Ten Keys to Your Salvation - Part 4 - Keep the Sabbath Feast Holy

In the dictionary, there's a word, festival, and that festival means a celebration. A festival celebration has a theme to it, along with a gathering, festivities, typically food, and preparation. Festivals are highly anticipated events during the year. People really look forward to them. Types of them include festivals for things that are harvested, fruits and vegetables, and all types of things. There are festivals for them. Also, flowers. There are beverage festivals. There are various types of arts festivals. There is Thanksgiving Day, which is a common festival in the Western world. These festivals are things that people really look forward to, they prepare for, they get excited about, and they enjoy. Well, God's festivals eclipse them all in meaning, in purpose, in real, deep, personal fulfillment. If we go to Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 2, God states some things about His festivals. He says, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocation. These are my feasts.

These feasts are pretty exciting. Nothing negative about them. Nothing negative is implied. In fact, they're to be proclaimed. Let people know about them. Notice in verse 3, 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. So this is an exciting festival. You don't have to do anything negative. No chores, no meaningless work. The day won't be filled with anything except good. Nothing negative is implied whatsoever. You get to rest from your meaningless work that we all have to do. You have an assembly that is exciting with those of fellow mind. No worldliness. You get to actually break free of the craziness of the week and the things that you saw and the things that came up. You just put it all out of your mind and you get a great day that's holy, a Sabbath to the Lord, and it's kept in your dwellings. It's the Sabbath to the Lord in your dwellings in the end of verse 3. So this feast is not one where you travel to a place that God chooses like the other festivals of the year, but this one is done in a comfortable, homey environment where you live. It involves special treats. One of the biggest treats is no chores, no regular work. In fact, you will have had six days to get everything prepared to wear on this day.

You can just celebrate it and enjoy the fruits of those labors through the week one day. It's kind of like a mini-feast of tabernacles.

This is a wonderful time. You get to assemble with friends, assemble with God, assemble with people who love you and people that you love. You get to involve yourself in a worship service, thankful to God, and think about all the great things of your best friend, the one who loves you. You get to have enjoyable food and fellowship on the 24-hour Sabbath day. Today, let's examine this fourth key to your salvation. We're going to learn how God wants us to rejoice in the theme, the assembly, the socializing, the food, the reminiscing that goes along with this festival. The title is, This is 10 Keys to your Salvation, Part 4, Keep the Sabbath Feast Holy. Keep the Sabbath Feast Holy. This festival is unique to almost any other festival you've heard of. What other festival do you know that occurs once a week? It's a weekly festival. In Exodus 20, verses 8-10, Exodus 20, we'll begin in verse 8. It says, Remember the Sabbath day. We'll get to the word remember in a moment. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. So we're to go about our business, our chores, etc., etc. We're to do all of our work with a certain anticipation now.

But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work. Now this isn't a negative, this is a positive. Your work should be done. Your preparation should be done. You should be stepping into the festival of God, having all of that behind you. And in it 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, within the city in which you live. Nobody is supposed to be involved in these chores and in this work, etc. Four. In verse 11, in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth. So what we find here is the Sabbath focus is on God, but not just on God. It's on the God family. It's on the purpose of God. Everything from the creation of God, those He created, why He created them, Him, His Son, the future of that creation, the purpose of that creation. It's all great. And after six days of working, God Himself was ready to step in, take a deep breath. He had done all the preparation and now the Sabbath was here. And He consecrated this festival. He blesses this festival. Each Sabbath God blesses it and God enters it. God has to enter it in order for it to be holy. And so then He invites us to enter it with Him, to come in, assemble with Him, to join Him in the Sabbath day, and to leave all the other stuff like He did outside of the Sabbath. All the stresses, all the tasks, all the worries. Free your focus as God has His for the Sabbath day.

The Sabbath is about the family of God, His rulership, His way, His wonderful plan, His eternal family in the kingdom of God. Yes, the Sabbath is all good. Very, very good. The festival begins, or began, we might say, with reminiscing. We look here in verse 11 a little deeper. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. So when we think about the first Sabbath, first of all, this came first. God created the heavens and the earth, everything that's in it. And now He brings this end to the Sabbath observance. This is reminiscing. Oh, when we step out on the Sabbath, do you ever see an animal?

Do you ever see a sunset, a sunrise, some beauty? Do you ever take a drive, watch a nature show? You say, wow, look what God made. That's reminiscing about the God of the Sabbath. Yeah, it's great. But the reminiscing doesn't stop just in the past. The reminiscing comes into our life now. Our calling, talking to each other. How are you called? How's your life going? We heard a sermon at today about the part in between birth and death, and that's an important phase that relates to the Sabbath.

