The Seventh Day Sabbath

Gentlemen of the Men's Ensemble, thank you very, very much for those hymns of praise, to our God above and to that God which is present with each and every one of us today. And in the course of this message, I will want to speak to that. Here in California, along the coast, going from San Diego up to Eureka, many of us, when we go up the 1, or we go up the 101, we will often look on the coastline and we will see lighthouses.

I'd like to speak about lighthouses for a second and maybe offer some thoughts about lighthouses that you and I have perhaps never considered. A lighthouse is the one edifice built by man that is truly altruistic. Its design and its purpose is simply for the well-being of others. Its whole design and its whole purpose is outflowing and outgoing, to care for the safety and the well-being of others.

Secondarily, its role is to guide people not merely to itself, but to guide them to safe harbor. To not understand that second point is not to understand the purpose of a lighthouse. A lighthouse does not serve itself for itself, but guides ones beyond itself to their ultimate destination that they desire to get to. And when somebody sees a lighthouse, it is a delight. Recently, Susan and I had the opportunity to go sailing with Mr.

Lance McCartney of our San Diego congregation during the Feast of Tabernacles down in Oceanside. And what a delight that was! We were a couple of miles outside the harbor off of Point Loma, and we were looking up at the top of Point Loma. Some of you have been there and seen the old Spanish lighthouse, which is neither that old.

It is not Spanish, but it is a lighthouse. So, one for three on that one. But nonetheless, we got to talk to Lance about it. And we asked, how often do you, down where you live, how often do you really look for that lighthouse? And he said, I look for that lighthouse, especially when the fog comes in off of Point Loma, outside Coronado, that you can get lost out there. Everything can seem to encompass you, and you really lose a sense of where you are and where you are going.

And then you see that bright light of the lighthouse, that beacon that is up there at the top of Point Loma. And you know that you are then headed in the right direction to get to your destination. God has also given Christians a beacon. God has given we, New Covenant Christians, a lighthouse. It was made and it was designed to serve man, just as much, if not more, than any lighthouse. And it's a beacon to guide us on our spiritual journey. It's a beacon that helps us move beyond the shoals of human nature.

It's a beacon that allows us to move outside of the fog of Satan's deception. It's a beacon that allows us to move beyond the sirens songs of the voices that come in to us around this world. And it was designed not to be self-serving. It was not designed to be an end to itself, just like a lighthouse is not designed to serve itself, but to move you up the coast or to move you into the harbor, to where you are to land, to that ultimate destination. Now, to the uninitiated, a lighthouse can seem pretty from a distance. It can seem cute. Some might say it seems common and or it can be taken for granted.

And likewise, this beacon that God gives humanity can fall into all of those same terms. Oh, isn't it cute? Oh, isn't it quaint? Oh, glad it's there, but we don't really need it. And what I'm speaking about today, brethren, is the Seventh-Day Sabbath. That is a great beacon that God has given His covenant people down through the ages to be able to move past those shoals of human nature, to move beyond the fog that is around us at times that blocks our vision of where God is striving to take us.

So the purpose of my message this afternoon is to help us to appreciate on this Sabbath before Thanksgiving Day in America, to help us to appreciate what a bright and an encouraging beacon the Seventh-Day Sabbath is to our lives.

And to recognize the Sabbath does not serve itself, but it points us and it directs us and it illustrates and illuminates us towards the kingdom of God and the stature of Jesus Christ. So how do we approach that? That's the goal that I've set before myself to explain to you this afternoon.

This is going to be a very fundamental presentation. You might say at one point we that are in the Church of God community, a note taker's delight. So you might want to take out a pen. You might want to take out a piece of paper and if not, that's fine, but we're going to be very exacting on what makes this beacon the beacon and the gift, the tool of grace that God has afforded covenant people today in 21st century America.

Let's begin by turning to Exodus 20. Join me if you would, and I know we have a number of guests here today that perhaps did not think they were going to come hear about the Seventh-day Sabbath in a Christian church. Here in the United Church of God, we do keep the Seventh-day Sabbath, and at times we need to be reminded why we do. In Exodus 20, let's pick up the thought here. Many of you will know that Exodus 20 is where the Ten Commandments are located.

