The Sabbath: Remember and Keep

Well, brethren, there are certain events in history that are indelibly marked on our brains.

Certain things that you can look back, and you can think about those things, and you can remember where you were. You might even remember who you were talking to. You might remember smells and sights and sounds of that particular event. For those of you that are a little bit older than me, President Kennedy's assassination may be one of those moments in your life.

You may remember where you were. You may remember who you were talking to. You might remember the location when you first heard Walter Cronkite make the announcement when you first saw the Zapruder film. For me, aside from 9-11, kind of as the obvious choice, I think the event that resonates with me the most in this way is the Challenger disaster. Some of you may remember that.

I remember sitting on the classroom carpet at my elementary school on January 28th of 1986, and our teacher had put the launch on the television so that we could watch it.

73 seconds into launch, of course, the shuttle explodes. I remember my teacher gasping and quickly turning off the television, just changing the subject. You know, I at the time didn't really know what had even happened. You know, later on, you know, 40 years later, it resonates. But I can still remember where I was sitting. I can still remember generally who I was sitting next to and the events of that particular day. You know, as I've talked with people over the years, inevitably there are certain societal events that they think of in this way that they remember and that are just indelibly marked upon their psyche. JFK's death, the Challenger explosion, the moon landing, the Berlin Wall coming down, all these things tend to be things that people remember.

And you think about that list, and you might think, well, the only thing that we can remember in that way are these huge societal shifting sorts of events. But you also know that's not true, because you can remember just as indelibly the birth of your children. You can remember just indelibly the day of your wedding or a number of many other things that you deem important.

And sometimes, as you also realize, sometimes the things that we remember best are the things which are not important at all. It's always interesting to me how I can manage to remember piles upon piles of 80s and 90s song lyrics, and yet not remember the items I needed to pass my biochemistry test. How I could remember things like the Challenger explosion so vividly, but I would forget people's names or forget that I had an appointment. How I could remember that up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, be a start, gave me 30 lives in the Nintendo game Contra, but I couldn't remember other important things. Many, many years later, I still remember that cheat code. You know, human memory is a fascinating thing. Human memory and memory, rather, is a fascinating thing. It begins with the process of encoding. It begins with this process called encoding. When you pay attention to something or when there's a memorable event that takes place, the neurons in our brain get stimulated more frequently. And that simulation of those neurons helps to encode that memory upon our brain, and that can encode in a few ways.

Often it's accompanied by the senses. Sometimes sight, smells, things like that help to encode that memory more strongly. And more often than not, the memories that go the distance in our brains tend to be those memories which are semantic in nature, meaning that there is a meaning or a significance that is attached to those in some way. These are facts. These are things that we remember because they have a meaning to them. Human memory is associative. What that means is that it helps to have something to hang that new fact or that new understanding on. These kind of events that we talked about earlier, these personal types of events that we remember, these sorts of things, the smells, the sounds, all of these pieces help to encode that very strongly in our minds. And we can recall those things many, many years later. Now sadly, when we go to remember something, typically it's that semantic memory that we get to first. Typically, it's the song lyrics. It's the words to don't stop believing. It's how to get 30 lives in Contra, but struggle at times to remember other very important things. You know, God understood the limitations of the human mind. God designed us. He understood how our brains work. He understands a system of memory that man utilizes to be able to do these things. He designed it. And so because of that, what we see is that he knew exactly how quickly mankind would forget extremely important things. And so he provided a weekly and an annual reminder of him encoded directly into our lives on a rhythm and a cycle. Let's begin today by turning over to Leviticus 23. Let's begin today by turning over to Leviticus 23. We'll take a look at this section of the Bible here. We see in this section in Leviticus that God is providing through Moses a sort of how-to for the priesthood of Israel.