It's part of our calling to be one of God's children. And of course, we look to the future. When we think about the Sabbath, we can't miss the fact that it's day number seven, can we? And it's interesting that God numbered the days.

It's day one, day two, they don't have other names. They're just numbers. And all those numbers as we go through them are there for a reason. It's to build anticipation for number seven. When you think of the first six days of the week, those six days are like humanity has spent. Kind of mundane work. A lot of it's, you know, kind of begrudging. Not a lot of it's been pleasant for humanity. But there's a seventh day coming. There is a seventh thousandth year that's coming. Similarity lies in the fact that just as Feast of Unleavened Bread has six days where Israel is coming out of Egypt, and they get all the way to the Red Sea on day six.

There's this seventh day, a holy day, and God flies them out of Egypt on eagle's wings. You and I in our lives have our six days, come to like days of Unleavened Bread, our life. And we get to the end of our life, and we can't get out.

But we look to that seventh day. We look to that God taking us as it were on eagle's wings and resurrecting us and placing us within his kingdom after we've developed those six days of holy righteous character. When we think of the number seven, then all that pertains to God. And this is the seventh day. This is God's day. This is God's festival for us. When the seven thousandth year begins, we'll be resurrected miraculously, not of our own power.

It's kind like the Israelites going out of the Red Sea. We'll be resurrected to join Christ and reign on that seventh day, that rest that God has for Israel and for humanity, the rest from the weariness of Satan's rule, a thousand year reign of Christ and the bride. A wonderful world tomorrow. We picture that each Sabbath day. Again, the Sabbath, the millennium, involves feasting. And feasting involves food. Let's go to Amos chapter 9 and verse 13.

Amos chapter 9 and verse 13. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper. You know, when we think of that seventh day of the week, that seventh of the thousand years of Christ, there's going to be so much food.

The treader of grapes will overtake the one who sows the seed. All the hills shall flow with it. This is good times. The Sabbath and God, they're about positive things. Salvation, about rejoicing, assembling, about food, and preparing for these events. You know, our whole life is about preparing, preparation, so that we can be ready when Christ returns.

And this day actually pictures Christ's return and our judgment. And we need to have been preparing for six days. This is a holy festival. You know, the directions for keeping the Sabbath are fairly straightforward in Scripture. They're not complicated. They're fairly straightforward. We look, we find that they are succinctly put into about five categories. First category, in fact, I'll give you all the five directives for keeping the Sabbath. Keep it holy, rejoice in it, assemble in it, eat food, and prepare for it.

It's all good. There's no negative there. Sometimes God has to say, well, remember not to do this, but basically it's, you know, we want to keep it holy, right? And we want to rejoice in it. We want to assemble. We want to eat, and we want to prepare.

And so if we do that, as we look forward to each Sabbath, beginning on the first day of the week, if we begin to do these things and that the Sabbath grows in importance to us, in specialness to us, we look at it really truly as a festival with great anticipation, excitement, and joy. So let's look at the first one of the directives to keep it holy. This is a holy festival. We need to approach it with anticipation, with readiness, with preparation. We need to revere this feast, not just say, oh yeah, another Sabbath. No, don't look at it as, oh, way, way back in time, sometime, God put an automatic stamp on Friday night sunset to Saturday night sunset. No, that's not how God makes things holy. He made that Sabbath holy back then, but He makes every Sabbath holy as they come up. Next Sabbath isn't here yet. God hasn't made that time holy yet. So in anticipation for next Sabbath, we need to realize what God is going to be doing, what God will be doing, and what we need to be doing mentally, physically, in preparation to keep it holy, holy, and to revere it. Let's go to Isaiah chapter 58 and verse 13. Isaiah chapter 58 and verse 13. God here gives us an indication of how He wants us to observe it in a holy manner. There's holy, you see, and there's profane. Simple terms. One has God in it, and it's special. It's holy, and the other is just common. It's just common. It's everyday common. I have two pairs of shoes, you might say. I saw the other pair. It's my profane shoes. They sit right by the door. They go out and they slop in the mud. They go through the grass every day. They come back with stuff all in them. I drop them at the door. I never clean them. They fit. They kind of slop in well. I don't have to tie them. Those are my profane shoes. Like you, I'm wearing my Sabbath shoes. I don't wear my profane shoes to church. They're good shoes. They accomplish something, but they don't belong stepping into this time.

