Observing God's Sabbath

Well, all of us realize this past week has been somewhat trying in that it's a holiday season.

And of course, yesterday was Christmas Day. And of course, during this time, whether it's on television or you see an advertising or you just see people talking, you see a lot of talk.

Or at least the season is purported to be that of joy and giving and family.

And yet more often, I think you find it's a time of loneliness, a time of being discouraged and depressed. And the reason for that is simply that the whole build-up, and ultimately then Christmas Day, is a facade. It's a facade because obviously Jesus was not born at this time.

It is, of course, so commercial that you can hardly stand. You know, you certainly don't want to go to the mall, or at least I don't want to go to even close to the mall in the last several weeks. And I'm doubtful that it'd be better this next week because people be returning stuff. And so there will still be a lot of activity. So, whenever you think about this past week, it often is a time of loneliness and discouragement. I think you have to say the last couple of days, yesterday and even Thursday, was really, you know, it's very almost to me, it's kind of a troubled time. It's somewhat meaningless in a very empty time of year. Because again, you know, most people, even though most people here in the United States celebrate Christmas, I heard a statistic, it said 92% of Americans celebrate Christmas. That's almost everybody. That's just about everybody, 10% who are not directly involved. And then they said out of those 10% or 8 or 10%, 80% of those who are not Christians and who are not involved in Christmas, observe Christmas anyway. Because, you know, it's really just something to do. It's the way the whole system is set up. Schools are out.

You've got days like yesterday when nothing is open. Even if you needed or wanted something, you have to think about whether or not you can get it. I found I have at times driven around or wanted to find something on Christmas Day. I remember many, many moons ago, many, many years ago, Pat and I drove around, I think it was Tacoma, Washington for several hours trying to find some place to eat. There wasn't anything open. It was, again, you know, we were there. We lived in Portland and we were there probably on a kid's activity, a youth activity of some type in that area. But you couldn't even find anything open. I have found more recently Walgreens almost stays open for everything. You know, not only is Walgreens on every other corner, but they are also still open. And they told me at least, I didn't go over there to see, they told me they were open on Christmas. Probably a limited time, I guess. But anyway, I think it's important for us as we have gotten through this week, and of course, all of us are here. We are here celebrating. What we're doing today is celebrating the Sabbath. And I think it is significant. When you look at our magazine, the magazine that we use has been called The Good News. It's going to be started to be called Beyond Today with this next issue. But the issue that we got this last one, November and December, the issue that we received actually had, it not only pointed out the errors of celebrating a false holiday like Christmas, but what was really significant to me, there were two or three articles that were dealing with that topic and how you could see it in a better light, how you could see it in light of the Word of God. Because when you really study Luke 2 and Matthew 2, you don't find this scenario that many people even think exists. Not that Jesus wasn't born, because obviously he was, but he wasn't born around this time of year. And most people don't really care. They just want to have some reason to have some kind of a get-together or a party.

But what I was going to point out was that in our magazine we had a couple of articles about Christmas, of course why it's wrong. But then there were two articles, two articles on the same topic, different articles, different kind of dealing with the subject of Sabbath observance.

See, not only do we focus on things that God says are wrong, but we also want to focus, and certainly if people are reading the magazine you would hope that they would read and benefit from articles about the Sabbath, about the fact that even though we don't have any holy days coming up until April, we do have Sabbath every week. We do have a weekly day to look forward to. And that was just what our articles in the Good News were pointing out, that the Sabbath is not just for Israel, it's not just for the Jewish nation, it's for all of mankind, really.

Whenever we understand the Seventh-day Sabbath as we observe, as we respectfully observe, we want to be able to recognize that ultimately the whole world is going to come to see what a wonderful blessing it is that God has given us the Sabbath day. So we can not, or we not only should and can rejoice in the Sabbath, but we can look forward to this every week.

We have a six-day work week and then on the Seventh-day the Sabbath occurs, and it is a reminder of a time of true joy and true peace and true good will toward men. See, that's not happening in this world. This world is more torn apart than it is at any time in the past.