God's giving them a step-by-step set of instructions on how to interact with him, how to lead his people spiritually. And in Leviticus 23, there's a passage that very explicitly explains the feasts of the Lord, these weekly and these annual reminders of him as our creator and of his plan for mankind. Leviticus 23, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse one. It says, And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, God says, These are my feasts. These are my feasts. These days in Scripture, we see them identified and described as holy convocations. The Hebrew word for convocation is mikirah, which translates as assembly, as convocation, as a summons. We see this word translated in these ways throughout Scripture. And there's actually some evidence that the third of those definitions fits even better in some ways, because mikirah comes from the Hebrew word kirah, which means to call. It comes from that root in Hebrew, to call. So these days that we see outlined in Leviticus 23, they're called assemblies. They're assemblies in which God has called together or summoned His people together before Him. And not only that, we see that these days are sacred. They're holy assemblies that God has called. God is summoning His people together before Him on this day in worship. And so He sends out these weekly and these annual invitations to the people whom He has called.

And the first that we see outlined in this section in Leviticus 23 is the weekly Sabbath. It goes on in verse 3. It says, six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it. It's the Sabbath of the Lord in all of your dwellings. So we see it was to be a weekly reminder of God. That as we went through our week, when we reached the point of the Sabbath, we were to stop, we were to call to mind, and to remember Him. Reflecting back on that summons that God has provided us to come together and to worship Him on this day. You know, we see biblically this day is defined from sunset on Friday evening for us in our current calendar until sunset on Saturday evening. This 24-hour period is to be a period of solemn rest, a period of sacred summons. There's a lot of talk going on in society around us today about the Sabbath. You'll notice a lot of discussion taking place right now about the Sabbath. This is an important topic, and it's a topic that it's important for us to understand, to be able to explain more fully, to be able to provide information to people as questions come up. Because it's very possible that there are going to be some people who have known that you're a Sabbath keeper in the near future, and as a result of the discussion that is taking place right now in society, are going to be coming and going, you know what? That's Sabbath thing you do. Tell me about that. Tell me about that. Why is this so incredibly important?

Leviticus 23 goes on to describe not just the Sabbath, but God's annual holy days as well.

These days, these weekly and these annual reminders, they're holy convocations. They each have their own specifics. They each have their own focus, but at their core, the fundamental principle of all of these days, whether weekly or annual, is that God is summoning His people together before Him. He is calling His people together in assembly, in worship of Him. He goes on here. If you want to turn over to Exodus, we're going to pick up God instructing Moses on the Sabbath and its significance. We're going to focus primarily on the weekly Sabbath today, but these things are going to be applicable to the annual Sabbath as well. Exodus 30, and we're going to go ahead and begin in verse 12. Exodus 30 and verse 12. God gives Moses instructions here in Exodus 30 and verse 12. As to what this looks like for them, Exodus 30 and verse 12 says, when you take... Oh, I want Exodus 31 verse 12, actually.

Yep, that's what I want. Exodus 31 verse 12, my apologies. Exodus 31 and verse 12 says, And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speak also to the children of Israel, saying, Surely my Sabbaths, 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 sanctifies you. Note the plurality there of the word Sabbaths.

The sign of God's people, that time with who he was working with, would be those who kept his Sabbaths. Not just the weekly Sabbath, but the annual Sabbaths that are also outlined in Leviticus 23. But you know, that sign goes both ways. That sign goes both ways. Yes, it identifies the people of God, but it also identifies the true God. The true God calls his people together on his Sabbaths, on his weekly Sabbaths, on his annual Sabbaths. His people worship him on his Sabbaths.

He goes on in verse 14. He goes on in verse 14. It says, You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death. For whoever does any work on it, that person should be cut off from among his people. It says, he shall work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord.

Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. God takes the Sabbath seriously. God takes the Sabbath seriously. As he worked with his people, this was an important thing to him. It was an important thing to them. In some ways, God's Sabbath is a weekly test of his people. It's a weekly proof of his people. As God asks us each and every week, and annually, at his holy days, will you or won't you? Will you or won't you? Will you assemble with God's people?

