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:"
- "Can Elijah be right and all these priests of Baal be wrong?"
- "Can a dozen Galileans fishermen and a carpenter be right, when Law Doctors and Pharisees have not believed?
- Can a simple monk named Martin Luther be right, and all the Roman church, thousands of bishops and cardinals, and experts in theology, be wrong?
- Can a remnant be right, and the majority be wrong? Billy Graham? And Pat Robertson? And Jimmy Swagger? And Joel Osten, Chuck Swindoll? All wrong regarding the 4th Commandment and each day is holy?
What God gave to mankind as a gift in the beginning, at the end it will turn into a test. Sabbath as a gift and a test… PERSONAL STORY… (…)
IS NOT ABOUT A DAY, IS ABOUT OBEYING GOD. Leviticus 10 – READ. “Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the LORD…
…and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD spoke of when he said: “‘Among those who approach me I will show myself holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.’”
Nadab and Abihu, who were by the way, sons of Aaron and the Nephews of Moses, had recently been chosen and ordained as priests under the direction of God Himself. There is no doubt that they had been thoroughly instructed as to their sacred duties as Priests of the Most High God.
But they made one fatal mistake; they failed to distinguish between common and holy.
The Bible says that they were destroyed because they offered (to God) “unauthorized" or "strange" fire, from where the priests cooked their food.
And more than likely it wasn’t just a careless mistake on their part because they knew full well that the only fire they were to use in their censors was the fire from the altar of burnt offerings, the sacred flame of which God Himself had kindled.
Maybe they were in a hurry or didn’t want to be inconvenienced by going all the way the altar of burnt offering when their cooking fires were near at hand. It is very likely that they justified in their minds that “fire is fire.” But by doing so, they sinned by failing to distinguish between holy and common.
This same mentality that destroyed these two young priests, would prove to be largely to blame for Israel’s downfall. The following is a portion of the prophecy against Israel by the prophet Ezekiel found in Ezekiel 22:26. Speaking of apostate Israel, He says;
“ Her priests do violence to my law and profane my holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common; they teach that there is no difference between the unclean and the clean; and they shut their eyes to the keeping of my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.”
I believe that this particular verse of Scripture applies even more so to this generation of “spiritual Israel.”
Notice that in both passages we just read, God is essentially saying that His people not distinguishing between holy and common and also specifically by “shutting their eyes to the keeping of His Sabbaths” He Himself is being “profaned” among them.
IS NOT ABOUT A DAY, IS ABOUT A RELATIONSHIP. the 4th C is not just about a “day”; more importantly, it’s about a relationship. A relationship with our Creator - it’s about clearing our schedule of all other secular commitments, so that we can spend true “quality time” getting to know our heavenly Father.
And not only is this time “quality” but it is “holy” as well. You might ask; what would be the difference if we kept any other day as long as we keep it holy? After all, a day is a day... They are not all day alike?
Well, as we just read, Nadab and Abihu found out the hard way that all fire is not necessarily created equal. One fire was “kindled by God Himself” for a specific purpose and the other was kindled by man. And because God specifically blessed, sanctified and made holy the 7th day, neither are all days equal nor are they interchangeable.
ILL. A Roman Catholic priest, a Protestant pastor and a Jewish rabbi were talking one day about their belief in miracles.
The Roman Catholic said that he did believe in miracles and illustrated this by telling of a recent incident when he had flown to Rome. As the aircraft began it’s final approach, a tremendous storm broke, the rain was pouring down, there were great peals of thunder and the plane was being buffeted about. The priest had prayed for a miracle and the storm still there you know, but "for a hundred yards around the plane there was a great stillness and the plane landed safely."
The Protestant minister too said that he believed in miracles. When on cruise, on a ship from Houston out to Florida, a great wind suddenly rose and the waves were very soon 50 feet high. They feared for their lives; the minister had prayed for a miracle, and the storm still there, but "for a hundred yards around the boat there was a great stillness and the boat arrived safely in the harbour."
The rabbi from Israel said that he had come to believe in miracles through an event that had taken place the previous Saturday. During the Sabbath service, a visitor from America had arrived with a suitcase full of ten-dollar bills which he gave to the synagogue. "There was a problem, how to count all this money on the Sabbath? So, I prayed for a miracle, and you know, the Sabbath still there, but for a hundred yards all round the suitcase, it was Wednesday!"
Find a way to go around… then and now. Jesus was challenged by the same type of Pharisaic mentality. They were 2 schools of interpreting the Law, Torah. On one hand the liberals belonging to RABBI HILLEL. No work on Sabbath, but time to enjoy life… Work? Define work…
The other school of interpreting was developed by RABBI SHAMAI. The Sabbath was described by his disciples, I mean the Pharisees as a whole group, this way: don’t, don’t, don’t…
Pharisees and Teachers of the Law often accused Jesus of desecrating the Sabbath, but he never did anything contrary to the commandments of God.
