[Darris McNeely] I’ve been privileged to do a lot of traveling through the years, and many of the travels have been in connection with the Feast or to places connected with Biblical topics, and a unique feature of many of the places that I’ve been able to travel are ancient temples.  There are a few that stand out…most of the temples of the ancient world in the places of the Middle East or in Egypt, are usually in ruins right now if there’s anything left from them.  At the temple of Carnac, on the east bank of the Nile, there’s a great complex that rose even before the time of Moses, and is still there – the ruins of a huge temple complex that you can walk along and know that Moses was probably instructed there, and Israelites saw it, as well as the Pharaohs and the people of Egypt, but it’s still there.  And it’s in ruins and it’s a tourist attraction, but it’s an ancient temple.

You go to Athens and you find the Acropolis, and there are the ancient ruins of the temple that today we call the Parthenon.  But in its heyday, it was a temple to the goddess Athena.  And it’s in ruins as well today and a great tourist mark.  In Rome you can see the temple of Jupiter in the ancient forum.  For us though, really only one temple that we pay any attention to and that really matters, and that’s the temple that we read about in the Bible, that stood in ancient days as well, of the temple of God, in Jerusalem.  The temple that was first built by Solomon based on the pattern of the temple of the tabernacle in the wilderness, and a magnificent structure by the accounts of the Bible. That temple was destroyed by the Babylonians.  The second one was rebuilt by the returning Jews during the time of Zerubbabel and it was then refurbished during the time of Herod the Great, and it became what was called the second temple, as he expanded the entire platform in Jerusalem upon which it stood.  And during the time of Christ and the apostles, as we read about the story in the New Testament, there was this second temple complex. 

There was a difference between the first temple of Solomon and the second temple…the Scripture tells us that God’s presence was actually in the first temple – came down upon it at the time of the dedication, and left it in later years.  The second temple, from all indications, God’s presence was not there in the same way – that He didn’t come down upon it and He didn’t dwell in that temple in the way that we see in the Scriptures, with one exception, and that was when Jesus walked in the flesh; first as a baby was carried into the temple, and then He was there during his various moments in His ministry.  That’s the only time that temple saw literally the presence of God, but it was quite important… that temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A. D.  You can walk on that platform, that area today, and well today you are cut off from going actually into the Dome of the Rock, that some archaeologists feel set over the actual spot where the Holy of Holies was in both of those temples of Solomon and the time of Herod, so unless you are Muslim today you can’t go in there.  But back in 1971 you could go in there…I did go in there and I guess I could say I’ve stood in the Holy of Holies, or at least where it was, and I’ve lived to tell about it – I’m still here!  But, it’s not holy today, in that sense, but the site is still there. 

Looking at the temples, thinking about it, it is a fascinating study from a Biblical and an archaeological prospective, but it has many lessons for us.  As we think about the temple complex, both in the time of the tabernacle in the wilderness and what was built there by Solomon, and what we read about in Scripture and see from that.  It was God designed…God gave the instructions to Moses, and it was a place where, in practical fact in that first temple, God’s presence was there.  The tabernacle in the wilderness, which became the pattern for the temple of….the pillar of fire was there and the cloud, and God’s presence was literally upon it.  With the priests and the sacrifices and the actual instruments of the basins and the lavers and the altars that were part of that, it was a holy place with God’s objects that were used for a holy purpose.

And anyone who went into the temple, or to the tabernacle, for the prescribed reasons, to worship God, to seek forgiveness through a sacrifice, to seek instruction from the priests as they would have been charged to teach the way of God and the law of God, had you been an Israelite in those days you would have approached that tabernacle or that temple with a certain respect and awe and reverence.  There would be a way by which you would even approach it.  And you would have to go through certain washings…the second temple area you actually had to go through a form of a baptism, but a literal washing, before you entered into the various courts.  And there were places you could go, and there were places you couldn’t go.  And you were going there for specific reasons, and you were coming really, to approach God, and to approach God’s servants.  And you were looking for forgiveness, you were looking for teaching, you were looking for reconciliation – you were looking for refreshing, an invigorating experience of worship to go to the temple.  Whether it was on the Sabbath or on a Holy Day, or at any particular time, this was the purpose of the temple as you were brought into a very close and a personal relationship with God, to learn of God, to be forgiven and to be renewed and to be invigorated.  You would leave the temple, if you did it all right, with satisfaction, and theoretically, a new lease on life, with your sins forgiven, and having gone through a worship process. 

Now today, we don’t have a temple; we don’t have priesthood, we don’t have sacrifices.  In fact when we read the Scriptures very carefully in the New Testament, we find that Paul tells us very clearly that we are the temple.  And as we have God’s Spirit, that is the very holy presence – we have God’s Holy Spirit in us.  And that’s some great profound teaching for us to understand.  In fact, today we don’t have a holy place – this is not a holy place here.  It’s a room that we use in this building for services.  It’s used for other purposes, Ambassador Bible College and other assemblies throughout the week.  Our congregations meet in facilities that become literally a place for us to hold church services for only a few hours on the Sabbath one day a week, and it might be a multipurpose room for another organization the rest of the time.  It might be a school.  We don’t have a holy place.  We don’t have a holy temple.  But there is one thing we do have that is holy – it is the Sabbath!  We have a Sabbath – it is holy.  This is holy time.  And as we look at the Sabbath, as we think about it and as we worship on the Sabbath, it is for us a holy place, if you will, it’s a holy time.  It is a twenty- four hour period – it is a time to be set apart as holy and sanctified in that sense by God’s presence, by God’s command and teaching.  As we approach it, as we use the Sabbath, it becomes a sanctified period of time.  It should draw us close to God, just as it drew a worshipper in the time of Israel (let’s say it a type) as it drew them close to God. 

