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[0:00] So, this morning, this is our last study on the feasts. And for no other reason than it occurred to me last, I've saved the feast of Sabbath for the last.

[0:30] So, the fact that the Bible identifies it as a holy convocation puts it in the same ballpark as all the other feasts.

[0:50] So, it is a feast, even though they celebrate it every single week, it's a feast. And do you remember that a convocation, if you remember when we dealt with the definition of what a convocation is, among the definitions are, it is a rehearsal.

[1:09] So, it's a rehearsal for something. So, we can ask ourselves as we go through, what is the Sabbath a rehearsal for? So, there's quite a lot to get through.

[1:20] So, I will plow on. And if I don't finish it, well. There will be nothing new there then. It's odd because in our culture, if you think back to the turn of when Christ was crucified and rose again, and they went from celebrating the Sabbath on a Saturday to celebrating the Lord's Day on a Sunday.

[1:45] They went from the last day of the week to the first day of the week. But there has always been a principle of take a day's rest in seven. And that was established as the Sabbath and was carried on by Christians after the resurrection.

[2:01] And they designated the Sunday as the Lord's Day. And so, for quite a while, you had the Jews continuing to celebrate the Sabbath and you had Christians celebrating the Lord's Day on the Sunday.

[2:13] But in our culture, it's just become another day. And some of the older amongst us will remember the days when if you worked a Sunday, you got double time.

[2:24] And there was no compulsion to work a Sunday. It was always by request. And you only did it if you wanted to. And there was a respect for religious practices that people didn't have to work a Sunday.

[2:41] And, of course, that's now gone, virtually completely gone from the workplace. And you get companies that run four-day rolling shifts where you get one weekend off in about six or something like that.

[2:52] And so, what that has done is it's had a huge negative effect on corporate worship because you get your day off but you can't spend it with other people because they've all got different days off.

[3:05] And it's kind of destroyed a lot of corporate worship. But God established Sabbath rest. And it was first established by God.

[3:17] And when you think about it mathematically, it kind of doesn't make sense. You would think that it would be every ten days or there would be no Sabbath and you take a day off when you need one.

[3:31] So how have we become overtaken the whole world, not just us, not just the Jews, but the entire world taken over by this seven-day repeating cycle?

[3:45] Why not a ten-day repeating cycle? Why even bother to have a repeating cycle? And wherever you look, and I challenge you to do the research on it, wherever you look, there is only one source of a seven-day cycle that ends in a day of rest.

[4:02] And that is the scripture. And it is God that did it. There is no other source. Whatever religion you follow, the reason every time you write the date and you say Monday the...

[4:14] You're writing Monday as an ingredient of a seven-day cycle. And in seven days, you'll write Monday again. You're not going to get to the end of the week and be writing something else because it's been established in the whole of humanity that we will observe a seven-day week.

[4:33] And whether we have religious belief or not, that says something and is a continual reminder of something. So if we turn to the book of Genesis chapter 2...

[4:46] My Bible is overused and has fallen apart, but never mind. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 2.

[4:57] By the seventh day... So this is the creation story. If you read verse 1, thus the heavens and the earth were completed and all their hosts. By the seventh day, God completed his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had done.

[5:14] Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made. So God set up the seventh day, the Sabbath day, and made it holy.

[5:30] And so when it refers to the Sabbath as a holy convocation, it's a day that God set aside, and then he required humanity to set aside.

[5:42] In fact, the Jews, because no one else at that point was involved. But his people, he required his people to set aside the Sabbath as a holy day, and to be set aside entirely for God.

[5:59] So it wasn't a day of inactivity. It wasn't... We tend to look at a rest day as a day when you put your feet up, drink lots of tea, coffee, or a beer or something, and do nothing. It wasn't a day of inactivity.

[6:11] It was a day of different activity. It was a day of activity towards God, and not towards what you would normally use your days for, which would be earning your crust. So that's the origin.

[6:26] But if we then go to the book of Exodus chapter 16, what you'll see is this is where it was applied to humanity. In Genesis, we read that God...

[6:39] We read of what God did with the seventh day. And in Exodus chapter 16, what we read is that it was applied to the human race.

[6:53] So I've messed myself up. Bear with me a moment. Come on, come to daddy. What have I done here? Somehow I've jumped about nine pages of notes. So I'm trying to get back to...