Here in Isaiah chapter 58 and verse 13, God says, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath. It's an interesting concept here. Profane in the New Testament comes from a Greek word that Strongs defines as stepping across the threshold of a doorway to somewhere you shouldn't be.

Don't step across into a place where you shouldn't be, or your workday shoes shouldn't be going, or whatever. Don't go there. So if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, don't take that workday shoe foot mindset into my Sabbath. Turn that foot away from doing your pleasure. Don't bring your pleasure on my holy day. And you call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord and honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways. Put that shoe back on, see, and try to come into the Sabbath, not doing your own ways.

Finding your own pleasure, speaking your own words. Don't bring customary weekday things, the drudgery of life, into my feast days. What He's saying? Put on those special shoes and step on in that way. Coming in with calling it a delight, the holy day of the Lord. See? That's what He wants. Let's go to Exodus 31 and verse 14.

Exodus 31 and verse 14.

You shall keep the Sabbath. Therefore, for it is holy to you. Why? Well, the reason why He says for is because in the previous verse, He said, Surely, my Sabbath, you shall keep, for it is a sign between you and me throughout your generations. This is a special thing that you and I look forward to. This is a sign between God. Not just that we say, oh, I keep the Sabbath. No, that we actually keep the Sabbath holy, like we read in Isaiah. And that's a sign to God. That you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. I set you apart for the covenant that you're in. That's the only way we can enter the Sabbath in a holy manner. We've been sanctified. Therefore, verse 14, you shall keep the Sabbath. Therefore, for it is holy to you. Don't try to go convince everybody else that they're keeping the wrong day and try to get them to, I don't know, somehow please God by doing something that they have no calling, no sanctification for, no understanding of at this time, because they're not sanctified. They don't have a covenant. But you shall keep the Sabbath. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. So we must not be put to death in the second death, in the lake of fire. And in order to do that, we must avoid, as it says, whoever does work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. Verse 15, work shall be done for six days. Keep all of that on the six days. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. So in verse 17, it's 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. This is a day of refreshing. It's a day of remembering the creation, remembering God, remembering our covenant, our sanctification, remembering our future, the purpose, our salvation. And so the second point then is to rejoice in it. Call it a delight, we read back in Isaiah, to rejoice in the Sabbath. Say, yes, the Sabbath is here. The Sabbath is coming. Again in Isaiah 58 13, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor him. See, that's what God wants us to think. And that doesn't just come automatically. That's something we have to learn to appreciate. Appreciate God, appreciate His Word, appreciate His calling, His way of life. Then we have to stop and appreciate this time and look at it and begin to say, wow, I need to start planning advance to keep this day really special. What can I do to make this day really special? Something my wife and I have done for years is we'll ask her, so, okay, the Sabbath is coming. What can we do to make the Sabbath, this Sabbath, really special? Rather than just kind of a routine day you can't work, you see. And if we mentally begin to go through that and plan for it, and you work through, yes, this is day one, this is day two, wow, day three is already here, day four, really? Day five is already here, and tomorrow, day six, often called the preparation day because they didn't have refrigeration back then, and there's some things you just couldn't do until hours before the Sabbath.

So, and then the seventh day is here. This is a feast day of the Lord and all your dwellings. Great company, good food, feast of the Sabbath, it's holy, festive, celebrates God's family, rejoice in it. Point three, assemble on it. In Leviticus chapter 23 and verse three, we are told that this feast and all the feasts of God are holy convocations. The word to convoke means essentially it's a call, it is a summoning. It's not just sort of an invitation, it's a summoning by an official who has the authority to summon, and so God has summoned you and me to assemble before him on the Sabbath. Leviticus 23 and verse three, the six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. Again, this is God, he's summoning you and me. Holy shows that it's God that's doing the summoning, not Moses or any one of us, but the expectation of all of God's children then, all of those who are sanctified, should then be, oh yes, I'm being summoned, I need to appear. I need to appear before God. That's what he wants. For most people attending Sabbath service on a weekly basis is doable, it's possible, but for quite a few it's not. There are some who are too distant, maybe they can come once a month. We have a family up in British Columbia now who used to live way, way up in the Yukon, and it was their monthly trip to go to church in Anchorage. You know, when you go from Dawson Creek all the way to Anchorage with your family, it's a day or so trip to get up there, and then the Sabbath, and then a day or so to get back from there. That's a huge, huge trip, and depending on the season you may or may not be able to make it. So there are possibilities for people to attend more rarely, but then there are some who can't. There are interruptions, and the Bible is full of passages where people were not able to assemble every week. There are some who may have a communicable disease or potentially need a quarantine. There are some who were ceremonial and clean for sometimes weeks, multiple weeks at a time. There are individuals like Joseph who was sold into slavery.