Those are the ten great moral imperatives for seekers and followers of God to follow, beacons towards worshiping God and relating one to another as God and His love would relate to one another. And we pick up the thought here in Exodus 20 and verse 8. Follow with me if you would in your own Bibles. It says, remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy.

It says to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. As we begin, just at verse 8, there are two things I would like to bring out to remind you, refresh you, or maybe share with you for the very first time why God puts these words in the Bible the way He does. It says, remember the Sabbath day. This is a specific admonition given to those that seek the safe harbor of the kingdom of God. Number one, it tells us in a sense to remember, that means not to forget, to in that sense share with us that the Sabbath day, the seventh day Sabbath, was already enjoined to the people of God.

It was already enjoined. It was something that they were familiar with. And thus the Scripture says, remember it. Don't just bump into it. Just don't smash into it. Don't allow it just to appear in front of you like a veil. It's the Sabbath day. God is saying to remember it, and that's very important to understand that. The word there, remember, is a word that is spelled Z-A-K-A-R. It's a Hebrew word, zakar. It means it conveys earnestness or a vigilance.

And another commentary says to have this imprinted on your mind as you approach it.

When Lance McCartney is outside of Point Loma, outside of San Diego Harbor, he has in mind on a foggy day to be looking, to be observing ahead of time, to be approaching, not just stumbling upon a lighthouse, much less he stumble upon rocks that are before the lighthouse. That's why you have lighthouses. But there's a vigilance. There is an earnestness that is being bequested by this set of scriptures. Then let's continue with this. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. To keep it holy. Very important then. Now, what is very important as we look at this, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all of your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God, and 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 the stranger that is within your gates. Why? God doesn't just tell us what to do, but he tells us why. He gives us an explanation. 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. And therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath. And notice it says here in verse 11, he hallowed it, and or he made it holy. Not the sixth day, not the fourth day, not the first day of the week, but this seventh day. Very important. And he hallowed it. Now, very important in understanding then how we approach the beacon of the Sabbath. Two essential items that I want to share with you. Okay? Number one, God made the Sabbath holy. Only God can make matters, things, items, days, time, food, people, holy. Our responsibility then is not to make the Sabbath holy, somehow by how we keep it, but we are to keep it because it is holy. It is time that God has infused with his presence and with his essence. And he's set this apart. Very important concept to begin to understand.

Now, let's understand what leads up to understanding this because this points back to creation when we look at verse 10 or 11. Let's think about creation for a moment and to understand that as the Bible explains, there were seven days of creation. And the way that God went through those days of creation, it's almost as if he had a check-off list as he went along day one, day two, day three, day four. Just as any foreman would or anybody working, building something or constructing something, you kind of ask yourself, well, how did the day go? What was the showing that day and how did it go? And on the first day, the first day came and the first day when they said, it is good. Then on the second day, it is good. The third day, it is good. Fourth, fifth, it is good. But then join me now, if you would, to the beginning of the book, Genesis 1. In Genesis 1 verse 26, now something happens differently on this the sixth day. Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness to them and let them have dominion over the sea and over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over everything that is on earth. So notice verse 27. So God created man in his own image and in the image of God, he created him male and female.

Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it. He gave Adam and Eve dominion over the earth and God said, you can have all of this, all of the trees, all of the plants, all of the birds. Then notice verse 31. And then God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good, very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Now I have a question for all of you. If God said on the sixth day that it was very good and he'd made man, he'd made this special creation, he didn't make another animal because a human being is not an animal. A human being is made after the image and the likeness of God, created from the dust. We are not the end result of love-sick amoeba on a slimy pond long ago, long before quote-unquote time, that somehow had a photosynthetic event and thus life burst forth just like that. If you want to believe that and if you want to believe that humanity is here by accident or by a spark of photosynthesis, have at it. I do not. I am a person of faith and I do believe that what we have all around us is of divine origin and divine creation and that God indeed is the first cause. When you understand that, that nature around you is by design, then you will also individually begin to live your life by design and not by accident and that's a purpose of the Sabbath to remind us not to live accidentally. How often do we go through life and you see somebody say, well why did you do that? I wasn't thinking. You know, and you start getting the flathead. I wasn't thinking. God designed the seventh day Sabbath. He came to make us think.

