The Sabbath - A Family Tradition

So today's message is on the Sabbath. I have not given a Sabbath message in over a year, and some of this stuff I covered three years ago. I wanted to talk about it because actually the title of today's message is Family Tradition. The Sabbath is a family tradition. What is perhaps your family known for? I asked Mary that this week or last week when I was putting this sermon together. I said, what's your family known for? I've been around her family, but they lived there. She grew up in Alabama, and I'm in Tennessee, and they can play football. She thinks Tennessee can't, but other than that, there had to be other things. And so she actually said, well, what would my family be known for in that community, in that area? She said, probably watermelons. Her father has this large farm, and he would grow acres upon acres, tens and twenties, thirty-fifty acres of watermelons. Every year for decades they had that sandy soil that they could grow watermelons. So I said, well, what else? And she said, well, probably the education, it would be known for excellent students. I thought maybe she was bragging on herself, but probably bragging about her family more than that. They had valedictorians and salutatorians and whatever else, torians you have in Alabama, through her family. And so she actually then threw the question back to me. I said, what was your family known for? I had to think for a minute, and it was probably work. My parents, at a very young age, I remember working. They worked very long hours, and then they taught us at a very young age, if you want something, you have to work for it. Work, work, work. I thought that's all there was in life, so I so remember that. What about your family? Anybody here? Family known for something? Yes, Marley? You're being loud. Cubans are loud. Louder than Colombians. Oh, okay. But very happy. So it's a happy loud. That's what your family. Yeah, so when your family gets together, everybody knows it. Everybody can hear up and down the street. Anybody else? Yes.

Education. Yeah, okay. And so all of them went to school, and they're known for it. No, okay.

Yeah, William?

You laugh about everything. So that means when it's not even funny, you're going to laugh at my jokes, right? Well, I'm glad to hear that. But so you obviously had a happy family to have that so forth. Well, what? Both my wife and I lived in small towns. Nothing like this, but my town was about Milton, Tennessee, where I grew up. In was about 150 to 200 people. Here's what? Double Springs. About a thousand people. Very small. Hardly anyone in my town, I can say absolutely, no one in my town, and there was one other person in Marystown, kept the Sabbath. Most everyone in our little community of 100 to 200 people, we had a little square there where we played baseball and a little store, and around that square were three churches, plus two more out on the road. Everybody went to church, basically, in Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, and then there were a couple other small branches of that, but everybody went to church on Sunday. So we were, as Mary's family was, we were known in our community as those people go to church on Saturday.

They go to church on Saturday, and it was a little strange. It was different growing up because those are some of the same churches that my parents took me when I was a child to the church. With Mary they're like, they're not Jewish, but they act like it.

Because that's all they knew. We didn't have any Jewish people in our town or community. It wasn't any, so forth. So we were different, and there was a clear representation by the community that we did not think like they thought. And so it kind of set us apart. Whether you wanted that or not, it really didn't come to the forefront until I started playing basketball. And then I wouldn't play on Friday nights. And because we didn't have a very good team, it was important to have everybody who was halfway decent there. And when I didn't go, it was like, what's wrong? You know, what's happened? Are you, you know, is there something that happens between Friday night, sundown, and Saturday night, sundown? And so it took a lot of trying to explain, but they really, no matter what you did, they still didn't. You could talk to your blue in the face. They just didn't understand. Well, today is who we are and what we do. The Sabbath is who we are and what we do. It does set us apart because we do things different.

But we come from a long line of Sabbath keepers according to this book. You come from a long line of Sabbath keepers according to the scriptures. It's what our family is known for. It is what your spiritual family is known for, the Sabbath, because the Sabbath is a family tradition. So today, let's look at the legacy of the Sabbath day that's left to us through the words of this Bible. And ask the question, are we carrying on a, as country songs said, a family tradition? I know this guy knows country music and a lot of you don't, so he will at least smile. Let's go with me, if you will. I'd like you to get with me as we start this in Exodus 31 and verse 13. Exodus 31 and verse 13 said, speaking also to the children of Israel, saying, Surely, my Sabbath, surely my Sabbath you shall keep, for it is a sign. It is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you or sets you apart, is what the scripture says. A sign in Hebrew, that sign, the word sign actually means a mark that is noticeable or another word is evidence. Evidence. Evidence of what? Evidence of who you belong to. So I'm going to make a sign because that's what the word actually means. It actually means like you see a sign on a building.