So another thing the temple did in those days, it ordered life.  It set a prescribed order for life, beginning with God, all the way down to the youngest and the oldest individual, everyone knew their place and they knew how to approach God, and they knew when to approach God.  God said three times in a year you’ll come before Me.  You’ll read certain Psalms and there’s instructions even how to come into the presence of God with thanksgiving, with praise, which really were sung and were part of the temple service.  You came with a certain approach – it ordered your life.  The Sabbath today does that for us.  It certainly orders our life!  And as we keep the Sabbath we learn to approach God with respect, and with awe.  As we keep the Sabbath, as we come to services, as we talk with one another, as we hear messages, we should be in awe - encouraged.  We should be inspired.  We should be renewed in our life, by the instruction in the word of God.  When we leave the Sabbath service at the end of our day, with whatever kind of fellowship we engage with, we should be refreshed for what we have done.      
And as the day continues on, a little bit longer obviously in this time of year for us in this part of the world, we have other means and methods and plans by which we can enjoy the Sabbath day.  But we should be encouraged; we should be refreshed and renewed as we observe God’s Sabbath. 

Now there was a temple and a time in the ancient world, along with the Sabbath and the Holy Days.  We don’t have a temple today; we don’t have holy things today in that same sense.  God’s Spirit is holy, and we are holy as we have God’s Spirit and as we act in a holy fashion, as God leads us.  The Sabbath, however, is not a place; it’s not a building; it’s not a thing.  The Sabbath is time.  I want you to think about that.  It’s called the seventh day.  Sometimes we’ll say, when we identify ourselves you know, we’ll say, well we keep the Sabbath - someone who very religiously keeps Sunday might say, well I keep the Sabbath too.  So we goes a little bit further to define ourselves, and we say, well I keep the seventh day Sabbath – I keep God’s Sabbath.   

Now again, we define a time, as we define ourselves about the Sabbath – twenty-four hours.  Scripture tells us:  Sunset to sunset.  The Sabbath is not a place, like the temple was.  But the Sabbath is holy.  And the Sabbath has been called:  A temple in time – A temple in time.  I have a title for my sermon today – and I do have a title for my sermon today - It is: “God’s Sabbath: A Temple in Time.”  When I read someone writing about the Sabbath a few years ago, who called it a temple in time, that phrase just stuck with me, and I’ve used it many times, and I thought it might be good for us to talk about and to expound a little bit in a sermon as to what exactly that might mean, because I think it adds another dimension of understanding to something that is a very important part of our life that we do every week, and that is very close to us.  We don’t worship the Sabbath, but we worship God on the Sabbath.  And it can be looked at in a sense, in a right way, as a revered, awe inspiring, hallowed place into which we enter as it comes to us each week when that sun goes down, and for twenty-four hours we are going to observe God’s Sabbath!  We’re going to observe God’s Holy Sabbath.

Now why is this important to go back to, that you’ve heard many sermons on the Sabbath; I’ve given hundreds of sermons I guess, over the years on the Sabbath – why is this important to understand?  Well, I have often been asked through the years, by new people coming into the church, by young people growing up through the church and then finally coming to a point where it all begins to click, and they really get serious and it’s no longer mom and dad’s church, it’s their church, and very often the question comes up:  How do you keep the Sabbath?  How should I keep the Sabbath?  What do I do – what’s allowed?  What’s not allowed?  What can I do – what can I not do?  Every minister has been asked that many, many times. 

Now how do you think I would answer that question?  How would you answer that question?  I could give people my own list of do’s and don’ts, if I wanted to.  But I don’t have a list of do’s and don’ts!  But maybe some do…I used to, back when I first begin to hear about the Sabbath as a twelve year old, I thought this church needs a list of do’s and don’ts on the subject of the Sabbath!  I could, in answer to that question, I could micromanage someone’s life by telling them, well you can do this, but don’t do this.  I could micromanage.  I could tell them what I do, and then set myself up as a standard.  I could tell them what I don’t do, and certainly that would influence.  I could tell them what someone else in the congregation does…well so and so doesn’t do this; so and so keeps it this way.  I could tell them how far they can travel, and how far they can’t travel.  I could tell them any number of supposed rules and regulations.  I know I could not pull out any additional dos and don’ts list, because we don’t have that, believe it or not.  We’ve got a lot of literature in this church, a lot of booklets.  But we don’t have that one!  I don’t do that.

And you know, I have kept the Sabbath since I was twelve years old.  And I love God’s Sabbath and I’ve taught it for more than four decades as a minister of Jesus Christ, and I teach it every year as part of the fundamentals of belief, when we go through them at the Ambassador Bible College.  I’ve lived through major attacks, doctrinally and within the church, and our history…major attacks on the Sabbath teaching.  I’ve lived through that….battled off those arguments, as our ministers and members have as well.  Through the years as I’ve kept the Sabbath, I’ve learned how to keep it.  And I’m still learning, how to keep the Sabbath!  I look at that as a work in progress for me, to continue to refine how I keep the Sabbath and what I learn.

