Laws and Commandments of God--Weekly Sabbath

What we’re going to understand is this: The weekly Sabbath is one of the very first things that you begin to understand when God calls you. Now when I was growing up I was never religious; never in a church. I had an aunt who was a Sunday school teacher, and her name was Aunt Grace; and whenever she would come and visit us she would bring her little felt-board thing and she would teach us with her little felt-board thing. I always got absolutely bored to tears. And whenever she would come I would say, ‘Oh! No! Not again!’

When I was ten years old, my folks wanted me to be a ‘good boy’ so they sent me off to Lutheran catechism. So this was held up at the minister’s house and my mom would drive me up there, I’d get out of the car, wave bye-bye, walk up the porch. As soon as she was gone, I’d jump over the edge of porch and run off—as I didn’t want any religious instruction. So finally they gave up on trying to make me take catechism, and I had no religious exposure at all to anything until I got out of the—or was I still in the service? I think I was still in the service. I must have been about 22 at that time, and I was visiting my sister over on Bainbridge Island. So I thought I would go to church and I didn’t want to go to a Catholic church, so there was an Episcopalian church. So I walk into this Episcopalian church on Sunday morning and lo and behold it looked just like a Catholic church. I couldn’t get over it. And here the priest with his long robes and he has his little staff with the sun-disk on top of it, walking down the aisle and all of that sort of thing. I thought to myself: how’s this any different than the Catholic Church.

Oh, one other time—I was delivering papers—I must have been about 15, and it was Sunday morning and they were having Easter sunrise services, so I wanted to see what that was like. Here are these thousands of people out there, and so I got my paper route done early and I was standing there watching it and as soon as the sun came up they all bowed down—and I wondered: what on earth is this? It was all Catholic.

So, I had no exposure to religion at all. I was not convinced that Sunday was right one way or the other. But, as soon as I heard about the Sabbath, something happened in my mind. It was just like God took a switch and turned it; because I said, ‘Ahha! That’s got to be it!’ I do recall one other event. That was one of my aunts—another aunt on my mother’s side (you can tell I’m getting older, I’m reminiscing)—she was a Seventh Day Adventist. Of course, my mother always thought that Seventh Day Adventists were weird. Of course, she proved it to me. My aunt’s daughter came over to visit us, and of course, at that time, the Seventh Day Adventists were very strict vegetarians. My mother made up some tuna fish sandwiches and put a lot of eggs in it. So she gave it to her daughter and she loved them. She said, ‘Oh this is delicious, what is it?’ My mother said, ‘Well, it’s deviled eggs.’ She ate a huge stack of them, not knowing that it was tuna fish and eggs. Well, I didn’t know that they were vegetarians until my mother told me with this tuna fish thing.

So then sometime later, we went up to visit them. And we get up there and she has meatballs and gravy prepared for us. And I thought, well now, that’s really down right nice of her. Here, she’s a vegetarian and we come and visit and she makes meatball and gravy for us. So, pass around the meatballs, the potatoes and meatball and gravy and everything, so I said I’m going to show her how much I appreciate her effort. So, I heaped on lots of meatballs and lots of gravy and my mother’s going like this, you know, and I didn’t know what she was trying to do until I took my first bite of the meatball. It was the first ‘mock meat,’ old soybean stuff that I ever had in my life. And I knew for sure vegetarian was wrong from that day forward.

And there’s one fallacy in Ellen G. White’s prophecy that all meats would be polluted at the end-time—two fallacies:

1. So are the vegetables
2. They have organic vegetables and organic meat now

You have to shop around for it so you can get it.

So, that was about the sum-total of my religious experience, until I went to college in San Mateo after I got out of the army; and I started the day course, and they require you to take a course in paleontology, which is eighteen weeks long—six weeks of paleontology, six weeks of geology and six weeks of biology. This was my first opportunity in a big class—we had a big class, it was theater style and I was sitting about halfway back up. And all the students filed in, filled it all up—there must have been three or four hundred students there, and the professor comes out and he says—the very first thing—he gets up there and walks back and forth until it’s quiet. One way to get the students to quit talking is to say nothing and walk back and forth, pretty soon it gets quieter and quieter and quieter and finally there’s silence. He stood up there and he looked at all the students and he said: ‘Anyone here who believes in God and the Bible, there is the door. I don’t want to hear it during the course of this class.’