You see a sign or something here because you're going to sell something. If your house is for sale, they put a sign out. If you have a business, most smart businessmen are going to do what? They're going to put up a sign. Right? Joshua. Even he knows that. Right?

According to scripture, the Sabbath is a sign. It is a sign between a person and God. Now, you may say, well, wait a minute. It says on there, say to the children of Israel, I'm not of the children of Israel. Am I? And wait a minute. This is written thousands of years ago. Well, let's go. Let's go to the New Testament, as a matter of fact, to Mark. Mark 2, if you will. Mark 2, verse 27, as Jesus Christ is being questioned about the day called the Sabbath and what he's doing on it. And so it actually says here, as he addresses this, and he said to them in verse 27 from the New King James, not A, the Sabbath, means there's one, the Sabbath coming from the words of God. The Sabbath was made for man and not for, and not man for the, again, definite article in the Greek Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man, the only one Son of Man, only one Son of God here, the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath designated, set apart. It's pretty simple, pretty clear. God sanctified it. God set it apart. God created the Sabbath. And he said, here is a certain time. And as 1 John 1, 1 says, God and the Word are of one mind. They kept the Sabbath. It was theirs.

I'd like you to go, if you will, back to Genesis 2, 2.

It's not the first mention of the Sabbath. As we know in Scripture, if you study Genesis, and you've been here in this congregation any time during the last six years, that I've been here six and a half almost now, you know that Genesis 1, verse 14 says, he puts the lights and the firmament, gave the moon and the sun four signs, a sign, signs and seasons. Mohedim in the Hebrew, which easy to look up in Hebrew. Mohedim means religious appointments. That's the first time it's actually mentioned. But he goes to Genesis 2. Genesis 2, after he had made man, just got done making him, day before, sixth day, seventh day, then he said in chapter 2, verse 1, Thus the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them were finished. And 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. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified our Kadesh, Kadesh, going to do something here. If you don't mind, Bruce, and if you don't mind, also, Maurice, I'm going to give you this. I'd like you to keep this hand out. There's 40 of them. I think you've got 40. I think Bruce got. Yeah, if you'll take one side. These are the actual Hebrew words that I'd like you to have. I've mentioned them before here, but I've never given them to you, so you can have them so you don't have to look it up. Okay? All the research and go into the Greek, even how to pronounce them, because these are the words we'll be covering. But there also be some guidelines for what the Bible study is about, because I'm going to ask you some questions. And these are the main guidelines that God gives us for his Sabbath day. Not men, but God. And that's what we want to look at today. So as you can see, he kadash the Sabbath, which means to dedicate, as your paper will have here, to dedicate, to observe, to keep pure, clean, holy, sacred. That's what the Sabbath was when it was created. These are God's words, not Chuck Smith, not the United Church of God.

He sanctified it. He kadashed it. Okay? It's dedicated, being holy. You have enough, Brooks? Okay, good. Good, thank you.

God and the Word kept it. Now, did Adam and Eve keep it?

Why did he say that? Because he made it for them. He said, man, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, right? So, Adam and Eve, you would think, kept it. Okay? Now, because Christ said, that's the reason they put it together. Otherwise, why would he do that?

Is there any doubt that Abel kept the Sabbath? See, we're going into history because we already know that God and the Word kept it. We're looking at Adam and Eve keeping it. Well, how about Abel? Well, if you look in Hebrews 11, the faith chapter, all those who are faithful in Hebrews 11, in fact, he really talks about it on the first. He said, by faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice. Well, he was sacrificing. Why did he sacrifice? Because God told him to. Right? Pretty simple. Logical deduction. More sacrificing came through which he obtained witness that he was what? Righteous. He was righteous. Look in your Bibles, if you doubt me, bring it back to me next week. I'll stand up here and actually read it and proclaim you right. And I'm wrong. I have no problem at all doing that. Find someone who is called righteous or considered righteous in the Bible, the whole pages of the Bible. 4,100 years listed there that we know. Find a righteous person that kept a day other than the Sabbath.

