. Really, brethren, it is a blessing to us to have God's Sabbath. And, you know, even though oftentimes on the Sabbath my wife and I are very occupied during the day, we don't have some of the freedoms that perhaps others might have on the Sabbath. And that's the way it should be. The ministry has that responsibility, you know, to serve on the Sabbath. We still nonetheless enjoy the Sabbath immensely.

It is a special time. Isaiah 58, down in verse 13, here God says in Isaiah 58 verse 13, If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, take your foot off of this holy time, this holy day, God is saying, and call the Sabbath a delight. Call it a delight. The holy day of the eternal honorable. And shall honor Him not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasures, nor speaking your own words.

Then you shall delight yourself in the eternal. You know, more and more as you learn to keep the Sabbath and make it a delight, brethren, you will delight more and more in God in the eternal, as it says here. And the blessings will flow, because it says, I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the eternal has spoken. And so God wants His brethren to call the Sabbath honorable, to call it a delight.

What makes something a delight, brethren, to us? If you go out and you eat a meal that you call delightful, doesn't it mean that the food pleases you? Maybe the ambiance of where you are pleases you? Maybe the fellowship? A lot of times the fellowship can make a meal in itself, could it? You can have bad food. If you have good fellowship and good conversation, it can really make a meal.

So all of those things can help us delight ourselves. And so on the Sabbath, brethren, typically God's people eat, don't they? And we fellowship. And so, again, in that way we can make it a delight. And we ought to try to make it special in that way.

You know, delightful conversation involves not just avoiding negative things, but positive, stimulating talk. And discussing things are uplifting, too. That is something that delightful conversation is. Pleasure comes from activity, brethren, not in inactivity. Rest is most pleasant after labor. Your nose is not about rest. Now, my dad used to have a philosophy. I remember I used to work with him, and he worked me like a dog. And I was thankful because I built the muscles up by bucking the hay when I was a teenager. But he always said to me, he says, let's work hard so we can rest.

That was his philosophy, and I tried to follow that in my life because I think he's right. Let's work hard so we can rest. We don't want to be out here working all day doing this. Let's get it done, and then we can rest. So, we, of course, enjoy rest after labor. If you rest all the time, it's not going to be enjoyable. In fact, you can rest so long that you become sore, don't you? I know some of you, all of you, perhaps, have sometimes laid in bed so long that you got sore from it.

You've got to get up and move around so you can get the blood circulating back in. You know, if you were to go to the doctor, the doctor would say, I don't know what happened to this guy. He's atrophy. He has no muscles at all. He's just been laying around all the time. But, you know, we need to get up and stir the blood. Sometimes when I drive, you know, you're sitting there in one position the whole time.

I feel like when I get into a gas station, I've got to wave my arms around it. Get the blood and the outer extremities again. So, brethren, it's what we do on the Sabbath that makes it to delight. Just avoiding breaking the Sabbath doesn't give the same benefits to us. So, what should we be doing on the Sabbath?

What should we be doing on the Sabbath? Well, we should be making it special because the Sabbath is a feast day. The Sabbath is a feast day. It's a time to rejoice. And we make it special by our activities, by our meals, by our fellowship. And other things as well. First and foremost, brethren, on the Sabbath, brethren, make it a full spiritual day of renewal for yourself.

Make it a full day of spiritual renewal for yourself from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. That's when the Sabbath is. So, when that sun goes down on Friday night, you get into that full spiritual renewal day. Next, brethren, spend time together on the Sabbath. Make Friday night dinners with one another. Invite brethren over to your house. Have Sabbath brunches or Sabbath dinners, whatever works out in the case where you may be.

I know you can't have a brunch here because you have morning church services. But you can do dinners at night, in the evenings, afternoon. You can do an early dinner for that matter. And what do they call that? A brunch? If you do an early afternoon dinner. Make it a tradition to do these things. A fellowship, to talk. Most families choose not to watch television on the Sabbath.

That's what we do in our household. We don't watch any television on the Sabbath. Frankly, I don't like to rack it myself. I think it's just something that's not conducive to the Sabbath. But if you're going to watch something on the Sabbath, make sure it fits into the spiritual renewal that you're trying to enact in your life.

Make sure that the program is conducive to the Sabbath. Personally, I feel like we ought to devote our minds to more than just seeing the boob tube. But if you're going to do it, make sure it's conducive to the Sabbath. Make sure it's a nature show. Make sure it's something that's going to help you. Maybe there's a program, a documentary about something that relates to prophecy. By that, I'm not talking about watching movies on the Sabbath.

But something is going to be like a documentary where you can learn something if you're going to do that on the Sabbath. That's your choice to do that. Another thing, brethren, about the Sabbath is since the Sabbath is a feast day, since it's special, dress up on the Sabbath. Dress up on the Sabbath and make it special. Don't go overboard. Nobody expects the men to wear tuxedos.