Many times when Jesus was teaching on the Sabbath day, some poor soul afflicted with some sort of disease or ailment would seek healing from the Lord, and of course Jesus would freely heal them.
Well, the act of healing was considered work by the Religious elite of that time and thus they condemned Jesus for “working on the Sabbath.” But the only violation that Jesus was guilty of was that He violated the laws and stipulations that the Pharisees themselves had added to God’s Law.
Let’s notice ways that the Sabbath could have been desecrated in the eyes of the Pharisees:
• Tying or loosening a knot.
• Writing as much as two letters of the alphabet or erasing to make space for as much as two letters.
• Eating an egg that was laid on the Sabbat;
• Using a handkerchief. Although one could use it if at least one end of it were sewn to one’s garment because it was no longer technically a handkerchief.
• Using the bathroom on or near grass or bush because one could technically be accused of fertilizing.
Friends, Jesus was never opposed to the keeping of the Sabbath as commanded by God, rather He steadfastly opposed the way God’s law, especially the Sabbath, was being misrepresented by the religious leaders of His day.
By the constant heaping of man-made restrictions upon God’s original statute, worshippers soon lost sight of the true essence of Sabbath observance. They were so overwhelmed by the rules and regulations that they totally overlooked the spiritual aspect of this blessed day.
In Mark chapter 2, Jesus once again faces off with the Pharisees about another Sabbath violation. This time He was walking through a grain field and His disciples, being hungry, reached out their hands and pulled a few heads of grain. They probably rubbed them between their palms to separated the husks from the kernels and they ate the remaining kernels.
Because of this, they were accused of “harvesting” and “threshing” on the Sabbath. It was at this point that Jesus was fed up with their incessant hair-splitting and made this statement in Mark 2:27; “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
The original Greek is clear here that Jesus is saying that the Sabbath was made “to benefit” man. And by the way the Greek for “man” here is “anthropos” which means “human” or “humanity” - not exclusively Jews. So Jesus made it clear that the Sabbath was intended to liberate us, not imprison us!
But you know, I’m afraid that many Adventists still lock themselves inside the Sabbath every week. And by doing this, they not only are missing out on the abundant blessing that it holds, but they are transforming it into a sharp stumbling stone for themselves and those around them.
AT Jones said: they are Sunday keepers, Saturday keepers and Sabbath keepers…For so many Sabbath keepers, Saturday is a day full of “cant’s” and they walk around fearing that they will in some way desecrate the sanctity of the day.
I believe we desecrate the sanctity of the Sabbath more when we treat it as a burden, than we would if we were to go to work. In Isaiah 58:13 God says that we should not break the Sabbath but He also says that we should consider it a “delight.”
And when you come to the point in your spiritual life where you see that the Sabbath is far from a burden, that it is rather a “standing weekly date with God” you will consider it a delight.
How can we truly keep the Sabbath holy? By giving to God our undivided attention. By realizing that He who created you is still very much alive and wants nothing more than to spend the day with you. Sure, worship, study and prayer are wonderful ways to get to know your Savior better. But there are many other ways to spend quality time with the Lord.
IS NOT ABOUT A DAY, IS ABOUT FOLLOWING JESUS’ EXAMPLE. Take a walk in the park and just consider God by beholding the beauty of His creation. Experience the joy of allowing Him to minister through you by visiting the sick and lonely. Turn off the TV and get to know those special people called family that God has blessed you with. Have some food prepared in the Preparation Day, so you are not in the position to buy your subway or to be tempted to go to restaurant (so what? is not the same fire… isn’t it? No.)
As many of you know, we as a church believe that our special message to the world is the message of the three angels or Revelation 14.
The message of the first angel is proclaimed in 14:7 and reads as follows: “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come. Worship Him Who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
This message calls our attention to and distinguishes the true God of Heaven from all others and directs us to know and worship Him. The 4th C conveys to us the exact same message. It’s a message of grace, because we serve a God of grace. A gift from Him. But it is a test too…
CALL. We serve a God that knows us much better than we know ourselves. He knew from the beginning the demands that would be placed on our time, and how easily our thoughts could be diverted from Him and His will for our lives. And for this inherited ailment, He instituted and prescribed not an antibiotic but an “anti-chaotic” called the Sabbath Rest.
Are you faithfully taking this “spiritual medicine” that promotes spiritual growth and dramatically stunts the growth of most forms of the fatal disease we call sin?
It’s quite odd that most Christians today forget even though the Sabbath commandment is the only one that God purposely began with the word “Remember.”
May God richly bless you as you consider His Word.