I want to know. It just makes sense. We have 4,000 years of history. Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath. Oh! Find that person. I'll be interested to know their name. Because I've looked, it does mean I'm still looking through this Bible. I don't know everything, but if you can find it, let me know. So he was called righteous. And then you can go on down the line and you can see Enoch who showed up in Genesis 5 a little bit later. And he said he walked with God for 300 years. Walked with God. 300 years. It's interesting, walk, walked with God in the Greek is halak. H-A-L-A-K is how it's spelled, halak. And it means to walk as a lifestyle, a pattern of conduct in the original Hebrew.

So you're going to say God designed it, He created it, He made it holy, He pronounced it pure, clean, holy, sacred, and then this guy's going to walk with Him for 300 years. I'm not kidding. That's not logical, as Mr. Spock would say.

And God is a very logical God, and most of us can put this together, right? So as you go down the path down the road, then we have man by the name of Noah. Now we know he sacrificed. God even told him what animals to put on the ark and which ones to sacrifice. Right? And he's known to be righteous, and the Bible actually says that Noah walked with God 950 years. Two-thirds of the time that man had been on the earth, Noah walked with him to that time. 950 years, and he said he walked with God. Any doubt he kept the Sabbath? Well, you may say, well, it doesn't say he did. Well, it doesn't say he didn't. But I know he was righteous, and you follow the pattern, and that's where you have to go. But then it goes down to after him, it goes to the time of Abraham. Was Abraham a righteous man? He says he was. Okay, as a matter of fact, the Bible says that he was a friend to God. Right? He was a friend of God. Isn't that interesting? Amos 33 states that a state years later, it said when he poses a question, can two walk together, lest they what? Agree? Can two walk together? Spend time together, and lest they agree? It makes sense. But here, we actually have Genesis 25. Excuse me, Genesis 26. I always want to say 25. We actually went through this in Bible study the other night. Genesis 26, it talks about Abraham. Now, this is 500 years before Mount Sinai, when everybody that says, well, the Sabbath was given to the Jews. There are not any Jews. Jews aren't there yet. It is not there yet. It's just Abraham. And it said, chapter 26, in verse 5, as we discussed in the Bible study the other day, God's telling Isaac, his son, do you know why you have all this stuff? Do you know why I've given you all this stuff and why I'm going to bless you? It's not because of you. It's because of your daddy. Because you're Papa. Because your father, Abraham. And he says in verse 5, Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, all ten, not nine, some people wanted to do, kept all my commandments, my statutes and my laws. So we know that Abraham kept them. God said so. It's in his inspired word. Now, you're going to tell me, he told Abraham that. Well, guess what? He also told Isaac, you know the reason? You know the reason? You're blessed. You're going to be protected. You're going to be rich. It's because of your father. Now, is there any doubt we asked if the Bible say the other night, any doubt that Abraham taught Isaac? Because Isaac's mentioned in the 11th chapter of Hebrew. And Isaac taught Jacob. It's a family tradition. It was handed down. That's why they were blessed. God kept working with them. He even got frustrated with them a few times. But there's not one of us in this room he hadn't gotten frustrated with.

Just ask him. He'll reveal it to you.

Because then, Jacob had a son named Levi, and then he had a great-grandson named Moses. And we know through Scripture, as we're following this legacy coming down, we know that Moses brought it out and actually got it from God. He wrote it in his hand with his own finger, the Ten Commandments, at which the fourth one was what? The Sabbath day. Keep it pure, clean, holy, sacred. That's what we kind of had in Exodus. Matter of fact, in Exodus 20 and verse 8, the Ten Commandments are listed there. They hadn't at that time been written yet. They weren't written in stone yet. He came down and announced those. God announced those commandments. And the fourth one was, remember Sunday.

Remember the Sabbath day. Sabbath doesn't mean... I had somebody else, and he said, oh, doesn't the Sabbath mean seven? No, it doesn't. It means cease. Stop! It means cease to do, is what it means. Stop working. Stop doing this. But here, you notice on your God's directives for the Sabbath.

Okay. It says Exodus 20 and verse 8, zakar is the actual word. Zakar, the Sabbath day. Remember the Sabbath day. Why they had been slaves and captives in Egypt for a good 150 years or plus. Slaves. They had to work when they were told to work. So he's saying, remember the Sabbath day. Zakar, which they would know what it means, just like you ask any Jewish person they was, Zakar means, and they say, to recall and never ever ever forget. He didn't want them forgetting because it had been handed down from generation to generation. One from one family member to the other. And now they were two and a half to three million people in this nation of mixed multitude. Zakar. But then, if you go to Exodus, if you will, you can go to Exodus 16. Now, this happens before God announced the Sabbath day. Now, why would you say, remember if they never ever knew about it before?