You can carry some things overboard. But also, don't make it a vanity thing. When we come to church, it's not to show off to each other, but we should dress up to make it special. Like a woman was talking to her husband after church one time, and she said, did you notice what Mrs. Jones was wearing on the Sabbath? And the husband said, no, I didn't notice that. She said, well, did you notice Mrs. Smith's hair? No. She said, well, why do you come to attend church anyway? Well, you know, we shouldn't be worrying about those kinds of things.

And in thinking of those terms, that becomes vanity, of course. You know, this is not to say, again, God doesn't care what we wear. He does. I mean, you can't read the Old Testament and what God told the priest to wear without realizing he cares what people wear.

You know, he's the one that came up with the designs, didn't he, of what a priest was to wear. So he cares what we wear. Remember the wedding guest who did not have the proper wedding garment on. What happened to him was cast an outer darkness.

Now, obviously, we apply that spiritually to have on the garments of involvement within the church, but it can apply also physically. And remember, we're here to please God. And in fact, we should always be striving, rather, to make the Sabbath day a special period of time in our lives and for other people, too. Not just us, but for other people as well.

Go visit a shut-in. After services, make a plan, brethren, to go over and see a shut-in. Call them up and say, hey, I thought we'd drop by and see you on the way home, or head over that way to see you. Or go buy a rest home somewhere. Just go in and start going around, and you will find there's a ton of people that want to talk to you.

And when I go and visit some of our members in rest homes and hospitals, very often I find people that want to talk, because people are lonely. Sometimes, of course, you can't talk to everybody, because otherwise you would be at some places for hours upon hours. But go for that purpose, and you can spend time talking with people, and it really uplifts them.

It's important also, brethren, to assemble regularly on the Sabbath with the church. And so that's important for us to do. I'm not going to go to it, but you might want to write down Luke 4, verse 16, because it says, As his custom was, speaking of Jesus Christ, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.

His custom was to go into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. The word custom is from the Greek word etho, and it means manner or habit. It was this habit, the second nature. He was to go into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. You might want to write down Acts 16, verse 13 also. It cites in Acts 16, 13, how that Paul traveled to Philippi and sought out a place where prayer, as it says in the King James Version, I think, was want to be made. Or prayer was done on the Sabbath. And so on the Sabbath, he went out looking for this place, and there he met Lydia, a seller of purple. Remember, she was from Thyatira, who became a part of the church. She entered her household as a result of the preaching of Paul on the Sabbath. Now, did that mean that Paul was wandering around trying to find somebody who prayed so he could witness to them? Is that what he was doing? No. Paul, of course, his custom had been before he was converted to be in the synagogue. Every Sabbath, like Christ, was in the synagogue.

But there were times where he went there was not even a church raised up. And, of course, they went to the Jews to witness, to preach first, and then to the Gentiles. Barge notes says this about this phrase on the Sabbath where prayer was done. He says, places for prayer were erected by the Jews in the vicinity of cities and towns, and particularly where there was not Jewish families enough or where they were forbidden by the magistrate to erect a synagogue. These places of prayer were simple enclosures made of stone in a grove or under a tree where there would be a retired and convenient place for worship.

So this is where the Jews had a makeshift synagogue, if you will. And so Paul went there, and as a result of it, Lydia was converted. You know, Paul, or I should say David, also looked to the tabernacle on the Sabbath. Let's go to Psalm 27. Psalm 27. Let's turn to this verse over here. Psalm 27 over in verse 4. So here in Psalm 27 verse 4, notice that he said, There in his temple.

And so David, again, sought out the temple on a regular basis. Obviously, he would have done that on the Sabbath day. And so David himself, we look to the tabernacle, look to assembling with the congregation, even during the time when he was king. And he did so on a regular basis. You can read the rest of this, what the benefits of seeking God out on a regular basis, as he sought God out at the tabernacle that was there in Jerusalem.

But the Sabbath is a time when we focus on drawing close to God. And that is partly done through our personal prayer and our personal study. But it's also done, brethren, as a result of assembling with God's people. I'm not going to go to it, but you might want to write down Leviticus 23 verse 3.

It says, Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a convocation, a holy convocation. And you shall do no work therein, is a Sabbath, the eternal in all your dwellings. And so this convocation he's talking about here, of course, the word convoke comes from the word convocation. And to convoke means to summon.

So on the Sabbath, brethren, we are summoned, all of us are summoned, to keep the convocation, to keep the assembly on the Sabbath day. Let's go to Hebrews 10, Hebrews chapter 10. In the New Testament, Paul certainly reiterates this and supports the idea of the convocation and the need to be among God's people on the Sabbath. Hebrews 10, on down in verse 24, let's go this here. It says, And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.