Well, not being religious, it hit me the wrong way! How dare anyone tell me that I can’t believe in God—though I didn’t! It’s just kind of a quirk of human nature. I wasn’t an atheist, but I didn’t believe in God. And all my religious experience with my family told me that it couldn’t be right. So anyway, that really got me to thinking.

So, what’s the first thing you do? You try and coordinate evolution with creation—correct? But that didn’t work. And then, lo and behold, one night in my car I heard the World Tomorrow program. At that time they were really preaching the Bible, and it was Herbert W. Armstrong. He was on KGO at 9:30—and as soon as I heard that program something else clicked in my mind and I knew that that was it. So I wrote in and I got the literature and the Plain Truth and as soon as I heard about the things; there was a series on the Ten Commandments; reading that. There was also a series on the two Babylons—Satan’s Great Deception; out of the book Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop—and that’s very important for people to understand. So, I immediately got the book and I started reading a couple pages every day, going through it, and I heard about the Sabbath and I knew about the Sabbath and I knew that I needed to keep the Sabbath, but I kept putting it off.

So about August I went on down to Ambassador College, and a dishwasher—he worked at the same restaurant I did—he went down with me; because where I was working I was passing out literature and I’d listen to the program at night while I was there. I would save all my preparation work to do it back in the kitchen. I could turn on the radio and listen to the World Tomorrow program. So he wanted to go and he was a friendly, outgoing guy and so forth; so he went down with me to Ambassador College.

I counseled about baptism, and I wasn’t keeping the Sabbath and I was still eating bacon and tomato sandwiches. So, I decided I was going to quit eating bacon and tomato sandwiches and I’m going to keep the Sabbath. I came on back and I told my boss, I said, ‘Look, I’m going to give you two week notice that I need to have off from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, or I quit.’ So he said, What for? I said, “For my religion.” He said, When did you get religious? I said, “Ok, if you can’t do it, let me know.” He went back and looked at the schedule and he came back and says: I can’t do it. So I said, “Do you mind if I look at the schedule?” No, go ahead. So I went back and figured it out. And here’s how I figured it out: In the winter I would work for the chef from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon on Friday. Then in summer I would work from eleven to seven—get off before sunset. And then I would have all day Sabbath off from sunset to sunset, and then one o’clock in the morning on Sunday morning I would come into the killer graveyard shift. So that’s how I was able to keep the Sabbath.

So, everyone who comes into contact with the Truth is going to have to cross the Sabbath bridge somewhere, and you’re going to have to make a decision: what am I going to do? Because the Sabbath is the first step in beginning to understand the Bible. Absolutely! You can understand certain parts of it. There are many Sunday-keepers who understand certain parts—that is true. And there are many Sunday-keepers who have not investigated the Sabbath, and in some cases, they can be very sincere in what they believe. But what is happening with Sunday-keepers now, with the advent of the coming one-world religion moving in, more and more Sunday-keepers are losing what they have according to the Scripture that Jesus said, ‘Even that which they think they have shall be taken from them.’ So, there is that aspect of it, too, that I think is going to open up a whole lot more concerning the Sabbath in the years as we go down the road here.

Why is Sabbath-keeping the key to understanding the Bible? Very important to understand. Why is Sabbath-keeping the key to beginning to understand the Bible? Yes, because it’s in the Ten Commandments, that’s right. Now, let’s give you an example here. Let’s go to James, the second chapter. This applies to Sabbath-keeping as well. Now, when James wrote this, he was writing to those who were attending the synagogue. Now if you attend a synagogue, do you attend it on Saturday or Sunday? You attend it on Sabbath, Saturday—right? So therefore, he doesn’t mention about Sabbath-keeping here.

Another very important thing that we will cover in the series that I’m doing on the Sabbath is this: It does not have to absolutely re-duplicate what is said in the Old Testament, in the New Testament. It doesn’t have to duplicate it. If it shows it as a practice then it shows it as a binding commandment for New Testament Christians; because that’s one of their arguments. ‘Well, the New Testament doesn’t say anywhere about the Sabbath.’ We’ll see. Yea, it does!

But here’s a principle—James 2:8: “If you are truly keeping the Royal Law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well. But if you have respect of persons, you are practicing sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors; for if anyone keeps the whole law, but sins in one aspect… [now remember, these were all Sabbath/Holy Day-keepers at this point he’s talking to, right here. So therefore, their biggest problem was not understanding the Sabbath or Holy Days—was it? No! Their biggest problem was getting along with each other—correct? Is that not the biggest problem we have today, too? Yes, very similar!] …For He Who said, ‘ You shall not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘ You shall not commit murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but you commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. In this manner speak and in this manner behave: as those who are about to be judged by the law of freedom” (vs 8-12).