David had to flee Saul and run for his life for, I don't know how long, a long time.

You saw that Ezekiel and Daniel during the Babylonian captivity were in Babylon as captives, and Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were restricted to certain locations.

We had some members living in remote lands, like the Ethiopian who Philip baptized on his way out of town, heading for Ethiopia. There's no church in Ethiopia, so quickly go baptize this guy before he gets away. Did he ever get to attend church? We don't know. We saw John, the Apostle, John in exile on the Isle of Patmos. No church there. Paul and Silas, during their work at one point, stayed in Athens by themselves. It goes on and on like that. We have members who don't have churches in their area, or they can't afford to travel to some distant churches. Some are in advanced age or poor health. Sometimes there's inclement weather, and church services just have to be canceled. Sometimes there's an ox and a ditch, and you know, you want to go. You want to do. I remember when I was young, we wanted to go to the Day of Atonement service, and the neighbor's house caught fire. Big, big, huge house caught fire, and the woods caught fire. And the ambassador college students and everybody rushed over to try to help before the fire department could get there, to help these people get out of their house. You know, there are things that come up. The Bible talks about some things as being an ox and the ditch. Or sometimes there's an emergency, or sometimes there's a need to assist someone. Keeping the Sabbath holy is a command for every week. And to assemble in every situation possible is what God expects from us to the best of our ability. In Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 25, we remember the statement that the Apostle Paul made. It's important that we understand this. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 25, he says, and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. There's nothing like coming together on the Sabbath and seeing each other. You know, that people haven't always had internet, cell phones, and you know, social media. You only saw each other at church. And so you can stir up love and good works, helping individuals. But he says, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some. What does that mean? Notice he didn't say, uh, not missing church. He said, not forsaking. That means abandoning. Just stopping, you see. Forsaking. To forsake somebody as you've left them. Don't forsake that. And I would encourage all of us in these times of pandemic separations and interruptions, you know, the couch at home might be more comfortable, but don't forsake the assembling of yourself together as the manner of some is. And so much more as you see the day approaching. So it's pretty clear. We also find that the one who wrote this very thing right here, the Apostle Paul, after he wrote this, he was in prison for two years in the Roman fortress, at Caesarea. Then he was taken by boat for months traveling the Mediterranean Sea with a shipwreck at one point until he finally got to Rome after over three months. And once he was at Rome, he was imprisoned. Within the prison, he got to rent an apartment and have a guard stay in the room with him for two years. Then he was let out for a while. Then he was brought back and imprisoned for perhaps half a year before he was killed. So we can see that we don't want to abandon or forsake any of these things. And Paul kept the Sabbath the very best way he could. He even had visitors come and see him whenever possible, and he appreciated that. Yet Sabbath circumstances do vary. Another variation we can see is in Mark chapter 1 and verse 11. Mark chapter 1 and verse 11.

