The fourth in the series this morning, what was the first? Pardon? Study, what was the second? Keep, what was the third? Listen, well done, you remember. I can see that a little bit of sarcasm works now and then. Okay, so turn with me to Exodus chapter 20, please. At the same time, put your finger in Isaiah 58. Exodus 20 and verse 8. 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 to the Lord, your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Amen. And turn with me to Isaiah 58 and verse 13. Isaiah 58 verse 13, if you turn your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable, if you honor it, not going your own ways or seeking your own pleasure or talking idly, Then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth. I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. I just noticed there, you will ride on the heights of the earth. Are you doing that? Do you feel you're doing that? If not, maybe the reason is in that reading. One thing, remember, remember, remember the Sabbath. Now have you ever wondered why God begins this commandment with the word remember and not the usual do not? Why does he say remember the Sabbath and not do not break the Sabbath? Well I reckon It is because God knew that Israel would forget this commandment. And that's also why I read that passage from Isaiah, because Israel had indeed already forgotten it. And sadly, most Christians today also seem to have forgotten it. Yet there's every reason for us to remember it. After all, it's such a blessing. And that passage says, we shall ride on the heights of the earth. It's a blessing, it was made for us. And not just as a reminder of the six days of creation and God's rest in afterward, but for our rest and for our blessing and for our good. So number one, Let's remember, I know this sounds silly, but let's remember that there are 10 commandments. How many? How many? Thank you. Then why are you not keeping them? Do I need to list them? Do we know them? Have we forgotten them? Or have we ever even learned them? Now remember, I've told you this story about Tenerife when I was first saved. I'd been there a few months and a man came and he said, I'm going to preach on the Ten Commandments. And he said, what are they? And the church was silent. And there was me, a new Christian for three or four months. And I was sat there mortified. I thought, how do I not know the Ten Commandments? But then I actually looked around and thought, why are the elders and the preachers and the deacons here, why have they not got their hands up? And I was even more mortified that they didn't know them. And I was determined to learn them. I was so ashamed, but more ashamed that it seems that those people who were given charge to teach us, they didn't know them. And I wonder, you know, how many of us have ever thought about that? How many of you? Some of you seniors were here when I did a series on the Ten Commandments. I wonder if you've remembered them. Now is it because you don't think they are important? You know, God thought them so important that he personally engraved them in stone himself. The passage in the Bible tells us that God engraved them with his finger. I don't know if he does have a finger, but he did it. That's what the Bible says. Not on a paper with pencils so that they could be rubbed out and amended, no. Not on a blackboard with chalk so that they could be rubbed off, no. They were on stone, etched in by his finger, all 10. So they couldn't be changed or forgotten. Yet they are forgotten, aren't they? They are forgotten, or they're unknown. And I think many in the West know that it should be kept that Sunday is special, but they ignore this commandment. And they use a number of excuses to get out of keeping it. They say it's no longer applicable under the new covenant. Well, I say that all the others are, so why not this one? They say we have the Lord's Day and no longer the Sabbath. Well, I say that the principle is still applicable as Sabbath doesn't mean the seventh day, it means one in seven. And the Lord's Day is one in seven. They say, well some say that Jesus sets us free from the commandments because he's fulfilled them, that's true. But I also say that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. And he says that in three places, in Mark, in Matthew and in Luke. And Jesus kept the Sabbath. If we read in Luke 4, it says, he went into the synagogue as was his custom on the Sabbath day. He made a custom of it, a habit. His custom was to be in church on the Saturday. If he was around now, he'd be there on the Sunday and to do good. And you might say, well, I was in church this morning, on this Sunday morning, and I would say, yes, but it's the Lord's day, not just the morning or the Lord's hour. And let me ask you lastly, what else have you got that is better? than this, the meeting together and singing the praises of God and fellowshipping together and hearing the teaching of the word, being fed by the word. What else have you got that is better than this? And I look around, I wonder if all the students are here and all the faculty, why? Why