Sabbath Keeping

We are having a seminar today, what we're going to be doing, brethren, just to give you a little bit of a heads up. We've already had, and I ask that the songs be with the Sabbath in mind, our song service. I asked our sermonate man, Mr. Snow, to give a message about the Sabbath. I'll be giving the sermon today, talking about the Sabbath. My sermon will be more of a why we do what we do, and then we'll have a potluck, which we are all invited to, and then after the potluck, just the ladies will be coming on in here for the seminar.

We've got two ladies that we'll be going through and kind of drilling down, not just, you know, I'll be talking about the why, but I'll be talking a little more about the how, and educating us about some issues that perhaps we have not been as well-versed on as we'd like to be. So we'll have that from about two to four. Then, of course, ladies, if you would like to make comment, certainly, you know, raise your hand. We're not going to call anybody who doesn't raise their hand, but if you'd like to make comment and share some examples from your life, your experience about your Sabbath-keeping, your family's Sabbath-keeping, we would love to hear those. The whole intent of the service today is for us to draw closer to God by honoring His Sabbath day, having a fuller understanding of the Sabbath day. I hope we will accomplish that, and I certainly would like to hear your views when all of a sudden done, ladies, as to how you thought the day went today. That would mean a great deal to me in terms of future planning and future seminars and so forth. Brethren, in preparing the message today, I have used the Bible readings from the Homebook. That is a publication by the Seventh-day Adventist Society, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and I used it for some of the quotations I'll be giving to you later on in the sermon today. As you're very well aware, today we are hosting a very special event, a special service, and then a very special seminar. The seminar today is entitled, the ladies will be presenting, the women will be presenting, God's Sabbath, Oasis in Time, Oasis in Our Home. And again, as I've said to those of you in the local areas here that I've listened to their discussions as they brought forward their material to me a number of weeks ago. And I'm excited to listen to the full presentation today. So our Sabbath service today was designed with Sabbath keeping in mind, discussing the Sabbath in mind the whole day, the whole activity here is going to be talking about the Sabbath. As I said during the announcements afterwards, after the service today, we'll have a communal potluck and then the ladies-only seminar.

We will be taping the seminar so that our gentlemen could benefit from what will be discussed. And I know that a number of ladies who would like to be here simply couldn't because of various circumstances. Like to read a little bit from the promotion that we sent out to the various churches. You all of you have heard this as your pastors have announced it. I just wanted to read this as it kind of sets the tone for what I would like to get into today.

For millennia, Jewish faithful have recognized that the quality of our Sabbath observance affects the quality of our relationship with our Creator, and that the foundation of a rich, fulfilling Sabbath experience is its observance in our homes. Because of this, women have a special and important role in making the Sabbath a delight. Whether you are single or married, planning a family, raising a family, or an empty nester, if you are a woman, you are key to a joyful Sabbath experience.

Now, what I'm trying to do today for us, fellas, is to talk about our role a little bit, and the role for all of us. But certainly for you ladies, this is very appropriate for you. Today we'll be sharing perspectives during our seminar, insights, ideas, and how Sabbath keeping in our homes can enrich our lives, strengthen our families, and bring us closer to God. You will discover in our seminar the many levels of Sabbath rest, and how God wants us to savor them all, why and how God wants us to experience pleasure and joy on the Sabbath, ways to bring Sabbath day joy into our home during the rest of the week, and ideas for helping children experience the Sabbath, not as a day of restriction, as a day of unique, treasured delights. So, once again, that's what we're planning for the rest of the day in terms of our seminar. Now, today, in terms of my sermon, if you're taking notes, this would be the question I want to ask and hopefully answer today. So, if you're taking notes, you might want to jot this across the top of your page. The question is this. Do we fully appreciate the beauty and meaning of God's Sabbath day? Do we fully appreciate the beauty and meaning of God's Sabbath day? I'd like to begin with some general thoughts, some general thoughts as to why we observe God's Sabbath day. As I was putting my material together, I had a number of things prior to this point, and the way I normally work with my material that I'm presenting to you as a congregation and to God's people, whether we be locally or at a feast or whatever else, I'll put together my material and kind of stand back, look at it and see, well, what's missing? Is there anything missing? Is it relatively complete? Is it full? And when I took a look at my material, I said, you know, something very obvious was missing from my notes. And what is obvious is this. One of the reasons we observe God's Sabbath day is simply because God tells us to. So I thought to myself, let's not overlook the obvious here. You know, let's make sure that we've got that as a portion of what we're discussing today. Let's go to Exodus, Chapter 20.