Now, we can apply the same thing. We can apply the same thing to the Sabbath. We’ll see that in a little bit. Can you then take and have another god and still worship the true God? No! So I’m going to take the first four commandments; he took the last six there as he was applying them. You apply it to the first four commandments: ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.’ You can’t worship the true God by worshipping a false god—can you? No! If I’m going to send you a thousand dollars and I send it to him, you never get your thousand dollars—do you? It’s the same thing. I sent it to the wrong person. If you have the wrong god, you can’t possibly have things right.

Now you might have the right God, but you might be doing it wrongly. So that’s why the next commandment: ‘You shall not make any graven image of any likeness of anything that’s in heaven above, the earth beneath, water under the earth, nor bow down to worship them.’ So you might have the right God, but if you have an idol then you are worshiping God in the wrong way.

Now, if you have no idols, then you come to the third commandment: ‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain—and if you say, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not the things which I say’—then what are you doing? You’re taking His name in vain. Now also this particularly applies to ministers who, if they teach false things in the name of God, are taking His name in vain—isn’t that correct? Yes!

Then you come to the Sabbath one. Let’s go to Exodus 20 and let’s read that commandment. It’s very profound, very important commandment; right in the middle of all the Ten Commandments. Think of it this way: Think of the Ten Commandments as a whole body. Think of it as a human body, all connected one with the other. Starts out with the head: the first commandment; and ends up with the toes: the last commandment—right? Now what if you took this human body and you cut out one foot in the middle, do you have a whole human body? No! As a matter of fact, you might have something kind of dead—right? So think of that way. Maybe it’ll help you understand about the Sabbath a little bit more.

Exodus 20:8: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it Holy…. [Very profound. It does not say, ‘one day in seven, honor Me.’ That’s also very profound, because that’s what most people think.] …Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God…” (vs 8-10). Now, that’s very interesting phraseology when you look at it. It belongs to Him. It is His day. And we’re going to see a little later on He created it.

Now, if it belongs to someone and you steal that time, are you stealing from God? Yes! Or you can look at it another way—we’ll talk about it a little bit more here. Let’s go on. “…In it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter; your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your livestock, nor the stranger within your gates; for in six days the LORD made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it” (vs 10-11).

Now there’s quite a bit we can learn from this, too, also which is very important. The Sabbath always reminds us that God is Creator. And when we know that God is Creator, we won’t believe in evolution, will we? No! Now also it tells us something else: That God hallowed it—which means to make it Holy. God alone can make something Holy because God is Holy. Can a man make something Holy? No! We’re going to see, when you see the series on the Sabbath, that Sunday-keeping really gets into some very judgmental things concerning God, which are very profound, and most people don’t realize it. But sufficient to say, the Sabbath was made for fellowshipping with God. It is a day He said, ‘It is a Holy convocation.’

Let’s go to Leviticus 23 for just a minute. And ‘on this day I have set it as a perpetual appointment.’ Now this is why then you begin to understand about God, because something happens when you keep the Sabbath that does not happen when you keep Sunday. If you keep Sunday you can understand certain things up to a point. But you really don’t know God—and that’s a vast difference. Keeping the Sabbath is a day, that we’re going to see, is a day God made an appointment so that we may know Him.

Leviticus 23:1: “And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, “Concerning the appointed Feasts of the LORD... [Now, we’ll cover the Feasts when we get done with the Sabbath.] …which you shall proclaim to be Holy convocations, even these are My appointed Feasts” (vs 1-2). So they belong to God. ‘Holy convocations’ could also be translated: appointed times. In other words, God has given an appointed time every week that He says, ‘I will fellowship with you.’ Now, since He’s not here on the earth, He does not do it face-to-face. He has sent His Holy Word so He fellowships with you through His Word and, and as we’re going to see, through His Spirit.

Verse 3: “‘ “Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a Holy convocation. You shall not do any work. It is a Sabbath to the LORD in all your dwellings.”’” So what God desires, since it is a Holy convocation, we are to come together whenever there are enough people to come together—and even if there are only two or three—God says He will be there in the midst.

Let’s come to 1-John, the first chapter, and let’s see the overriding reason for the Sabbath—which God has set forth for us. And God wants us to have, as we will see, a relationship with Him. And this relationship is based upon His Word and His Spirit, through His Son, Jesus Christ. And this is what the Apostle John was writing to all the people there, so that they can have the fellowship with him.