So how do I answer the question when it comes to me – “How should I keep the Sabbath?”  Here’s what I tell people…I tell people: “Read your bible.”  Read your Bible.  You’ll learn how to keep the Sabbath by reading the Scriptures.  The Scriptures have the answers.  God’s Spirit will lead us to understand and how to apply that in our life.  Now that doesn’t mean that I dodge certain specific questions, and have specific answers for certain things, but my main approach has been to tell people, read your Bible, and read the Scriptures about the Sabbath.  You’ll come to answer those questions as God leads you, by His Spirit, to understand His law.  After all brethren, we have the Holy Spirit in us, as God has granted that as His gift to us upon repentance, faith and repentance and baptism, the laying on of hands – God gives us His Holy Spirit.  And in fact, that is what, as Paul says, makes us the temple of God.  God’s Spirit writes His law upon our hearts, as part of what is called the New Covenant – this new experience and a relationship – God’s writing it on our hearts.  And if that is being done, we will be led to understand how to, from a Biblical perspective, keep the Sabbath. 

One of the things you learn about the Sabbath is through the ages, when people began to read the Bible in their own language, as the reformation, and the printing press, and the choke-hold that the Catholic Church had on the Scriptures, was broken through the years - and as the Bible was translated into other languages, where the common person could read the Bible, and the printing press made it then affordable and available to them and as people in the 1600’s read the Bible, you know what they found, in many parts of the world?  They read it and they learned about the Sabbath, because they read the Bible.  And then they began to keep the Sabbath - one of the first things that historically you can prove, in certain groups of people, as they read the Bible they learned about the Sabbath, and they began to keep it.  You can learn how to keep the Sabbath in your life and to keep it holy by reading the Scriptures on the Sabbath, and as we do that, God writes His laws upon our hearts in an indelible fashion, and when that is done then the Sabbath takes on the concept of the temple in time – far more than any physical temple could ever be.

Remember that the deacon Stephen as he was being martyred, probably one of the main statements that got him stoned, was he pointed to the temple - here in Acts.  And when he was before the council and he says:  “Look, God doesn’t dwell in buildings made with hands.”   He had come to understand that God was dwelling in him - not in a building.  And when those trues are understood, then as we approach something as important as this point of God’s law, the Sabbath day, then it takes on great importance.  And I think it helps to clear up a lot of misunderstandings that often will arise as the Sabbath comes to us and as we practice it and engage in it within our life.

What I’d like to do is go through just some of the basic Scriptures – not an exhaustive study of all the Scriptures on the Sabbath, but a few, to just remind us of how this can be done, for each of us to learn how to keep the Sabbath day, by looking at the Scriptures…being refreshed about a few points, perhaps sharpening up a little bit in our own personal observance.  And even expanding our thoughts a little bit, if we have certain perceptions that we have adopted, or been taught, or thought that may be exactly Sabbath regulations -.  But to look at it and let God’s word teach us, by looking at these Scriptures.  

Let’s go back to Genesis, Chapter 2, look at the classic, obvious first point where the Sabbath is created, as part of God’s creation as He rests on the seventh day.  Genesis 2, beginning in Verse 1, He begins to tell us a great deal about the Sabbath:

Genesis 2:1  The heavens and the earth, and the host of them, were finished. (In the first six days of God’s creation, as described in Chapter 1.)

Verse 2:  And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 

Verse 3:  Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. 

The very basic bedrock beginning of where it all begins.  Long before Adam and Eve made the decision to take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we see the Sabbath embedded in the creation account, as a holy period of time when God rested, and He blessed the day.  He rested from His work.

And the basic teaching is very clear here from the original language, and from all the other subsequent instruction that we read in Exodus and Deuteronomy - and we rest from our work – our gainful employment; our physical labors.  It is that command to do so.  God rested – He stopped His work, and He rested and He sanctified, which is one of these technical, theological words that mean to basically set apart for a specific purpose.  And as God sanctifies anything, it is set apart for a holy purpose; a holy use.  The Sabbath is set apart, different from the other six days, for a holy purpose. 

And right here in the whole beginning, the theology and the teaching about the Sabbath begins to develop as a day that begins to order our life.  Just as I was explaining about the temple, which is set in a certain order about the life of the Israelites, and the people of God in that system, where everyone knew what to do to approach God, and how to live their lives, and how to worship God – it was all laid out in an orderly way.  The Sabbath begins to order the life that we see here of the creation.  And especially the human creation, as God Himself does it…He rested on this day; He stopped from His work - which is what we should do.  The day is blessed, and the day is sanctified. 

Now, this is the beginning Scripture; there are certainly many others.  But the story of life and the world goes on, and we come down to Chapter 16 of Exodus.  And we find where after the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, slavery and the bondage in which they had been for all of those years, before they ever get to Mount Sinai, and the giving of the law and the beginning of that covenant relationship, we find that the Sabbath is still around.  It is still something God is teaching.  And He begins to teach the Israelites.  Really in one sense, we can say I think, literally for this generation, He is teaching them, because the Sabbath, in slavery, had been forgotten.  A slave in Egypt didn’t keep the Sabbath day.  And what knowledge may have been passed on through the years was hampered and hindered by the conditions of slavery, under which they were, so God has to help them remember the Sabbath day,
and to learn it once again.