[7:04] Yes, chapter 16. So this is the story of the children of Israel going through the wilderness. And if we start at the beginning of the chapter, they set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the sons of Israel came into the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai.

[7:26] And on the 15th day of the second month, after their departure from the land of Egypt, the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. So the Sabbath was instigated at a time of grumbling, right?

[7:41] The sons of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full.

[7:52] For you have brought us out of this wilderness... Sorry, you've brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. So they're not remembering the brutal slavery that they were enduring.

[8:03] What they're remembering is the food. And I suspect the food was pretty rancid, but at least they had some food. Whereas now they're in the wilderness, and there isn't a huge supply of food anywhere.

[8:18] So reading on. Verse 4. Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them whether or not they will walk in my instruction.

[8:35] On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. So Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel, At evening you will know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, for he hears your grumblings against the Lord.

[8:57] And what are we that you grumble against us? So this is saying, look, the Lord's going to show you who he is. So one of the purposes of the Sabbath was for God to show his people who he is.

[9:11] Now, the Jews were unique in that they took a day off every seven days. Instead of being busy about their business, earning lots of money, in fact, what they soon discovered is if they didn't take a day off, they earned less money.

[9:26] They became impoverished because they didn't obey the Lord and didn't trust the Lord for his provision. But they took a whole day off, and all the pagans around them would think, What on earth are you doing that for?

[9:39] You're going to lose out. But the Jews never did lose out. Now, this celebration of the Sabbath, and sorry, before I go on to this, we'll read on a bit further.

[9:51] Verse 8. Moses said, Then Moses said to Aaron, And say to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumblings.

[10:15] It came about, as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

[10:26] And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, I have heard the grumblings of the sons of Israel speak to them, saying, At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.

[10:41] So it came about at evening that the quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew evaporated, behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, fine as the frost on the ground.

[11:00] And when the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, What is it? For they did not know what it was. Now, you know the word manna. The word manna says, What's this?

[11:12] In fact, if you've got a German Bible, any of you, you might find that the word manna is just written in the text as, What is das? So they didn't say, Oh, look, manna.

[11:27] They didn't know what manna was. So they looked and thought, What's that? And it tasted, we may read on, we may not, but it tasted like coriander seed and honey.

[11:42] We read in the scripture. So this was nice. It was a nice breakfast. And the weird thing was, they could collect a day's worth. If they collected more than a day's worth, when they came to eat it, there was only a day's worth there.

[11:55] I don't know how that works, but that was the case. Someone who collected too much finished up with the same as the one who collected too little. They all finished up with the portion. In fact, I'm sure this was God's calorie-controlled diet for them.

[12:09] Well, because they seemed to be fed just enough all the time. But they had to wait for the next day. And if they tried to keep any overnight, it would become eaten with worms and it would go moldy and stink and they had to throw it away.

[12:25] So they had to trust him. And then you'd get to the sixth day and there would be a double portion. So they didn't have to gather on the seventh day. They could just rest. And it didn't go off if they kept it overnight on the sixth day.

[12:39] And you read this and you think, this seems like a fairy tale. But the Jews today, Orthodox Jews today, do not believe it was a fairy tale. They believe God acted for them. So this cycle was established where if they trusted God, they'd be fed every day.

[12:57] They'd get a double portion on the sixth day. And then they'd go through to what we would know as the Sunday. Because now we worship on a Sunday, it would be the Monday.

[13:09] But if you see what I mean, they went through to the first day of the week. And then they'd be back to gathering a day's portion every day. And if we turn on to Exodus 20, a couple of pages to the right.

[13:23] And chapter 20 contains the 10 commandments. And the fourth commandment begins in verse 8 and says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

[13:35] So to keep it entirely devoted to God. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God.

[13:46] In it you shall do, you shall not do any work, you or your sons or your daughter, your male or your female servant, or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.

[13:56] Sojourner kind of means stranger or visitor. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day.

[14:07] And therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. So now you've got the roots of the Sabbath celebration that went on from this time for thousands of years.

[14:19] And it was, as we've just read, to remember that in six days, as the Lord made the heavens and the earth. Now, of course, it's a completely different study and it's another debate and one I'm happy to have any time.