1-John 1:1: “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our own eyes, that which we observed for ourselves… [‘looked upon’ is not just see with the eyes, but ‘looked upon’ is to actually have seen Him in His glorified form. To have gazed upon Him; because John was one of those who was on the Mt. of Transfiguration—correct? Yes! So that’s what it’s referring to here.] …and our own hands handled… [even after He was resurrected from the dead] …concerning the Word of life; (and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and are bearing witness, and are reporting to you the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us); that which we have seen and have heard we are reporting to you in order that you also may have fellowship with us; for the fellowship—indeed, our fellowship—is with the Father and with His own Son Jesus Christ” (vs 1-3).

Now that’s the whole purpose. That is the very whole purpose of the Sabbath. He does it spiritually.

1. God has made sure we have His Word. What God has to say to us is contained here.
2. God will spend His Spirit to be with you, if you’re seeking truth. And when you’re baptized, will be in you—which then the fellowship becomes even closer.

Now let’s come all the way back to Genesis, the second chapter, and let’s look at this concerning the Sabbath. This is very important for us to understand. Genesis 2:1: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them…. [And it should read here]: …And by the beginning of the seventh day… [because all the way through it says, ‘for in six days God made the heaven and earth and all that is in there’—and this should read ‘sixth day.’ And that’s the way George Ricker Berry translates it and shows it in his Hebrew Interlinear of the first chapter of Genesis.] …God finished His work which He had made. And He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made” (vs 1-2).

Now, on this first Sabbath God fellowshipped with Adam and Eve. Think of that! And I’ve often wondered—and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—I wonder what that first Sabbath was like, when God talked with Adam and Eve. He says, ‘Now, I’ve made you. I’m your God. I’ve made this beautiful Garden of Eden here for you and look and behold everything is there. You can freely eat of all the trees in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And in the day you eat thereof you’re going to die. And that means in dying you will die—meaning that the whole process of aging and everything that goes along with it will occur. But I’m going to meet with you every Sabbath day right here in the garden.’ Kind of reminds me of that hymn, I Come to the Garden Alone.

And if Adam and Eve had not sinned, which I have a tape on that, which was a little difficult to do because that’s quite a question: What Would the World have been Like if Adam and Eve had not Sinned? It would truly be a different place, we know that. It would be more like what it’s going to be like when Christ returns. So that’s why God did it. He wanted to fellowship with His creation, and He made us in His image for that very purpose.

Now, let’s come to the Belief’s booklet with all of that as a background, and let’s read the statement on it and you will see how we’ve written the statement, and of course, how the layout of the whole Belief’s booklet follows step-by-step-by-step all the way through to teach: beginning with God down to the end.

Now, I saw a belief’s booklet recently where it says all the way through: ‘We believe’—everything that they believe starts out that way—we believe, we believe, we believe. Which is okay if it’s really true, but what it really should be—anything concerning beliefs—it should show what God wants us to believe and explain what the Bible teaches us. So that’s what we’ve tried to do here with this. Now, it’s a very short statement. (Beliefs of the Christian Biblical Church of God, pg 10-11 throughout).

The weekly Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, known as Saturday today.

Now, that has to be clarified—doesn’t it? Why does that have to be clarified? How many here have seen a European calendar? The European calendar has Sunday as the seventh day. All business corporations run Sunday as the seventh day. So you see, the whole system is already set up for it. All they need to do is just change the calendar slightly, and of course, if you destroy the knowledge of the background of the truth concerning the Sabbath, then you can come out and say, ‘Well look, Sunday is the seventh day.” So it has to be defined carefully. Continuing now in the statement:

In the beginning, the Sabbath was created by God. He blessed and sanctified the seventh day at creation as a special day for rest and fellowship with Him. The Sabbath is a memorial of creation and was made for all mankind. It was the commanded day of weekly worship for 3,000 years before the Ten Commandments were given to Israel.

Now we’re going to look at some other Scriptures, which also help define that.

The Fourth Commandment is a reminder to observe and to keep the Sabbath day Holy. As Lord God of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ created the Sabbath by resting on the very first seventh day and by blessing and sanctifying it. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ proclaimed that He is Lord of the Sabbath day…. [We’ll look at that Scripture in just a minute.] …During His ministry on earth, He reaffirmed the sacredness of the Sabbath and taught its proper observance. Jesus Christ Himself showed by example that it is right to do good on the Sabbath day, in addition to resting from one’s physical labor and secular business. The apostles of Jesus Christ and the early New Testament Church observed the Sabbath and taught Gentile Christians to observe it.