And so He does by the means by which He’s feeding them – the manna that begins to fall from heaven. We know the story very well.  And He tells them that, “I’m going to give it to you for six days – go out and gather it every day.   But on the sixth day you’ll gather double, because you don’t go out on the seventh day because that’s a rest day.  But it won’t breed worms and it won’t rot and stink” – like a lot of bread doesn’t do today – something about manna, it was so fresh that it, you know, twenty-four hours I guess it would spoil.  But anyway, He says, “You’ll have enough!  And then it will start all over.”  It was teaching them the cycle of the week, and it was teaching them the seventh day being special.  And He was teaching them, you don’t work. 

Well, as human nature is, you know, you look down in Verse 23:
 
Verse 23:  Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.  Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves what remains, to be kept until morning.’”

And they did, and they found out that it didn’t breed worms, and it didn’t spoil.  And it happened in Verse 27 – which is interesting…

Verse 27:  Now it happened that some went out on the Sabbath day to gather, and they found none. 

Human nature thinks that it knows better; human nature gets kind of greedy, doesn’t it?  They not only had the double portion that they had for the sixth day, but they wanted more.  And greed kind of got into it.  You know that’s really one of the reasons, one of the main arguments, and really the impediments to a person keeping the Sabbath today – greed.  We’re in a world very busy, twenty-four seven – always on; never stops.  To shut down for twenty-four hours…to shut a business down, to shut a city down, to shut a small community down….to even shut our own life down, is near impossible, because of the pace of life today- and the need to make more money.  And all of this is a part of our modern western capitalist world…and at the end of the day, do we have more?  You know what it says here, they went out, Verse 27, they went out but they found none.  You know, justlift that phrase:  they found none.  That explains where we are today.  We can work seven days a week today and what do we have to show for it?  We still have none, so often; we don’t have more.  We just have more fatigue; more stress.  We still are finding nothing. 

God was teaching them during this particular time.  And again, just read the Scriptures, and you begin to develop what I like to call a Sabbath ethic.  That we can begin to look at as how we’re going to approach God’s instruction to us – and an ethic and an approach and a mindset that says, “You know what?  I’m going to resist that urge to make more money – to work a few extra hours.  Or to make that call, that sale…I’m going to resist that.”  Or to go for that particular job – or even career field, to where it is going to be impossible to keep the Sabbath.  Let’s be honest, there are certain career fields that are shut out for Sabbath keeping.  They are, in today’s world.  And every young person growing up in the church must face that.  My son made a decision…my youngest son made a decision in his life as to which field of medicine he was going to go into, based on his conviction and his calling, and what he felt he could do and should do, and he didn’t let it hold him back, but he made certain decisions.  And he recognized that, you know, that maybe others would be off limits to him, and would just be continued frustration.  I think God has honored his choice, as so many of our young people, young adults, and they’ve had to learn.  And our members through the years – and you make your choice, and you make your life.

Gerald Waterhouse, we all remember from years past, a long-standing evangelist, Gerald Waterhouse had a promising career as a golfer at West Texas, a college out in West Texas.  He played with certain individuals who eventually turned pro.  And Mr. Waterhouse didn’t turn pro…he came into the church.  And one time when he was visiting our home, staying with us on one of his famous tours that he was going on, he was telling his life story, you know, and he said, “I just came to the point and realized one night in my dorm room there in West Texas State, (or wherever it was he was going to college), and was on the golf team, and others were, you know, going in their way, and I came to realize I was not going to be a professional golfer, If I was going to obey God, and keep the Sabbath.”  And that changed the course of his whole life, as certain other decisions for so many others have.  So, you count the cost, and you begin to develop an approach, and that then leads to many, many other things.           

Let’s go to Deuteronomy 16 and look at another Scripture – the second giving of the law here in Deuteronomy 16.  I’m sorry:  Deuteronomy 5, beginning in Verse 12:

Deuteronomy 5:12   “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 

Verse 13:  Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

Verse 14:  but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the lord your God.  In it you shall do no work; you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 

Verse 15:  And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath holy.”    
He gave basic instructions, and adds another dimension to it, as it extends now to an Israelite culture and society, and God is telling them, look, your whole house…teach it to your whole house, and keep that among those that are a part of your home as well. 

And this was beginning then to become an ordered part of what was going to become an established society of Israel, the people of God in their own land, where God was taking them.  And this is all a part of exactly how God was beginning to lay out instruction in a broad-based way, that no doubt would have been extrapolated and expanded upon, much as the other Scriptures expands on various points of the law to give certain instructions, as to how all this would have been done.  And how a community would keep the Sabbath, where everyone was keeping the Sabbath – in the ancient world would have been a unique thing to watch.  Even if we had that set-up today, we would recognize that decisions would have to be made, in a modern culture…we’ve had our own kind of cloister communities, Big Sandy in the past, down in Texas, when we had kind of a complex and buildings, and Pasadena and many, many members in a small cloistered community, and you set up your systems, even when it comes to the Sabbath to do all of these things.  This is the sense behind this instruction right here, and decisions have to be made.  He says, you know, those servants that you own, they, d keep it as well. 