[14:33] But modern evolutionary theory would knock this aside and say it's rubbish. I'm telling you it's not rubbish because God said it's not rubbish. And actually, if you become passionate about that subject as I am and have become, then it's actually a very easy topic to debate to anybody with an open mind.

[14:56] But that's not for this morning. They had to celebrate because God created the earth in six days and on the seventh, he rested from his labors. So much so that we don't need to turn to it unless you really want to.

[15:10] But in Numbers 15, a man went out to gather wood on the Sabbath. And when he was discovered breaking the Sabbath, he was put to death. So when you think about it, what kind of a God would we be worshipping if God didn't really create the earth in six days and applied a capital punishment to somebody that broke something that wasn't even true?

[15:35] Do you see what I mean? God says, I created it in six days. That's why you must do this. And you must never forget it. You must always do this for all of your generations forever.

[15:46] So in one sense, there was a legalistic application of the Sabbath. You had to celebrate it. You had to not work that day. Now, what they subsequently did with that is asinine, but never mind.

[15:59] God said, you must never forget that I created the earth in six days. Now, I think our culture has forgotten it because it tells us it was billions of years and it wasn't God and I'm not even going to go into it unless we extend this sermon by a few hours.

[16:17] So God's provision was very, very precise. You get everything you need, meat and bread, day in, day out, twice as much on a Friday so that on a Saturday you don't need to go gathering and you've got this enforced rest.

[16:33] And what I want to say at this point before we explore a few more things about it is that it was, although it was enforced, it was never supposed to be a burden. It was supposed to be a gift.

[16:46] It was given to man to enjoy. Get to the Sabbath and rest and spend the day with your God eating and drinking with your family and enjoying the Lord your God.

[16:58] It was supposed to be a gift. It was never supposed to be a burden. As you will see in a moment, the Jews made it a burden. The religious Jews made it a burden.

[17:10] So, what we read, if we read on, what we find is that there were people who went out on the seventh day to gather some and there wasn't any there. And we read that Moses got very angry with them for their disobedience.

[17:25] And there were also those who gathered too much because they weren't sure that there would be any there the next day and it all went rotten and got worm eaten and so on. God was making a point. In many ways, he makes the same point to us.

[17:38] We're supposed to trust him. So, this whole idea of one day's rest in seven was clearly God's idea. There's no other place you will find a source of it. And I said they were unique because they had this day off every week.

[17:53] It's another study, really, but they also celebrated a Sabbath year. So, once every seven years, they took a year off and trusted that God would provide. And then, halfway through the 49th year, up to halfway through the 50th year, they celebrated the Jubilee.

[18:13] You'll find that in Leviticus 25, verses 1 to 22. They celebrated the Jubilee year. So, they had a year and a half where they did no work to produce crops for themselves.

[18:26] And what you read in the scripture is that God gave them three years' worth of harvest to take them through this period. Utterly miraculous. And so, this early Jewish community got used to living in the miraculous provision of God.

[18:43] Nevertheless, they disobeyed him, rebelled against him and all sorts of things. But, he provided for them. And in a completely different way, he's providing for them today. Everybody's trying to blow them off the face of the earth and they can't succeed.

[18:57] Tiny little postage stamp of a country and God's looking after it still. Now, the simplicity of the Sabbath, it's important for us to grasp this.

[19:08] The simplicity of the Sabbath was, whatever you normally do, don't do it. If you're a carpenter, don't work wood. If you're a farmer, don't dig the soil. You know, in today's, if you were a Jew today and if it applied today, if you were a car mechanic, you wouldn't fix any cars on a Sunday.

[19:26] It's just, whatever you normally do, your normal work, customary work, that's what you don't do. And you weren't supposed to need to prepare food because God had already prepared the food and made sure you had it on the sixth day.

[19:42] So you had nothing that you had to do, but it wasn't a prohibition of doing anything and everything. It was just so you could have time with your God and with one another.

[19:55] Now, the religious Jews had this fear of transgressing God's law and it's kind of understandable when you read what happened in Numbers 15, verses 32 to 41, where this guy got put to death for breaking the Sabbath.

[20:09] Exodus 31, if you turn over a few pages, verse 12, start at verse 12, the key verse is 14, I think, but the Lord spoke to Moses saying, but as for you, speak to the sons of Israel saying, you shall surely observe my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations.