My wife says, remember to go to the store. She's not going to say, you know, remember I told you to go to the store.

I can't go. What'd you say? Remember. Remember the Sabbath day is what he said. But here, here, this took place before chapter 16. Here is another word. Okay, in verse 23. Then he said, this is what the Lord has said. Tomorrow is a Sabbath nuah. That's one word here, nuah. Which means to rest. It means complete envelopment. The Sabbath you are to be enveloped. What do you do with an envelope? You put something in it, you seal it, it becomes what? Completely enveloped. He wants, he wants them, he wants us on the Sabbath day to be completely enveloped, enthralled, enriched, empowered on the Sabbath day. Because it is a sign. Because he's going to show up there. He's going to show. So he says, zakar. He says, nuah. Complete envelopment. And then he goes into Exodus 23. Exodus 23 and verse 12. And he gives something else about the Sabbath. Exodus 23 and verse 12. Six days you shall do your work. And on the seventh day you shall rest that your ox and your donkey may rest and the son of your maidservant and the son of the stranger may be, and here is the other word, refreshed. Okay? Refreshed. And it's actually nafesh, not nafesh. Everybody remembers nafesh is a breathing creature. But nafesh means to breathe.

He wants us to stop and be refreshed.

And it actually means the pause that refreshes. You might have heard that from Coke. They used it a few years ago. Coke, the pause that refreshes. Well, I don't think it does. But I don't drink Coke. So maybe some of you drink Coke may feel refreshed after it. But God's saying He wants you on this Sabbath to come here, to relax, cease to do, and be refreshed, rest. And it's so important to Him. He said, even your animals need to rest.

Why? Because He designed each and every one of us. He knew what He knows. He knew then what we needed. He knows what we need now. The pause that refreshes. Now, one more. If you go over with me to Deuteronomy 5, you don't have to turn them. If you'd like to go there. Because Deuteronomy 5, verse 12, quotes God. And here's 38 years later from Exodus 20 and verse 8. Here are the commandments retold, except He doesn't tell them, all the children of Israel, all these years later, 38 years later, He doesn't say, Zechar. He says, Shemar. Shemar, which is the word, observe. Observe. Okay? You don't have to remember it because you've been keeping it for 38 years. In the wilderness, now you're about to come into the Promised Land and tell you what. I want you to observe the Sabbath day, which actually means Shemar, means to hedge about with thorns. To put a hedge. You put a hedge around your house. Not to keep you in, but to keep stuff out.

And He said, don't just hedge around my Sabbath. I want you to hedge you with thorns. I want you to keep the outside outside.

Pretty simple. They understood it. Do we? Do we understand?

Let's go back to Exodus 31. Exodus 31. We were there earlier. Exodus 31, verse 15 now. And God says, work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest.

But then He says something that we have to get through our heads. Holy to what? Holy to the church? No. Holy to the Lord. He made it holy. It's holy. It's holy time. He made it. He created it. And it is to be holy. But here it's interesting because here this is 2,000 years after, 2,500 years or so after, no almost 3,000 years after He had first mentioned it in Genesis 2. 2. So it's holy to God and He makes that clear. Holy to the Lord.

It's not some afterthought. It isn't like, oh, this day is kind of special to me. I'm going to put it here. I'm going to make it holy. It was holy at the beginning. It was a holy time because you're going to come and worship a holy God on a holy day. It's clear. It's very important to Him. 2. God's Sabbath produces a spiritual meeting time and place. No other time except a Sabbath.

He has His Sabbath, His weekly Sabbath, and He has seven annual holy high days. Seven annual Sabbaths is gone. They're holy time. They're not my time. They're not your time. And He commanded us to commune with Him, to come and meet with Him, to come and worship Him. Then He said, if you do, I'm going to take care of you.

Right? I'm going to look after you. These are the promises He made Israel. They just didn't follow through on their part, as we'll see.