Exodus, Chapter 20. And we're going to look at the commandment that is the longest commandment by wording. I don't know if you ever notice that or not, but the Sabbath command is the longest command by wording. God feels very strongly about the Sabbath day. And there are reasons for that which will continue to go through as the sermon progresses. Exodus, Chapter 20, and verse 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now, the idea here is to remember it. Obviously, they had been keeping the Sabbath prior to this. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor and do all of your work. Now, as I go through the material today, one of the things I want to do is, by way of contrast, by way of giving you some food for thought, because I know that we all have family members who wonder why it is we go to church on Saturday. Why it is we keep the Feast of the Tabernacles, as was brought out on TV the other day. The Feast of the Tabernacles. Why do we keep Saturday? Notice verse 9 here. Six days you shall labor and do all of your work. God says the other six days are work days, and that includes the first day of the week, Sunday. The fourth day is work day. Verse 10. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son nor your daughter nor your male servant nor your female servant nor your cattle nor your stranger who is within your gates. In other words, your household, your whole household. If you are in charge of your whole household, you've got, let's say, children under your authority and so forth, under your care, your dependents. The whole household keeps the Sabbath. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Now, we're going to take a look at this verse 11 in more detail. Notice that the Sabbath day is a rest day. Our ladies will be talking more about that in their seminar later on today. And notice that the day was blessed. It was hallowed. It was set apart.

Okay. The Sabbath day is one of God's Ten Commandments. God's Ten Commandments are an eternal law with eternal value. It's not just something that God just threw into the mix, and we can just kind of discard it with a mix. No, this is a cardinal point of the law of God, eternal value. Now, put a finger here, because I do want to come back to this section. I'll put a marker here myself. Put a marker there on Chapter 20. Let's go to Hebrews 4 for a moment. There are those that would say, well, you know, the Sabbath commandment is not enjoined to Christians in the New Testament. And there would be those people who would have you believe the Bible is at war with itself, you know, Old Testament versus New Testament. God in the Old Testament, Jesus in the New Testament, that the Bible and God's family, they're at war. They're at odds with one another. We'll discuss that issue as we progress through the sermon. But notice here in Hebrews 4 and verse 9. Hebrews 4 verse 9, there remains, therefore, a rest. Notice it says, there remains a rest. And the word rest there is sabatismos. The word sabatismos, this is the only place this word is used in the New Testament. But the word here means the keeping of a seventh-day Sabbath. There remains a keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath for the people of God. Now, remember, the book of Hebrews was written to show the Hebrew people, the Jewish people, what's changed? Here we've got Judaism, now we've got Jesus Christ, the ministry of Jesus Christ. We're no longer circumcising people, the men. What else has changed? And that was a legitimate question that was being asked. And so Paul wrote the book of Hebrews with that in mind. Let's discuss with the people in God's church what's changed. One thing that hasn't changed, as it says there in verse 9, there remains, not done away, not abolished, who covenant doesn't throw it out the window, there remains therefore a sabatismos to the people or for the people of God. So whether we're talking Old Testament, New Testament, the Bible is very clear on the subject. And again, we'll be going through this as we progress through the sermon. We observe the Sabbath because God commanded that we observe the Sabbath. Again, by way of contrast, let me look at the first day of the week. As we turn back to Deuteronomy chapter 20, I made mention there in verse 9, Six days shall you labor and do all your work. So God here instructs mankind to work on the first day of the week. Is it therefore wrong for us to obey God? God said we should work on Sunday. It's a regular work day. Now, of course, we understand that in this country and other places, you've got blue laws that we talk about Sunday. We can't open stores. We can't do this or that of the other on a Sunday. But again, we're going to take a look as to the reasoning behind some things and say, well, the Bible simply doesn't say anything about that. It simply doesn't say anything about that. In the rich history of God's people, think on this, none of the patriarchs ever kept the first day of the week. None of the prophets ever kept the first day of the week. And we're not talking about Pentecost. We're talking about by way of Sabbath. None of the patriarchs, none of the prophets, none of the apostles kept the first day of the week. There are only eight different verses in the New Testament that show the talk about the first day of the week. And not one of those verses will enforce the keeping of Sunday on anybody. Now, one of those verses enforces the keeping of Sunday. Therefore, because there's no law saying we should keep Sunday, there's no transgression. Isn't that what it says? You notice you might want to jot down Romans 4 and verse 15, where there's no law, there is no transgression.

Since there's no law to keep Sunday, there is no transgression in not keeping Sunday. Simply it was not discussed in the pages of the New Testament. Or, you know, for that matter, the Old Testament. Eric made an interesting point in his material. If the Apostle Paul felt a need to go on and on and on about the change regarding circumcision, talking about how circumcision, we had that, you know, under Abraham in the Old Testament. It was a sign, it was valuable. Now in the New Testament, circumcision is of the heart.

If we would go on and on and on about what we don't do, that anymore, wouldn't there be even a larger discussion about the fact, well, you know, we kept that seventh-day Sabbath in the Old Testament, but now we're changing over to the first day of the week.

