I want to look with you today at the words of the moral law of God concerning the Sabbath day. I have shown you last Lord's Day how it has carefully been placed in the Decalogue, how it has been put in the first table of the commandments along with the other three. that it belongs as part of our duty to God. The first table is all about God. It is all about our worship of God. And so the first commandment reminds us that we are to worship God only, the living and true God. The second commandment reminds us about the manner in which we are to worship him. That is in spirit, without imagery, without material things, but in spirit. having no idols. And then thirdly, the third commandment is how we are to worship him in truth, not taking his name in vain, not speaking of him falsely, but worshipping him in truth, in sincerity. And I remind you of the words of the Lord Jesus, how he really expounded those first three commandments. God is a spirit. They that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. That's just the Lord's commentary on the first three commandments. But then the fourth commandment reminds us that we must give time to worship him. You see, we are a busy people. We have things to do on earth. God could be crowded out. And so God has given a moral law. He's not to be crowded out. He requires time. And so he commands a day wherein we are to worship him. And so he says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. So this is a claim upon our time God claims a seventh portion of human life. All other time is secular. All other time can be used in work, but the seventh portion of our time is holy and is not secular. And so like the second commandment and the third commandment, this fourth commandment is divided into two parts. And it's divided by that little word for, in verse 11. In verses 8 to 10, then we have the first part, which is the commandment, the regulation. And then in verse 11, we have the reason for, the reason why we should keep the commandment. And that's how I want to break it down today, as I did with the previous two commandments. We want to look at the regulation, first of all, the requirement, the command itself. And then we want to look at the reason that God gives us why we should keep this commandment. So the regulation, first of all, verses 8 through to 10, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now, this command is very interesting. It's very interesting. I've also drawn some of the things that I said last week. I'll not repeat. But there's one thing that I didn't mention last week. It's very interesting. because it's very unlike the other commandments in this regard. What stands out is that there is a positive and a negative injunction in this commandment. And that's unusual. Usually it's just negative. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not kill. It's usually negative. Once it's positive, honour thy father and thy mother. That's positive commandment. So, mostly negative, some positive, but this commandment is different. It's both positive and negative. It says, remember the Sabbath day, six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work. The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. That's all positive. But then the negative, in it, thou shalt not do any work. So there's a negative there as well, as well as a positive, and that's interesting. And that shows us all the more how important it is. Now, as I said in the past, if it's negative, the positive is implied, and if it's positive, the negatives of it is implied. When it says honour your father, it implies don't dishonour him, the negative is implied. But what we have in this commandment is the positive and negative both stated. You don't have to draw one by implication. They're both stated. And if God is stating them both, not just allowing us to draw forth by implication, which we can do with the Word of God, He really wants to hammer it home. He really wants to get it into our minds. So he states it positively, he states it negatively, this regulation, and that's how we want to look at this regulation this morning, both positively and negatively. Positively, first of all, in the first two verses, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, six days help thy labour and do all thy work. That's positive. And the first word is remember. I said last week that this was the only occurrence of this word in the Decalogue, in this commandment. Remember, the Lord says remember, that's a very important word. He's saying keep it in your memory, keep it in your mind, don't let it slip out, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget about the Sabbath. I want to think about this word remember, it's a very important word in this commandment and it teaches us three things. It teaches us, first of all, what our sinful, depraved hearts are prone to do. It teaches us what we will be inclined to do. We'll be inclined to forget it. We'll be inclined to forget God's day. We will be sitting at ease at some part of it, and we'll be inclined to forget it. Or we might go off on our holidays, and we'll be inclined to forget it. what happens. And because God knows that proneness, he says, remember, remember. You know what it's like, you're going out the door, perhaps your wife has already told you to get something at the shop, this, that and the other, and well she knows your head and you'll come back without it. But as you go out the door as a last minute reminder, she'll say, remember, remember, And it helps you