One of the things about understanding the Bible, when you look at your male servants here, and understanding the context of this world, and even the context of what God was placing Israel in, the reality was that these servants were more than just hired hands; they were slaves.  Because you will read, back in Exodus, that there were specific instructions to deal with people who entered into an indebted bondage of slavery to an Israelite at the time.  And this extends all the way into even the time of the Roman period of Christ in the New Testament.  And one of the things to understand about this verse and how we would apply it is that really God’s talking here about people that you had in your home, and in a sense, you controlled, and in some cases you owned.  Yes, this is what we’re talking about - to that extent in that ancient world.  Far different than what we have today!  I don’t own anybody!  I don’t know any of you out here or any of us who owns any servant. Today, in our servant concept, is somebody that you hire – you hire them to come and work for you.  But they are free to come, and they are free to go.  You don’t own them – but they are servants.  The way the word is translated in the Bible, both Old and New Testament, takes a little bit away.  Really the word very often should be: slave.  But certain translators through the years wanted to kind of temperate it because of the modern connotations of slavery.  And it’s really talking about a slave that you own. 

I bring this up, because at times as we talk about how we keep the Sabbath, as people develop their ethic and their approach to the Sabbath, often the question comes up, “Should a Christian be out in a restaurant on the Sabbath day?”  And sometimes people will use a Scripture like this to say, “Well, I shouldn’t, because I am hiring and using a servant, waiter or waitress in a restaurant, or whatever, and they’re preparing and the Scripture says that they should be…you know, your servant should be keeping the Sabbath as well.”  And people have conscience issues there.  And I understand those.  And I respect people’s issues of conscience as well. On the matter of Sabbath observance or any other matter, we all have a conscience and we should guard it very, very carefully.  My point in even bringing it up is that, that’s fine and hold your conscience, but be careful about using a Scripture like this to explain or to feel that that is something that should be bound upon all others, church-wide.  Because it’s not exactly what the Scripture is saying, and that often happens as we deal with other topics as well…we must always understand the context…what is he actually saying?  What is the application, not only in the ancient world, but in the modern world as well. 

I don’t own anyone, and if at times I would go to a restaurant and hire a servant to bring a hamburger to me on the Sabbath - I don’t own that person in the same sense that the instruction is here.  Now having said that, I am very careful at times that I don’t…I look upon that as a liberty, and I don’t try to abuse it.  Most time I would prefer the quiet and the peace of my own home, or someone else’s, but I understand that there are times of traveling and Holy Days, the Feast of Tabernacles and other matters, and I have developed an ethic, based on Scripture, as I deal with that.  We develop that even within the United Church of God…we have a paper that has laid that out to give guide lines for us all, so that it doesn’t become a major issue that creates division or friction at any point between us.  All I’m saying is, that as we develop our conscience on many of these matters about how we keep the Sabbath, make sure we use the Scriptures properly, and wisely.  And if those things become a conscience issue, that’s fine.  I think God grants us all that liberty, so let’s make sure we understand what is being talked about and how it was applied then and how it would be applied today.  We must always be very, very careful about that.

Let’s look at another Scripture.  This is one we don’t often look at in terms of the Sabbath discussion, and that’s over in Ezekiel, Chapter 20.  Ezekiel Chapter 20 has a lot to say about the Sabbath, and in this case, the nonobservance of the Sabbath, again, among Israel, but there are some things for us to learn.  There’s a prophecy, a very long prophecy, and one of those books that gets very complicated and detailed, and we doze off and zone out and eyes roll back in the head when it’s started on into….I don’t teach it at ABC.  I can only imagine at times the looks that the instructor who teaches Ezekiel get from the students, because I’ve seen them, one of them, teaching things that to me are just tremendously exciting, like Acts. …. and I still see heads nodding, eyes rolling back, and so when you see Ezekiel, some of the places here, I can well imagine!  But not speaking about anybody in the past. 

But, Ezekiel had something to say about the Sabbath.  Look at Chapter 20 here.  And he’s talking about the rebellions of Israel…the elders came before Ezekiel and said, “Give us a message from God.”  God says:  “You want a message from Me – you want a message from Me?  Here’s a message from Me.”  And He launches into them –He said:

Verse 5:  “On the day that I chose Israel and raised My hand in an oath to the people…He went off the deep end…you didn’t obey Me.

Verse 6:  I brought you into a land of milk and honey.  I poured out My blessings…

Verse 8:  “But they rebelled…

They wouldn’t obey.  They wanted a, kind of a soft, encouraging message this day, and they got a little sharper rebuke and sting. 

Verse 9:  “But I acted for My name’s sake,

And then He comes on down here, and He begins to tell them in Verse 12:

Verse 12:  “Moreover I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.  

He said I gave them My Sabbaths – it was a sign that they would know who I am; that they would know that I am the Lord.

Verse 13:   And yet they rebelled against Me in the wilderness; and they despised My judgments, which, if a man does, he shall live by them; and they greatly defiled My Sabbaths.  Then I said I would pour out My fury on them in the wilderness, to consume them. 

They didn’t know God, by a result of not keeping the Sabbath.  They lost that sign; they lost that identity; they lost that feature as to who they were.  God had told them how to hallow the Sabbath…and it’s all there in the law, some of which we just read, to sanctify it, to treat it in a sense as holy, like a temple, and they didn’t know God.  They forgot who they were, having been given that.

Today our world doesn’t know God fully either.  They know God in certain ways – they know a form of God.  And we can talk about being a Christian nation, America can, and Christianity being spread as it is through the world, but when you get down to the true teaching, the true understanding of God, and who God is, and what God is, and what God is doing, that knowledge is not fully understood, and not fully known, even as sincere people.  Seek God, seek a relationship with Him; seek to obey Him.  The Sabbath is a sign; it is a sign, and it is something given by God to sanctify, to be hallowed, and to set us apart…and they didn’t do it.  The world today doesn’t know God, and one of the main reasons is because it is not keeping all of God’s law – it does not have this understanding of the Sabbath, and thereby locking into an even deeper understanding of God and His relationship. 