You would think there would be chapter and verse all over the New Testament if there's going to be that kind of a radical change. And yet, we don't see that, do we? We don't see that. So, one of the general reasons that we observe God's Sabbath, number one, God commands it. God commands it. Another general reason why we observe the Sabbath, and I'll get into more specific reasons as we move along, but a second reason is the Sabbath shows us who our Creator is. The Sabbath shows us who our Creator is.

And there's a truly a unique relationship between the Creator and the Created. We are the Created. The Creator knows exactly how we are to perform, how we can best, you know, optimize living in the world that He created.

You know, if you're going to design something and build something, if you're going to get a patent for something at the U.S. Patent Office, you know, you really should know everything about whatever it is that you're inventing. You know, it's best uses, how to maintain the item, you know, optimal different ways it should be used, and so forth. Same thing is true about human beings.

God designed us, He created us, and He also created the Sabbath for us. We'll get to that in a little bit later. And notice here in Genesis 2, Genesis 2, and verse 1, Genesis 2, verse 1, Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host 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, sanctified it, because then He rested from all His work which He had created and made.

Now there's a lot in that section of Scripture. A lot, and that's, you know, it talks about rest. We'll hear more about that today in the seminar. Talking about how God blessed the seventh day and set it apart because He rested and because He was a creator. The Sabbath is a memorial of creation, a sign of God's creative power. God designed it through keeping the Sabbath Man should forever remember who God is and who we are.

So the Sabbath is a blessing that God gives to us. And if we don't keep the Sabbath, it's like throwing away a tremendous spiritual blessing. Now I know that people, and I've had people come up to me, you know, I've not always been a minister. I've worked in the world just like you. I've got family in the world like you. And people say, well, didn't God create all seven days of the week?

Absolutely. God created all seven days of the week. But do the other six days talk about how God rested, how God blessed, and how God sanctified or set those other days apart? No. There's only one day that God says He did that too. And that was the seventh day of the week. Matter of fact, if you take a look at Genesis 1, let's take a look just to turn back a page. At least in my Bible, I turned back a page.

Genesis 1, verse 1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Verse 2, the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good. Verse 4, and God divided the light from the darkness. Verse 5, and God called the light day, and in darkness He called night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

The first day of the week was a work day for God. The very first thing we see in Scripture is that God uses what we call Sunday as a work day. He didn't rest on it. He didn't halo it. He didn't separate it. It was a regular, run-of-the-mill day. The Sabbath hour was very special to God. Nowhere in the Bible is Sunday, or the first day of the week, ever called a day of rest.

We don't find God resting on Sunday. We don't find Jesus Christ resting on Sunday. As a matter of fact, I don't think there would be any historian or theologian worth his salt. But I wouldn't tell you that Jesus Christ worked really hard as a carpenter. Today we would view a carpenter, what they called a carpenter back then, we'd probably call a general contractor today. A person who would do what Jesus Christ did, not only worked with wood, he probably worked with stone, masonry, and other things. He was a general contractor. He was a builder. And I'm sure Jesus Christ worked many long, sweaty Sundays.

He didn't rest on it. He worked on it. So a second reason that we observe the Sabbath day is it shows our God as Creator, and we being the creation. A third reason we observe the Sabbath is because, as I said, and we've talked about this in the Scriptures, we've already read, God set it apart. Number three, He hallowed it. He sanctified it. God didn't do that. Jesus Christ didn't do that with any of the other days of the week. Only the Sabbath was made holy. Only on the Sabbath did God reserve this for His own purpose, His own service.

I know people say, well, I worship God every day of the week. Well, yeah, I do too. You know, hopefully we are praying, we are studying, you know, on the other days of the week. But that doesn't mean that that means that any of those other days are days that are been sanctified or set apart in the same way the Sabbath has been. No, sure, we're going to pray every day. We're going to study every day. We're going to have spiritual pursuits every day. But only one day was especially set aside and hallowed or sanctified or reserved for a holy use, and that is the seventh day of the week. Nowhere in the Bible do you see Sunday being set apart. Nowhere. Old Testament, New Testament. Writings of Paul or any of the other people who wrote the New Testament. You don't see Sunday ever being set apart in the Scriptures. There is not a single inspired individual who helped write the Bible who talked about Sunday being hallowed or set apart.

The New Testament is totally silent with regard to any change of the Sabbath day to some other days. And we'll read some really interesting eye-opening quotations. I sent out my midweek study with a whole number of those things, but there were some other quotations I didn't include I wanted to add at the very end of the sermon.

We're going to look at what the Catholic Church has to say about Saturday versus Sunday. We're going to look at the Protestant world is what they say Saturday versus Sunday. And in every case, they will admit, you know, because, you know, if they're going to be true scholars, if they're going to be honest with the Word of God, they've got to admit the only reason that they keep Sunday is because years and years ago, the Catholic Church said, that's what we're going to do.