to remember whenever you'll be prone to forget. And we're like that with the Lord. The Lord knows we're prone to forget this. And so he says, remember. And we have the evidence of this forgetfulness of this day, don't we, all around us. This forgetfulness of this day is so evident in Christendom. Those professing the Christian religion, but still working and shopping on this day like other days. still buying and selling and doing secular activities as on other occasions. And in fact, as I said last week, there's even certain sections of the Christian church who have taught that this day is no longer to be kept, it is no longer to be remembered, and in actual fact, and they even teach this, you can forget about it now. Well, God has nearly predicted that that will happen and he says, remember, remember, It's not to be forgotten about. And so this word reminds us of our proneness to do that. It also tells us God will not allow those who will listen to his word to be misled about this matter. God will not let us forget about his day. He will come and he will say, remember. And child of God, this has often happened to us, has it not? We have this bird of God in us. We have the word of God dwelling richly in us. And sometimes the thought may come to us, oh we'll do this, but then the word comes and it says, remember. And we do remember. And it stops us doing that because the Lord does bring it in. And he calls us to account. And we don't forget that it's his day. Hasn't that happened to you often? I'm sure it has. And that's what God wants. He wants you to remember and so this word will come in. It will come in and will bring us back to the sacredness of the day and how we should behave in it. And the Lord won't let us get away with desecrating it. And so he will gently say to us by his Holy Spirit, remember. But then thirdly, It tells us that this day is not something new to Israel. This word implies that this day has already been known about. It has already been in the calendar of the people of God. He doesn't come along and say, now I'm going to make you a new day and I want you to keep it. No, he doesn't say that. He says, remember the Sabbath day. You already know about it. But you're prone to forget about it. And what this commandment is, is to say, don't forget about it. It's not a new commandment bringing something up absolutely new. It's not. It's not for the Jew. It's not for the Hebrews and Sinai as something new. No, it's a remembrance of something that's old. Along with all the rest of the commandments, it was never right for anybody to kill. It was never right for anybody to stay. It was never right to bow down to idols. It was never right to forget God's holy day. And so this is a reminder to us that it is a commandment that goes back to the beginning of the human race. That it's not something just for the Jew. It's for the whole human race. And God's people are not to forget it. The human race has forgotten it. Mankind has forgotten it. But I'm the Lord your God and you'll remember it, my people. So the people of God have to remember it. Even though the human race will not. And so I think that's what we can draw forth from this word remember. Now, what exactly is it that we are to remember? Let's carefully attend to the words of God himself. The Lord says, remember the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day. Now, what's that? Let's think about the words. We're called to remember the Sabbath day. The Jews pronounce it, and this is the Hebrew pronunciation of it, they pronounce it Shabbat. Shabbat, the Shabbat. So what is it that we are to remember? It is this Shabbat, this Sabbath. And what does it mean? Well, what does the word mean? Well, the word is a Hebrew word. It comes from a Hebrew verb, and the Hebrew verb means to cease, to desist, to stop your work, to finish your work. and to rest from your work. That's what it means to desist from activity, to stop it. It's the Shabbat, you stop, you cease, you rest from your labour. You are to consider your task on this day as finished. This day is called that because on it the people of God are to desist from their ordinary everyday activity. You are to cease secular activities. You are to rest from them. Now that doesn't mean you lie in bed all day. That's not what the word rest means. It means that you rest from your secular labours. You rest from your buying and selling, your producing, or whatever. It means that you stop those things that you may give the whole day to God, to the worship of God. It means rest from the six days of ordinary labor to allow a day for God. That's what it means. Now verse 9 explains that because this is explaining the word Sabbath. Six days thou shalt labour and do all thy work. You have six days and then you desist. It's a Sabbath on the seventh day. Six days thou shalt labour and do all your work. make your money, plant your crops, sell your products, make your products, so on and so forth, but then on this day you desist from that. Now of course there are works of necessity and mercy. We know that. This commandment does not forbid that, as our Lord Jesus Christ himself clearly taught us in the Gospels. that mercy can be exercised on that day and that there is the necessity of helping those in need and things like that. But the commandment is talking about secular work, lawful pleasures and amusements are included with this as well. The regular routine of life, things that you have to do every day, even the leisure and the pleasure activities, That's included