There have been many massive problems and changes that the world has endured, but we're approaching a climax to the end of the age. And the glorious Kingdom of God is going to bring true joy and peace and good will. So we have something to look forward to, but I'm pointing this out because the Bible tells us not just to keep the Sabbath, not just to observe the Sabbath.

And we're not here, all of us are here respecting the Sabbath and attending a Sabbath service, but we're not doing it just to avoid sin because we know that to ignore that is sin. You know, it's clearly a part of the law of God, and transgressing that, you know, we want to get away from it. We don't want to sin, but there's more to it than just that. So I want us to look or begin with here in Isaiah 58.

In Isaiah 58, you see Isaiah addressing, in this case, talking to Israel and telling them that, you know, you've got a problem. And of course, when you read the history of Israel and Judah, as far as both of the countries, nations that come from the people of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob, as you read about their disobedience, their ignorance of what it is that God wanted them to do, you find that they were certainly forgetting the Sabbath.

They were refraining. Here in Isaiah 58, you find a big discussion in the first part of this chapter about how to properly fast. He even told them you were fasting wrong. You know, you were fasting for your own purposes and for your own reasons. But I want to point out here, in the last two verses of Isaiah 58, just what it is it tells us. It says in verse 13, if you refrain from trampling on the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day. See here, Isaiah is saying that God says the Sabbath is His.

The Sabbath is His holy day. And then if you go ahead and call the Sabbath a delight. See, that's how we should view the Sabbath day. The end of the week, the period of time, the 24 hours that God sets aside and says this is special. This is holy. This should be respected. This should be celebrated or guarded. It should be observed and kept in the way that I direct. And so he says if you call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord, if you call it honorable, if you honor it, in a sense you are honoring Him, not going your own way, not serving your own interests, not pursuing your own affairs.

If you will respect the Sabbath. If you will appreciate the fact that it is designed to be a delight. It's designed to be a joy for us to come together and meet. And I'll point this out here toward the end of the sermon. Here in this case, though, he says if you will turn away from trampling on the Sabbath, then in verse 14, you shall take delight in the Lord and I will make you ride upon the high places of the earth.

I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, from the mouth of the Lord is spoken.

Here he has mentioned or he mentions how, you know, as we are to do today, we are, you know, to respectfully observe the Sabbath, but more in verse 13, we are to call the Sabbath a delight. Now in Mark 2, we went over this a few weeks ago, in Mark chapter 2, Jesus made the statement in verse 27 and 28 that he, the Son of Man, was Lord of the Sabbath. But in verse 27, he said the Sabbath was made for the Jews. That wasn't what he said. He said the Sabbath was made for mankind. The Sabbath was made for the benefit of mankind, not man to be enslaved to a weekly burden. See, and even though we come to church every Sabbath, we come at the end of the week, we come on the seventh day, we don't want it to become a burden. We don't want it to become something that we don't look forward to. We want to look forward to it. We want to be uplifted by it.

And if we do what it says in Isaiah 58, call the Sabbath a delight. Understand that it has been given to us in a way so that we can be joyous, so that we can be uplifted and inspired. You know, that's what God is wishing for all of us. So at the end of every week here, as we go forward into this next year of 2016, at the end of every week, we're going to be coming to a Sabbath day.

And we should enjoy this weekly time of rejuvenation, of refreshing and recreation. It actually lets us jump off the hectic pace of our work week and then celebrate before God. So I want to give you three different things that I hope would be helpful to you today.

As far as how we can truly call the Sabbath a delight, how we can rejoice in this gift that God has given us. And again, I think we should realize that it is a gift that God has made available to us. I'd like for us to go back to Exodus 16. All of us know that the Ten Commandments include the Fourth Commandment, which says, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. We're all familiar with that. And yet, what I want to do is to go back here in the Book of Exodus and go over a story here in Exodus 16. Now again, I'm pretty sure all of you are familiar with this, or many of you are familiar with this account of Israel and God. God had brought them out of the land of Egypt. He had brought them. They were heading toward Mount Sinai. And it was going to be at Mount Sinai where they would receive the law. They would receive the Ten Commandments. They would say, yes, we'll obey. Of course, they didn't obey. But they agreed. They made a covenant with God. And they said, we'll do it. But I think it's interesting. And even when you think about it, many of us know what Exodus 20, verse 8, says. It says, remember the Sabbath day. It doesn't say directly what day it is. To begin with, it says it's already in existence. It's already been designated. It's already been designed and sanctified and blessed by the great Creator God.

