Keep The Sabbath Day
Holy

Everybody has a thorn in the flesh. A thorn in the flesh is some problem that is in us so deep it takes a lifetime to remove it. My thorn is keeping the Sabbath Day holy. People laugh when I say that. Why there is nothing to keeping the Sabbath. All you have to do is nothing. Nothing at all.

For me at least, doing nothing at all is the hardest commandment of them all to keep.

In these latter days man can use his agency to keep the Sabbath day holy, or slip off down to the lake and bask in the sunlight that is splashing on the waves. Just like Cain we glance heavenward and say: “Ain't I doing nothing?”

Why yes Lin, I believe you are doing almost nothing. But you know, there is a little more to keeping the Sabbath than soaking up the morning breeze like a silly sow squirming around in her muddy wallow hollow.

The Old Covenant tells us how to recognize and revere the Sabbath: Lev. 23: 3, 11, 15-16, 24, 32, 38-39 Verse 3: Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.

Ex. 31 goes into this miracle even deeper in Verses 13-16

13 Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.

14 Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.

15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.

16 Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.

That “put to death” shows HE sure means business, doesn't it?

“throughout your generations” means that anyone claiming to be of Israel shall be bound by this part of God's covenant. If you don't want to suffer the consequence of living by this part of the covenant then stay ye out of Israel.

A covenant is a one-sided law where a blessing is promised to us IF we keep that law, and a punishment is affixed if we don't keep it. Covenants are not contracts or childish agreements that lawyers get to pick over and rephrase. Unless you were born Israel you have the right to accept or reject all his covenants with Israel, but the right to alter the terms of any covenant is not extended to anyone.

The Israelites must have had a hard time with keeping the Sabbath because the penalty for Sabbath breaking was death. This kind of took the fun out of breaking the Sabbath and illustrated how important God thought it was. There were limits to how far you could walk, limits to how big a knot you could tie, limits to what you could cook, limits to what you could eat. Go one step beyond the limits and you were fried, toast.

Wait, wait, wait, a few sneaky Israelites might have cried out a good excuse: "I didn't know that was the boundary line." Well, anybody can make a mistake, but interestingly enough, the sin offering for doing something wrong without meaning to was almost as much as doing it on purpose and hoping to get away with it.

God offers covenants in order to bless us. What did Father want to give us when he asked for Sabbath observance? Originally the Sabbath Day was a gift to man. How can you put nothing to use? I look back to the days of Egyptian bondage where unrelenting toil was the accepted practice. Oh how great just having an eighth day of rest would have been appreciated back then.

It doesn't make sense to the human mind that giving up a whole day of work will somehow bring blessings to all and sundry. How hard it was for a faithless soul like mine to just lay down my tools, how hard to sit back, and do nothing. Nothing, just sit there and do nothing; can the human mind ever fill itself up with a vacuum? And besides, how could I rest with all the pain I was in, burning eyes, burning flesh, and bones gone brittle as if from boiling too long in the noon day sun.

Oh Father, if only I could speak to my pain and silence those fiends for a solid day of restful time too. But to lay here and dwell on this pain? This is no blessing. But, we need to chalk it up and demand to know from whence this pain came. Surely, doesn't the pain of riotous living leap upon us directly because we abandoned the law of the Sabbath and would not listen to wisdom from on high.

Even more significantly, the sin offering price must also be paid in full before those months of pain can be silenced as if an angel had flung a hush puppy our way -- and months more of struggling practice to serve the Sabbath must pass before a man can lean back and enjoy doing nothing. Yea, occasionally months of strict adherence to the Sabbath must pass before the dry, aching amount of pain can be silenced and a man can be endowed with the ability to do nothing, to do nothing almost effortlessly.

Serving the Sabbath day off for ourselves is but a seed of the horizon that must be observed, It isn't enough that we do nothing of our own selves, but we must also let the ass rest, and give rest to the poor ox, Yea, let their shoulders sag in mortal relief so great that it hurts, deep pain flashing from having no burden to bear. Give them too months of Sabbath days off, and only then can you begin to bring down the complete, full promise of rich blessings that are in store from him whom we serve, for taking our Sabbath Days off.

It took 40 years in the wilderness before Heavenly Father thought the Israelites were sure to recognize the blessings that came from living the Law of the Sabbath so religiously. In all their wanderings over sharp stones and ground powders their shoes did not wear out, and their clothing did not fall apart. We are not talking about a tiny, ragtag band of Camel pushers here either. The Israelite camp under the leadership of Moses was a community of Saints larger than all the population of Little Rock put together. They were slow to see the blessings that came from obeying all of the commandments, and keeping the Sabbath -- and for many years after Joshua took the helm of State, having seen the sentence of death applied to Sabbath breakers did serve to reinforce the Israelite's decision to keep the Sabbath Day holy.

God does not promise us a lot of money for keeping the Sabbath Day holy, but he does promise blessings. One thing I have noticed about blessings from God is that they usually don't appear until I need a real miracle, and I usually don't recognize their source until afterwards. However, the more I look back at the big blessings the more I notice the little ones that flow my way day by day and hour by hour. Some of His other blessings we won't even recognize for years. But this I do know, God will ALWAYS keep his word. Therefore, keep the Sabbath Day holy and the blessings promised from heaven will be poured out upon you.