So He commanded to commune on the seventh day, not Friday, not Sunday, or as some quite a few religions want to picture it today, every day. He didn't say every day. He didn't make every day holy. But yes, somebody would go, well, I can worship any day that I want. Because every day to me is holy to God, and I have this special relationship. Really? Four thousand years of words say no. And why? Well, I think it's pretty clear. No other day is holy, only God makes a holy day. That is why He is God, and we are not.

Well, but we changed that.

Really? I was born January 21st, 1959. I can't change that. I can say, well, you know, I was born May the 16th, 1952. But it doesn't make it so. You can change anything you want, but when something was created, when something was there, God created it. I can't change that. I can lie about it, right? But I can't change it. He made it holy, and He made no other day than that holy.

God gave the Sabbath to Israel to keep, and it was going to sanctify them and set them apart. And it would keep them, as noted later. And you can see the history of the Sabbath all through this book, both the good and the bad. But really, we keep the Sabbath, but if we were to write a history, or if God had somebody write it, they would both be good and bad, wouldn't they? Mostly good, I hope, because we've had 4,000 years of lessons to read from. Those who failed to learn from the past are what? Doomed to repeat it. I think it's George Centennial. Centennial? Actually, he said that. Think about that. We have this to read.

If you go to Ezekiel 20, Bruce is in Ezekiel. I noticed his book the other day when I was at his house, and he had turned to 19 and 20. I don't know if you're there yet, to 20. Are you? Yes. Ezekiel 20. This was written by Ezekiel after the children of Israel. Most of them had been taken captive. There were still some in the Jerusalem yet that the final fall had not happened. Ezekiel was actually taken in the second round of captives that were taken to Babylon. But they're looking back, and all these people have been there.

They're saying, when are we going to get to go back? When's God going to put us right? When can we go back and have our lands? When can we have our life so we're not slaves here anymore? And so he had this street preacher named Ezekiel, walking up and down the street, telling them for seven or eight years the reason they were where they were.

And then he reminds them in Ezekiel 20 and verse 12. He said, Moreover, I also gave them, that's your ancestors, that's your family tradition, people. I also gave them my, what? My Sabbaths. Who's Sabbaths? God's Sabbath. It's not my Sabbath, it's God's Sabbath. My Sabbath should be a, what? A sign. Here we go. We got to be a sign. A sign between them and me, that they may know that I am the Lord who sets them apart, sanctifies them, cadetias them.

They're nothing special, but because they keep his Sabbath, which is holy, worshiping the holy God, that's where it is. Yet the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not walk in my statues, they despised my judgment, which if a man does, he shall live by them, and they greatly defiled my Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out my fury on them in the wilderness to consume them. Verse 19. I am the Lord your God, walk in my statutes, keep my judgments, and do them. Hollow, make holy my Sabbath. That's what there is to do.

That's what we're asked to do today, as followers. Yeah, but isn't that hard to do? No, that they may be a sign between me and you. You want God to protect you, you want God to bless you, you want God to oversee you, you want to be able to pray to him. Good! Don't separate yourself from him. That's all there is to it. He wants a lot of children, but he wants children who he can call his children who call him their father. But there came a problem. God brought them into captivity because they would not for 70 years he kept them in captivity in Babylon because they would not obey him, and they would not keep his Sabbath.

No matter what you can study in Jeremiah 17, he said, they won't keep my Sabbath so I'm going to destroy this city. And he did because they wouldn't keep his Sabbath. And Nehemiah, when he came back, he said, your father's profane the Sabbath. That's why you had to go into captivity.

Nehemiah 13, look it up. Don't believe me. Look it up. Read the story. It's your history. It's those who came before you if you are keeping God's Sabbath, and that's why you're here today. There's roughly 400 years between the time that the Jews were returned to back to Jerusalem till the time of Christ. Okay? And the Jews, during those 400 years after Nehemiah and Ezra, the rebel died, you had this time that basically Malachi ends with, and you have roughly 400 years before the book of Matthew opens up if you're looking at a time sequence there, and Jesus Christ shows up on the scene.

So, but something amazing happened during those 400 years. They said, we know that we went into captivity because we broke the Sabbath. And so then you actually had two different rabbis, trains of thought, who were going to teach the people.

Shemah and Helah. Helah. Helah and Shemah. And so here, their job was to teach these people, we can't break the Sabbath. We can't break the Sabbath. We can't break the Sabbath, because that's what got us into trouble. If we do, we're going to be in trouble again. But what happened? It's just like from one ditch to the other ditch.