And what you need to do is remember that day. And so I want to point out here in Exodus 16 that God went through an elaborate lesson. And of course, I guess in every one of our Bibles, Exodus 16 comes before Exodus 20. It's several chapters before. And so the time frame is obviously before when Moses would be given the Ten Commandments. And he would write them down.

It's interesting to think about that. I don't know that I had noticed that before. I knew that this was about the manna that was going to be given to Israel because they were grumbling and they were complaining and they were moaning about the fact that what are we doing out here in the wilderness? We don't have anything to eat. We don't have anything to drink. And of course, God didn't view that very well. He viewed that rather dimly. But in verse 4, the Lord said to Moses, I'm going to rain bread from heaven for you. And each day the people are going to go out and gather enough for that day. And in that way I will test them whether they will follow my instructions or not.

And so God, even in giving them food, giving them what they needed to eat. Now in this case, of course, he was giving them bread. He also, as we're going to read, he's going to give them meat. Going to give them quail. You know, little bitty birds. Takes a whole bunch of them, as I recall, to make much of a meal. You know, it's not like a big turkey. You know, you can make a big meal out of a big turkey. God didn't rain turkeys upon them. He rained quail upon them, or he brought quail into the camp. But in verse 5, on the sixth day, when they prepare what you bring in, you should bring in twice as much as you gather on the other days. And so this was an instruction to Israel again before the Ten Commandments are delivered from Mount Sinai.

So Moses and Aaron said to the Israelites, in the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt. In the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard you're complaining against the Lord. He says, what are we? You complain against us. He was saying, Moses and Aaron, what are we? You know, how do we have any way of feeding all of you? You know, God's going to have to do that, of course. And so in verse 9, you know, they tell the people what to do. And in verse 13, well, in verse 11, the Lord spoke to Moses, said, I've heard the complaining of the Israelites. And so say to them, at twilight you shall eat meat, in the morning you shall have your fill of bread. And the reason for that was not just because they were hungry or thirsty. The reason for that was to teach them what we see in verse 12, that you will know that I am the Lord your God. That you will know that your life being sustained is in my hand.

I'm the one who gives physical and, when we think about it, eternal or everlasting life. God holds that in his hand. So in verse 13, in the evening, Quail came up and covered the camp. And in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.

When the layer of dew were lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, his finest frost on the ground. And when the Israelites saw it, they said, what is this? What is it? They had never seen anything like this before. That wasn't a common fair, I guess, in Egypt. They didn't have that any time earlier. And so this was a miracle that God was going to perform. And in verse 8, they did not know what it was. And Moses said, well, it's the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. I'm sorry, that's not verse 8. I've got a little G written there. It looks like an 8 to me. But in verse 15, they didn't know what it was. Moses said, it's a bread that the Lord has given you to eat. And this is what the Lord has commanded, that you should gather as much of it as each of you needs. And so there was instruction even more so about what they were to gather, how much. And for larger families, they could gather more. For smaller families, you could gather less. They all ended up with what they needed.

In verse 19, Moses said, let no one leave any of it over until morning.

You know, I don't want you to keep this overnight. But, verse 20, they didn't listen to Moses.