Will you come together? Will you not do your customary work? Will you maintain the holiness that is in this day? God asks that question of each of us as we come into the weekly Sabbath, as we come into the annual Sabbath. It goes on in verse 16. Verse 16 says, Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. And when God worked with his people, the nation of Israel at that time, they were expected to keep his Sabbaths. As God has gone on down through history, working with other groups of individuals, that same expectation is placed upon them as well. He expected his people to remember and to keep the Sabbath. For those of you that like titles, the title of the sermon today is the Sabbath. Remember and keep. Remember and keep. And with the time that we have left today, what I'd like to do is examine the commands that God gives his people regarding the Sabbath day, specifically that much of what we talk about with regards to the weekly Sabbath is applicable to the annuals as well. But what I want to look at is what are those implications upon us as the people of God today? Really quickly, can I get a show of hands of those of you that came into the church from another faith background? In our vernacular we would say first generation Christians, those who came out of another background of some variety. Put your hands high up in the air for those of you that came out of some other faith background into the truth of God. Now keep your hand up for just a second. For those of you who did, how many of you your first contact and first concept was the Sabbath? The vast majority of those hands—a few went down—but the vast majority of those hands that stayed up were individuals who, as they began looking in their Bibles, as they began reading through accounts, they started looking at the Sabbath and they started recognizing, hey wait a second, why are we not doing this? What is this? And as they've asked questions, as they've gone through the process, they might have asked their pastor at the time, hey what's the deal? Why don't we why don't we keep this? And the answer that they received was, oh that's Jewish. So we don't do that as Jewish. Or that's part of the old covenant. That was all nailed to the cross. You don't have to worry about that. Or, well, we keep the Lord's Day instead, right? And all those answers, for those of you who have come in, were not satisfactory. They were not satisfactory answers as you went through the process of studying these things and learning these things. But for many times, when we get phone calls from people and we have individuals who begin to begin to look at the Church of God, frequently, what in my area, the question I get starts here. It begins with the Sabbath. It begins with the annual Sabbath. That tends to be the first place that people begin. We might say first contact, so to speak, with the Church of God and the Church of God's teachings. But even a cursory internet search will illustrate the truth. The Sabbath was changed by the Roman Catholic Church over the first few centuries after Jesus Christ's death. It was shifted. It was changed in that sense.

I'd like to read to you just a little bit from one of our Bible questions and answers that's located on ucg.org because it has a variety of quotes that kind of help us to understand a little bit about these changes and how these changes took place. The title of the article was, or is, rather, was the Saturday Sabbath changed to Sunday? The article reads as follows. It says, well, it depends on who you ask. If you ask the Roman Catholic Church and the majority of Christian churches in the world today, the answer is yes. However, if you're more concerned with what God himself says and what he outlines in his word for those who truly desire to follow him, the answer might surprise you. The Sabbath has been around for a long time. God instituted it at creation. After God created the heavens and the earth, he rested on the seventh day, instituting a seventh-day cycle of work and rest that is continued throughout history. When Moses received the Ten Commandments from God, it's important for us to recognize that the Sabbath had already been established from creation, but the Israelites had forgotten after centuries of slavery under Egyptian rule. God reinstituted a number of essential laws for the Israelites from the top of Mount Sinai, establishing what we now know as the Ten Commandments. It goes on to talk about Exodus 20 and gets into Exodus 20, and then the conclusion says so we can see that the Sabbath is holy, sanctified, set apart, made so, and declared so by God. We and those within our household are not to do any customary work on that day, as it mentions in Exodus 20, and we're commanded by God to rest. Leviticus 23 adds some additional context, listing the feasts of the Lord, the holy days that outline and commemorate the various components of the plan of God for mankind.

The first feast that's listed, Leviticus 23 and verse 3, is the Sabbath. Notice they are God's feasts, not Israel's. He was simply telling Israel about them and how to observe them. This is important because it illustrates to us that the Sabbath is not Jewish. It wasn't just for the Israelites. It's not just for those under the Old Covenant. Rather, the Sabbath is the Lord's, and it is to be a holy convocation for His people. They are instructed, in addition to not resting, not doing any work and keeping it holy, to assemble together and to worship God on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath is a holy convocation, a day that has been set apart for worship. It continues, says Jesus Christ and the apostles, worshiped and taught on the Sabbath day throughout the New Testament account in numerous places. And there are records this practice continued beyond Christ's death and resurrection into the anti-Nicene period of the Church. However, during this time, heresies and various pagan practices began to creep into the Church. Beginning about a hundred years after the death of Jesus Christ, the writings of Pseudo-Barnabas and Justin contain references to worship on the first day of the week. So we began to creep in, began to see this slowly start to take place. This has began to become the norm during the rule of Emperor Hadrian between 117 and 135 AD.