That's what we're going to do. Fourth reason we observe the Sabbath day. These are general reasons. Number one, we talked about how God had commanded it. Number two, we saw how Christ and God are the creators. Number three, how the Sabbath has been sanctified or hallowed. Number four, we observe a Sabbath day because God blessed that day. God blessed that day. And as I said a moment ago, if we don't observe the Sabbath day, we discard a rich blessing from God, a rich blessing from God.

And we don't want to do that. We don't want to do that at all. Turn with me, if you would, to Mark 2. Mark 2. In my Bible, what we're about to read is in red lettering showing the words of Christ. I would dare say, if we're going to call ourselves Christians, we should follow exactly what Christ has to say for us. Now, I know that's a revolutionary thought, that we would follow exactly what Christ has to say. But, you know, as a person who has a degree in theology, I also have studied over the years what various theologians will say.

And it's beyond me how people would say, well, you know, Jesus Christ had to observe the Sabbath because he was a Jew. And if he as a Jew in his culture didn't observe the Sabbath, he would have sinned, he couldn't have been our Savior. But after his death, you know, as we heard in the sermon, after his death, everything changes. Well, you know, it's interesting that Jesus Christ, in all those years he spent with his disciples, he didn't say anything about that.

He didn't say, guys, I want to give you a heads up. When I'm gone, everything is changing. Didn't do it. No record of it. But here in Mark 2, verse 27, Mark 2 and verse 27, and he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man or the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a beautiful spiritual tool. The Sabbath is a spiritual classroom. It is something that is not a burden.

We'll talk about that a little bit later. The Sabbath is a joy. Now, it's tough for you and I, in this world, in our society, to be Sabbath keepers. And again, I'm not, you know, uninitiated. In the 10 years after I graduated from Ambassador College, I worked in the outside. I lost track of the number of times I couldn't apply for a job or I didn't get a job because of the Sabbath or the Holy Days.

I know what it's like, but I also realize all these years, keeping the Sabbath from my middle teenage years till now, the Sabbath was made for me. The Sabbath was made for you. It's a beautiful gift that God has wrapped up with ribbons and bows and just simply presented to us. Verse 28, Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.

Doesn't say he's kind of the gatekeeper of the Sabbath, but we're just going to do this for a short time and that's it. It's going to exit. It doesn't say I'm going to abolish the Sabbath after I'm gone. It says the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Something that you might just jot down, because I know how people are, how maybe family might be or friends might be, people who might want to kind of rib you or kind of put their elbow in your ribs, say, well, you know, that Sabbath, it's Jewish.

It's Jewish. Brethren, the Sabbath was made for man more than 2,000 years before there ever was a Jew. The Sabbath was made for man more than 2,000 years before there ever was a Jew. So how is that Jewish? It's like we see in Leviticus chapter 23. These are the, and the Sabbath is included in Leviticus 23, these are the days of God. They're the holy days of God. Not any particular group of people, but of God. I think that's something to keep in mind.

So where are we to this point? I've given you five different general reasons why we observe the Sabbath. We keep the Sabbath because God commands us to keep the Sabbath. Two, we keep the Sabbath because it shows God is our Creator and us is the creation. Three, we keep the Sabbath because God sanctified.

He set that day apart. Four, we keep the Sabbath because God blessed that day, and we will have a blessing if we keep the day. And five, the Sabbath was a gift to man. It was made for man. There's no discussion about first day of the week being like that or Sunday being like that, but the Sabbath is discussed like that. Okay, let's take a moment now and drill down a little bit.

I want to give you more specific reasoning on why we observe God's Sabbath day. I gave you some overarching principles, some overarching thoughts. Now I would like to go more specifically into some of these same things as to why we observe God's Sabbath day. How letter these? Letter A. That is, the Sabbath reveals the true Creator God to mankind. Now we broached on that a moment ago, but I want to drill down a little deeper now.

The Sabbath reveals the true Creator God to mankind. And that very special relationship the Creator has with His creation. Let's go to Jeremiah 10. Jeremiah 10.

Jeremiah 10. But the Lord is the true God. He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth will tremble, and the nations will not be able to endure His indignation. Thus you shall say to them, the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens. So notice how God describes Himself in relation to the gods of this world, the false gods of this world. He describes Himself as a Creator God.

God has made the earth by His power. He has established the world by His wisdom. He has stretched out the heavens at His discretion.

The Sabbath is that great memorial of the creative power of the true and the living God.

God's design in making the Sabbath was that man will never forget who He is versus all the false gods that are out there. God says, you stack me up against any of those other gods. Can any of those other gods create anything? Can they create a rainbow? Can they create a sunset? Can they create a blade of grass? Can they create a molecule of water? What is it they're creating? The Apostle Paul brought this same point up in Acts 17. Let's take a look there. Acts 17.

Paul was speaking to a group of people who were very religious, superstitious or religious. They were covering all the bases in terms of trying to worship every god they can think of so they wouldn't offend any of the gods. Notice what Paul says here in Acts 17, verse 23.