Then a voice came from heaven to Jesus, came from heaven, and he said, You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This is God the Father, sending word that Jesus Christ is his beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased. Now you'd think the Lord of the Sabbath would be at every church service, right? Next verse. Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness, and he was there in the wilderness 40 days, tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him, served him. So you see, not everything is just so cut and dry. There are exceptions. There are things that come up. But we are always to keep the Sabbath holy, and we are always to assemble whenever we possibly can. Don't ever forsake or abandon keeping the Sabbath or assembling. And the fourth point that we are given, fourth directive, is about food. It's interesting. Most of the references to the Sabbath in the Bible include food. You can go to Matthew 6. You can go back to Exodus. You can go almost anywhere. Nehemiah, you'll find food in the Sabbath. You might say, well, what's that about? Well, it's a feast day. Feast days have food, and we need to enjoy food on the Sabbath. What is a good biblical way to enjoy starting the feast? Well, let's see how God himself started the feast. In Leviticus chapter 26 and verse 2, we find God here telling Israel to really revere the fact that he was dwelling among them. Leviticus chapter 26 and verse 2, that was a unique time where they lived in temporary booths that they made out of boughs as they traveled. I guess they would go in the next place. They would get the trees and the green boughs, and they would each want to make themselves a booth. It was their temporary dwelling. But what was a tabernacle? Tabernacle is just the same word as booth. If you look it up, booth, tabernacle, same word. God had a booth too. Or they had tabernacles, like the Feast of Tabernacles, Feast of Booths. God had a tabernacle. And so, in Leviticus chapter 26 and verse 2, he says, you shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. Reverence the fact that I am among you. Now, with you and me, we don't have to go to some building somewhere on a Saturday to be with God. Jesus said, the Holy Spirit, through the Holy Spirit, the Father and I will dwell in you. You are the tabernacle. You are the temple. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We remember these scriptures. And so, it's not like we haven't seen God all week. We've got to come find Him in a building somewhere where church is being held. But at the same time, we need to appreciate and reverence His sanctuary. In fact, we are sanctified and set apart as that sanctuary in type. And we are to come boldly before the throne to come into the literal sanctuary, not just the Holy of Holies like priests in the past did, but all the way into the Holy, I mean, not into the Holy Place like priests in the past did, but into the Holy of Holies through the blood of Christ where that curtain is now rent in to. So, we are called a Holy Priesthood. You remember what the Bible says? You are to God a Holy Nation, you know, Holy Priesthood, His own special people. And so, in that sense, we are welcome to come right before God and to God, wherever we are at any time, not just on the Sabbath alone. What do the Sabbath and the sanctuary have in common? Well, one thing they have in common, actually, is food.

In Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 40, Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 40, it says, You shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, seven days. So, these were the kind of booths that they had been dwelling in, and they would also do that at the Feast of Tabernacles later on. So, dwelling in these booths is where they ate. People had their food there, and God actually fed the manna on the Sabbath day. He gave them their Sabbath food. He prepared it for them on the sixth day of the week, gave them twice as much, and so they had their food. What about God? Inside the tabernacle was the holy place, and you had the candelabra with seven flames. There was always fire 24-7. It never went out. The priests tended that fire each evening and each morning, and they made sure that the flames were always there. And right across from that was a table of showbread. God had bread, 12 loaves of bread made each week. In Leviticus 24, verse 5, He says, and you shall take fine flour and bake 12 cakes with it. Two tenths of an ifah shall be in each cake. Notice this showbread was made with fine flour. This had to be done before the Sabbath. Someone had to go and get the grain. Maybe they'd stored it, but you had to grind it so you'd have fresh flour for this bread. And to grind it finally, that took some work. Then you had to let it rise. They didn't have yeast back in those days. They had to let it rise over time, knead it, work it, bake it, and then this was served as the Sabbath began.

In verse 6, you shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord.

This is what was done. And if you read elsewhere in Scripture, you'll find that this was placed there at the beginning of the Sabbath. There's a wonderful story that goes with that. I'd love to share with you another time, but it was done as the Sabbath began. Notice verse 9. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, the bread that's taken off. See? God is now sharing his Sabbath Friday night meal with the priests who were there. It's not just his food alone. They shall eat it in the holy place, for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the Lord, made by fire by a perpetual statue. So every Friday evening, right about sunset, it had to be on the Sabbath, these things were brought in and placed before God. And the other food was then shared with the priests who had to eat it in the holy place. What about the Israelites? Well, in Exodus 16 and verse 14, Exodus 16 and verse 14 says, When the layer of dew lifted, there was on the surface of the wilderness a small round substance as fine as frost on the ground. Now, I've found a jug for sale of coriander seed. And it's about two liters of coriander seed, which is about a day's ration.

And this is what they had to go out and harvest six days a week. It was work to go pick up these little things. In verse 15, so when the children of Israel saw it, they said, What is it? And Moses said, This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.

And so everyone was then to take it. Verse 17, the children of Israel did so and gathered. And then verse 19, Moses said, Let no one leave any of it until morning. Notwithstanding, they didn't heed Moses, but some of them left in part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank. So this is a daily ration only. And you had to go out and work for it. Now, the Israelites here weren't being told to be slothful. God wasn't saying, Oh, I'm just going to make you all a bunch of, you know, slothful, lazy people were setting up a welfare system here. You know, don't get up. Let me feed you. No, they had to get up. They had to tear down their tents. They had to move and travel. They had to take their animals with them. Then they had to find more housing, build a house, care for their animals. And they had to get up early in the morning and go out and pick up this much seed per person, per day. And it was work.

So in verse 31, it says, the house of Israel called its name Manet was like white coriander seed. And the taste of it was like water made with honey. But back up in verse 26, six days you will gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.