Now, He says that they profaned My Sabbaths:

Verse 21:  “Notwithstanding, the children of Israel rebelled against Me; they did not walk in My statutes, and were not careful to observe My judgments, ‘which, if a man does, he shall live by them’; but they profaned My Sabbaths.  Then I said I would pour out My fury on them and fulfill My anger against them in the wilderness.”

This is again; Verse 21 is a pretty good verse to look at if you want to examine your ethic about the Sabbath.  He said, obviously it’s a part of His statutes, but they were not careful to observe My statutes, which if a man does he shall live.  They profaned My Sabbath.  Now, to profane anything holy is to disregard it, just to ignore it.  It’s also to know it and willingly not be careful with it, and in this specific regard, we should all, I think, want to be careful that we don’t, by our actions or our life, profane, disregard or treat in an unholy way and to not carefully treat the Sabbath.  How does that translate into your ethic?  Again, I always try to put that off to an individual.  Knowing the full weight of the basic points of the law, that you don’t work…it’s not the day to be clocking in; not the day to be, you know, baling forty acres of hay.  But to be careful on the things even that we might not think we should pay as much attention to.  That’s where we have the opportunity to treat the Sabbath as a temple in time.  A place that we approach to order our life, to get it together on that day, where it has been hectic…we’ve had to run to work; we’ve had to go to school; we’ve had to stay up late, get this job done, do this extra work, mow somebody’s…you know, help somebody move, do to a lot of other things.  And the six days just fly by like they do. 

So, when we come to that seventh day and the sunset begins to come upon us, to be able to shift those gears and to carefully wind down, and to enter into that period of time with awe, reverence, respect; a careful ordered approach to life.   Again, like you and I would have had if we had been an Israelite going up to the temple for a visit.  If we were living in a neighborhood in Jerusalem and we wanted to go to the temple…we didn’t just casually drop in.  You went through a certain procedure.  You went through a certain gate; you washed.  You went to a certain part, and you didn’t go to another part.  And you certainly didn’t go into the Holy of Holies.  Someone else did that, and they did it for you.  You know, the Priest helped you in certain ways, and everything about it was prescribed, because it was where God was.  When the Sabbath comes to us, we have an opportunity to go out and to meet God, and to spend time with God – in a sense, approach God.  Because it is His time; it is Holy time because He’s in it.  And though the rest of the world whizzes by, on 275, and the malls are full and the ballparks are having some exciting games, God is in this day.  And for those who know it, there is the prescription, there is the instruction, there is the responsibility.  Be very, very careful about it. 

And this is really what God is saying through Ezekiel, “You knew this, I gave it to you, and I was even lenient.  I was merciful to your fathers.  I realized they’d been in Egypt for years, so I carefully worked them out, and then I gave them My ways, and then they still didn’t get it.”  And now by the time of Ezekiel…Ezekiel would be the captivity of Babylon.  Israel as a nation has already been gone a long time.  And yet, you know, part of our theological, or I say our prophetic understanding of the Book of Ezekiel through the years, has been that this message of Ezekiel still is relevant to Israel.  And every time I read a chapter of Ezekiel, kind of like this…there are a few others that kind of make me scratch my head and think, “Yeah, I think that’s right.”  There’s still a message here to Israel, today, out of Ezekiel, that needs to be given.  And Chapter 20, it’s about the Sabbath, because Israel of old, and Judah, went into captivity because of Sabbath breaking, and idolatry.  The Sabbath breaking led to idolatry.  Remember, they wanted to go out on the seventh day, the Israelites, and gather more manna?  But they found none.  

When we make mammon, manna, things, our god, and our goal, we’re right smack dab into idolatry.  The Sabbath is a break against that, in all aspects of ones’ life.  That’s what sent Israel into captivity.  This is what He’s saying right here, because you didn’t keep My Sabbath, and you got off into idolatry, you’re in this situation today.  You want a message?  He’s saying, “This is the message.”  And as I read through again, all of Ezekiel, the message is very clear, that this is going to come back, and that the subject of the Sabbath is still relevant today, not just to the Israel of God, the Church, but also to the Israel, the remnant, that God knows where they are, and who they are, and that message is still relevant today.  And so I guess, as I look at it, what I’m saying, when I read Ezekiel 20, to kind of learn how to keep the Sabbath in my own life, it’s a reminder to me, is that I, even I, a member of the Church of God, keeping it because my mother started teaching it to me when I was twelve years old, and then teaching it to others, and living it, and appreciating it, that I’d better be very careful myself that I don’t profane the day by what I do, where I go, and how I keep it. 

And if the liberties that I might have, and if it’s to walk into a restaurant and have a meal, that maybe I ought to examine where I am, if it’s just a casual choice.  And there are certain places I don’t think I should be on the Sabbath, if it’s a restaurant.  There are certain places that I shouldn’t be there on Thursday night either!  Should you?  That we like to go to, and hang out.  You think about that.  You know that the questions that come up, well should I do this on the Sabbath, and sometimes I’d say, “Well should you do it on Thursday too?  Should you watch it on Monday night, as well?”  Think it through – what are the contents of the movie, of the television show, or whatever?  Regardless of whether or not should you do it on the Sabbath, I say, should you be watching it on any other night?  Does it profane your mind?  Does it profane your life?  If it does, and if, as Paul says, you are the temple of God, and because of that you have God’s Spirit, you’re holy – there’s a holiness aspect about it – all of us should examine our life, not just on the Sabbath, but every other day as well, about a lot of these things; But particularly about the Sabbath. 