Acts 17, 23.

Now, to differentiate the true God from the others, what does Paul use? Verse 24.

So Paul used this as a tremendous differentiation between the true and the false God. The true God is a creator God. And not only does God create the sunsets, the earth, the sea, everything that's on the earth, but God also is a spiritual creator. Those other gods can't do that. God is replicating himself.

God is replicating himself, and the Sabbath helps picture that. No other false God can make that claim. Think about this from another perspective. I think there are now, we have just come into the age where we now have 7 billion people on this planet. 7 billion.

Now, even if you take away the nominal Christians, people who we call nominal Christians, and you think about the Buddhists, the Taoists, the atheists, and all the others, if they had a knowledge of the Sabbath and a knowledge that that would bring, somebody created the Sabbath, they hallowed it, blessed it, and that certain one has a message to give to us. If people of the world who are non-Christian would have had a knowledge of the Sabbath, where would this world be? You know, you and I, we can watch the world news, and we see different parts of the world, and our little children here and there are just starving, and the wars, and the blight, and all the things that are happening, the things that, if you watch it, just tear, it rips your heart out of your chest. And to a large degree, that's true, because people don't know the real God. And they don't know the real God because they don't understand the Sabbath day. John 17.

John 17.

John 17, verse 3. And this is eternal life. Eternal life. What is eternal life? That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

And we're only going to have that kind of knowledge of eternal life, if we know the true God.

Eternal life comes from knowing the true God. Acts chapter 4 is something I quoted on the last great day at the feast. Let's go there. Acts chapter 4.

Acts chapter 4 and verse 12.

Acts 4, 12. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

You know, today, whenever there's a difficulty or horrible tragedy, people say, well, what's going to happen to those people? And you'll normally have some sort of cleric get up and say, well, we don't know, you know, we do know that God is loving, we know God's fair. And so you have these people who have died and they weren't Christians, even nominally.

No, they weren't a Roman Catholic, they weren't a Baptist, they were, you know, they were, you know, they were killing some earthquake or whatever. And they'll ask somebody on the news here in this country, what does God think? You know, these acts of God, what's going to happen? Well, God is fair.

I've even heard some go so far to say, well, you know, if they're good people, God will have them in His kingdom.

Well, is that what the Scripture says? That if we're good people, God will have us in His kingdom? Or does it say here, there is no, there's no, not salvation in any other name. We have to know the name of God and the name of Jesus Christ.

Until we have an understanding of who they are, what they represent, and what they taught, and live by that, then we can't be a part of God's kingdom.

And the Sabbath helps us understand all of those things. So letter A, the Sabbath reveals the true creator God to mankind. Letter B, the Sabbath reveals the true sanctifying God to mankind.

The true sanctifying God.

Again, we touched on this earlier, but I want to drill down a little deeper here. Let's go to Exodus 31.

Exodus 31.

Special covenant.

A perpetual, an eternal covenant. You know, over and above what is called the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was signed, sealed, and delivered, and this is after it.

So even if people want to say, well, you know, the Sabbath was abolished with the Old Covenant, which is totally false.

Just totally false.

That's subject for another sermon, or a series of sermons. But here we've got another covenant.

A Sabbath covenant.

Just want to read one verse here, verse 13. Exodus 31, verse 13. Speak also to the children of Israel, saying, Surely in my Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who does what to you?

That I am the Lord who sanctifies you?

Who consecrates you? Who sets you apart?

That's who I am.

I am the God who sets you apart.

Brethren, because of the knowledge we have of God's Sabbath day, that gives us the knowledge of who the true God is. When we have a knowledge of who the true God is, we have a knowledge of how God wants us to live. The truth as to how we should live. The various doctrines and way of life we should be living.

We go over to Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2. We want to add on to this a little bit.

Ephesians 2.

Ephesians 2.

Verse 8.

And of course, there are all sorts of people who say, well, you Sabbath keepers, you believe that you have salvation through works.

Which again is absolutely false. We do not teach that. We have never taught salvation by works. We teach salvation by grace.

Salvation by grace is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ that our sins are forgiven.

The Ten Commandments was not designed to wash away sin.

The Ten Commandments were designed to tell us what sin is.

And only the shed blood of Jesus Christ will wash away sin.

On the other hand, notice what we also see about grace. There's this whole section here talking about grace. Verse 10, Ephesians 2.10.

For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.

For good works, which God prepared before and that we should walk in them.

You know, we don't have to, as Eric was saying several times in his message today, we don't have to, you know, backtrack or think that because we believe we need to be obeying God that somehow that's negative. We're not earning salvation. But God Himself created us to live a certain way of life.

And it takes the grace of God to do that. For we don't do anything of eternal value. We don't do anything of eternal worth except by the grace of God.

We couldn't properly keep the Sabbath without the grace of God. We couldn't probably understand the Sabbath without the grace of God. It's not this or that. It's a combination. God gives us His grace.