wouldn't you want to be here? What is there that's better? So there is every reason for us to remember that there are 10 commandments and that they all should be kept. And that there is even a divine reason to keep them. And that's my second point. So remember, there are 10 commandments. Number two, remember to keep this fourth commandment, the Sabbath. It was Jesus' custom, as I said, to keep the Sabbath. And surely it ought to be ours. We can't in general heal the sick, but we can pray for them and we can help. We can't raise the dead or make the lame walk, but we can walk and talk to those who are dead in trespasses and sins. And we can perform acts of mercy, as some say. We can witness and we can pray. But best of all, we can worship. Wasn't that a wonderful hymn we started out with this morning? Acts of worship are also permissible. In fact, excuse me, they are prerequisite. Turn back to that passage with me in Isaiah chapter 58 and read what God says through the prophet to Israel. If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honourable, if you honour it, not going your own ways or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly. Here we are given a brief lesson to help us correct the error of our ways. We are told to turn back from doing our pleasure on God's holy day. Now, I don't need to make a list here or be specific, do I? Because you all know what is your pleasure. It is the things that you like that don't necessarily center on God, and his rightful worship and honour on that day. Turn back from doing them. It doesn't say every day, it just says for this one day. Two, call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honourable. And of course, you know, that doesn't mean just saying it. It means we have to live it. We call ourselves Christians, and that means much more than saying it, doesn't it? We know that. We know that there are many people who will call themselves Christians out there, and even you yourselves would say, well, he's no Christian. And it's the same as the Sabbath. We can't just say, oh, it's my delight, and someone else say, they don't show it. It means living it, it means acting it out, doing so that others call you by it. Be those that are called Sabbatarians, holy unto the Lord, serious Christians. And don't think you're being called out here or that I'm picking on you, even me. I need reminding to remember the Sabbath, even sometimes Natasha will say to me, is what you're doing appropriate for today? Thirdly, if we are again exhorted to honour it, not going our own ways or seeking our own pleasure, what are we doing then? Let's not go our own ways, let's best go to church. We have an evening service here on a Sunday evening, it's a lovely little service, it doesn't last more than an hour and it's wonderful, yet we don't see many students here. And many of you are just in your dorms, and I wonder, are you doing your own pleasure? Maybe you're saying, I'm working, it's not my pleasure, but you're not to do that. It's a day of rest, it's for your blessing. Be there, be here in the service. Fourthly, we can see honouring the Lord's Day is not talking idly. Don't waste the day talking about football, Facebook, finances or follies. Talk about your Father in heaven, His Son Jesus, your Saviour, and your walk and your talk with Him. It's not too difficult, is it? Maybe it is because we've got out the habit of it, but let's remember the Sabbath day, God is not asking too much of us, is he? He's not giving you a strict regime to keep. He doesn't say, do this at nine, 10 and so on. He's not telling you how many church services you need to go, or how many sermons you need to listen to, or how many widows and orphans you need to have visited. He's not like the Jehovah of the Jehovah's Witnesses, who will ask you to present your hours of service every month in order to stand approved. I don't know if you know that, but at the end of the month at many Jehovah's Witnesses' kingdom halls, they have to present how many hours they've given over to service for the Lord. God is not asking you to do that. And he's not the God of the Seventh-day Adventists who say you cannot be saved or go to heaven if you don't keep the Sabbath on a Saturday. And according to the practice of the Jews in the Old Testament, no. One of the reasons is because our church began in Jerusalem in 33 AD and not in New Hampshire, America in 1844. No, this commandment is not a hard thing and it's not meant to be a hard thing. Because, thirdly, remember it was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. It was made for you. That is correct. Jesus says it prior to those verses I mentioned earlier in Mark, Luke and Matthew. we have the episode of Jesus and his disciples going through the cornfield, picking and eating the ears of corn. The Pharisees who saw this remarked, look, why are they doing what is not lawful or unlawful on the Sabbath? Jesus responds to them by reminding them that King David, their King David, ate the showbread, an act of necessity because he was hungry, in the house of God on the Sabbath. And that, the