Now, he said it was always said it was very very how do you do better than very good? Went from good to very good. Well, we have to finish the rest of the story. Verse 31 here, then God saw everything. He said it's very good. Finished the sixth day. Thus the heavens of the earth and all the hosts of them were finished. Finny. Completed. Done. Notice verse 3, then God blessed the seventh day and he sanctified it. He set it apart because in it he rested from all of his work which God had created and made. Now, what is this telling all of this? Why then, if everything was finished on the sixth day, why are there seven days of creation? Why this seventh day? It says in chapter 2 verse 2, it says that he rested. The word there is Shabbat and or you can Anglicize it by saying he ceased. He stopped from all the work that he had been doing to that point. Now, a big question comes up then. Why did God stop? Did God get pooped out?

So, man, this is too much. Six days. I need a rest. I'm just worn out. I've got to lay down on a couch and take it easy for a while, at least for a couple million years. No, he didn't do that at all. God doesn't get tired. Isaiah the prophet says he is neither weary or tired. He doesn't sleep.

It wasn't that God was tired and it wasn't that God was completely done. He had ceased from all of his physical activity. He had ceased from making the physical creation.

But to understand what the Sabbath means to you and to me that understand it and observe it and keep it is to understand that the creation of God is not complete. When we were made after God's image and after God's likeness, that was only out of starting blocks. We were made out of dust.

But God doesn't want to keep His children made in His image and likeness just simply in dust. He's moving us towards the kingdom of God. He's taking that which is made out of dust and by His grace and by His love. He is creating and establishing and molding children to be immortal children in His family, in the kingdom of God, and to be with Him in Jesus Christ in eternity.

So we begin to understand that in Genesis it's only beginning. Join me if you would in Ephesians. Let's go to the book of Ephesians and join me if you would in chapter 2 and verse 10. Ephesians 2 and verse 10. In Ephesians 2 and verse 10, notice what it says, for we are His workmanship. Oh, excuse me. I thought it was all done at creation. No, no. God is still at work. Jesus said in John 5, 17 through 18, my Father works, and so do I. The physical creation is the spiritual creation. The spiritual creation is yet to be in its fullness. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus.

This new creation, not of dust, but of the Spirit. For good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Thus, let's understand the fullness of point number one.

Point number one is a guiding beacon given by God this seventh day to refresh, to remind, and invigorate us regarding the plural creations of God. Not only that of dust, water, and air, but ultimately the Spirit as that Sabbath day points to what God is going to do now and in the future. Number two, we focus on the Sabbath being a beacon of liberty, being a beacon of bright light.

A guiding force, an illumination of freedom and joy to be able to serve God.

Let the words of God define the day that He has made holy. Some people will say that God no longer requires a covenant individual, an individual under the new covenant, to observe the seventh day, considering the term and linking it with thoughts or words of bondage that are linked with the observance of the law. I have a question for you, may I? A big question, and it is simply this. You've got to answer this because this will press your spiritual logic. Are you ready?

Can a good God make bad law?

I'm watching some of your eyes. Can a good God make a bad law? If my wife were here behind the pulpit, she would ask you this question. She's not going to in services. She would ask you this question. It says, what part of God's law don't you like? Do you think that's true for a moment?

The same law that the Apostle Paul says in Romans 7 and 14, he might want to jot that down, he says that the law is spiritual. It is not just simply petrified as a fossil in Sinai.

It is not just something that was given by Moses 3,500 years ago. It is alive. It is eternal. It is the love of God. It's the mind of God that he's sharing with us to understand what he's doing with the special creation that's made after his image. There can be bondage in observing the Sabbath. Yes, there can be. If you're obsessing over the law as a Savior, if you're keeping the Sabbath, quote-unquote, to gain salvation by commandment-keeping alone, that's bondage. Because there's no amount of commandment-keeping that merits us receiving what God wants to give us. It's his gift. It's his grace that will allow us to enter into the kingdom of God. There can be also, again, yes, the law can be a bondage, especially if you practice sinning. People make a mistake, and please hear me oftentimes, they'll talk about the curse of the law that Paul brings up in the Epistles. The curse of the law is not saying that it's a cursed law. There's a difference. Do you hear me? There's a difference between the curse of the law and a cursed law. Remember my initial question? It was somewhat elementary, but I hope it was somewhat profound. Can a good God make bad law? Can a good God somehow make a cursed law? No. But what he did do, he said that the soul that sins, Ezekiel 18, 4, it shall die.