So we can understand and follow Him. And follow Him. We hear His workmanship created to live graceful lives.

To live graceful lives.

You know, we talk about grace in terms of our sins being forgiven. That is what we call in the Bible justification.

Justification is right standing before God. And we have our right standing before God because our sins have been forgiven.

Because our sins have been blotted out, our sins have been forgiven, that puts us in a right relationship with God. That's done by grace.

But as it says here in verse 10, we also are to do good works. We are to live a certain way of life. That also is a matter of grace. That's called sanctification.

Justification is right standing before God. Sanctification is right living before God.

Right living before God. Very important concepts and they both are heavily, they heavily deal with the subject of grace.

Let her see as to some deeper or more specific areas of why we keep the Sabbath day. Let her see, the Sabbath reveals the true liberator God to mankind.

The Sabbath reveals the true liberator God to mankind.

Let's go back to Deuteronomy. We've quoted enough from Exodus. Let's look at Deuteronomy chapter 5.

Deuteronomy chapter 5.

And verse 15. Deuteronomy 5 verse 15.

And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. And the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

God very much wants us to realize what our roots are.

Our roots as human beings, our roots as clay, is that we are sinful human beings.

We come into the world and Satan is broadcasting. From the moment we draw our first breath, our human nature is neutral. But because it's neutral, it gets knocked into going Satan's way because he's the God of this world.

And we become slaves before our conversion to the ways of thinking of this world. But God wants us to realize that he is a liberator. That's one of the reasons why he puts this the way he does. You were slaves in the world's society. I'm bringing you out by my power. And, brethren, God wants us to realize that's what we do by keeping the Sabbath.

God wants to take us out of society on the Sabbath. He wants us to be into his word, into his church, and to unshackle ourself from all the bondage we have the other six days of the week as we live in the world.

It is a truly liberating experience to be keeping the Sabbath day.

Paul talked about this over here in Romans 6.

I've referred to this as the baptismal covenant chapter. This is the fine print. Before I baptize somebody, I'd make sure people go through this and read this and understand this section of Scripture.

Romans 6.

And verse 6.

Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of what? Slaves of sin.

For he who has died has been freed from sin.

Notice that concept there. In the world, we are slaves. In Egypt, we are slaves. In society, we are slaves to sin. We dropped on to verse 16.

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey? You are that one slave whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were the slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. Paul doesn't show here that something's wrong with obedience. It's not a bad word.

You obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became the slaves of righteousness. Paul called himself a bond slave of Jesus Christ.

Verse 19, I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to moral lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. You just simply didn't do it. What fruit did you have then of the things which you now are ashamed? By the end of those things are death. But now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and in the end everlasting life.

Our great God is a liberator, a spiritual liberator, and a Sabbath is key to that liberation.

Let's look at the writings of the brother of Jesus Christ, the half-brother of Jesus Christ, James.

James, Chapter 1. James, an apostle in his own right, writer of this book.

Notice how he refers to the law of God.

James, Chapter 1, and verse 25.

So it's not a matter of being cursed because we obey God. We will be blessed as we obey God.

And we are to look into a law of liberty. It's not a burdensome law. It's not something that weighs us down. It is a law of liberty.

In Chapter 2 of James, verse 8, if you will really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well. So when referring to the same law, he calls it the royal law.

And the royal law says you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

So what is this law of liberty? What is this royal law?

Back in the day, some of my friends who, they made a different choice than I did back in 1995, they remained with another fellowship. They said, oh, Randy, we understand now that there are the commandments of God. We see that in Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5. And there are the commandments of Jesus.

And the commandments of Jesus are the nine, lest the fourth one, as Eric was saying in his message. Now, these are fellows I went to Ambassador College with. These are people who knew the Bible real well, but somehow they had kind of a...

There was a gap in their understanding at that particular point.

And so is this what we have here? When James is talking about the law of liberty and the royal law, is he talking about the law of Jesus? What are we talking about there? How do we know? Well, here we see it in verse 8. James 2.8 says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So James here is talking about what law he's referring to. Now, let's go to Romans chapter 13 for a moment. Let's nail this down as to what James is talking about. Romans chapter 13.

Well, it would be nice if I went to Romans. I was in 1 Corinthians. That didn't look right. Romans chapter 13.

Romans 13 verse 8. Oh, no one, anything except to love one another, for he who loves has fulfilled the law. Okay, what law? For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery. That's fairly familiar sound to it. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not covet. I'm pretty clear as to what law we're talking about here. If there's any other commandment, they all sound up in the saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So the idea of loving your neighbor as yourself equates to the royal law. But she equates to the law of liberty. All of that's talking about the law of God. The law of God.

