Remember The 7abbath Day (4) Series

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about this, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done. (Illustration from lhttp://www.sermoncentral.com/Illustrations/SearchResults)

It happened in Christianity as well, isn’t true? Everybody blaming Somebody because Nobody seems to follow Anybody… Routine Church life. Going through the motion, doing what others are doing, worshiping in the day everybody accepted… the first day of the week.

Forgetting the only C that begins with the word REMEMBER. Leaving out the main thing. Someone once said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” I want to talk about the main thing today.

And the main thing is not the Seventh-day Adventists’ stubbornness to hold on a particular day, but Jesus, the Lord of the Sunday! – Oh no, but the Lord of the Sabbath.

Exodus 20:8-11- 8 Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

While preparing today’s message, I realized that such a capital topic cannot be exhausted in just a sermon… I got ideas and materials for: God’s plan in setting the Sabbath as the 4th C, S as a sign, S as a test, the changing of the S, the blessings of the S, practical ways for keeping the S, etc… Lots of sermons… So I got to decide...

For this reason, I’ll go directly, assuming the audience is convinced that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. So please, don’t come with cheap solution like "the commandments, including the Sabbath commandment, were nailed to the cross"... These kind of popular for-to-go ideas are not only theologicaly wrong, but harmful.

1 Chronicles 17:27 – “And now, it has pleased you to bless the house of your servant, so that it will continue forever before you. FOR WHEN YOU GRANT A BLESSING, O LORD, IT IS AN ETERNAL BLESSING!”

Did He blessed the 7th day and made it holy (set it apart)? Yes, in the beginning, in the Garden of eden, long before mount Sinai, and long before the first Jew was born. “Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done”. (Gen.2:3)

So I will not insist in convincing you about the 4th C being Saturday and not… a random day out of seven… You know and if you don’t, we can come to me, sit down after the service and study it. I don’t want to preach to the choir here.

"And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word."

These words were spoken by God’s prophet as he stood on the top of Mount Carmel face to face with a people who claimed to be the chosen people of God – the real choir. But the chosen ones had turned from the worship of the true God to the worship of Baal, the Sun-god.

Chosen people whose fathers had walked through the waters of the Red Sea on dry land. A people who had followed the cloud by day and the fire by night through the wilderness experience and then encamped at the foot of Mt. Sinai had heard God’s voice in thunder-like tones proclaim His law of Ten Commandments.

And even while Moses was receiving the law on tablets of stone they had turned to the God of Egypt, particularly the sun worship. Just so had Israel let the wicked Jezebel to introduce sun worship.

The time had come for a test with this false religion. And on the top of Mt. Carmel they hear Elijah cry out, "How long halt ye between two opinions, you must decide between God and Baal."

The crowd looked over at Elijah, and they saw him standing there alone, alone except for the invisible hosts of the God whom he served. Then they looked and saw hundreds of the priests of Baal, dressed in their rich, flowing robes, and they asked the question that has been asked ever since sin opened the gate to the "Broad and Easy Way:"