Some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul. And so it putrified. It was corrupted. And Moses was angry. Morning by morning, they gathered as much as needed, but when the sun grew hot, it melted. Now, this was a daily sustenance, clearly, even as we need to have daily, not only physical, but spiritual bread. Jesus being the bread of life. But in verse 22, it says on the sixth day, they gathered twice as much food. And when the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said, this is what the Lord has commanded. In verse 23, tomorrow is a day of solemn rest. A holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you want to bake, boil what you want to boil, all that is left over, put inside to be kept until morning. And so here, you see a designation of the Sabbath. And whenever they were later told, as a part of the law, remember what I've already taught you. Remember what I've reminded you of. Even though you have forgotten pretty much everything I've ever told you while you were in slavery in Egypt, I'm now showing you my ways. I'm showing you my word. And so here, he says in verse 23, tomorrow is a day of solemn rest. A holy Sabbath to the Lord. And so in verse 24, they put it aside until morning as Moses commanded, but it did not become foul. There were no words in it. No new protein. They weren't able. It was just fine. There was no problem with it at all.

And so they put it aside in verse 24 until morning as Moses commanded. It didn't become foul. Verse 25, Moses said, eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you shall not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none. And so this was not just a, oh, Moses said that we ought to do this. This was clearly demonstrated to everybody in the entire nation. How it was that God could provide for them. How it was that the Sabbath was distinctive. That it was specific to be used in a particular way. That it was to be acknowledged. And that is, in essence, the first thing that I want to point out here. That the Sabbath, as I mentioned before, Jesus said the Sabbath was made for mankind. Here in this case, it's simply being introduced to the people of Israel.

It's being introduced to them. It doesn't appear to be introduced around the world.

But here, it says in verse 27, on the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather.

You know, either they couldn't hear, either they didn't understand, either they couldn't follow instructions, or else they were just stubborn pigheaded Israelites. You know, that's maybe what the case was. And I think all of us have to identify with that sometimes. But here, it says, some of the people went out to gather, and they didn't find any. And the Lord said, how long, how long will you, how long will the people refuse to keep my commandments and my instructions? See, God had done this, in a sense, kind of to test them. It would have been pretty simple to just believe what God said. And certainly, it had already happened, you know, we see it every day, and we prepare it on Friday. It doesn't rot on Saturday, as, you know, we would look at it today. You know, it's available to be used, and it's okay. It's not, you know, it's not rotted. But what I want to point out here is, is in verse 29. In verse 29, it says, See, the Lord has given you a gift. The Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore, on the sixth day, He gives you food for two days.

Each of you stay where you are and do not leave your place on the seventh day.

So the people rested on the seventh day. And then it discusses manna. Of course, there's a lot more to that story. But all I'm wanting to focus on is the fact that the Sabbath was a gift that God reminded the Israelites of. Because, see, the Sabbath already existed, even prior to this, as we know in Genesis chapter 2, we go back and even at creation, where God reshaped the earth and He created and fashioned the earth from the chaos and confusion it had come into with Satan's rebellion. God reshaped the earth in Genesis 1. And in Genesis chapter 2, you see the institution of the Sabbath for man.

So this was in the beginning. Six thousand years ago, when Adam and Eve were placed on the earth, we see them interacting with God on day six. You see God breathing into Adam the breath of life, creating Eve, communing with them, instructing them. In verse 1 of chapter 2, it says, Thus says the heavens and the earth. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. In verse 2 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. So God blessed the seventh day. He hallowed or sanctified the seventh day, because on it God rested from all the work that He had done in creation. Now, this was the Sabbath being given to mankind. This was the Sabbath having been made for man, and man can ignore it, as God clearly is very patient and long suffering. But all of us want to be reminded that God is the one who is the one who is the one who designates a 24-hour period of time at the end of every week as a day to be respected, a day to observe, a day to remember, a day that is sanctified and set apart.

And see, that's not up to us. That's up to Him. And clearly, He designated that from the very beginning. And ultimately, we will see that everyone who is a part of the family of God will be understanding and respectful of God's directive about the Sabbath.