In the series that I’m doing on the Sabbath, I have quotes showing that it was clear up to 300_A.D. that the Sabbath was kept. Then the edict of Constantine to shift it over to the Sunday and Constantine was the beast. And he is the one who ordered the formation of the Catholic Church by government edict. That’s when the order came down to quit keeping the Sabbath—punishable by death. So I have all of that there. The whole history of the Sabbath is one bloody mess—you need to understand that.

The keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath is a special sign of the Covenant between God and His people God commands that it be observed from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday…. [So we have to define that.] …During this Holy time, Christians are commanded to rest from their labor and to assemble to worship God and to receive instruction from His Word. Observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is essential for salvation and for true fellowship with God the Father and Jesus Christ.

That’s about as complete a statement as we can have concerning that. Let’s look at two things, which are very important we need to understand. Let’s go to Exodus 31. Now this is a special covenant. Let’s also understand something concerning covenants. All covenants of God have laws and commandments, which must be kept. A covenant is an agreement on how you will do it—or the terms of it—very important to realize concerning a covenant.

Exodus 31:12—and I want you to notice the phraseology that God uses as He tells Moses: “And the LORD spoke to Moses saying, ‘Speak also to the children of Israel, saying…” Now, let’s understand something here that’s very important for those who may not realize it. The Jews do not consist of all the children of Israel. Though the Jews claim that they are. Let me give you an example here:

What if you had eleven brothers, and all the eleven other brothers were not identifiable. Then you and your descendants claim everything that belongs to the eleven other brothers. And you palm yourself off, and your extended family, as all twelve brothers. Not true! There were twelve tribes of Israel, of which the Jews—the tribe of Judah—were one tribe. So this is not talking to Jews, though today, Jews, looking back say it’s only talking about them. Not so! It’s talking to all the children of Israel, all twelve tribes:

“…‘saying, “Truly… [and verily means truly or in truth] …you shall keep My Sabbaths… [because He owns them.

• It’s not a hint.
• It’s not a suggestion.
• It is not an idea.
• It’s not whether you want to or not.

Now, you can choose, as we saw last time, whether you want to obey God or not—that is true. But if you want to obey God then keeping His Sabbaths is a very important thing. Notice it is also a plural, which when we get to the Holy Days, we’ll explain that that also encompasses the Holy Days.] …for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations… [Now then, ‘your generations’ covers a long, long time—doesn’t it? We’re going to see a little later on, He says: ‘perpetual covenant.’ That’s important to understand.] …to know that I am the LORD Who sanctifies you”’” (vs 13-14). [So in other words, if you don’t keep the Sabbath you don’t know the Lord. Really! You may know of Him. You may know certain things about Him. But you don’t know Him! That’s why He gave the Sabbaths; that you may know Him. And with the Holy Days you may know His plan, through Jesus Christ.

Notice, v 14: “‘“You shall keep the Sabbath therefore, for it is Holy to you. Everyone that defiles it shall surely be put to death... [This is telling us, spiritually, no Sabbath-breaker’s going to be in the Kingdom of God—correct? Would have to!] …for whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.”’” God does not reach down and kill instantly. And this, to the carnal mind, is deceptive. But it is really a greater punishment…what is one of the greatest punishments you can have in the world and not even know it, and maybe not necessarily even feel any pain right away? What do you suppose the greatest punishment would be? Rejection; being cut off from God.

Now, most people out in the world today are out there doing their shopping—correct? They don’t know they’re cut off from God—do they? They don’t even understand that it’s part of the punishment; because in that they’re having a good time. So you see, being cut off from God has a much different meaning and connotation to it than most people realize. They just don’t know. And you’ve heard it said, ‘If you don’t know, you don’t know that you don’t know!’ On the other hand, what else do you have? You have to understand how blessings work.

Who was the most blessed man to ever walk the face of the earth? Jesus Christ! Direct access to God the Father—correct? Yes! He was called, ‘This is My Son, the beloved’—right? He was called, ‘This is My Son, the beloved’—right? Yes! Was He always blessed of God? Yes! Did He live a miserable life in the flesh? Yes! Especially His last three and a half years and crucifixion—no question! So you have to discern how blessings come. But He did all of it for ‘the joy that was set before Him.’ That doesn’t mean He was happy; because when He was on His way up to Jerusalem, He was distressed. He knew what was going to happen. But He was blessed. So you’re right, it’s understanding how blessings come. And blessings don’t come—like I said in the series on James—they don’t come like an ATM machine. You just walk up and put your card in and ching! here it comes. It’s totally different.