So here we've seen three other reasons why we obey the Sabbath day, because it shows God as creator, sanctifier, and liberator. I want to end the sermon today, and we'll be ending a little bit early. That's fine. I'm getting hungry. You're hungry. Okay, so let's go back to the sermon. I want to give you some of the world's eye-opening admissions. Admissions as to why they do what they do. But before I do that, I want to preface that with some Scripture. Let's take a look at Matthew, Chapter 28.

Matthew 28.

Jesus Christ here now is giving His church its commission.

Christ had died, been resurrected. If there's some big change, be nice for Him to give us a heads up.

But you know, it's just simply not there, the way the world would want us to think of it. Matthew, Chapter 28, Verse 18. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me, and all authority has been given to me, and all authority has been given to me, and all authority has been given to me, and all authority has been given to me, and all authority has been given to me, and Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We are now in the New Covenant Era. Jesus Christ is talking to His church, saying, I want you to go out and evangelize the world. I want you to baptize them, I want them to come into the church, and we want this to move forward. New Covenant Era. What does Jesus Christ say in verse 20? Teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you.

Now, there's not an asterisk there, and says, Now, wait a minute. Now, there's a Sabbath thing. We've got to delete that. Let's not copy and paste that from the Old Testament to the New Testament. No. Teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you, and lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. And so, through the entirety of the New Covenant Era of the church, and making disciples and baptizing people, we are to proclaim what Christ commanded. What Christ commanded.

Now, again, to my way of thinking, if I'm going to call myself a Christian, I would think, if I'm going to call myself a Christian, I should follow the tenets of the one who I'm following. Jesus Christ. Very simple in my thinking. Maybe I'm just a simpleton. I don't know.

But for those people, and again, I'm giving you information for maybe family members, friends, or associates, or whatever that, you know, you could have a real honest conversation with. People who don't want to just harangue, but truly would like to know why you do what you do.

There are those who say, well, you know, we have to allow the rest of the Bible to interpret, the rest of the New Testament to interpret the four Gospels. Christ was a Jew. He had to keep that sad. But we really get New Testament, New Covenant teaching, you know, apart from the Gospels. Now, that's ridiculous reasoning. You don't subscribe to that, neither do I. But let's look at something, sir, for a moment. Let's look at the book of Acts, Chapter 17. Now, the book of Acts was written by a Gospel writer.

The book of Acts was written by Luke. He wrote the book of Luke. But it's not the Gospels. So if we're going to talk about how the rest of the New Testament has to interpret the New Testament, let's take a look at some things here and understand.

Acts, Chapter 17, and verse 2, Acts 17, too. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them, and for three Sabbaths, reasoned with them from the Scriptures. As his custom was. There is no Scripture that says, as his custom was, on the first day of the week. Doesn't say that anywhere. As his custom was, he reasoned with them for three Sabbaths. And where is he? He's in Greece. He's talking to Gentiles. And if there's any group that Paul should say, hey, you know, for you Gentiles, we've kind of changed some things up. You know, why don't you give me a heads up? We've changed some things.

He had a perfect opportunity here and doesn't do it. Doesn't do it. So here we've got the book of Acts. In your notes, you might want to, you know, time is running out. I'm just going to quote these for you. 1 Corinthians, Chapter 11, verse 1. I'm going to go through the writers of the New Testament, apart from the Gospel writers now. Paul. 1 Corinthians 11, 1. Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ.

Imitate me as I imitate Christ. Again, how did Christ live his life? Christ was a Sabbath keeper. James. Again, I'm not going to turn any of these for lack of time now. James, Chapter 4, and verse 12, where it says, There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you that judge another? One lawgiver. Mankind doesn't have the authority to say, well, you know, we're going to change the law of God, or we're going to save, you know, from Saturday to Sunday.

There is one lawgiver. If the Bible doesn't expressly say it as a law of God, it isn't a law of God. And there's no place old or new that says we need to be keeping Sunday. There's one lawgiver. So we looked at Paul, we've looked at James, let's look at Peter.

1 Peter, Chapter 2, and verse 21. Again, I'll read it to you. 1 Peter 2, 21. For to this you recall because Christ also suffered from us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. And for those of you in Ann Arbor, in Detroit, I've given this analogy so many times, but for our guests who have not heard it. You know, in that section of Scripture there, 1 Peter, Chapter 2, there's a beautiful word picture, talking about Christ set an example that we should follow His steps.

The word picture is that Christ is a template. It's like when we have little kids, we have them, you know, take their hand on a piece of paper with a pencil, they go through and they trace their hand. That's exactly what the Scripture's talking about. We need to be tracing our life as we, you know, this is Christ, and we're tracing our life in Him. So we take it away, we look at it and we see, that looks like Christ. That's what this is talking about. He left us a pattern that we should follow in His steps and that the idea is our right foot and where His right foot would go, our left foot where His left foot would go.

So if somebody were to look at the, you don't see one set of tracks. How did Christ live His life? Christ was a Sabbath keeper. John, the Apostle John, you know, he obviously wrote some of the Gospel of John in the book of Revelation. John, 1 John 2 and verse 6, he who says he abides in Him ought to walk also as He walked. Doesn't say, you know, walk almost like He walked.

