Exodus 20:8-11 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.… The Sabbath was spoken of as the "Prince and Sovereign of Days" by a good man, long ago. It might be called the "King of days." I wish I could get you to love it, so that, instead of it being a dull, wearisome day, and as coming after Saturday, just like passing out of bright sunshine into a dark night — or out of a palace into a prison, it should be wearied for, all the week round, and received with songs of welcome when it comes. The Sabbath comes to us as a holy visitant — as a messenger of love. It bears its message in its very name — Rest. I. REASONS for observing the Sabbath. 1. We have God's command. This of itself should be enough for us. 2. We have God's example. He does Himself what He bids us do. 3. God claims it as His own day. Here is His own direction — "Not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, on My holy day." 4. God is pleased and honoured by the keeping of it. 5. It is a memorial of a completed creation work and of Christ's resurrection. In an ironmonger's shop in a country town in Scotland, the shopkeeper sat at his desk at the window. A young apprentice in the cellar below had stuck the candle which he carried in a barrel of gunpowder; the gunpowder exploded, the shop window was blown out, and the good man who sat in it was carried in the current of air to the top of the street, and there landed safely on his feet, while the apprentice was blown to pieces. It was such a wonderful deliverance that the ironmonger observed the day as a day of prayer and thanksgiving to the end of his life. Is it difficult to understand how he should have done so? And shall we not gladly commemorate our deliverance — our emancipation — the announcement that the sinner's salvation was complete, by the rising of Jesus from the dead? Shall we ever suffer ourselves to be deprived of a day that has such happy and hallowed associations? Parallel Verses KJV: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. |
    |