In Matthew, Chapter 22, and Verse 34, the Pharisees came to Christ and they had a question about the law:

Matthew 22: 36:  “Which is the great commandment in the law?”  Teacher, tell us.   

Verse 37:   He said, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’    

Verse 38:   That’s the first and great commandment. 

Verse 39:   “The second is like it:  ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Verse 40:  “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”   

It’s well understood, that the first great commandment is identified by the first four of the commandments – the Ten Commandments:  Have no other Gods; no graven image; don’t take God’s name in vain; and, to keep the Sabbath day.  That’s how we love God.  The Sabbath helps us to know how to love God.  The other six commandments define that relationship with our neighbor, how we love our neighbor as ourselves. 

Again, to look at the Sabbath, the teaching of the Sabbath commandment, the fourth commandment helps us to love God, as we take the time to pray more on the Sabbath, because we’ve got to be out the door a little bit too early, or we’re just too tired, or whatever, to read the Bible.  The Sabbath can be a time when there is a block of time to just sit and to read the word. The Council of Elders chose “Laboring in the Word” as the theme for this year’s meeting of the ministers, the General Conference meeting a couple months ago, and to labor in the word is kind of hard to do, with all the busy life that we have.  And I know that.  You know, you’ve got to make the time.   But the Sabbath gives us that time, certainly, the one day of the week that does give us the time to labor in the word.  To spend and to take an hour, two hours, and to just read the word.  Don’t read anything else – just read the word, and to let it kind of wash over us, and to think it through, and to understand it.  That’s another way to use the Sabbath, and in doing so, it helps us to love God.  It keeps us on the straight and narrow with the other commandments. 

Another Scripture is Mark, Chapter 2.  A very important New Testament Scripture about the Sabbath, as Christ and His Disciples had gone through the fields on the Sabbath day – beginning in Verse 23 – and they got hungry, and there wasn’t a drive-in McDonald’s…and so they drove by a stalk of corn!  And they plucked some heads of grain.  And there were the Pharisees standing on the edge of the cornfield.  Why were they on the edge of the cornfield?  I don’t know!  Did you ever just ask yourself some certain questions…did they just kind of hover?  But they did. 

Mark 2:24   “Why do they do what is not lawful?   And Christ said, “l knew you were going to ask that.” 

Have you never read what David did?  And He goes back to an examplewhen David came into the sanctuary and took some of the showbread, which was reserved for the priest.  Showbread was changed out every week, about six days, then it was changed out, but it was only for the priest.  And David took some.  Well - here’s the descendants of David, and readymade – you want to think like he set this up.  But he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar, the High Priest of God, and he ate the showbread, which was not lawful to eat, except for the Priest.  And he gave some to those who were with him, and he said this profound point, in Verse 27 – 28 that is kind of an anchor, cornerstone in New Testament teaching about the Sabbath – doesn’t do away with the Sabbath.  Really what he was doing away with was the erroneous laws that the Pharisees had put upon.  The human traditions that have all have been added, and their interpretations laid on through the centuries, because they did realize that their forefathers had gone into captivity because of Sabbath breaking, as we just read in Ezekiel 20, and they said, “We don’t want to do that again.”  So they laid on all these other traditions.  Christ was sweeping all that away, but not the 4th commandment. 

Verse 27:  “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

It’s a benefit; it’s for us.  You don’t go hungry.  If you happen to be in a situation you take what you need, and you do it, and it is made for man.  When we read that, as we develop our ethic, our approach, the way we keep the Sabbath, to me that is profound teaching.  That’s encouraging teaching, as I approach the Sabbath – it’s made for us.  For spiritual benefit, for a physical rest, that we might come to know God deeply, that we might know God’s people, that we might have this period of time in which we know that this is how we order our life on this day, to get to know God better,  to develop a relationship with Him.  We don’t go into a temple…we come into a hall like this, and it might be a school of some other city where our people meet, and it might be, you know, some other business complex or whatever where we meet, or in some cases, we may even actually have our own place.  And we come into a place like this, and we ask God’s presence through a prayer, and we sing, and we are instructed, and we talk to one another and we encourage one another.  That’s liberating – that’s refreshing.  And then we go on with our life, and it helps us. 

Verse 28:  “Therefore, the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.” 
Christ is right in the middle of the Sabbath; He is the Lord of the Sabbath.  This is what He’s saying.  It doesn’t change the laws in any way or form.  It’s made for man, Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath - why wouldn’t we want to get to know Him by what we do and how we approach the time that we order our life around?  What can you do on the Sabbath?  What should you do on the Sabbath?  How do you keep the Sabbath?  That’s for you and I to develop based on the Scriptures. 

In Isaiah, Chapter 58 is another key Scripture about the Sabbath day:

Isaiah 58:13  “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, - Isaiah writes.

