Not IF - But HOW!

10 days ago, I was sitting in a hospital room with Dodie Foster, one of our members from Vero Beach. She was passing away. 93 years old, her body was wearing out, she'd had a stroke. And as I was sitting there and being able to talk to her part of the time, she was in and out of consciousness. They were working on her. She still had that wonderful smile. And she, you know, I said, it'll be okay. And I was able to spend three or four hours with her, holding her hand, and talking to her when she came back around, reassuring her, talking a few scriptures, quoting some, talking to her about her future, and a wonderful blessing that she had been to all us, her family, and the church. And so it really talked about her mortality. And it made me start thinking, as I had quite a bit of time where she was, a little out of it. And I was thinking about all these things that flashed through my mind the very first time I met her and her life, and everything she told me about that eventful life that she lived in 93 years. And I got to know her even better over the years. And one thing that struck me was that I remember the Greeks would never write any epitaph on the tombstones. They never ask, how did she die? They would always ask, how did she live? How did she live with us? We sometimes need to look at that too, because our mortality is in front of us. We are mortals, as we heard earlier in the sermon. Ed, there's a time ahead when we will no longer be mortals, but now we are mortal, and some of us feel so human so much of the time. But it was about how we live. So my question today, as I was putting that sermon together in my head in that hospital room, as she did pass away a few hours later, I talked about the Sabbath with her because that was a big turning point in Dodi's life, because for years she had just followed the way most of the world did. But she changed, and the Sabbath became important, and she was able to learn that truth from God as He brought it through our literature to her. But the Sabbath, I think we all understand, it's not if, but how, for most of us. It's not if we keep it. We know to keep it. We've been keeping it a long time. Most of us, that's not an issue, but it's how. How do we keep it? We look in this book, and we see the Pharisees in the New Testament, the Pharisees and the religious leaders. It wasn't if. If wasn't the problem. How was the problem? Wasn't it? Christ even said, in vain do they worship Me, teaching His doctrine the commandments of men. Wow! How did they keep it? Wrong. Wrong! Christ even stood there and said, you know, when they read, when they read this to you in the synagogue, follow that, but don't follow how they live.

Don't do as they do. That was the how. They were wrong. You go back to Israel. What did they do? They had it, right? They had the Sabbath. They knew. We're making it this 20. Remember the Sabbath day. Keep it holy.

Deuteronomy 5. We're also given 38 years later. What? Observe the Sabbath day to keep it what? Holy. Holy. What did they do? Well, they went into captivity because of one of the main things. It was the Sabbath. Sabbath in the Holy Days. They got the cursings, as Jeff talked about earlier. They got cursings, not blessings, because of the Sabbath day. Where are we? How do we keep the Sabbath? Holy. Do we ask ourselves that? Yes, we can say, well, I don't work. That's part of it.

Right? Oh, I may go to church. Well, is that all? Is that all during that 24-hour period of time that God set aside for us, created especially for us to be able to commune with Him, to be able to come to Him? The God of the universe said, I want to spend time with you, and I want you to spend time with me. Do we think about that now? Do we even consider how special holy, sacred God Sabbath is?

Are we stuck maybe in some traditions we have of, well, it's kind of the same. It's just another day that I just don't work and I go to services. I hope not. It's the reason for this sermon today. I want to inspire you. I want to empower you to look at the Sabbath, look at your Creator, as you've never looked at it before, during this 24-hour period of time that He has given to us, because we, as we heard it, we are special to Him, and He has to be special to us. This is what I would like to cover today. I'd like to go, let's go quickly, Genesis 2. Genesis 2. I'll turn it into my Bible. Genesis 2, verses 2 and 3. Very simple. You all know this. Like, this is so simple, but this is where it starts. And it said, on the seventh day, God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. That's redundant. Why is it redundant? Because He wants us to get it! Even He rested. He set the example, and He comes every seventh day to spend time with us.