[20:31] The Sabbath was a sign, the fact that I can take a day off and not find myself financially depleted, the fact that I could take a year off in seven, the fact that I can take 18 months off every seven years, the fact that I could do all these things, is a sign between us and God that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you.

[20:53] Therefore, you are to observe the Sabbath for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death for whoever does any work, and by that it means customary work, not if you shine your shoes or something like that, but if you go out and do what you normally do, everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death, for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people, for six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord, whoever does any work on the Sabbath shall surely be put to death.

[21:30] So the sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath to celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the sons of Israel forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he ceased from labor and was refreshed.

[21:50] So the whole tenor of what we've just read, yeah, make sure you celebrate it, but it's a celebration. It's not, oh no, I can't do anything today, it's the Sabbath.

[22:01] It's a celebration. God will meet with you this day. What better reason to celebrate something? It was for celebration, not for burden.

[22:13] It was a blessing to enjoy, not a burden to carry. So men get their hands on this and what they do is they try to ring fence the law. Oh gosh, people get put to death if they disobey this law.

[22:25] So what we'll do is we'll put extra laws in place so that if we obey these extra laws, we can't even get close to obeying the main law, the real law.

[22:36] So they wrote, I think it's 1500 and something rules about the Sabbath, right? We start off with, don't do any work, right? That's the rule, one rule really, don't do any work.

[22:49] We finish up with 1500 because people think, how can I? Now there are two drivers for this. One is we want to control people.

[23:00] So if I want control over you and I know pastors who do this in churches, you're not doing that on the Lord's Day, are you? You know, there's a kind of a, an oppressive oversight which shouldn't be there.

[23:13] But then the other reason is fear. They've read Numbers 15 and they don't want to get into that. So they want to protect themselves from overstepping the law. So they came up with a list of rules and whole books are written about it in the days.

[23:30] Things like walking limits. The rabbi said, if you walked any further than 2000 cubits, which is just over half a mile, you were in sin.

[23:41] You were breaking the Sabbath. Now God never said that. So what they then did was they tried to find ways around this. So if they wanted to go further than half a mile on the Sabbath, they would register a new address and they'd have their food prepared for the Sabbath at the new address so that they could walk from their own address to the new address to eat the food and then walk on another half mile.

[24:07] But this is burdensome. Healing and medicine. Only life-threatening illnesses could be treated on the Sabbath. So you couldn't apply ointment.

[24:18] You couldn't set a broken bone unless it was life-threatening. You couldn't cook or prepare food. Now that's in a way fair enough. But all meals had to be prepared in advance.

[24:30] In a way that's fair enough because that was God provided extra food so you wouldn't need to prepare food on the Sabbath. Pouring hot water on herbs was considered cooking. I want to wash these herbs.

[24:41] I just poured my kettle of water. Oh, you're breaking the Sabbath. You're working. Carrying items between the private and the public domain was forbidden because that's work, apparently.

[24:53] So even if you're carrying a child from one house to another, you're breaking the Sabbath. Mommy, carry. No, sorry, can't. You've got to walk. It's the Sabbath.

[25:06] It's just nuts, isn't it? Writing. If you wrote more than two letters, you were breaking the Sabbath. The crazy thing was you could write a letter on one wall and you could write another letter on another wall but you couldn't write two letters on one wall because that would break the Sabbath.

[25:23] This is how finicky it got. It's absolutely ludicrous. You could cut a single fig to eat it but if it turned out to be off and you think, oh, that's not very nice. I'll get another one. No, no, no.

[25:34] You can't pick a second one because you're breaking the Sabbath. So these were the crazy things. They added to the law to stop you breaking the actual law and so you're not allowed to do anything that resembles a prohibited act or could be confused with it or engage in a habit linked with a prohibited act because that normally leads to performing the prohibited act if you see what I mean.

[26:07] It was just nuts. You couldn't enter into a contract on the Sabbath because normally if you entered into a contract you'd have to sign the contract and that's writing and you're not allowed to write on the Sabbath because that is in some way work.

[26:22] They tied themselves in knots adding fresh water to a vase of cut flowers. You might be sewing. If you make a bouquet of flowers on the Sabbath then maybe you're making a sheaf.