So they decided that God's word wasn't enough. They needed to put their own words together. They needed to have an oral translation of that, an oral telling of what do you do in this case, in this case, in this case. So then they added to this one, added to this one, added, added, added, added, added, added, added to the Sabbath day. To where when the one who created it, Jesus Christ, the guy of the Old Testament, came back to earth He wouldn't even recognize it, because they had just taken it and had just turned it upside down. They had made a burden out of everything. And He said the Sabbath was what?

Made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Because they were on Him. Can you imagine coming to Him and saying, oh, you're wrong about this. What? I created it. I gave it. I made everything. Look at this. Look at, look at the ground. I made it. I made everything. Well, no, but you don't know about Sabbath. How would you feel?

It would have shocked you. And there became a conflict, a conflict between God who made it and those who decided they would interpret what He meant. And that's why we have all these people today that actually say, well, oh, I don't want to keep this Sabbath. Look at all the things you can't do.

Ooh, man, you're just, you're tied down. You might as well be a slave to the Sabbath. They don't understand. Now, if you're Jewish, I don't mean to offend you. The chances are if you're Jewish, you're not in here. But if you follow the Jewish laws and everything that way, yes, you might as well feel like a burden. Because Jesus Christ said that. He said, why are you following this? You lay all these burdens on these people, and it's still done 2,000 years later. And sometimes in the church, we don't understand. It's like, oh, can't do this, can't do that. That's why we're having this interactive Bible study. Because the only thing that's laid out from God Himself about what to do, how not to do it, is on the sheet of paper. This is how we... These are the guidelines. They're directives for the Sabbath. Make sure that you keep it holy. Make sure that you keep it holy. Make sure that you rest. Make sure you have complete envelopment. Don't forget it. Put a hedge about it and keep so many things from the outside world that you have six days a week from coming in there to help break your worship with God. That's what He asked. That's why we'll be going through some of these things. Because I can actually show you from Scripture, and we'll go through that in the Bible study. Some of these things that you may have heard, I can't do this. Why not? I can't do that. Why not? Who made these things? They even have in there about a Sabbath day journey. Wait a minute. Sabbath day journey? You can't travel. Well, wait a minute. God said over here, you couldn't even leave your house.

You really were tamped. You couldn't do this. Well, how are you to worship then when He said, co-incoming worship? Oh, wait a minute. You can go this far. Because that's what it's actually given. The rabbis came and said, well, wait a minute. There was this distance between the end of the camp when they were out in the wilderness. Like, that made a big difference. And then you can only do this one. So it's going to be this distance. So you can only go two-thirds of a mile. So most of you can travel. Oh, wait a minute. It was 2,000 steps. It was 2,000 cubits. Wait a minute. That's the Egyptian rule. You've got all this stuff that people made up and then they found, well, wait a minute. We need to walk a little farther than that. So the only... Okay. So they changed it. So the rabbis came in and said, okay, here's how we can do it. We need to go a little further than what was originally given. So they actually said, well, if you eat at a place, then you can call back your own because you eat it there. So if you want to travel and act twice the distance, you just put some food there at somebody's house at that distance and then you can travel then again. So if you want to travel quite a few miles, just keep putting food out there and you can stop and eat and then move on. I'm not kidding you. Look it up. It's there. It's laid out that way. They just changed to whatever they thought because they're smarter than God.

They just changed it and it became such a burden that Christ said, what's wrong with you people? Let me finish. I'm behind. Okay. Let's go Luke 4, verse 16. We're going to wrap this up. Luke 4.

Luke 4, verse 16. Luke 4, verse 16. Okay. So we know God kept it. Adam kept it. Abraham kept it. All the holy men kept it. All the prophets kept the Sabbath. Okay. Now we come to the time of Christ and this is God in the flesh in Luke 4 and verse 16. So he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. Why? To worship God. Yes, but they would say, yes, but he had to do that because he was a Jew.

Why did he have to be born a Jew? Why? Jesus Christ had to be born a Jew. He couldn't be born a Gentile. Couldn't. For one reason, the Jews were the only people keeping the Sabbath day. And so if he hadn't kept the Sabbath from a child, he would not be the Messiah. He would have sinned. It's that simple. Now, Acts 17 verse 2 says the church kept it. So here, Christ kept it, the church kept it. Okay? The Gentile church has kept it. Wasn't just the Jews, it was Gentile churches.