And the last time I thought about dying ahead of time, it seems kind of curseful.

And thus, we need to understand those things as we approach this. That's not how God approached it. You know, having been a docent in museums, you understand how researchers and scholars look at manuscripts and documents. They don't want to simply hear what everybody else says about them. They want to go to the source. They want to get behind what was the writer doing. So you don't look at duplications. You don't just simply look at commentaries or books, and those are fine. And well, you get to the source. You get the original document and the original words in front of you as to what the author himself was thinking. That's why I want you to look at Deuteronomy, please. Deuteronomy. And let's pick up the thought if we could in verse 12. Deuteronomy 5 and verse 12. In Deuteronomy 5 and verse 12, let's understand Deuteronomy. For those that are just becoming acquainted with the word, Deuteronomy means the second giving. Israel was now going from being a wandering nation coming out of Egypt, having gone in circles for 40 years, and they were about to become a settled people, a settled nation. So God was helping them to remember, helping to refresh them what it would be like as they settled amongst the world around them. And we pick up this thought in verse 12. Observe the Sabbath day to, notice again, keep it holy. As the Lord your God commanded you. Not Moses, not about Moses. As the Lord commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all of your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God, and in it you shall do no work. Nobody in your family, etc., etc., etc. Nobody. Verse 15. And remember, very important again, remember, remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm, and therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Therefore, we look at this and we understand that God is talking about that creation moving forward. And what he is now doing, if you want to jot this down for those that are taking notes, God not only is now looking at past creation, but he is now talking about this day, the seventh day, to be reminded of it as a July 4th, every week, to bring us into relationship with him. That it was not, as he says here, it was not by what we did, but it was by his mighty hand, and by his outstretched arm. God is specifically linking the Sabbath, not with bondage, not with the, oh, that's kind of grimy, that's kind of, oh, that's kind of limiting, that's kind of restrictive. He's saying, remember the fireworks, as it were. Remember what I did for you, and remember that it was not by your hand, but it was by my favor, and it was by my grace.

You could not escape from Pharaoh. You could not liberate yourself from slavery.

I reached down and favored you. I gave you grace, and I took you up, and placed you on me, as with eagle wings, and I brought you to this land, lest you forget.

Brethren, is it any wonder that when Jesus was challenged, and is recorded in Mark 2, 27 through 28, he said, I am the Lord of the Sabbath.

I'm the Lord of the Sabbath.

Many people, sincere people, even people that have many beliefs as we do, as they look at the Bible, do not understand this cardinal belief of the Seventh-day Sabbath. They somehow have been taught, or reason of their mind. Grandma told them, Grandpa told them, their stepfather told them, their pastor told them that somehow Jesus Christ came and did away with the Sabbath day.

Brethren, I'm here to tell you on the authority of Scripture, in any Scripture you want to show me, that Jesus did not come and abolish the Sabbath, and he did not come to do away with the Sabbath. He did not come to abrogate the Sabbath. Why did Jesus Christ, in part, come to this earth?

To show us, to show us, that if God were, are you with me? If God were a man, this is how he would keep the Sabbath.

You see what had happened, because Israel and Judah had gone into slavery and exile, because of breaking God's holy and righteous law. When they came back, they began to put all of these man-made restrictions, and cultural restrictions, thinking they were doing God a favor.

Have you ever found somebody that they think they're doing God a favor, and they're leaning the ladder on the wrong building, going up, and trying to be more righteous than God is? And that's what happened, because they didn't even want to get near the cliff any longer, unless they fall over and go back into captivity. So they lined up all of these different matters.

Almost, you know, the tradition. So much so, that if you swallowed a bug into your mouth, and you swallowed it, that was considered work.

Now, I probably worked that out a couple of times in my life, when I've been with a lot of different bugs. And it does take a lot of work to swallow a bug, but I don't think it's work.

And, or that if you found somebody on the road, and you know, the old ox and the ditch prints, when you saw somebody on the road, you could, oh, there's somebody on the road, oh!

And, you know, maybe they were by an anthill. Well, you know, you had the permission to maybe move them away from anthill.