But the first thing I'm wanting to point out here is simply that God gave the Sabbath as a gift to man. He was reminding the Israelites in Exodus 16, and He clearly made it a part of the law in Exodus 20. You also see here in Exodus 31, this is another chapter that is actually toward the end of the time when God was giving Moses the commandments. Exodus 31, verse 18, when God finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave them the two tablets of the covenant, the tables of stone written with the finger of God. But I want to focus on what it says starting in verse 12. It says, The Lord said to Moses, You yourself are to speak to the Israelites and say, You shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations. See, now often we read that and we think, okay, well, the Sabbath identifies us as God's people. And sure enough, it is a sign. If we drop down to verse 17, it's a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth and the seventh day rested and He was refreshed. But what I want to focus on is up in verse 13 again.

It says that the Sabbath is a sign between me and you throughout your generations given to you, given in order that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.

See, as we respect the Sabbath, as we recognize it as a gift from God, that's not simply pointing out and giving us a guideline for how to organize our lives.

It is a gift from our Heavenly Father, a gift that He says is given so that I may set you apart. I may sanctify you. See, we have God's blessing, His sanctification, His consecration. He tells us, I want you to be holy like I am. He wants us to draw close to Him in many, many ways.

One of those ways is the Sabbath, and it is given to us as a sign. So that's the first thing I want to point out. The second thing is simply revealed in the descriptions that we find of the Sabbath in the law. What do we read in Exodus 20? Back up a few pages here in Exodus. In Exodus chapter 20, we all know what it says in verse 8. Remember the Sabbath day. It already existed. It existed from the time of Adam. It existed because God blessed it and hallowed it and set it apart.

He says in verse 8, remember the Sabbath 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, you are not to do any work. He goes ahead and describes it in verse 11. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, but he rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and he consecrated it. Now again, I know we're familiar with that instruction.

See, what he's pointing out in that particular direction in the law is that as you respect the Sabbath, as you un-gift from God, as you observe that period of God has set apart, well then you're to think of and be reminded of the Creator. See, as I've mentioned to you many times, you know, that's what Lucifer forgot. He forgot he was a created being. He was created in a magnanimous way. He was far more incredible than any of us, but he forgot.

He forgot I'm a created being. I don't have a chance against the Creator. He concluded, he deceived himself into thinking that he could oppose God and get away with it.

And as we know in the descriptions that we read about Satan's rebellion, that he was filled with pride. He was filled with arrogance. He was filled with anger.

And he forgot that he was a created being. See, that's a blessing to be able to every week be reminded here a couple of days ago or I think it was Thursday night. You know, they were advertising, you know, the full moon to be on either Christmas Eve or Christmas. You know, that has nothing to do with anything except that's when it happened to be this year or this month.

But, you know, it's fabulous to look up at the full moon to be able to see something 240,000 miles away, to be able to marvel at how it is that God has set this light in the night to rule the night. And of course, if you're familiar with that, you kind of understand about the new moon, which you can hardly see, and then the quarters of the moon and ultimately the full moon and then the waning moon. It's fabulous to be able to see what God has done. But of course, you know, He's the great Creator. He's the great, not only the Creator of the sun and the moon and the earth and everything that we see and everything that we deal with as humans on this earth, He deserves to be respected. He deserves us setting aside the Sabbath, understanding it's a gift from Him and being reminded that He's the Creator. Let's look at Deuteronomy 5.

At the end of wandering in the wilderness, at the end of 40 years of aimless wandering, you know, God continued to humbly continue to prove Israel through 40 years before they would ever be allowed to go into the land that God had given them promise. But here you see in Deuteronomy 5, in a sense, a repeating of the law. It was rehearsing. Moses was going over it again. It wasn't being given right here. It was being rehearsed and reminding them of what it was that God told us and actually what it was we agreed to do. Here in chapter 5, verse 12, Deuteronomy 5.12, he says, observe the Sabbath day. It doesn't directly say the same word as far as remember. It says, observe the Sabbath day. Respect the Sabbath day. In a sense, even this word means to guard the Sabbath. We want to be protective of a gift that God has given to us.

Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy as the Lord commanded you. Six days you should do labor and all your work. Seven days Sabbath the Lord you got. Very similar to what we read in Exodus 20.

But he ends up at the end of this quite differently. In verse 15, he doesn't talk about God being the creator and how he had made everything and set it in order.