Verse 3. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. Sanctified it. That's, that's the, in Hebrew, that's the word for kadesh that Jeff talked about earlier. He kadesh it. What does that mean? He made it pure, holy, sacred. This time, this seventh day, this 24-hour period, He created, He blessed it, He made it holy. And He wants us to keep it holy. That's what He says. Keep it holy. The Sabbath. Guess what? This can be called a history book. It's one of the best history books you'll ever read. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do as a piece of history. But you know what it tells us? It tells us those who kept the Sabbath. It tells you the heroes of faith in this, in this book. It tells you those who follow God, those who God blessed, those who, who God called out of this world in that 4,000 years in the Old Testament, and close to 100 years in the New.

Guess what? The Sabbath? Abram did it. Didn't he? Abram did it. Moses did it. Jesus really did it, as He set the example. Paul did it, and the church did it. What? They kept the holy date? They kept the Sabbath? Yes, but they kept it holy. Holy. Why? Why did they do it? Because they were instructed to. So how, how do you keep, how do I keep, how do we keep the Sabbath holy? I'm not going to be like the Jews and the religious leader of Christ's day that had 600 and something, 600 plus ways to break the Sabbath as they made all these rules that He never instituted. But I want to look at something as we start. If you go to your Bible and you look it up, you can find, it's in John, it's in Matthew, a few other places, about the preparation day. The preparation day, that was the day before a holy day, or day before the Sabbath, as it's described. The preparation day. How do you honor God and keep the Sabbath holy? Does it start on the preparation day? Does your mind start going to where I think this is very important? I think this is very, very important that I get my mind right as I come into this 24-hour period of time that God created for me to talk to me, to spend time with me, to dwell with me, so that I can come with other people and we can share this worship of God, God Almighty. I know we try to do various things at home because when I had my company before I became a pastor, I had my company, and it wasn't until the last three or four years, did I really find that it was so important that I started taking off to half a day on Friday. We would work four tens Monday through Thursday if any way possible, and then by noon we try to finish up works. Because I found that as I was giving sermons, also at that time, I needed better prep. I needed to wind down. I didn't need to just rush right first because sometimes that happens and you can't help it. Sometimes there's an ox and a ditch, but most of the time there's not. So can we look at the Sabbath as perhaps we haven't looked at it before? Can we look at the Sabbath and say, you know, I want to be better prepared for my date with God because it's an appointment. It's an appointment he's made with mankind. It's just most of mankind says, we don't want you here. We don't need you here.

We need him. We want him. We love him. That has to be us. That has to be our thoughts. As we start preparation day, do we even know you may have to work close to sunset at different times of the year? Are we able to go ahead and set some things out, prepare for things that we might not have to do Saturday morning so that we could kind of be able to relax and not rush around as we're trying to worship God on that day? Why is it not mentioned in the Bible, the preparation day? Do we look at things like the Friday night meal, the first time we come to the Sabbath? Is there a time we can first meal of the Sabbath each week? Is it something special? My wife sets out usually candles. We try to have this really nice meal. We don't want it to be rushed. We'll try to make sure because we thank God. We have a prayer that thanks Him for bringing us to the Sabbath day. We recognize Him because He made it possible, and He makes it possible for us to be able to spend time with Him and peace and safety. How important is that? How important is it that we can thank Him for this incredible food that He has put on our tables that's not available like we do in Malawi, in Haiti, and some of these places around the world, some of the poorest places in the world? We are so blessed, brethren! Let us not forget who blesses us. Let us never forget that. Let us have that heart to where we really care. We really care when we start seeing as the sun is beginning to set on Friday evening that this is different. This is great. This is what it's about. Do we thank Him in our prayer for that meal, an incredible meal? How about even some music? Do we like some music that might be playing that is not our typical? I love music. I listen to all kinds of music six days a week, but when it's the Sabbath, I have a different kind of music I listen to. I want something relaxing. I want to come into the Sabbath and have such incredible peace. I want something that's going to glorify and glorify this, not only this time that's been set aside as holy, but glorify the one who made it. How important is that? I think it's important. What about having your favorite meal of the week? The best meal you're going to have. We a lot of times had that. We had that last night, thank complementaries of Vicki and Bruce, as we were able to have this wonderful meal. Maybe if you have young people, maybe you have children, maybe whatever. The Sabbath is Friday evening is the time you could say the week before, what would you like to have? Make it special. It should be special. Make it special. It should be special. It can't be normal.