“‘“Six days may work be done, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, Holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant…. [Now, let’s look at this statement again, here. Who is the Israel today? Israel today is the Church. The spiritual Israel of God is the Church of God today.] …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”’” (vs 15-17). So those are some pretty powerful commandments there.

Let’s finish this section by going to Mark, the second chapter. Since Jesus Christ is the one Who made the Sabbath, He owns the Sabbath. He was the Lord God of the Old _{[transcriber’s correction]} Testament Who became Jesus Christ, the Son of God, of the New Testament. So when He makes this statement here—Mark 2:27: “And He said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man…’” The Greek there is ‘anthropos’ which means mankind. God made it for all mankind.

Yesterday I had to go shopping. I had to go get some videos and paper—we get it at Costco because we get it there cheaply—and it was jammed; and I couldn’t help but think, it really struck home. You know the new scanners they have—boop, boop, boop—and as I was pushing the cart and getting the stuff, all I could hear was boop boop, boop, boop! And I thought, you talk about merchandizing; you talk about making money; and you know, on Saturday, that place is jammed to the gunnels. Just think how much better the whole world would be if they kept the Sabbath in the letter. Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to travel miles and miles to come to church—all we would have to do is walk out the door and go down a couple blocks and there’s a church right on the corner. No steeples, no idols, no crosses, no crucifixes. The whole neighborhood is keeping the Sabbath. They almost had that down in Loma Lynda, California; that’s a Seventh Day Adventist town—and they actually closed the post office on Saturday and opened it on Sunday. I didn’t know that until I talked to a postal worker who worked down there.

Just think! All the problems that we have in Sabbath-keeping today would be solved—right? Yes! So we’ll talk about the problems of Sabbath-keeping a little later on. God originally made it for all mankind. And if mankind had the knowledge of God—even in the letter of the law—wouldn’t that be a marvelous thing indeed? Yes, it would!

“…‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath…. [God did not make the Sabbath and then make man? He made man and then made the Sabbath and said, ‘Here’s the Sabbath. Fellowship with Me on this day.’] …therefore, the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath’” (vs 27-28). He is LORD! Now, if anyone professes Him to be Lord, what should they do? They should keep the Sabbath—correct?

Now, we’ll finish with this Scripture in Matthew 7:21—very important. We all need to understand this, not only in relationship to the Sabbath, but in relationship to everything concerning God. “Not everyone that says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’… [He said  He’s Lord of the Sabbath. So just saying He’s Lord, that’s fine. But that’s not all there is to it.] …shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but the one who is doing the will of My Father Who is in heaven.”

• What is the will of the Father Who is in heaven?
• Did Jesus Christ always do the will of the Father?
• When He created everything that there is, was it the will of the Father that He did it? Yes!
• Was it the will of the Father that He made the Sabbath day and made it Holy? Yes!

So therefore, that’s why He is LORD of the Sabbath. And if you say, “Lord, Lord,” and do not practice the will of the Father in heaven above, you’re not with God. You may have part of God. You may have some knowledge of God. You may have some things of truth of God. But you don’t know God, because He created the Sabbath so that you may KNOW Him. That’s the whole reason.

Verse 22: “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy through Your name?…. [Millions of preachers everywhere. Prophesied means just to speak.] …And did we not cast out demons through Your name? And did we not perform many works of power through Your name?’ And then I will confess to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who work lawlessness’” (vs 22-23). That is lawlessness or against law.

So if you are against the Sabbath day, are you against a law of God? And if you are against a law of God, are you practicing lawlessness in rejecting the Sabbath?

Yes! Ultimately, yes!

Scriptures from The Holy Bible In Its Original Order, A Faithful Version

Scriptural References:

• James 2:8-12
• Exodus 20:8-11
• Leviticus 23:1-3
• 1 John 3:1-3
• Genesis 2:1-2
• Exodus 31:12-17
• Mark 2:27-28
• Matthew 7:21-23

Also referenced:

Books:

• Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop
• Interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament by George Ricker Berry
• Sermon: What Would the World have been Like if Adam and Eve had not Sinned?
• Sermon Series: James

FRC:bo

Transcribed: 12/21/08

Reformatted: 5/10