[26:36] It was just all mad and I'm not going to go on anymore. If you get the notes, there are... Oh, by the way, ladies, applying makeup on the Sabbath was forbidden because that was dying and that work. And that's dying as in colouring, not dying as in...

[26:49] You couldn't braid the hair. You couldn't draw blood for blood testing. You couldn't rub soap or make a lather.

[27:00] It was just mad. Oh, enough's enough. Let's move on. Turn to Mark 2. And this is where the point is made in the Bible that the Sabbath was never intended to be this legalistic burden.

[27:18] Mark chapter 2 and the key verses are verses 23. to 28. So this is Jesus in the fields with his disciples on the Sabbath.

[27:30] And it happened that he was passing through the grain fields on the Sabbath and his disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. The Pharisees were saying to him, Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

[27:44] And he said to them, Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry and how he entered into the house of God in the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priest.

[28:01] But he also gave it to those who were with him. So Jesus is saying, Look, there's a hierarchy here and human life is more important.

[28:11] And David ate the consecrated bread because they were hungry and they needed it. And that superseded the fact that normally speaking, that bread was prohibited. So he was saying, You've got the Sabbath all wrong.

[28:26] And then he said to them in verse 27, The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. So a couple of things here.

[28:37] The first thing he's saying is, This is never supposed to be a burden. The Sabbath was given to man. Man wasn't given to the Sabbath. It wasn't ever supposed to be a burden to keep the Sabbath.

[28:48] The Sabbath was a gift. But then he says, The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. A useful verse when people say to you, Jesus never ever claimed to be God.

[29:00] Because we've already read in Exodus and in Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 to 3 that God was the author of the Sabbath.

[29:11] And when he says the Son of Man referring to himself was Lord of the Sabbath, he's saying, The Sabbath's mine. Don't tell me what to do with the Sabbath. I invented it.

[29:23] It's a direct claim to be God. Now, of course, what they were doing, so they were wandering through the grain fields picking heads of grain. That was a perfectly legal thing for them to do.

[29:35] You were allowed in Israel to do that. If you were hungry, you could walk through a grain field and you could pick enough heads of grain and eat them. And there was nothing illegal about that on every other day apart from the Sabbath.

[29:47] And it was only illegal on the Sabbath because they'd written these extra rules. But their reasoning was this. If you take the head of the grain, that's reaping. That's work.

[29:57] And therefore, you're breaking the Sabbath. And then when you rub the grain in your hands to get the husks off the grain, that's winnowing. And that's work too. And if any of those grains fall from your hands and land on the floor, that's sowing and that's work.

[30:15] So you're breaking the Sabbath. This is why they're saying, why are they doing what's not lawful on the Sabbath? And Jesus straightens the mountain and says, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

[30:27] This is not why the Sabbath was given is the gist of what he was saying. And in it, he made this claim to be God. And of course, having done that, he gets accused of blasphemy and that is in the end why they killed him because they said he was blaspheming.

[30:46] But he wasn't. He was saying, look, you're reading the wrong law. You're reading a law made by man, not the law made by God. So, having instituted the Sabbath, what does the Sabbath say to us overall?

[31:03] Adam, before the fall, was in perfect rest with God. He could have regular discourse with God. There was no barrier. There was no problem. It was easy.

[31:15] Then we have Genesis chapter 3, the fall of man. And this barrier exists from then right the way through to the crucifixion. when the veil in the temple was torn in two.

[31:26] There is a barrier that stops men from fellowshipping with God. So, what are we rehearsing for with the Sabbath? We're rehearsing for the day when rest will be restored.

[31:37] We are always proceeding from rest to rest through a period of something. right? We have a rest this week and then we've got work and then we've got a rest coming.

[31:48] So, we're always looking ahead to a rest coming and we're coming from a rest in the past. And that's the sort of prophetic journey that's expressed in the Sabbath. And I want to add in a sort of strange ingredient really.

[32:03] Go to 2 Peter, 2 Peter, chapter 3, and verse 8. Now, I'm including this.

[32:13] It's a passage that would be argued over. So, don't take my word for it. But what I'm about to say, Irenaeus, Polycarp and the epistle of Barnabas all agree with.

[32:25] So, it's not just Ray out on a frolic of his own. There are many old church fathers who agreed with this sentiment. And in verse 8 it says, but do not let this one fact escape your notice beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.