This day is not normal.

What about a nice bottle of wine? We have a bottle of wine. We had one last night. I drank one glass. Mary had a couple, and we were able to, as we do, we toast. We say, Shabbat Shalom. We take the pause that refreshes as we come to his Sabbath day, and we have such a blessing. How we're able to look at that and keep that and observe that and have a time that we look forward to every single week. Not a burden, not something that we just look at and go, Oh, well, here's another Sabbath day. Got to go to church tomorrow. Rather, we need to change that mindset if that's the way it is. We need to change our lifestyles if that's the way it is, because we are the continuation of those faithful people who were called from the Scriptures.

How about prayer? Prayer on Friday night. Not just prayer, but longer prayer. Can we spend a little more time with God? Especially from that time, because it's holy. Do we want to thank him? Want to spend a little time? Maybe even before you go to bed, you have this special talk with him. Maybe it's the time you just commune. It's time to thanks. I just say thanks. I don't know how many times to him, because all during the week I reflect back on what happened during the last six days, and I saw his blessing. I saw his gifts, and I was so thankful. So thankful for that. How about getting some extra sleep? You know, one of the things that he tells us on the Sabbath is to rest! Stop doing! Can we have extra time, extra hours that we wouldn't take of getting sleep? Because a lot of us, we run right during the week, and we're tired, and maybe it's time we get that extra rest. So we feel good. And so that nothing is any longer normal during the 24-hour period of time. I don't turn my TV on. I may have some music on the channels, but I watch TV. I watch TV six days a week. I can watch any time I want, what I want to do, and so forth. But the Sabbath, I don't need the Word. I just need my wife, and need my God, and need his Sabbath. It gives us time to bond and to spend more time together, where it's peaceful, and nothing, as I say, nothing is normal. Another aspect I would like you to look at, not only Friday night, another aspect of the Sabbath is the Sabbath at home. Many of you, and that's why we have this webcast, that's why we have Zoom, so that we can have a Sabbath service. This is a Sabbath service. We ask God's presence there. Here, we want him here. It is. It is a time of honor for us on the Sabbath day to meet with him. So I ask, is this your worship service that you're watching? Because we are at home. Sometimes we can meet in some other places you can meet together. That's great, but during these times, we can't. And maybe at times in the future where we can't. So we need to look and see, are we coming before God? Whether it's in front of a TV screen, whether it's in front of a telephone, whether it's in front of whatever, are we doing it in a reverent manner? Are we doing it to where he knows that we recognize this as holy? Special time with him.

Not something we just take lightly. See, we worship an incomprehensible God. A.W. Tozer mentioned this in one of his chapters in Knowledge of the Holy Book he wrote 50-60 years ago. And he talks about it. And it's such a powerful chapter because we think we understand God, we don't. We can study and study and study, and we can see his attributes, and we can see his heart, we can see what he does, but can we comprehend what is God? How magnificent, how awesome God is? No. Does he want us to try? Abso-lutely. Brethren, that is what we need to be doing on some of these Sabbath days. We need to be coming on and going, God, I want to know you deeper. You know, if we could comprehend more of who God, the awesome, powerful God that he is, there would be so much reverence in our worship of him, in our coming before him on the Sabbath day. We would just be...Astra, isn't that what happened in Scripture? You remember, Moses said, I want to see your glory, and he said, you can't handle it. You can't handle it. And look on me straight on. So he had to go behind a rock and see just the backside of him. Because God is that all. God is just like we would have no idea. Moses began to see because he even just saw just a little bit of it and his face lit up until he died. Let's look at...today, let's look at a couple places. I'd like you to go with me to Isaiah 58. Isaiah 58, I'll turn in mine. Oh, excuse me. Let's go to Isaiah 55. Let's do that one. Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55 and there's verses 8 and 9. Here he is, he says, and I think we should get this picture. We've heard this before, but I want you to really think about that as like really trying to understand God, just how great he is. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my way, says the Lord. He proclaimed this. His thoughts, he's so holy. He can never be less than holy and we can hardly become holy. What'd he say? Your righteousness is like filthy rags to him. He is so holy. That's why we have to see that gap is so large. But he wants to come together with us every seven days. Let's go to verse 9. He said, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, how high are they?