So God gave them twice as much, twice as much, on what we call Friday. It was a wonderful thing that God did. A beautiful thing. So we now see that food and the Sabbath are together. There's wonderful story in Matthew 12, two times Jesus Christ and his close, you might call him, priests of the New Covenant, though they were in Old Covenant times, had a meal with him on the Sabbath. Once was the disciples, or the apostles, who were the founding, the foundation of the church was built on the apostles. And the apostles were part of the body of the New Covenant, with Jesus Christ being Melchizedek, the high priest. Didn't go back to this priestly system of Aaron, but he had them on the second Sabbath after Jesus was waved as the wave sheaf, first of the first fruits, harvest. His special apostles, he got them hungry somehow, Bible doesn't say how, and he led them into the barley fields, and they ate barley. He was represented by barley during the Feast of Unleavened Bread on wave sheaf day, and here he leads them out and has them now eat barley, representing the first fruits that they would be and those that they would be leading. A special time, I'm sure, to Jesus Christ. The Bible doesn't say that the apostles recognized any of that. And the other thing that is mentioned there is David eating showbread in the holy place, and that was fully engineered by God. You have to put the three scriptures together. When the showbread was put in, it was right at the beginning of the Sabbath. It was exchanged out. You had to be consecrated. You couldn't be with women for three days. You had to be, in this sense, not breaking the Sabbath. Once you're in the Sabbath, you can't profane the Sabbath by getting your food some other way. And here, God sets David up. Has Saul chase him out of the house, remember? And he's hiding day after day and waiting to come back to the king's table. Day one, day two, day three. Started on Thursday, I'm sorry, started on Tuesday evening. Wednesday evening, David came back. Nope. Thursday evening, he came back. Nope. Friday evening, David's pretty hungry now. He's ready to eat, but the arrow is shot long. The arrow is shot long. He can't go back. The king's gonna kill him. What does he do? He travels over to the high priest of the priest's house, and he asks him the question, do you have anything to eat? Anything common? Any bread? Just anything to eat. And the priest said, well, no, we don't have any common bread. However, if by chance you haven't been with women for three days, and if by chance, you know, you are essentially in the right place at the right time, because you're here asking, rather than, say, going and killing a deer and roasting it or stealing chickens or whatever, you actually came and asked, why don't you come to the temple, to the Holy of Holies, come into the tabernacle, and have dinner with us? Never enter David's mind. These are wonderful things that happen on the Sabbath for those who God has consecrated. He invites you and me also to dine, not only on physical food, but on him, the bread of life. That brings us to point five. Prepare for the Sabbath. The other thing God wants us to do is prepare for it. In Exodus 20 and verse 8 again, we're told, remember the Sabbath day. Now, this word remember doesn't mean don't forget. This word remember actually comes from a Hebrew word that is in the infinitive sense. There's no time element. It means always be remembering. At all times, be remembering the Sabbath to keep it holy. See, this is where the preparation comes in. It's not like, oh, I almost forgot it was the Sabbath. No, it is always be remembering the Sabbath day to keep it holy. In that context, six days you will labor and do all your work.

Remembering through the six days that the Sabbath is coming involves preparation.

Rather, it speaks to a daily recognition and anticipation, as it were. You know, I often think of an occasion where we might have a festivity. Maybe it's a church social that's coming up, right? Or a wedding, and so much planning goes in. If you've ever been a father of daughters, you know there's a lot of planning that goes on for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long time before a wedding, right? What do we put into the Sabbath day? The most holy, the most wonderful festival that comes up. I've seen sometimes individuals not even know that the Sabbath began or that the Sabbath ended, that kept the Sabbath. You know, what kind of an anticipation are we supposed to have? We're supposed to be mindful, to be remembering in a sense of always having anticipation that the Sabbath is coming. The San Sino Chumash says, the verb is not limited in time. It always keeps the Sabbath in mind during the week, so as to set aside things for the honoring of the Sabbath.

In a Beyond Today article, it states, if Friday is the only time we prepare, we are misunderstanding the commandment. A feast is coming. Wow! Let's look forward to it. Let's make plans for it. Let's get ready for it. And let's step in fully prepared and enjoy it. In Mark chapter 15 and verse 42, we find that there are some things that you can and other things you just can't do. Well, without a little extra time than just one day. Mark chapter 15 and verse 42.