[32:44] And if you apply the Sabbath rule to this, then there is likely to be a one thousand year rest day to come. And I would suggest that that is the millennium.

[32:58] Now, it's not a straightforward scripture that nobody argues over. People argue over this scripture all the time. But to me, it fits the pattern. Right? You've got the Sabbath established.

[33:09] You've got it established in the week, in the seven years, in the Jubilee. And I think Peter's comment here allies it with the millennium period as well.

[33:22] And so, what are we rehearsing for? We're rehearsing for a time when there will be nothing but rest. The biblical kind of rest. Not in activity, but peace and harmony and fellowship and delightful times with the Lord.

[33:38] That's what we're rehearsing for when we celebrate the Sabbath, which later on, of course, became Sunday for the Christian church, which then leads on to another question.

[33:51] Should we continue to celebrate the Sabbath? And you will find in the church all sorts of opinions. you'll find the Seventh-day Adventists who would say, absolutely we should.

[34:01] They still meet on a Saturday and their reasoning is that all the other commandments of the Ten Commandments are still being kept, so we should be keeping this one as well.

[34:13] And you could have some sympathy with that. And to be honest, I'd rather they met every Saturday than didn't meet at all. I don't think they're correct, but nevertheless, you can kind of understand how they got there.

[34:27] But I think this, there is at least a partial fulfillment of the Sabbath in Jesus' first coming. He came and the one thing that stopped people from fellowshipping with God was sin.

[34:41] And he paid for sin. And when he hung on the cross, he shouted, it is finished. Tetelestai, paid in full. It's done. So we now live in God's permanent Sabbath because we can be at rest with God whenever we want.

[34:57] And so we should have a lifestyle that looks like Sabbath rest. And so I don't think we need to celebrate the Sabbath. Now, having said that, of course, a day's rest in seven makes absolute sense.

[35:09] It's very bad for your health to just work, work, work, work, work. And it also makes perfect sense to have your day of rest at the same time as everybody else so that you can indulge in corporate worship.

[35:20] These are beneficial. They're not laws. There are lots of denominations that say that they won't do anything on the Lord's Day and they designate the Lord's Day as a Sunday.

[35:34] No, sorry, not on the Lord's Day. And you think they're applying a legal standard that is long since gone. So I don't think, I don't think there's a need for a legalistic rule.

[35:50] Everybody must come to church on a Sunday. Now, I wish they would. There are a few people who we're praying for who claim to be part of this church and hardly ever show up. And it's sad that that's the case.

[36:03] But they're not breaking any rules. Or maybe if it goes on they are breaking another rule which is written in the book of Hebrews which said we shouldn't set aside fellowshipping together.

[36:16] Do not forsake. It's in Hebrews 10 verse 25. Do not forsake fellowshipping together as is the habit of some. But this is advice. It's not a rigid rule.

[36:29] It's not a commandment. It's basically if you don't get some fellowship you're going to die. Your faith will dwindle. You will be like that coal that's been taken out of the fire and it will go cold and black while the fire carries on roaring.

[36:42] You would be doing something that is bad for you if you stop fellowshipping together. But as far as I can see setting aside a day for the Lord should be a matter of the heart not a matter of legal compliance.

[36:57] We should do it because we love him and I should do it with you because I love you and therefore people who love one another coming into the presence of the Lord who they all love is the way the Lord would have it happen rather than I suppose I better go to church.

[37:14] It is a rule after all. It isn't a rule after all. And that's me done. So Father thank you. Thank you that you gave the Sabbath as an example to us as an emblem for how we should rest in you and how we should rely on your provision.

[37:32] And Lord I thank you that in this room there are many testimonies of times when we've been able to do nothing but throw ourselves on your mercy and your provision and you have seen us through.

[37:44] And we thank you for that. And we thank you for the fact that we can rejoice over that and we can tell the world about that. Father thank you for all of the word you've shared with us through the studies on the feasts.

[37:58] And I pray that we would all remember and live in the good of what we've learned from the feasts. Each of them speaking of a time to come. There is this time to come when we will live in God's eternal rest and there will be no evil and there will be no night there and there will be no sin and no sickness and no pain.

[38:21]  And may our Lord's Day celebrations be a rehearsal for that time. In Jesus name. Amen.