You know, our presence on the Sabbath stirs up that love and those good works, brethren. But he says in verse 25, Not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together as in the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. And so we ought to assemble with ourselves together even more as we see the day approaching. And then notice in verse 26, this particular verse here, brethren, deserves our meditation of how serious these things are because Paul says, For if we sin willfully after we've received the knowledge of the truth, there is no longer or there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.

So, brethren, on the Sabbath, our attitude should be to focus on God through assembling with God's people. And, of course, we do our personal study and we do our personal prayer as well. Our focus should be on God. Our focus should be on developing a relationship with Him.

Our focus should be on stirring others up to good works and love. It's not a day to be alone. It is simply not a day to be alone. The Sabbath was not created for that purpose. The Convocation was not commanded for that purpose. It was intended that we gather on the Sabbath day. Another thing, brethren, if we're going to be doing those things to make the Sabbath a delight, is we should use the Preparation Day to enter the Sabbath in peace. I know we have busy lives.

I know our work sometimes cuts us short on the Sabbath. But, brethren, the Preparation Day is the day before the Sabbath. God felt the Sabbath was so important that He instructed that things be prepared prior to the Sabbath. So we should prepare for the Sabbath by doing our weekly labor in advance.

We shouldn't fill the day with cooking or chores or any kind of chore at all on the Sabbath. The Sabbath should be a day when we, again, focus on the spiritual. And God gave, remember Israel, ancient Israel. I don't have the time to go there. But in Exodus 16, if you want to read over there, you notice that God gave Israel twice as much manna on Friday, or the sixth day, so that they would not gather on the seventh day.

And so that they would prepare for the Sabbath. So they were to bake, they were to cook those things that were needed for the Sabbath on what became known as the Preparation Day. And so the Sabbath has a Preparation Day to it.

And to make the Sabbath to the light, so you can enter the Sabbath when that sun goes down with peace, is what we ought to be striving to do. You know, all through the New Testament, by the way, you can read scriptures about the Preparation Day. I won't take the time, but just look it up, and you will see that there is a Preparation Day. So wash, gas up your car prior to the Sabbath, cook those things that are labor intensive. Obviously, you don't need to do eggs and things like that.

That would taste too good, probably on the Sabbath, to have an egg that was 24 hours cold. Get your clothes ready so you don't have to be worried about pressing things. So that when you enter the Sabbath, like I say, you're ready for peace on the Sabbath. And that is the way, brethren, we ought to again enter into the Sabbath.

Now, let's go to one difficult scripture I want to come back to here that we referred to earlier. And that is when the disciples picked some grain out of the field to eat. Remember, the Pharisees told Christ, Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day do those things which are unlawful? So they were accused of harvesting or working on the Sabbath by the Pharisees.

Well, the fact of the matter is that they were doing the work of God. And I'll explain a little bit more about that in a few moments. But let's go over to John 6.

In John 6 and verse 27, here Christ, remember, was telling these who were following Him, who mainly sought for bread because Christ had performed the miracle of the fishes and loaves that were multiplied. But here in verse 27, they said, Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him. And then they said to Him, What shall we do that we may work the works of God? Now, how do we do the works of God? And Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He sent. So the work of God involves people coming to have a relationship with God.

And Jesus and His disciples were doing the work of God every day and every Sabbath. They were doing the work of God. The Pharisees thought their judgment was perfectly right, and based upon the Old Testament Scriptures, the way they interpreted them, they would have been perfectly right, but they lacked spiritual insight. They did not have the spiritual insight into God's intent, and they condemned Jesus Christ for doing something such as healing on the Sabbath day, or doing good on the Sabbath day. Let's go to Matthew 12.

Matthew 12 and verse 1. We'll just go down to verse 8. But in chapter 12, verse 1, it says, And at that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck the heads of grain and to eat.

And when the disciples saw it, they said to Him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. And it says, But He said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were with him. And of course, had they read, of course they had read.

They had read these things many times. But it had not really registered with them. Like a lot of times we read scriptures over and over again, and it doesn't register. Well, it didn't register to them. And Christ's approach was different than their interpretation of the letter of the Old Testament law because they did not see the spiritual intent. They saw only don'ts. Verse 4. How He entered the house of God and ate the showbread, which was not lawful for Him to eat, nor for those who were with Him, but only for the priests. And so it wasn't lawful. And again, they had read these things, but they didn't understand the work that Jesus Christ was doing and the work that the disciples were doing.

And notice going on, it says, Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests and the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? And yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater than the temple. And of course, that was none other than Jesus Christ here. Christ was greater than the priests of the temple. And He was doing the work of God with the disciples at that particular time.