Hadrian greatly persecuted the Jewish people and specifically prohibited many aspects of what he perceived as Judaism, including worship on the seventh day Sabbath. This small group of Christians that remained faithful to Christ in his teachings were forced to worship God on the Sabbath as secretly as possible. Constantine the Great, a worshipper of the pagan sun god Sol Invictus, famously converted to Christianity at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in AD 312. He claimed he saw a vision of a fiery cross in the sky before the battle, which led him to become a Christian and to conquer his enemy, the Roman Emperor Maxentius. However, several years later, he dictated edicts which established national days of rest on Sunday, the holy day of Sol Invictus. In that edict, he essentially combined pagan worship from the Roman sun god that he worshipped with aspects of his newfound Christianity, and we see this pattern repeated throughout the early years of the Roman Catholic Church. So, was the Sabbath changed from Saturday to Sunday? Yes, in a sense. Now, before you start with the pitchforks and the torches, hang on one second, okay? Hang on. Hadrian, Constantine, Eusebius, and others of the Antonicean church leadership slowly changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. However, the bigger and the more important question is, did they have the biblical authority to do so? And does God himself approve? The answer to that is absolutely not.

Absolutely not. The Roman Catholic Church has long claimed the right to make doctrinal changes as they see fit, feeling that the Pope is in the place of God on earth. Pope Leo XIII in an 1894 letter said, we, parentheses, the Popes, hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.

In 1895, Catholic newspaper, the Catholic National, said, the Pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus Christ, himself, hidden under a veil of flesh. Wow. Wow. Additionally, St. Catherine Catholic Church Sentinel, May 21st, 1995, had the following thing to say. This is from the Catholic Church itself. Perhaps the boldest thing, the most revolutionary change the church ever did, happened in the first century. The Holy Day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday. The day of the Lord, Diez Dominae, was chosen not from any direction noted in the scriptures, but from the church's sense of its own power. It goes on to conclude that people who think the scripture should be the sole authority should logically keep Saturday holy. Cardinal James Gibbon was also very open about this change from the Seventh-day Sabbath to Sunday. He says, you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. You will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify, he says. The Catholic Church correctly teaches that our Lord and his apostles inculcated certain important duties of religion which are not recorded by the inspired writers, happening outside then of scripture. We must therefore conclude the scriptures alone cannot be a sufficient guide and rule of faith. The article goes on to say, we respectfully disagree. Anyone that loves God and Jesus Christ will obey his teachings. Those who do not will not. God instituted the Sabbath. He expected his chosen people, Israel, to keep it, to maintain it, to worship on it, to pass it on to others. Jesus Christ taught and worshiped on the Sabbath. His apostles taught and worshiped on the Sabbath. Scripture contains no references anywhere from Genesis to Revelation that sanctifies Sunday as the day of worship.

God doesn't change. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He's the Alpha and the Omega, and as such does his established and chosen day of rest and worship change without clear statement from him. So not only did God have to deal with human memory and human limitations of memory, he also had to deal with Satan the devil and his counterfeiting of God's way.

Satan the devil is a counterfeiter. He takes what God creates, he warps it, he ships it, he changes it, and God needed to ensure that mankind would remember the Sabbath day and ultimately keep it. So we see him include this particular commandment in the most obvious of places. It's right within the Ten Commandments. Would you turn over with me, please, to Exodus 20?

I know many of you have been keeping the Sabbath for a very, very long time. I understand that. I recognize that. But the danger that comes with keeping something for a very, very long time can be the sense of thing that happens at times when it becomes normal, when it becomes rote, when it becomes something that we have done so much that we begin to take it for granted. We cease to remember why we stop and rest. We cease to remember the command that God has given us to keep this day in a certain way. Brethren, it's critically important that we understand these things. God takes the Sabbath very seriously. Exodus 20, we're going to begin by looking at both Exodus 20 as well as Deuteronomy 5. And what I want to look at is the instruction that is contained here, because while they say it the same thing, they say it differently. And there's a nuance in that difference that is that difference that's really important for us to understand. So Exodus 20, and we're going to begin that in verse 8. Exodus 20 and verse 8, where we see this particular command. Exodus 20 verse 8. Exodus 20 and verse 8 says, Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 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. I love how God had to really spell this out, like like these realize we're going to come back and go, well what about what about this? Nope, not that either. What about? Nope, not that either. Okay, he spells it out. Not your cattle, not your stranger who's within your gates. 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 he hallowed it.