And, or you might have the permission to put a patch over them, if they were bleeding. But you could not move them one iota forward, in feeling better than what you had found them. Because, that was considered healing on the Sabbath, and doing something.

Do you realize, brethren, that rather than the Bible, the Holy Word of God, showing that Jesus did away with the Sabbath, that more of the gospel account is about how Jesus Christ observed the Sabbath than any other item in the gospel?

And to show how God would do it. How He would come and love people on the Sabbath. How He would reach out to people on the Sabbath. How He would heal people on the Sabbath. How He would be touched by people on the Sabbath. How He would be practical with the Sabbath when His disciples were starving in the fields and moving towards a destination. As it says in Mark 2, 27-28, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath is like a lighthouse. Remember, a lighthouse does not serve itself.

A lighthouse guides you to where God is wanting to move you to.

Brethren, I hope some of this helps you when you have conversations with people. Take the words of God. They are empowering. And to recognize that the Sabbath is not only a rule, but it's tied to a relationship of a good God that today has rescued us from the ways of this world, from the culture, the cosmos, the system, the society of this world, not because of who and what we are, but because He has liberated us and given us this. It's a wonderful truth, brethren. I just get excited talking about it. Point number three. Point number three.

We focus on the Sabbath to provide physical and spiritual restoration. We focus on the Sabbath to provide physical and spiritual restoration. As we move through Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, and as we're looking at that beacon, which is on the seventh day, it's on that mount, it's on that point Loma, as it were, of the seventh day. We look forward to it. We recognize it's going to guide us to good things.

Join me, if you would, in Exodus 23. In Exodus 23, God, speaking about this day in verse 12, says, says, 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 female servant and the stranger may be refreshed.

And the word there, refreshed, in Exodus 23 verse 12, I want to share something with you.

The word refreshed, the way the Hebrew root word conveys it is, and you will take a breath. And or another way of looking at it, it's as if a breath of fresh air will come upon you. How many of you have been to Hawaii here? When you could go to Oceanside?

Won't go into that. But for, I have not actually been to Ohio, Ohio, my wife. I've not, that's the other paradise. Okay, anyway, that, some of you Buckeyes will like that. Anyway, that, go to Hawaii, you know how steamy and how hot it gets in Hawaii, and then all of a sudden you see those trade winds come up. Have you ever done that? And you see your curtains just begin to billow. Ben, you think you're out there with a Horatio Hornblower. You're out at sea, you know, the sails fill us at where you go. You know, you're kind of like Ben Franklin. You're going to take an you're going to take an air bath. Don't keep that picture in your mind too long, okay? Just throw that out. Anyway, but it's refreshing. You're in front, and that's what God is saying about His Holy Sabbath day. It's refreshing. It's delightful. It's like a breeze blowing upon you.

You know, how often do we think of, you know, this crazy world and all the voices that are coming at us, everything that's at us, coming at us, work in the freeway, and everything that happens in between, and then to recognize that, in a sense, God gives us a rest. He says, stop! Stop! I am your creator.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, there was a show, it was called Father Knows Best with Robert Young. Some of you will remember that. Father knows best, and the creator knows best. He made the creation, and he knows what makes us go well, and he knows what we need.

And that's so important.

How often of us sometimes just say, just stop this world. I want to get off. I need to rest. Debbie is here. She heard me sing a song last week, and I'm not going to do it. I don't think it was part of the blessing last week, my voice. You know, with that old song, make the world go away, and take it off my shoulders. That's what we do sometimes during the week. Wasn't that bad? Is that, I don't mean bad as the kids say is good, I mean bad is bad. Anyway, that we need a break from this stress mess. God says, I'm going to give you a spiritual and emotional and physical break.