He says here in verse 15, remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.

Remember that 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 day. See, he's given a little bit of different instruction here, but it's actually in a sense kind of a cumulative thing.

And we certainly want to be reminded of our creator and reminded of our responsibility toward God and his words. But we also want to be reminded as the Israelites were rescued, as they were delivered, as they were brought out of slavery in Egypt. All of us have had to have a Redeemer. We've all needed a Redeemer and God has given us through Jesus Christ the forgiveness and the mercy that we so much need to be able to move out of sin and slavery to sin and into the type of lives that God wants us to live. And so he reminds us not only that the Sabbath is a sign, and it's a sign that we want to always be thankful for. It's a gift from God, but that we can be reminded of our creator and the one who is our Redeemer every, every week. We never want to forget how it is that God set that up. The last thing I'll mention is simply what we read here in the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews is a book that Paul wrote to the Jewish Christians, people who had a Jewish heritage, a Jewish background. Paul was one of them. He clearly had the Jewish background that he could talk about. He was very familiar with the law. He very much understood the Old Testament, and yet here he's writing to Hebrews. He's writing to Jewish Christians. And there were, not only in Jerusalem, but in many other parts of the country around Israel today and up into Turkey, where numerous other congregations, even into Greece, Achaia, and Macedonia. There were Jewish Christians in many of those places, even over in Rome.

But here in chapter 3, this whole book is written about how to be good Christians, about how to respect God, about how to appreciate what God has given you, what you are to do when you gather together. He could actually say to most of these folks that this book would be directed to. You've been keeping the Sabbath all your life, but you may not have been keeping it properly. They were aware of the Sabbath. They grew up with that. It was common in the land of Israel at the time when Jesus in Palestine, where Jesus walked. Everybody, as far as at least the Jewish world, kept the Sabbath. But see, some of them came to believe who Jesus was. They came to understand their need for Him, and they became a part of the Church. And so here in Hebrews 3, He says in verse 3, and this is actually telling us not just to them, but to us today, you know, what are we to do when we come to church? Are we just coming to church? Are we just keeping the Sabbath? Are we just going to Sabbath services? Because that's when we happen to have it.

There's more to it than that. He says in verse 12, "'Take heed, or take care, brethren, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.'" See, He wanted them to be steadfast. He wanted them to be, you know, encouraged. He wanted them to be uplifted. But in verse 13, He says, "'I want you to exhort one another, exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.'" See, and here He mentions today, and today is used in Psalms. It's used here in Hebrews. It's used in chapter 4 to point out this today is talking about a Sabbath day where we meet together and where we worship God, where we thank God for His gift and where we remember Him as our Creator and our Redeemer. But here in verse 13, He says, "'I want you to exhort one another, as long as it is called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.'" Sin is far more deceptive, you know, than we usually think about. We need to be reminded. We need to be encouraged. We need to be exhorted. We need to come to see sin in our own lives. And if we jump over to chapter 10, I'll come back here to chapter 4 because it does tell us that there remains a Sabbath of rest for the people of God. But here in chapter 10, you see Paul saying to them, well, what you need to do when you come together and when you exhort each other and when you are, you know, you're not just to be focused as they often were. They were focused on what did they do in the synagogue. Well, they read the Old Testament, and that was fine. We read the Old Testament, too. You know, we have it readily available. It's easily available on many of your tablets. It's a little harder to find here in my Bible. I have to look through stuff to get to the right page. But he says, I want you to focus on what you're to do when you come together. In verse 23, chapter 10, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and to good deeds. See, what are we supposed to talk about when we're here at Sabbath service? Well, you know, we want to talk about the things of God. We want to learn more about God. We want to grow in understanding the Bible and word of God. But he says, I want you to consider, verse 24, how to provoke one another to growing in love.

To growing in understanding the love of God and love that he has for us and that we're to have for each other. Consider how to provoke one another to love and to good deeds. Good deeds are right to do.