The Hebrew word that is used here for remember is the word sikar. It's the word sikar in Hebrew, and it's translated to remember, just like we would understand to remember, right? To recall to mind, to remember something, to bring it to the forefront of our memory. That's the idea that is present here, right? The bringing up a memory of old, so to speak. The Hebrew writers use this word to discuss how God remembered Noah, to talk about how God remembered his covenant, how he brought it to mind in these moments, how the Israelites remembered the leeks and the cucumbers. I've often thought, man, those Egyptians must have really understood how to prepare leeks.

I've had leeks. I don't know. I mean, they're kind of meh at the end of the day, but you know, they had some memory of old. They brought that to mind. They recalled those things. God told Israel, remember the Sabbath day. Remember. Bring it to mind. Call it to mind. Every single week, bring it to mind and recall that I created this world and I created everything in it.

And I did so for you. Right? God is calling us to remember this. Remember every week that I created this world. Remember annually that I created this world for a reason, that I am working through you and working in humanity to be able to bring many sons and daughters to glory. Right? So, every week we stop and we pause. We remember that creation. Annually, we stop and we pause to remember what God is doing as a result of that. So, in Exodus 20, the primary reminder that we see here is creation. That's the focus in Exodus 20. Moses was informing the people the Sabbath day was to be remembered. It was something to be made known, to be made mention of, to be named, professed, was to be identified as the day in which God rested from his labors. Because God made the heavens and the earth. He made the sea and he rested after doing so. Brethren, we're inheritors of that blessing. We're inheritors of that blessing, of that wonderful rest that is God's Sabbath. It's been given to us by God as a time to put away our labor and to turn to Him, to focus on Him, to worship Him, as we've been called together in assembly. So, through Exodus 20, the primary focus of this commandment is upon God as creator. Now, let's go to Deuteronomy 5.

There's another location where this particular commandment is given. Deuteronomy 5, and we'll pick it up in verse 12. Again, it says much the same thing. Things very similar. Very, very similar in the way that it states these things. But again, with some nuance, that's important for us to connect. Deuteronomy 5, and we'll go ahead and we'll pick it up in verse 12. It says, Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it, you shall do no work. No you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor your cattle, nor your stranger, who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

You can't rest yourself and then force your servants to work in your place. That's not acceptable before God, right? So God makes this about society as well. Not just individually, but about society as well. And remember, verse 15, that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there from a mighty, or by a mighty hand, and by an outstretched arm.

Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Manage you to keep the Sabbath day, to observe the Sabbath day. The word that's used here is not the same word that we see in Exodus 20 as remember. It's not sikar. Instead, Moses records that the people of Israel who were receiving these inspired words from God were to Shemar.

They were to Shemar the Sabbath day. They were to keep it. They were to observe it. The word Shemar translates in a number of ways in Scripture. It translates as keep. It translates as guard. It translates as observe, to watch. The root itself in Hebrew that this word comes from is a primitive root. And what it means is to hedge about with thorns. It means to hedge about with thorns.

Kind of what might be used to protect a garden from deer, for example, or what might be used to protect sheep in a pen from predators. Some of you might remember the movie The Ghost in the Darkness. You might remember that movie or the story of the man-eaters of Sabo. What they would do in that part of the world in Central and Southern Africa, they have these structures they call bomas. And it's a bunch of thorny branches that have been woven together to provide kind of a fence and a way to kind of protect whatever is located within that.

Of course, from the movie it didn't work. The lions jumped right over it and caused all sorts of problems. But that was the idea, was that it would hedge that thing about with thorns and provide a degree of protection. That's the word picture that's being painted here with Shemar. That's the word picture that we see. The word is used in Scripture in a number of places. It describes the role that Adam takes in the garden.