You say, well, that kind of sounds boring. But we've already found out that the Sabbath is not about being a couch potato. It's not really about a vacation. It's about a vocation. God is still working. God is still liberating people. God is still designing humanity to be a part of His kingdom. We then take those principles and then bring them to ourselves, but we need that rest. You know, sometimes we think that with winter time, that in winter we say, yeah, winter is kind of boring. Nothing's happening. Nothing's growing. Just look out. The trees look dead. The plants look dead. It's dead out there. It's boring. It's dormant. But do you realize that God created winter for a purpose and a reason? That there is life and there is growth and there is vitality and there is vigor, even in dormancy. Everything needs to take a rest. And what we see on the surface is not necessarily what's happening underneath the ground, because it's preparing those same trees and those same plants for the rains that come at spring, for the sun that comes by summer. But if it didn't have winter, it couldn't exist. Judge Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice of the United States, back in the 30s or 40s under FDR, Jewish background, once said this, I can do seven days work in six days. But I can't do seven days work in seven days. He understood, and I share with you today the principle that he said, by taking a rest, by delighting in the Sabbath, by storing up, God is giving us the greatest gift that we can possibly have.

It's a beacon. It's a light. That's why God says, look for it in the distance as you go through Monday and Tuesday. Point number four. Point number four. We focus on the reality that, yes, indeed, we will experience a test of faith in keeping the seventh-day Sabbath. We will have a test of faith. Absolutely. Join me if you would in Exodus 16. And as you go to Exodus 16, allow me to set the stage, going back a little bit further, as you turn to Exodus 16. God has often used food as an instrument of a test regarding obedience.

He did it with Adam, and he did it with Eve in the Garden of Eden.

The Garden of Eden and the fruit of the tree of good and evil was not about, do you like apples, and I like oranges, and you like pomegranates. The test of the food in the Garden of Eden regarded the sufficiency of God.

As to whether or not God not only brings us to Him, He not only creates us, but He'll care for us, and He'll give us everything that we need ultimately to move into the safe harbor of His kingdom and experience eternity with Him. That God somehow isn't leaving something out. He's not a liar. He is the truth, and we don't have to go looking around every corner. We don't have to put things into our own hands. We put our hands down. We don't do our industrial labor on the Sabbath day, and by not doing our industrial labor on the Sabbath day, we're saying a bigger point is that I am not saved by the works of my hands. I'm not saved by the works of my industrial labor.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. So that test was there with Adam and even the beginning with the food, and God set a border. He said, you can have all of the trees and all the fruit of the garden, but save this one, the tree of the good and evil. He put a border around that. He didn't put a border around the tree of life. The tree of life didn't have a motor around it. There weren't snapping alligators in it. They could have had it. They rejected it, but they trespassed the border that God set up. That border was set up because God wanted a people with a relationship with him that would love him and trust him and worship him and know that he was God. We pick up now the story in Exodus 16, and you're there. Notice what it says in verse 4. Now we're in the wilderness. Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will reign bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather together a certain quota every day. Notice that I might test them whether they will walk in Moses law or not. Oh, excuse me. It doesn't say Moses law, does it? It says whether they will look, walk in my law. This is the my, the pronoun, is the pre-existent Jesus, the Word, the rock, the one that the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 4 is the one that Israel followed. No wonder later on in Mark 2, 27, he says, I am, I am the name of God, I am the Lord of the Sabbath, and it shall be, and I will test them whether they will walk in my law or not, and it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. So we see this verse, and this is where we get the thought of what we call the preparation day, that you just don't stumble into the Sabbath, that you just don't bump into God's holy time, and it shall be on the sixth day that was prepared. Then Moses and Aaron said, To all the children of Israel, and in evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt. Always goes back that I will be your provider. You have to understand, it had to be very, very tough for Israel. When you think of where they were wandering, have you ever been out in Palm Springs and looked up the backside of the San Jacinto's, all those rocks and all those boulders? I always think I'm at the foot of Sinai.

It wasn't like they were in the Caribbean, folks. It was tough sledding in the sand, not the snow, but the sand. So we can't be too hard on our friends back there, but God wanted to elevate them and have him trust them. I realize that some of you every day face the challenge of the Sabbath at work, and we recognize that the economy is tough. And you need a job. You're supporting a family. And then it looks like you get that correspondence back. You get that first interview. You get that second interview, the second interview in person, you know. And then comes, okay, I prayed about it. Here it goes. But please understand, I am a Christian that observes the seventh-day Sabbath, and therefore I'm not going to be able to work Friday night to Saturday night from sunset to sunset.