Jesus came a third time and said to them, Are you still sleeping and resting? That's chapter 14. Let's go to chapter 15 and verse 42. Now, when evening had come, because it was the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath. See, there is a preparation day that they call the preparation day because, again, there are certain things you can only do the day before and still have fresh or ready, etc. And so there was a preparation day. But that's not a limitation. If we look, for instance, at food, if we step back to that period of time, what really could you prepare without refrigeration in a hot climate? What would you really cook today and then sort of leave out and then eat maybe tomorrow afternoon? What was that really expected? Let's go to Exodus chapter 16 and verse 23. I think the Bible actually gives quite a bit of latitude in some of these things. Once we are prepared, I mean, we should have harvested our grain. We should have ground things. We should have made our bread. We should have dug the potatoes. It doesn't mean that everything had to be all cooked up. All you could do is stick a fork in it and eat some cold, gooey manna that was made a day before. Is that what God said? Let's look in Exodus chapter 16 and verse 23. I'm not trying to put out an opinion here, but just after reading through this, let's look carefully. And so it was on the sixth day that they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. It's called bread here, but it's the manna. Two omers for each one. And verse 23, This is what the Lord has said.

This is what the Lord has said. Let's be careful with what the Lord has said. Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today. Boil what you will boil today. That would be Friday, Friday morning, after you went out and you collected it. You bake, you boil, what you will bake today. Now, that's fine for Friday. You've had your Friday meals, right? And lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept to morning. All the remains of what? What you didn't bake and what you didn't boil. Remember, the manna was something they were not to let remain five days of the week, or it would stink the next day. He says, bake what you will bake and boil what you boil today and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept to morning. So they laid it up till morning as Moses commanded and it didn't stink and there were no worms in it. They had fresh manna, apparently, for the Sabbath, once again, to use. And Moses said, eat that today. For today is the Sabbath to the Lord. Notice, today you will not find it in the field. It was the manna in the field that they wouldn't find today. It was the manna in the field that would remain until the Sabbath.

6, verse 26, just to cement this, six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none. On verse 27, now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none. See, it's about manna. It's not about something pre-cooked. And the Lord said, how long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? What's he referring to? For the Lord has given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day manna for two days. Let every man remain in his place and let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. Don't go out and harvest on the Sabbath is the only rule we see here.

So, when we look then at this food preparation, we see the sin is in collecting or harvesting, going out picking up these little seeds like it's a common day of the week, and not preparing it and having it ready. What about light cooking on feast days? Let's go to Exodus chapter 12. You know, it's been common practice in the church that, you know, people get up and they'll make breakfast. They might have something for lunch. They might have you over for dinner. And there's some light cooking. You'll find that nobody's going out butchering cows, you know, digging crops, you know, harvesting. That's all done. It's pretty easy for us. We go to the store and pretty much buy it, you know, ready to prepare, ready to cook. And we put it in the fridge, maybe. But here in Exodus chapter 12 and the first half of verse 16, on the first day there shall be a holy convocation. So here's one of the festivals God is saying this about. And on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation. The Sabbath is one of the festivals. It's also a holy convocation. No manner of work shall be done on them except that which everyone must eat. That only may be prepared by you.

So we shouldn't have a double standard, you see, where we say, oh well, I have to do everything in advance, but here I am preparing when in fact God says part of this festival is a feast. It's about food. And you can prepare those things which one must eat.

But you should do it in a way, obviously, as the Bible has shown us, that would make it festive, that would make it enjoyable, a light load. We have opportunity then to do things that are not common. The Bible also tells us not to kindle fire. Kindle a fire on the Sabbath in your dwellings. And people get all spooky about that because they think, oh wow, you can't have fire. And some people won't even drive a car because the cylinders are in there firing, you know. And next thing you know, you can't boil a kettle because that's a type of fire, even though it's electricity. And maybe you go all electric, or you know, it just goes, kind of gets bizarre after well. But anyway, what does God say? It sounds like you shouldn't kindle a fire. In Exodus 35 and verse 2 and 3, Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. Right? Now, next verse. You shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings on the Sabbath day. Hmm. So what do we do with that? What do we do with that?

Well, I've studied this a lot for years, and I'll share with you what I can find from Scripture.

All right? Common work is not to be done in the previous verse, and kindling a fire falls into that category. Now, what we don't tend to realize today is they didn't have matches back then. They had no way of making fire. I don't know how many of you have been boy scouts or girl scouts and went out and made a fire. You could not do that today in the month of February in wet, humid, cold weather.