in the desisting of this working week at the end of it. And so, there's something else then. We are to keep it holy. Remember the Sabbath day, six days you'll labour, do all your work, you desist at the end of that, and then the Sabbath day, and what are you to do about the Sabbath day? We're looking at the commandment, we're looking at the regulation, you're to keep it holy. You're to keep it holy. This is a day of desisting from labour. Why? Why does God want us to stop from our labour? To keep a day holy. He doesn't want us to stop from our labour so we can sit at home and put our feet up and do nothing. That's not what rest is, the Sabbath rest. The six days you can do all you like but there's a day and it's a holy day. And you're to keep it holy. What does that mean, to keep it holy? Well, if something is made holy, it means it is set apart for the Lord. If something is made holy, it means it's set apart for a holy use, and it's only for a holy use. In the temple, everything was holy, because everything was for God, and everything was for a holy use. The vessels, Oh, there were plenty of vessels in the temple. There were cups, there were knives, there were all kinds of things, but they were all holy vessels. They were for God. They were to be used by the priests in holy work, in religious work, in worship. There were garments in the temple. They were holy garments. The priest couldn't put on his holy garments and go down to the supermarket and do his shopping in them. No, they were for the worship of God. They were holy. They were for the temple. They were sacred. They were to be used for God. And there were holy vessels, and there were holy garments, and everything else. What's the difference between a holy spoon and a secular spoon? There's no difference. If you just look at the spoon, both are made of gold, perhaps. Both are the same size. Both cost the same amount of money. But one of them was holy because you could only use it in God's house. You could only use it for God. Now, of course, if an emergency arose and you had to give a life-saving medicine to someone in the temple and there wasn't a secular spoon at hand, you could take a holy spoon and you could administer the life-saving medicine with the use of a holy spoon because that would be mercy and necessity. The holiness of things did not override mercy and necessity. That's how David could eat the shoe bread. Even though he couldn't normally, the priests had to eat it as a religious worship to God. It was for them to feed the ministers in the temple. But David come along, he was famished, there was a great necessity, it was seen, it was evident, and they let him take up the shoe bread, which normally you couldn't do because it was a mercy there. It was a mercy there. And so it doesn't mean that you can't administer mercy and necessity. But what we're saying is, barring all of that, it's God's day. It's holy. It's sacred. It's to be kept for the Lord. It's for God. You can't keep it like a secular day. It's different. It's the day for worship. It's the day for God's house. It's the day for more time for the Word of God. It's a day to keep it for God. Keep it holy. Keep it for the sacred worship which is in the first table. All that sacred worship in the first table. Worship me. Worship me alone. Speak of me with reverence and truth and sincerity and pray and call upon my name and speak my name and do that all. on this holy day. That's what it means. God requires this of us people of God. This is what God wants for you and for me and there's no excuse. This is your calling and mine to keep this day holy. So we've looked at verses 8 and 9. Verses 8 and 9 could have been enough to regulate the command. But then you see that there are two very large verses after it, aren't they? Verses 10 and 11. He could have stopped at the end of verse 9, but no, the Lord really wants to hammer it home. And he says some more things about the Sabbath. So let's go down here. God is adding line upon line, line upon line, and we have to look at every line and let it sink into our hearts so that we will be obedient unto the Holy Commandment. Because he knows we're going to be slothful here, He knows we're not going to be prone to do this, and so he adds line upon line to hammer it home. And if you love the Lord, child of God, you'll be listening to every word of God. You'll be taking to your heart every line, every line that the Lord has to say to me. And so, verse 10 explains it a wee bit more, doesn't it? You see, the day is not ours. It's a Sabbath day. We're to keep it holy. We're to desist from our labours. But there's something else about this day in verse 10. The seventh day is the Shabbat of the Lord thy God. That's something new, isn't it? It belongs to God. It's God's day. It's the Lord's day. It's the Sabbath day of the Lord thy God. It's His day. It's not your day. It's not my day. It's God's day. The day of the Lord thy God. He's telling us something about this day. It's his. It belongs to him. It's not yours. Why does he tell us this? You know why? Because God doesn't want us to steal from him. That's why. He's telling us He owns this day. Don't steal it. You can rob God, you know. Where in have we robbed you? The Word of God says, but you can rob God. This is God's day. You can take it off Him. You can take it off Him and keep it for yourself and do your own thing and have your seven day week. Yes, you can. You can do that. That's what the world does. But they rob God all the time. But the people of God