Walk nine-tenths of the way like He walked. No. Walk the way He walked. 1 John 5, verses 2 and 3. I'll read this for you, John, 1 John 5, 2 and 3. This we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments. No, notice, it doesn't get any more plain than this. We love God and keep God's commandments. When I think about my friends who I went to college with who got degrees from Ambassador College, I wonder, what do you do with that verse?

We love God and keep God's commandments, for this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. They're not burdensome. Lastly, Jude. Jude, verse 3, says this, Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting to condemn earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints.

For the faith which was once delivered. It was in the process, as time was going along, of eroding. And part of that process was what was happening with the Sabbath day. Sabbath day should be kept, you know, as time was eroding, even in the early church. People began to think about other things. Okay, that now ends that section. I want to give you some of the world's admissions here before we conclude today. Please bear with me. There's a number of quotes I'd like to read to you. From the Encyclopedia Britannica 9th Edition article on Sunday. The earliest recognition of the observance of Sunday as a legal duty is a constitution of Constantine in 321 A.D. and acting that all courts of justice, inhabitants of towns and workshops were to rest on Sunday, with the exception of ill favor of those who engaged in agricultural labor.

So, 321, Constantine, he enjoins this on the church. We don't see this happening in the early church. We don't see the apostles doing this. We see that centuries later, somebody else is changing things. From the Catholic Press. Yeah, the Catholic Press. Quote, Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles.

From the beginning to end of Scripture, there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first.

Does it get any clearer than that?

Dr. John O'Brien, in his Faith of Millions, says this, But since Saturday, not Sunday, is specified in the Bible, isn't it curious that non-Catholics who profess to take their religion directly from the Bible and not from the Catholic Church observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

Yes, of course, it is inconsistent, but this change was made about 15 centuries before Protestantism was born, and by that time, the custom was universally observed. They have continued the custom, even though it rests upon the authority of the Catholic Church and not upon any explicit text in the Bible.

From the converts' catechism of Catholic doctrine, question, what is the Sabbath day? Answer, Saturday is the Sabbath day. Question, why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Answer, we observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church in the Council of Laodicea transferred the salinity from Saturday to Sunday.

This one is a little close to me. It's by Dwight Moody, D. L. Moody. Close to me because my grandfather was a Protestant minister. He went to Chicago and graduated from Moody Bible Institute. So, you know, it was kind of interesting. When I was a kid, I remember playing around in my grandparents' home crawling in a closet one day, and you know how kids are, little kids.

You find things. I remember crawling out of this closet with a copy of U.S. and B.C. and prophecy. And my grandfather was trying to tell my family, we shouldn't be keeping Sunday. But he never quite would say, you know, I'm going to enjoin us on the family. He knew. He had an old, old copy of U.S. and B.C. He had graduated from a Protestant seminary. Notice what Dwight Moody says here.

The Sabbath was binding and Eden, and it's been enforced ever since. This fourth commandment begins with the word remember, showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote the law in a table of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away when they admit that the other nine are still binding? I'll say something to Eric's said a few moments ago.

From the Anglican and Episcopalian folks, where are we told in Scripture that we were to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh, but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day. The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason we observe many other things. Not because of the Bible, but because the Church has enjoined it.

Lastly, from the Baptists, quote, There is no scriptural evidence of the change from the Sabbath institution from the seventh day to the first day of the week. To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during his three years' discussion with the disciples, often conversing with him on the Sabbath question, never alluded to any transference of the day, also that during the forty days of his resurrected life, no such thing was intimated. Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did not come into use until early Christian history, but what a pity that it comes branded with a mark of paganism, christened with the name of the sun god, adopted and sanctioned by the Papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism. Now, that really was a mouthful. Dr. Edward Hisox, before a New York minister's conference, is reported in the New York Examiner in 1893. One final scripture, brethren. Let's turn there. One final scripture. We will end a little early.

By the way, as I'm thinking about it, the potluck will be down the hallway. If you go down to the very end, you'll make a left-hand turn. It's in the cafeteria. And we will need to be kind of changing the chairs around a little bit for the seminar. So if the folks here in the front could go to the back and start conversing or just head down to the cafeteria, that'd be great. We'll set up for the study of the seminar.

Mark 7.

Mark 7, verse 7.

Well, let's go to verse 6. Mark 7, verse 6.

He answered and said to them, Brethren, I wanted to give you those quotes. Those were pretty juicy quotes. And you can find them. Go online. You'll find plenty of others.

Commandments of men.

So, brethren, that's going to conclude my commentary on why we do what we do. I'm looking forward to, with a great deal of anticipation, our two ladies who will drill down even deeper and discuss some of the hows and other matters having to do with the Sabbath.