Fire, even if you had a match, will not turn into a roaring fire. Okay? You have problems making fire. It's a lot of work if it was a dry, hot, you know, day with no humidity. To create fire out of nothing would be a lot of work. Plus, you'd have to go get the wood, wouldn't you? You'd have to go out and haul in wood and then somehow chop that into pieces that would fit in your fire ring or fireplace.

Then you'd have to get kindling. Same thing. Kindling is not always easy to break down when it's in large size. In other words, you're going to be doing weekday work. God did not say here, you may not have a fire in your dwellings. Notice, he says, you may not kindle a fire in your dwellings on the Sabbath.

There are three examples of kindling a fire given to us in scriptures. I'd like to go through them real quickly. The first is in Genesis chapter 22. We'll start in verse 2. Here, Abraham is showing great respect for a fire that he needs to make. It's a sacrificial fire, and he prepares it in advance so that it is not work.

But it is a great effort before he gets to the point of making this fire. Genesis chapter 22 in verse 2. I just marvel over this. I think you will as well. God said to Abraham, Now take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.

Think about that. You now are going to take a trip multiple days over mountains, and you're going to go to a place and sacrifice. So Abraham rose early in the morning. He saddled his donkeys. He took two of his young men with him and Isaac. He split the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. He took the wood. He took the kindling. He took the whole thing with him. As we'll see in a minute, he also took the fire with him. Drop down to verse 6.

So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering. He laid it on Isaac his son, and he took the fire in his hand. He carried the fire with him and the wood with him. This is a great example of respecting and honoring the need for the Sabbath to have fire in your place. Now let's look at a second place. This is right in God's own tabernacle. Leviticus chapter 1 and verse 7. The sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and lay the wood in order on the fire. See, they don't kindle the fire.

They had the Sabbath sacrifices, burnt offerings that they did on the Sabbath. And they put the wood in order on the fire. Already had it ready to go. But first of all, they put fire on the altar. They already had that. Remember, inside they had a candelabra with seven flames burning at all time. You and I are used to matches or lighters or turn a switch or whatever. Coming up with fire would be a huge, huge problem and all of that stuff. So kindling a fire would be work and effort to be avoided on the Sabbath.

That would be common work. To give you an example of it is the third illustration that Scripture gives us. And this is of individuals who were sinners and they were unprepared. Jeremiah chapter 7 and verse 18.

Jeremiah chapter 7 and verse 18 here, we see this is probably on the Sabbath, and it's probably worship, but it's to the wrong God. So it's sinners, and they're not even thinking ahead. Jeremiah 7 and verse 18. Just notice these words. The children gather wood. They didn't have wood. They're off out, ranging around, unprepared, finding wood, hauling it in. Next, the fathers kindle the fire. They're kindling the fire. And then the women are making cakes. Grinding flower, making cakes to the queen, mother of heaven, goddess. So we find here, then, that common work is disdained like this. And when you look at what these individuals did here in Jeremiah chapter 17, you begin to get the idea of what God doesn't want us to do. He doesn't want us to be unprepared and have to kindle fire and make fire out of nothing and go gather all these things.

Clearly, we have six days of anticipation to be prepared to step into the Sabbath, to have gas in the barbecue grills, wood stacked by the fireplace, a fire already going, gas in the car, ready to go to church. The clothes ready for fellowshiping with God and with each other. Food that's prepared and ready to warm up, cook, light cooking, produce, and have a wonderful festival with God and with each other. This is the Sabbath feast. So in conclusion, the Sabbath festival is to be anticipated as something delightful that we would call a delight. It is the most delightful part of every week. We now step into six days after the sunsets of our common effort to survive and get by. But we look forward to the seventh day as those numbers tick off. God will do something very supernatural next week wherever you live at sunset. In Exodus chapter 20 and verse 11, God says as part of his Sabbath command in the Ten Commandments, he says, "'For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that's in them, and he rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." God blesses the Sabbath next week, just as he has today. He is going to bless that 24-hour period of time wherever you are, and as it rolls around the world. He's going to hallow it. He's going to make it holy. He's going to be in it. Perhaps Jesus Christ will come in that fiery, portable throne that he has and visit his people that he gave his life for, that he is the head of the body of, that he is married to. This day is going to be wonderful every seventh day. So, no other day of the week is holy. No other day of the week is blessed like God's Sabbath. It's a spiritual blessing to all of those who delight in the holy day of the Lord. So, let's rejoice in observing God's Sabbath festival every week.