The priests were able to profane the Sabbath, as Jesus said. And yet they were doing the work of God just as Christ was doing the work of God. But if you had known what it means to desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

So this leads us to believe, brethren, this story and this account here in chapter 12 that we just read, that Christ and the disciples were walking from one synagogue to another, and along the way the disciples ate the grain. Now Christ doesn't say Christ did anything there, but the disciples ate the grain. So they were profaning the Sabbath according to what the Pharisees interpreted of the Old Testament. But the understanding that Jesus Christ passed on is that when one is doing the work of God, they're counted as blameless in the process.

Like a priest, we're blameless. Now these scriptures oftentimes are given to show that there's sort of a carte blanche for doing what you want on the Sabbath. And again, nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus Christ believed in the strict observance of the Sabbath.

We believe in the church, in the strict observance of the Sabbath. Healing someone on the Sabbath isn't wrong. Never will be wrong. Going through a field of wheat and plucking the ears of wheat and loving them between your hands and blowing out the chaff is not wrong.

When you go in your backyard and you pick at the main oaf of your vine and you sit down and you eat it, that's not wrong for you to do that. Especially if you're hungry, and especially, brethren, if you're headed to preach the gospel. Especially. And of course, sometimes people strain at gnats and swallow camels, but that's what the problem with the Pharisees was. Now, all of us are not going to agree on everything exactly.

But, brethren, where is the balance? The church teaches, brethren, for that reason, that we should not judge one another. We're not in the business of judging one another. We're not talking about whether somebody works their job or applies their trade on the Sabbath here. We're talking about gray areas, where it becomes a matter of personal conscience. And so, it's not our job to, again, judge people with regard to these things. We need to give each other the space to answer for ourselves before God on some of those things that are gray areas. There's some things, of course, that are strictly forbidden in the Bible.

The fourth commandment gives us instructions as well as other principles within the Bible about certain things. But there's some things that are gray areas. And we need to give ourselves space to do that. We will all individually stand before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. And what you judge or I judge is not going to make any difference at all when that time comes. But there is a warning, brethren, to every one of us. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 8. There's a warning over here to every one of us with regard to what we do. So the fact that we are to step back and allow people the space to answer for their own selves before God is a freedom that we should give to all of God's people. And hopefully they do the same for us, but that doesn't mean, again, that we're not going to be held accountable for what we do. In 1 Corinthians 8 and verse 1. Here Paul, by the way, is talking about another subject here, but it's the same principle here. So there's a warning to all of us about our personal example here. But he says, now concerning things offered to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. And he says, knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.

Sometimes people can become vain and think, well, I'm more righteous than somebody else. And knowledge has that tendency to puff up and have people have pride and they can have vanity about themselves. You know, sometimes we get puffed up about false knowledge. Those things are not even true. We must make sure, brethren, that we're not watering down the law of God in the process. So in the decisions we make, make sure that we do not do that. It's better to err on the side of obedience. You know, when it comes to God's laws, making sure that you're careful about it. You know, we need to, again, be careful, though, that we don't get vain and puffed up about something that ends up being untrue. Verse 9, notice, Thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscious, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. So here he's talking again about meats offered to idols. He said, look, I wouldn't eat meat as long as the world stood if it's going to offend my brother. I think we would take the same principle when it comes to Sabbath. If we know something could offend somebody, be careful. Be very careful. Because this Scripture seems to indicate that if we are not careful, we could lose our eternal life, or we make someone, a little one, stumble and fall. We're not careful about it. So it's very important that we do, because some people have sensitive consciousness. Now, does the person then with the most sensitive conscious now rule the church then? Of course not. The answer comes by applying a mixture of knowledge, tolerance and wisdom. We shouldn't be flaunting our freedom, but neither should we be judging each other in matters of conscience. Again, having said that, brethren, let me caution you. Be careful that you do not water down the Sabbath in your life, and then you fall into a ditch that is worse than before you came into the church. That is, knowing the truth and then disobeying it. Brethren, we are to remember the Sabbath, as the Bible says, and keep it holy. And also, brethren, we are to make the Sabbath, to call the Sabbath, a delight and honorable. God has given us this wonderful, wonderful day, brethren, to partake of every single week, the Sabbath day. And it's made to fit us. It's exactly what we need. Every single week is just what we need. So, observe the Sabbath, brethren, by doing good. Observe the Sabbath by lifting others up, helping them with their burdens on the Sabbath by encouraging them. The Sabbath is a sign of God's people, as Exodus 31 tells us, that we are God's people. But the real proof is we, as God's people, brethren, additionally, are showing love toward one another. And that we should especially be showing that love on the Sabbath. In this way, brethren, we're not just keeping the Sabbath, but we're keeping the Sabbath holy. And we are delighting in it, as God's people.