He was to dress and to keep the garden. He was to protect. He was to observe, to kind of watch, to keep over the garden. The angel of the Lord Shemarred the path to the tree. He kind of kept protected that way to the tree. Cain asked God whether he was Abel's keeper. You know, am I his Shemarrer, so to speak? Am I his keeper? Israel was given instruction by God to keep, to guard, to observe, and to watch over the Sabbath.

To protect it. To hedge it about with thorns. To prevent damage from being done to it. And to keep it from being deluded and forgotten. Why? Why was that? It's right here in the command that we see in Deuteronomy 5. Because Israel were slaves in the land of Egypt. That was the reason why, ultimately, this took place. God desired them to recall and to remember. He desired them to protect the Sabbath. To prevent them from working on it.

To make mention and profess that God had delivered them from their bondage.

By his mighty hand, by his outstretched arm, they were saved. And therefore, as a result of this, God commanded them to rest. He commanded their household to rest. He commanded their animals to rest. Their servants to rest. Everybody was going to rest. So when you see the instructions given in Deuteronomy 5 regarding the Sabbath, the primary focus is on God as a Redeemer.

Exodus 20, we see God as a creator. Deuteronomy 5, we see God as a Redeemer. Right? And these slight nuance between these two things. And what does that nuance look like? On one hand, God is saying, I created all of this. I created all of this. And when that process of creation was done, I reflected on my labors and I rested. And he says, because of that, you too will rest.

You too will rest. And then he says, on the other hand, generation upon generation upon generation of your people were unable to rest because of their enslavement in the land of Egypt.

But he says, I have redeemed you. I have delivered you. And now rest. Now rest. And don't push this off on others, right? Reestablish that appointed time with your Creator. And not only rest, but then prevent encroachment on that rest. Keep that day. Protect it. Don't let it get chipped away at. Don't take it for granted. Don't allow it to become common because it is holy. It is holy.

Both passages have a strong component of maintaining the holiness and the sanctity of the Sabbath through instructions provided. You know, we as humans, we don't have the ability to make something holy. We can discern between that which is holy and unholy.

That was the role the priesthood was given to teach Israel to discern between the holy and the unholy. But the priesthood didn't make something holy in that sense. As humans, we're not able really to declare that. God makes something holy. He sets it apart. Makes it different from other things. And frequently we see in Scripture as he interacted with his people through his presence being in something. Something is set apart. For example, Exodus 3. You can turn over there if you'd like to turn there. In Exodus 3, when Moses comes across the burning bush in the wilderness, he was instructed to remove his sandals because he was on holy ground. You know, Moses had crisscrossed that wilderness for 40 years tending to Jethro's sheep. It's very possible. Shepherds typically will follow the same routes, the same paths. It's very possible he walked past this bush multiple times before. What was the difference now before then? God's presence was here. It was now holy.

God's presence made the temple holy. God's people are holy. They're set apart because God has placed a portion of that divine nature within them at baptism. When God's people gather together, God's presence through that nature is among them. In that sense, the Sabbath day has been set apart by God as a day which his presence is to be in. The Sabbath day is holy because he has declared it so. He has set it apart. He has made it different from other days. And what we're instructed to do is to preserve and to maintain and to keep it holy, acknowledging that presence and maintaining that presence during that period. There's a number of things that we can do that may remove or diminish God's presence in that day. There's a number of things that can maintain and can strengthen the presence of God in our lives on that day. And at the end of the day, the onus of keeping the Sabbath is placed upon us individually. We can look at principles in Scripture. We can see the principles behind Sabbath observance. We can consider the examples that we see in Scripture, and we can draw conclusions about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate on the Sabbath with the full understanding that we will answer for those decisions. That's on us.