shouldn't be stealing from God. It's His day. It's His day. It's the day of the Lord thy God. He owns it. He's the proprietor of it. And it's a wonderful day. Why would you want to steal it? It's the Lord's wonderful day. He is the sovereign and proprietor of it. Who is this? Do you not hear the words of Jesus? I quoted them last week. The Son of Man is the Lord of Shabbat. This is Jesus. This is Jesus Christ. Did he say after that, the Son of Man is the Lord of the Shabbat, and now I'm going to throw it in the dust heap of ancient archaeology? Did he say that? He did not say that. He said, I am that Lord. The Son of Man, Emmanuel, the One who came down and was incarnate and manifest in the flesh and who died on the cross to save us from our sins. It is that Lord who said, I am the Lord Shabbat. It's still His day. If He has taken it from us, He has yet to show us. He might see fit to change the day. But if he does, in time he will reveal that to us, and he will show us that it is a new day, another day. And we know that he has done that. But the Sabbath principle remains the same, a day to desist from labors. And while our Sabbath is a Sunday, we do not hesitate to call it that. But whether you call it that or not, it is still this, the day of the Lord, the Lord's day. The day in which John the Apostle was in the spirit, that was a well-marked day in the calendar of the Christian church. He was in Patmos. He would have liked to be in Ephesus or Sardis. or Philadelphia or these other places. He was thinking about them as he was alone in Patmos. He couldn't get out to any of those congregations, but he was keeping his holy day. And the Lord visited him on that day. And he showed himself in the midst of all the churches on that day. And he was also with his ostracized and exiled servant on that day too. Because John was keeping that day. You must not miss the possessive pronoun. The Sabbath of the Lord thy God. I want you to notice negatively stated then. In it thou shalt not do any work. It's already been said six days labour then desist. But now it is negatively emphasised. God really wants to hammer it home doesn't he? He doesn't want us to misunderstand him. In it thou shalt not do any work. any work—not your shopping, not your selling, not your earning, not your buying—in it thou shalt not do any work. It's the Lord's day. It's a day for worship, for God. And the commandment not only extends to the but it extends to all that he is responsible for. Perhaps as a head of a house, he's responsible for his children, to see that they keep this day, to see that they worship God. He can't change their hearts, but he can regulate their lives. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son. nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, not even your beasts. It extends to the man's children as long as they are under the roof of his house. We are responsible for what goes on in our homes, and God will hold us responsible as Sabbath desecration should not be allowed under our roof. We come now to the reasons. Verse 11, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth. Some reasons have already been implied. We've looked at them. There's a fairness of this all, first of all, for a start. God has given us six days. Isn't that wonderful? The Lord's not a hard taskmaster. He's given us six days. This is only fair that the Lord has won. It's only fair that the Lord has won. Isn't it a wonderful thing? Isn't he a kind master? He could have took every day of us. And that is get our work done when we should be sleeping. He could have been cruel. He could have been a taskmaster. He could have been like the Egyptian masters. But he is so good and so fair. This is my day, he says. He's not coming here cruelly. He says, I'll give you six days. And then he just kindly says, this is my day. Give me a day. Give me a day. Don't I love you? Aren't you my child? Haven't I made you? Haven't I bought you with my blood? Surely you can give me a day. As I said, he not only says and implies these things, but he gives this very, very important reason. And the reason is an example. He says, I've set you an example. He brings us back to the beginning. He says, in six days I made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and then I ceased from my labours, and I didn't wind the week up then. No, I left one day. Before we start the whole cycle again, I left one day. Why did I leave one day? To give us an example. That's why. To provide a pattern for us. You see, children should imitate the Father. The Bible says that. Be you imitators or followers of God as dear children. Imitate your Father. And in this matter, our Heavenly Father has given us an example to imitate. You see, He could have made the world in one day. He could have just said, world be the way I want it, and it could have been just the way He wanted it in a minute. But He didn't do that. He instituted a week. And he gave a pattern. He said, I'm going to make the world in a week. I'm going to give a pattern for my creatures, for that wonderful mankind that I'm going to make. I'm going to give them a wonderful pattern that I want them to keep. So I'm going to build that pattern into the very fabric of the universe. I'm going to give them a working week. It'll even be in the very cycle of the planets. And... I've set an example myself. So I have a working day one, I have a working day two, and I'll have a working day six. And at the very end of working day six, I'll make man himself the very last. And then