Well, we know there's three heavens, God, right, space and outer space. Three. Well, in the U.S. Air Force, they call it the Carmen Line, which is what we see here is from the sea level up to 62 miles and then starts space. And then way where God lives, where nobody's ever been, nothing you can't even see that far is outer space. It's way out there. Nobody's ever been there. God Christ said that.

So you can imagine how high that is.

I think it's funny that it says, so are my ways higher than your ways and your thoughts than for my thoughts and your thoughts. How high is the... Can you comprehend this? Have you seen outer space? Have you thought about that? We have something called the Orion Nebulus. The Orion Nebulus. Beautiful pictures all through there. And this is deep space. This is outer space. This is so far. Our Hubble telescope took some pictures here. And you go out and look how beautiful it is? You realize that this is almost 15,000 feet almost 1500 light years away. Our telescope could just take it that far. It's never traveled that far, but it was taking pictures that far away. Almost 1500 light years. And we hadn't even reached where God is yet. You may say, well, how can we understand it? Well, you realize if you travel 12 light years, just 12 out of the 1500, just 12 at the speed of light, realize what will be. If you travel 12 light years at the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second, you travel all that distance and you reach only 12 miles, not the 1500 where the Orion Nebulus is. But if you just traveled that, you will have traveled 208,000 earth years.

To travel at 186,000 miles per second and only 12 light years, you would have used up 208,000 earth years. Are you telling me that's not an awesome God? That's not a God that his thoughts are so much higher than ours, we can't even comprehend it? Yes, I am. Yes, I am.

Does he want us to just see how awesome he is to think about these things? And look what we've been given. We've been given pictures here so we can see how awesome this is. And he lives way past this, and his thoughts are so much greater than that.

That's how great they are. We're not even in the league. We're not even in the ballpark. But yet he wants a relationship with us and does it so much that he calls us his children. Rather than that's awesome. We have an awesome God. That's the only word I can use to describe. Let's go over to Isaiah 6. Let's go over to Isaiah 6. Isaiah 6. Isaiah 6 and verse 1. Isaiah is trying to explain. It says, in the year that King Uzziah, which is 740 BC, died, I saw the Lord.

How did he see the Lord? It was a vision. He couldn't go up there. No man has ascended into heaven. But he was given this vision. Perhaps God will give you one someday. Perhaps he will show us. Perhaps sometimes we need him. We need to ask him like Moses, let me see your glory. Let me see your awesomeness. Help me to see you, God, as you are. He said, I saw the Lord sitting on the throne high and lifted up. And the train of his robe filled the temple. That's a huge robe. And above it stood seraphim, which actually literally means burning ones. And why are they burning?

They're burning with the brilliance of God's glory. And each one had six wings, and two he covered his face, and two he covered his feet, and the two he flew. And one cried to another, Holy, holy, holy! Which means what? Which means what? It's a Hebrew superlative mean. He's as holy as you can get. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the Lord were shaken by the voice of him who cried out.

Can you imagine that? Just the angel's voice calling that out shook the entire building. And the house was filled with smoke. Then he said, Whoa! I say, realize where he was, what he was seeing. Well, it was me, for I am undone. I'm destroyed because I am a man of unclean lips. I'm sure he said some things he wish he hadn't said. He realized just how human he was when he got to see the other side.