That onus is on us in that sense. You know, at times you talk with people who want the church to provide a nice list. This is okay. This is not okay. This is okay. This is not okay. That's not the way it works. The church teaches the principles of Sabbath observance. You read the Bible, you see the principles of Sabbath observance, and then you have to make a decision. You have to determine what that looks like, knowing again that that answer is going to have to be provided at some point in time. Let's turn to Isaiah 58. As we start to close here, Isaiah 58. In the book of Isaiah, the Sabbath command receives a little bit of additional fleshing out, kind of the underlying principle, so to speak, of Sabbath observance is exposed. Isaiah 58, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 13. And this section is discussing the sort of fasting that God desires. It's talking about the kind of love that mankind should have for their fellow man, loosing the bonds of wickedness, undoing heavy burdens, freeing the oppressed, breaking every yoke. It goes on to talk about treatment of the poor. It talks about restoration individually as well as collectively. And then it makes the following statement in Isaiah 58 and verse 13. It says, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, holy day of the Lord honorable, shall honor him not doing your own ways nor finding your own pleasure nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord. And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, the mouth of the Lord has spoken. God desires us to delight in the Sabbath day. When you go back in history, you see that segments of Jewish society created so many rules and so many, you know, boundaries and things around the Sabbath that became so burdensome to be able to experience the Sabbath day. And so we look at this. God desires us to delight on the Sabbath. He wants the Sabbath to be enjoyable, but he desires that the day honors him, and that we seek him. We don't seek our own pleasure on it, that we don't just treat it like any other day. We treat it as a special day that has been set apart by God, a day in which he is summoning his people together to him, calling them together to assemble before him. As his people, we're expected to remember and to keep.

Sabbath is one of the most ancient observances that God has instituted for his people. It was present from the very beginning. The patriarchs remembered and kept it. Israel remembered and kept it most of the time. You know, there were some challenges there. Christ and his disciples remembered and kept it, and we see from Scripture it will be remembered, and it will be kept in the kingdom of God as well. So what about us? Will we remember it? Will we recall it to mind the goodness of God, the mercies, the blessings of creation, of redemption? Will we keep it? Will we properly protect it? Will we guard it? Will we tend it? Will we answer that weekly summons, that annual call that we are brought together? This cycle, each week, annually, was designed to remind us of our Creator.

Every week we come to the end of the week and we stop, and we are reminded, and we recall what he has done for us, what he's created, what he's provided. We remember his benefits, we remember his blessings, and we worship him as a result of that. We praise him, we thank him, we are grateful to him at the end of the week when we stop and we rest and we recognize the incredible things that God has done for us. Annually, we stop each of those holy days and we remember why God did all of this. What he is doing in mankind, the calling he's giving them to become part of his family.

God commands us to assemble. It's our choice whether we follow that or not. Right? God knows the circumstances, he knows the heart, he understands what's taking place in our lives.

But he calls us to come together, and when we're able, when we're able and when it's wise, God wants us here, he wants us together. God desires that we turn away from our own pleasures in order to maintain his presence in this day, to maintain him as a part of this. God desires the Sabbath to be a delight. Will it be? Will it be or will we make it a burden? How will we keep this? As we mentioned earlier, one of the tendencies of mankind is to go on autopilot, so to speak.

It's an energy conservation thing. We automate processes so that it takes less energy to do them.

And sometimes, if we're not careful, and if we've been doing this for years and years and years and years, the Sabbath can become autopilot. Friday night comes in, we go home from work, but then what?

Does our brain finally just slow down enough that now we can scroll social media a bunch?

I catch up on things maybe a little bit and find ourselves suddenly, oh how did I get to watching reels? How did that happen? Right? How are we doing this? How are we keeping this? Because we can't afford, frankly, to be on autopilot, brethren. We can't afford to be on autopilot.

You know, we systematically make something routine and habitual. Hopefully we're not doing this with the Sabbath. But it's worth analyzing. It's worth examining. It's worth asking that question in our lives today. God's Sabbath is a delight. It's not a burden. You need to endeavor to maintain that presence of God within it through prayer, through study, through assembling of ourselves together, in particular, as we draw nearer and nearer to the time of Jesus Christ's return.

Well, thank you. Appreciate the opportunity to be here. I hope you all have a wonderful Sabbath.

I didn't want to alarm anyone earlier, but it is snowing. So I remember when I taught middle school, I went and closed the blinds because everybody would just... and they got that. They did that today. So anyway, have a wonderful Sabbath.