I won't. I'll come in Sunday. I'll work overtime Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

I will work on the holidays that everybody else takes off, but I cannot work because I follow God and I believe the book. See, that test was not only on ancient Israel. That test remains with us as to what we will gather on the seventh day. And I pray for all of you. I realize the challenge that is out there. But I want to share with you, too, that God never dismisses one blessing or what you think is a blessing, that God will not prepare a path in a way to bless you. Because this whole idea of preparation for the Sabbath, this whole thought of the Sabbath being a beacon to guide us towards God, is to remind us that it's not just a rule, it's a relationship. And we have to tie them together, that God will provide. And then, you know, Israel went out and you know what it was? You know, the stuff came down from heaven and they gave it a name. They called it, what's that? What is that, anyway? That's what manna means. What is that? And so sometimes, once we can't tread unto God's holy time, we can kind of see what's coming in our way down. Is this it? That's it? But it kept Israel going for 40 years. Brethren, while there is joy and while there is liberation and why there is design to the Sabbath, never underestimate that the Sabbath is a test. Food was a test to Adam and Eve. It was a test to Israel. And yet now, in this, it is food and time because now the Sabbath is added. Brethren, we need to really pray for one another, to encourage one another, to have the faith and to have the fortitude and share our stories one with another. How God has ultimately paved a road to take care of us. Many of you face these challenges with employment over the years and you have stood up, stood up for that beacon, stood up for that seventh day, stood up for the day that Jesus says, I am the Lord of that day. Continue to stand up, continue to pray for one another, continue to encourage one another. Point number five, we're going to go very quickly here. Focus on the reality that God blesses us as we delight in the Sabbath.

Focus on the blessing as we delight in the Sabbath. Join me through it in Isaiah 58. Isaiah 58. From the prophet Isaiah verse 13, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, so when we begin to observe that seventh day Sabbath, we recognize there is a note of repentance. From doing then your own pleasure on my holy day. And if you call the Sabbath a delight.

The word there delight. Let's understand the word that God inspired. The word delight there is the Sabbath is a luxury. It is soft. It is delicate. Can you imagine how Israel felt as they became refreshed and began to remember and to be instructed about the Sabbath by Moses after they've been in slavery for 250 years in Egypt? That God said, you're going to have an entire day off physically. Not spiritually, physically.

I would suggest that Israel thought it was a delight. They thought it was delight. But notice what it says here.

The holy day of the Lord honorable, and you shall honor Him not doing your own ways.

Now these are very, hear me please, these are very big basic principles. They're principles.

It's not a rolodex of do's and don'ts that go longer than some pieces of government regulation.

God makes it very simple here. And He puts the onus on you that have a mind, that have a spirit, and the Spirit of God coupled with that to make decisions as to how you will keep the Sabbath.

Notice, from doing your own pleasure, thus you as an individual must consider what is God's pleasure, what is your pleasure, and how do they contrast, and to come into alignment with God. The holy day of the Lord is honorable. It has weight. It has value. Are you, but by what you and your family are doing, is it honorable? And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways? These are principles that you are to consider, and you are to navigate through for your family, not finding your own pleasure and or speaking your own words.

Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord, and He'll cause you to ride in the high places. Now let's understand what this means. There are some things that I do six days a week.

They're not a sin. They're not bad. They're actually kind of fun.

I'll let you imagine what I do. But I wouldn't do it on the seventh day. Let's use the principle, if we could, for a moment of Moses. Remember when Moses went up to Sinai? And what did God tell Moses to do as he approached the burning bush? To remove your sandals. Now, are sandals a bad thing? I have a question for you, especially when you're in the desert, and it's 125 degrees in the Sinai desert. Isn't it a good thing to have sandals in the desert? This is not a trick question. It should be very easy. It's a yes or no. Just think of Palm Springs. No, it's a good thing.

But when you enter into the presence of God, and God can make people holy, he can make food holy, he can make time holy, God said, Moses, take your shoes off.

Consider where you are. Use that as an example, then, of recognizing that there may be things that we do six days of the week that are good. Very good, just like it says in Genesis.

But are they holy as we cross into the time that God has placed eternity into?

In considering all of this, let's understand that I hope that as we take these principles, that our observance of the Sabbath does not shrink our existence, but that it expands our existence in being tools in God's hands. Let's go to the last point.