That doesn't earn us salvation, but it's right to do. Loving one another is what we're required to do. He says in verse 25, not neglecting meeting together as they would obviously do on the Sabbath day. Not neglecting the meeting together as is the manner of some, but encouraging one another or exhorting one another. And all the more, as you see the day approaching, as you see the ultimate fulfillment of what the Sabbath pictures. The Sabbath pictures numerous things, and we've mentioned some of those, but ultimately it pictures the kingdom of God. It pictures a thousand-year rule of Jesus Christ on earth that deposes the 6,000-year rule of man living in rulership on earth. We're looking forward to that time. He says, as you keep the Sabbath, you need to do that in a joyous manner. You need to do that encouraging one another. You need to celebrate, joyfully come together and celebrate that. And this is actually what it also says if we go back to chapter 4, because here in chapter 4, it points out how our hope in the kingdom of God involves Sabbath worship. In chapter 4, in verse 4, it says, in one place, it speaks about the seventh day as follows. It says, God rested on the seventh day from all this work. And again, in this place, it says, they should not enter my rest. This was talking about what Israel, you know, they didn't want to go into the promised land, or they neglected what would be needful to go into the promised land.

And so in verse 5, again, in this place, it says, you know, verse 6, I guess, since therefore it remains open for some to enter it. Those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because they disobeyed. Again, he sets a certain day called today, saying through David much later, in the words already quoted today, if you hear my voice, don't harden your hearts. Don't let your hearts be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, like we read in chapter 3. But he says in verse 9, so then a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God. For those who enter God's rest also cease from their labors, as God did from his. And so let us therefore, in verse 11, let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.

See, brethren, what this is telling us is that we have a privilege of coming to appreciate the gift of God. And we're reminded of God as our creator and as our Redeemer, the one who has brought us out of being enslaved to sin, the one who gives us the hope of eternal life, and the one who points us to the kingdom of God. And we are to draw together and encourage one another and uplift one another in joy and in happiness, because God holds out before us his kingdom.

And we are looking forward to a time when that will be the end result of what God is doing. I want to conclude here by going back to Isaiah. I started in Isaiah 58, and we will end here in Isaiah 56. Isaiah 56 is actually another, it's an encouraging chapter. I think certain parts of chapter are remarkably encouraging, at least read the chapter 5 and 10 a lot, because it happened to God. But in chapter 56, Isaiah 56, it says in verse 2, happy or blessed is the man who does this, the one who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, not reframing it from doing any evil. He goes on and talks about foreigners learning how it is to approach God, how it is to be close to God. And he says in verse 6, foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to his servants, all who keep the Sabbath, and who do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant. Here he's actually talking about a time in the future when all people will come to know during the time of the church age, a time prior to Jesus' intervention in world affairs, there will be Jews and Gentiles brought into the church of God. But beyond that, into the millennium, and into the time beyond that, all people are going to come to know what it is to relate to God. And so he says, the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, those who keep the Sabbath, who do not profane it, but hold fast my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain. I will make them joyful in my house of prayer. See, as God holds out before us the gift.

You know, we may become week to week kind of used to what we do and forget how wonderful a privilege it is to joyfully come before God on the Sabbath and to encourage one another. But he says, ultimately, everyone will be brought to my holy mountain, and I will make them joyful in my house of prayer. They will be accepted.

Their offerings and sacrifices will be accepted. He says in the last part of verse 7, For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. And he talks about gathering the outcasts of Israel. See, that's what God holds out before us. And thankfully, we have a wonderful privilege of being able to know these things today, to be able to know not only about the Sabbath and how to avoid sinning, but how to truly use the day to lift each other up, to be encouraging, to be joyful. Unlike what we find in the world, too many times people go through a pattern of activity that doesn't produce true joy. This is talking about true joy that comes from God to His people as we respect His Word. And of course, we await today when Jesus will truly bring the answer. And as I mentioned in the announcements, God isn't fixing this yet. He's going to fix it. And part of that fix is going to be an understanding that all of us enjoy. And I just hope that we can truly rejoice in understanding the blessing that the Sabbath is not a burden, but a blessing that the Sabbath is for all of us.