Sabbath, was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Before telling them that he The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Jesus was Lord of the Sabbath. What does that mean, though, that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath? Well, in response to the Pharisees' cynical accusations against the disciples, Jesus is saying, God did not create the Sabbath as a day for suffering. whether that be of hunger, thirst, tiredness, or fear of breaking some religious code of practice. No, the day was for man, for his good, for his rest, and for his spiritual growth. and for the development of his faith and walk in Jesus Christ. J.C. Ryle says, the architect who repairs a building and restores it to its proper use is not the destroyer of it, but the preserver. The Saviour, Jesus, who redeemed the Sabbath from Jewish traditions and so frequently explained its true meaning, ought never to be regarded as the enemy of the Fourth Commandment. On the contrary, he has magnified it and made it honourable. Now he goes on to say that, let us therefore cling to our Sabbath as the best safeguard of our country's religion. He's talking about England there. Let us defend it against the assaults of ignorant and mistaken men who would gladly turn the day of God into a day of business and pleasure. Above all, let us each strive to keep the day holy ourselves. Much of our spiritual prosperity depends under God on the manner in which we employ our Sundays. You see, the Sabbath was made for man. It was made for you. It's for your good. So why aren't we keeping it? Let me finish with a true story of when I was a teacher teaching a class of 9 and 10 year olds. I was teaching them the Ten Commandments and I began by asking the children, what commandments of the Ten would they keep and which ones would they throw away or change? And I think all of them said, you know, the last ones, yeah, we'd keep those, they're really good. It's, you know, no, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal. They thought they were good. But I think all of them said, well, we don't need that fourth commandment. You see, they thought it was an old fashioned thing. And many of them, you know, they said, well, you know, mum and dad, they go shopping on a Sunday and we play on a Sunday. And I said, okay. So then I said this, I told them, I said, when I was young, when I was young, my dad didn't have to go work on a Sunday because the factory was closed. My mum didn't have to go shopping because the shops were closed. In fact, everything was closed. So instead, Dad stayed at home and we sat, we weren't believers, we sat and watched TV together in the morning. We ate dinner together at the dinner table because everyone was home. Then in the afternoon, Dad took all of us for a walk up the fields because there wasn't anything else or anywhere else open for us to go. I said, in fact, The Lord's Day wasn't really the Lord's Day to us. It was the family day. It was the day of the week. And I said to them, but it's not like that anymore, is it? And you know what the children said? We want that day. We want that day. Bring it back. That's what they said. Bring that day back. They all said it. Bring back that day. You see, Even though we weren't Christians and they weren't Christians, even though we never went to church, and I look back and it was the best day of the week, they could see that. They could see that it was the best day of the week. Even for unbelievers, it was the best day of the week. And in fact, if I look back to my childhood, I don't remember much else, but I remember Sundays. I remember a day with the family. You see, it's for our good, isn't it? It's for the world's good, not just the church. It's for all men. Remember that. Remember what those children said. Remember the Sabbath. Remember there are 10 commandments. And remember it was made for you. It was made for your good. Amen. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the Sabbath. We thank you for the Lord's day, but Lord, we confess we've forgotten it. We haven't remembered it. And we've seen it as a day for us to do our things. Oh Lord God, how blessed we are that not only do we have the Lord's day, but we have the Lord. He is our Saviour. He has saved us from our sin. He has saved us from a life of meaninglessness. He has saved us from a life of folly and vanity. And He has given us all a purpose. Oh, how we hear that statement so much in Africa, that the Lord will give you a purpose. And that purpose, we know from here, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Let us, Lord God, at least, trying to remember to do it that one day of the week, to give you that one day, that's all you ask. Help us, Lord God, and teach us how to remember the Sabbath, to honour it, to do our own things, to do acts of mercy, acts of worship and acts of necessity. And forgive us, Lord God, when we go our own way and we do our own thing and we're preoccupied with football and our own pleasures and talking idly. Be merciful to us. Remember us for good, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.