And I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. And he was trying to describe it. Maybe sometimes, brethren, we need to not only look about the Sabbath and trying to see God's glory, but spend that time searching out, understanding just how great that God is.

Understanding, brethren, that maybe we need to look in Isaiah more of 55. How about chapter 56? How about 57? How about 58? He goes into the Sabbath and His holiness, and the holiness of it and all about Him. It's a wonderful Bible study, or even Ezekiel chapter 20, chapter 22.

As he shows Ezekiel, he tells Ezekiel how we need to keep the Sabbath holy. Brethren, that's so important. So very, very important. As I am running out of time, I want to go to the final set of scriptures that really help me. They really help me to understand. Let's go to Hebrews 12. Let's go to Hebrews 12, because the writer of Hebrews wants us to understand. He wants us to understand what we are doing on His Sabbath day, what we are doing on this time called out by God, this time made by God.

Go to Hebrews 12 and verse 18, as he's explaining that it's no longer like it was in Mount Sinai. But there's a greater thing for the children of God. There's a greater thing for the household of God as we come together and worship on His Sabbath day. And this is what he's describing here, Hebrews 12 and verse 18. For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire and to the blackness and darkness and tempest, which means Mount Sinai.

That's where they would come to worship. That's where they first came to hear God. Verse 19, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. No, no, no, don't let us. Don't let him talk to us. I can't be. I mean, they were terrified. They began to get a glimpse of God and His holiness.

And how awesome a God He was. Verse 20, for they could not have endured what was commanded, and if so much as a beast touched the mountain it should be stoned or thrust through with an arrow. And so terrifying was the sight that even Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and am trembling. Can you begin to comprehend our awesomeness, the awesomeness of our God? And how we should look at that? For, he said in verse 22, for you have come to Mount Zion to the city of the living God. We don't come to the mountain. We come before Him. We come before His throne. We come as we meet on the Sabbath. We come together. To do what? To the city of the living God and heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable company of angels. Ten thousand times, ten thousands, and thousands of thousands, which says in Revelation, millions of angels join this. And what are they joining? Verse 23, to the festal gathering, the general assembly of festal gathering. When? On the Sabbath day. They come here. We're not alone. This is important time. This is holy time for God and the angels. And for us. They realize how important it is, shouldn't we?

Who are registered in the church of the firstborn? Who are we? Church of the firstborn? We follow Christ. He's the first of the first fruits. Church of the firstborn? Who are registered in heaven? How about you? Is your name in the book of life?

You should know how to keep the Sabbath. Register in heaven to God, the judge of all, to the spirits of the just men made perfect. Because I'm running out of time, I want to go down. I want to go down to another. Take me down to verse 28. Verse 28. I'd like you to read from where I stopped in 23 to 28 later today. Because it'll help you read this whole thing. Because it is such an awesome—it's one of the few places in the Bible that really explains what we're doing here, why we're hearing, how we should look at this. In verse 28, therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, not like those doors, not like that mountain, but we're receiving that kingdom that's going to last forever, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptedly with what? Reverence. Reverence and godly fear. Brethren, let us have reverence to God. Reverence on this day. Every Sabbath should be what? Awesome. Every Sabbath we should look at it and hold Him in awe. Do you think He doesn't recognize when that's done? He doesn't understand that? He doesn't appreciate that?

He won't give us special understanding? He won't give us blessings? He says, just do what I ask and I will bless you and not curse you. Bless you beyond compare. And He has all power. See, we should be past, brethren, the point of breaking the Sabbath. We really should. You've been around a few years. You should be past just breaking the Sabbath.

We should now be concerned with how to keep it holy and keeping it holy by doing what? Honoring our God. So, brethren, it's the Sabbath. And it's not if, but how? How will you next week, sunset on Friday night, spend the next 24 hours in harmony with your God, with your God, making it special so that He can look down and say, I'm their God and they love me. Have a wonderful rest of the Sabbath.

And make sure that you, when any problems come your way, look up. The answer's up. The answer's up because all the power is up there.