the first whole day that man will have, I'm going to give it to be a day with me when I will not be working. But desisting from my labors, I will spend it with him in the garden. and spend it with him in the garden. That first day of man. That first full day. The Shabbat. And so God has set a pattern. We will not go to Genesis. We haven't time to do that. But to me this is a reason, brethren and sisters, there's no answer for this. You can't say the Shabbat is only for the Jew. It was for Adam. Was Adam a Jew? He certainly wasn't. He was the root of humanity. That's what Adam was. And this day was not only made for Adam, it was made for him as the root of the human race. As the Lord Jesus expounded it, the Shabbat is made for mankind. There's no answer to that. What evangelical would dare stand in the pulpit and say there is no more Lord's Day? And so you can write over this, the imitators of God. He kept it. But secondly, not only was there the ceasing from divine labour and finishing the work, the Lord did something else to that day as well. Because he distinguished it in a marvellous way. It says there At the end of verse 11, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Now this is something more than just his example and pattern. He really did something to the day. He distinguished it. He put, as it were, power into it. He made it a blessed day. He made it a special day. He did something positive about the day, so that this day has divinely distinguishing features. The sovereign of the whole week, as it were, and all the seven days, has made this day a princely day above all the rest. And God himself thus describes the distinguishing features in a two-fold manner. He blessed it. He hallowed it. or he consecrated it meritfully. What does that mean then? Well this was done not just for the first Shabbat, which Adam and Saul, but this is also the weekly Sabbath. This is something that carries with it every week. Every week it has this blessedness. Every week it has this hallowedness. And this is another reason to keep it. We're looking at the reasons why we should keep this day. Well, here's a reason. Here's a reason. Not only do you have the example, you have the very fact that it's consecrated, that it's set aside for the worship of God. It has a religious purpose. For that reason you're to keep it. And then it's been blessed. It's a blessed day. It's a wonderfully blessed day. That's a reason to keep it as well. Divine favours follow it. divine fevers are in it, it will bring you blessing, it will bring you health, it will bring you life. You know what I feel one of the greatest causes of ill health in our society, and one of the causes why men expose themselves so much more to the possibility of death, is they don't keep the Sabbath. They wear themselves out by not keeping Sabbath. They expose themselves to I'm not going to go down this avenue, but it's true, because this day has a blessing on it. A blessing that even reaches to your body, but especially to your soul. It has a blessedness about it. What blessedness Sabbath has brought to humanity. Tongue can never tell the blessedness that this day has brought to the human race. The Spirit moves every day. The Spirit works every day. But me thinks He especially moves on the Lord's day. The Spirit of God saves sinners every day, but methinks he especially saves on the Lord's day. Methinks Christians grow every day of the week, but they especially sprout on this blessed day. It's the blessed day. It's even a means of grace. We could even call the Sabbath day a means of grace if it's well kept. O God's smile is upon you as you observe it. His throne is upon you if you don't. This day will prolong your life. This day will bless your soul. This day is a pillar of the Christian religion. It is a strength in the Christian church. It is what our enemies seek to pull away from us. And knowing fine rightly that the very citadel of the Christian faith will collapse if it's robbed of this day. Because nobody then will worship Jesus the way he should be worshipped without his day. Do you remember the two on the Emmaus road? What day was that, you ask? It was this very day, the Lord's day that we speak of. how the Savior met them, how he brought the word to them, how their hearts burned within them. Do you remember, as I've said, John on Patmos? What sights he saw, what blessedness he experienced? Why, why, it was the Lord's day and he was keeping it, consecrating it, even though he was alone on Patmos. Let us keep Sabbath then, brethren and sisters, and he will bless us. He will greatly bless us and we will bless him more and more. Finally, does not this commandment convict us of our sin? By the law, as I have said often in the past, is the knowledge of sin. How many desecrate themselves. My unconverted fellow sinner, how many desecrated Sabbaths do you have? How many weeks and never a day for God? Do you not by this law feel your sinfulness? We all should. Every one of us are Sabbath desecrators. It convicts us of sin and thus it drives us to the only remedy, Jesus Christ. For I do not preach this commandment for your salvation or as your Savior, but I preach this commandment as a means of convicting you to drive you to Jesus Christ, the only Savior, to be washed in his mighty blood, to be cleansed from your vile sins through his grace. Come to Jesus, you Sabbath desecrator. you forgetter of God's day. Come to Jesus and he will forgive your sins and he will write this law in your heart and you'll want to keep it.