Let's go to Galatians. Galatians 6. As I wind this down, Galatians 6. And I'll read from the new King James version. And I want you to understand what you have to understand the church at Galatia and the Galatians, and they were very Gentile people. And so he was talking to them about circumcision and uncircumcision. And he said, it doesn't really mean anything because you had some Jews coming in there and go, oh, well, yeah, you do this, but you're not circumcised. So you're not really one of God's followers. Now, who are they? A lot of them were Jewish people in the church. They said, wait a minute. Yeah, you keep all this stuff like we do, but you're not circumcised. And Paul goes, just shut up.

Circumcised or uncircumcised? It's about the heart. But here, in closing, the book of Galatians, in chapter 6 and verse 15, For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but a new creation. But a new creation. You are a new creation when you've given your life to God, when you're committed to God. You're new. It doesn't matter what you were before. Verse 16, And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. He's saying, everybody, you're the Israel of God. When you obey God, because Israel is who He wanted to bless, if you follow Him, you are the Israel of God. Just like the Old Testament. And He will bless you.

Finally, go back to and finish with Isaiah 66. So we see all through the Bible, that in the past, and at the time of the Bible, the holy men of God kept the Sabbath. It was a sign between them and God. That's the way it is. I can't preach anything different, because that's what the Bible says. Even your theologians out there say, well, yes, yes, everybody did. Really, your best theologians and your emos learned will say, no, man changed from Saturday to Sunday. They readily admit it. Catholic Church even brags about it. We had the authority to do it, and we did it. So, in the past, they kept it. All the holy men kept it. Jesus Christ kept it. The Church kept it. And then Isaiah gives us a glimpse into the millennial kingdom of God, the thousand-year reign of Christ in the future. And in Isaiah 66 and verse 22, he says, For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me. So shall your descendants and your name remain, and it shall come to pass, that from one new moon, one month to another, one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before me. From one Sabbath to another. It is what's going to happen in the future.

And they will be carrying on a family tradition, just like you are, just like the ones who came before you, and just like hopefully parents will teach their children that there is something different about this Sabbath day. And yeah, we have to change some things here. On the Sabbath, we have a lot of younger kids now we didn't use to have. Okay, which is great! God has blessed us. But we have to have order. We will have order. We don't need kids running up and down the aisles. I don't need them running out here. So the front office asked me, well, who's those kids? Or wait a minute, they could knock somebody down or anything else. No, I remember I was 13, 14 when my father, they first introduced me to the Sabbath. And I was like, what? This is crazy! I gotta sit right there. I gotta do this. I gotta, you know, Saturday's play has been all my life. What's wrong with you people?

And then I realized I was a very hyperchild. My mother will tell you that. Matter of fact, a man came up to her when I was about 9 or 10 years old. And I had a sister a year older than me. And the man came up and told my mother, he said, you know, that little girl's all right, but that little boy, he's got.

He needs some attention, is what he actually said. So my mother decided my father would give me that attention.

But the Sabbath is, it's holy time. And that's what God wants us to keep it. Holy, so that we worship Him. It isn't something we need to be bogged down with and go, oh, I can't do this and I can't do that. That's what we're going to have the interactive Bible say. I want to hear what you have to say. I want to hear how you say. Because you know what God doesn't say? He doesn't tell you every little thing to do. He expects you to grow up and we have a grown up church. He didn't say, oh, don't do this. Oh, you can't do that. We do not want to be like the Pharisees. We cannot do that.

Because Jesus referenced them not being in the kingdom of God. So we don't make these great big laws or these little bitty laws. Okay? It's a matter of the heart. But these things that God gave us, that's how we view them. That's how we come up with what we do on the Sabbath day. This is how we worship our God. And brethren, we are blessed. Because God has revealed to us His Sabbath day. He has revealed to us His Sabbath day is a time to worship Him. He says what? Stop work, rest, and worship. Okay? Those are the things He lays out. That's the only thing He mentions on the Sabbath day. Now, He had to tell Israel, do this little thing and this little thing, because they were like children. We're not children. But He does give us these directives, so that we can take them and we apply them with His love. So the Sabbath is a matter of the heart between us and our God. So let's enjoy the rest of the Sabbath.