Keep in mind that Isaiah was writing before Ezekiel, and he was writing to Judah, and he was giving them one last chance…this is an exact example of what God said in Ezekiel 20:  “I went to your ancestors; I went to your people and I warned them, encouraged them…this is one example.  And it is specifically about the Sabbath.  And Isaiah’s giving instruction for us, as to how to keep it:

“Turn away your foot from the Sabbath day, rest; shut it down; clock out.  Make it a different time of day – from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and you call the Sabbath a delight,

Every parent that has really taken these Scriptures to heart…I know so many through the years have endeavored to make the Sabbath a delight for their family – for their children.  We would do that as we were raising our two sons and we…you know for a minister, the Sabbath is the busiest day of the year.  But for a period of our life we only had one large congregation, up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and our children were in some of those earlier years, preaching years… and had one church, over 300 people in the afternoon…it was kind of an anomaly, even back in those days…and certainly it is today for our ministers, when we have to go between two, and three and four, and sometimes five churches.  But we had that blessing while they were younger, and so we had, we were able to keep the Sabbath in a relaxed fashion.  And we had the morning to, you know, sleep in, to make pancakes, to take a walk…we lived in an area near a lake, and we could walk by the lake, and take hikes, and do all the things that so many parents endeavor to do to make the Sabbath a delight, as we were teaching it for our children.  And that was a blessing for our family, for that period of time.  That did change when they got up in their teens as our next assignment added two churches, and virtually every week then, running a circuit.  And that gets tiring, and can be for a family as well.    

But I know so many of our families with young children that endeavored to make the Sabbath a delight, and that’s what we do, and should do.  Not a chore; not a burden – not something that one dreads.  And there are methods and approaches and a spirit that is created within the family, from the father and the mother, to do that…I recognize that there were challenges where both parents were not in the church as well.  But we have these opportunities to make those things available for our family, our children, but certainly for ourselves as we have that knowledge that comes to us. 

He goes on here and he says: 

“Call it the Holy day of the Lord, honorable, and honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking even your own words.” - The way that comes down to that.

So Israel’s problem was that they profaned God’s Sabbath.  Well it can be profaned by how we talk, our actions, and by not honoring Him.  And we all have to, and should, examine ourselves on those ways so that we can delight ourselves (Verse 14) in the Lord; and the result of that is what God says here in the latter part of Verse 14:

“I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob you father.  The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”    

Call it a delight; embed that principle in your mind, and as you approach then every challenge that comes up, every situation that you might have a question about, or what should I do, or how should we handle this, you’re making those decisions on sound spiritual principle, based upon what God tells us in His word here.

The Sabbath orders our life in a world today that doesn’t always live an orderly life.  We live today with a great deal of chaos and confusion in the world around us, as we view what’s taking place in people’s lives, and social changes, and consequences – it’s rather confusing.  And to the degree that that might impact our life, either by our choices, or things beyond our control, at times our lives can get chaotic and confusing.

The Sabbath, as we began to use it, to get our lives together, allows us to have an ordered life…certainly for that one day.  If we approach it as the Scriptures tell us to do so.  And kept from a proper spirit, God leads us in blessings of understanding, peace of mind, harmony, to recognize exactly what is taking place during this time that is holy…a temple in time, to use that phrase…it helps us to begin to sort our life out.  Now the first day of the week, Sunday, Monday…we’ve got to get back into it.  But because we have done that one day, as a pattern of our life, and as an ethic that is beginning to be developed, called Godliness, it will help us handle the challenges, the chaos at times, of the rest of the week.  It’s a proven fact.  It’s a promise from God…He said, “I will cause you to ride on the high places of the earth; on the high hills of the earth.”  That is a promise that we can claim from God as we do that…and should. 

Whatever you do on the Sabbath, as you look at yourself, and I hope this is an exercise, the sermon here today has given you some different perspectives to kind of look at your own life; do you see God’s presence there, as you keep the Sabbath day?  Can you see Him; can you find God’s presence by the places you go; the things that you do; the words that you speak.  Is God there?  Are you talking about God; are you thinking about God - To what degree?  If you have a question, can I do this, or should I do that, or should the group do this, or should we be involved in this - ask yourself:  Are you learning about God?  Whatever you do, wherever you go, are you with God’s people?  Or are you surrounded by people who have no knowledge of God, and no desire.

Now, there are times, certain ceremonies, weddings and all that you are going to be, perhaps not in church – you’re going to be doing something else there that you might make that decision about, and that’s not your habit, that’s not your custom.  But again, as a principle, when it comes down to the things that we normally have control over, everything we do in our life has a godly or an ungodly way to it.  You know, it all goes back to two trees, that we read about back in Genesis, the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Two choices; two ways: Give and get; sin and righteousness; Godliness or ungodliness.  All life is ordered basically upon two ways, even when it comes down to the whole computer world, and the buying area approach, and off or on - one way or the other…that’s it.  That’s the whole basic element – that’s life: two trees; two ways:  Give or get.  God’s way or…not the highway, but the other way – the way of the world.

So ask yourself, everything that we do has a Godly or ungodly way to it.  And begin to train yourself by reading God’s word, to always be prepared, and able to choose God’s way when it comes down to the areas that sometimes get a bit grey, where we’re not quite sure about, so that we can make a decision - and especially when it comes to keeping the Sabbath, we can choose God’s way.  We can choose to do God’s pleasure, and not necessarily that which is strictly our own, and we do it according to the teaching that we have there.  Train ourselves to do that, by the reading of God’s word.  And then I think we can answer those questions.  Do that, as you handle your questions about the Sabbath day, and you will always be in the temple of time.