I want to share this with you. The sixth point I want to share is that we focus and respond to the call of assembly. Join me, if you would, in Leviticus 23. In Leviticus 23, and let's pick up the thought in verse 1. Leviticus 23, verse 1, And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, The feast of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are, again, circle it, my feast. And then he goes on to talk about it again with that thought of creation.

To do no work. Now, notice the words that are spoken here. It says, number one, it says, these are my feasts. The word there is moad, m-o-a-d-e, and that means a divinely appointed assembly. The divinely appointed assembly. That means you have been called by summons to appear.

Summons to appear. Now, if you ever get something from Superior Court, I get that on occasion for jury duty or for some other item and etc., etc., I don't say to myself, oh, look at this.

I wonder if I should appear.

I don't make a paper airplane out of it and throw it into the trash can. I have been given notice that Robin Weber is to move himself from Sun City down to Temecula to Superior Court. I don't have a choice in this. Remember when we were kids, we might get a little daisy and we go, she loves me? She loves me not. She loves me? She loves me not. Do you do that with the summons from Superior Court? I'll appear? I won't appear. I'll appear? I won't appear. Now, brethren, obviously there's some levity to all of this.

God asked us to appear before him where he has placed his name. And that's very, very important.

When we consider this other word here, a holy convocation, the word there is migra.

It means to be called out, a meeting, inferring togetherness. There's a togetherness that comes about this. Thus, we understand that observing the Sabbath, there's what I might call, Mr. Helge or Mr. Darden might call this in legal lease, a demand clause. There's a demand clause. There's an appointment to appear. Well, you say, but Mr. Weber, God is everywhere. God's everywhere. And thus, if I'm at home and I'm with God, well, that's all right.

But let's understand something. And there is a time to take a Sabbath's rest and to be at home and get extra study. I'm not against that. But the point is this.

Yes, we can do a lot at home. We can study a lot of books. We can read a lot of words of God.

But at that point, it's just theology and it's just recipes that have not been put into action.

And if you and God are just alone and not appearing with others, this togetherness, you're missing out on the other half of Christianity.

Because Christianity is not only our vertical relationship with God Almighty and Jesus Christ and our passion towards them, but it's also our horizontal relationship of our compassion, our with love to others. You only come to understand that when you're with other people.

You only learn to love as God loves when you're around the direct object of conversion, which is other people. And you really learn it even, do I dare say sometimes, a church with people that, to you, are unlovable, that are right sitting in front of you, even as I speak.

But that's why we come together to practice being in His image, being after His likeness, not only in the realm of dust, but in the realm of spirit.

And I think far too many people today are missing out that wonderful point of why God says, it's a feast, it's a summons. Oh yes, as the apostle John says in 1 John 1 and verse 3, our fellowship is with God and with Jesus Christ, but it's also with one another.

For to say that you love God and do not love your brother, your Christianity is going around in circles. And thus we have this continual lab session as we come together to worship God, to praise God, to learn about God, to be invigorated by the Word of God, and to come together and to learn. And that, brethren, is why we are summoned to appear before Him. I open all this message, brethren, that you can liken the Sabbath to a beacon, to a lighthouse.

Questions will sometimes come to people that observe the Seventh-day Sabbath. Oh, so you worship a day. No. I don't. You don't worship a day.

Remember, the Sabbath is like a lighthouse. It does not serve itself. It points to Him who made the day.

We do understand that we are to be a holy people on Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, but that God poured His essence into the Seventh-day Sabbath to refresh us, to remind us that He is our God, that we are not living a life by accident but by design, that we have been spiritually liberated as the spiritual Israel of God, that our Father knows best, that we come together to practice what we read, and to appreciate the gift that He's given us, this tool of grace, this instrument of God called the Sabbath. Many years ago, now 50 years ago, when I was growing up, I was 12 years old. My mother taught me something that has stayed with me. I'm now 63 years of age, and it's always stayed with me, and it's kept me, and that's why grandmothers and mothers are neat, and they teach you these little ditties to carry with you all of your life, so that sometimes when I'm lost out on sea and I'm looking for that beacon of the lighthouse, I'll remember. Thomas C. Nuever taught me this. God made the Sabbath and God made me. God bless the Sabbath, and God bless me. The guiding beacon, the lighthouse of the Bible, the Sabbath that points us to eternity, that reminds us the Lord of our life, the head of the church, Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath. May God bless the Sabbath day.