So the latest thing is to have flash mob’s, if you don’t know what those are check out wikipedia. Well recently at my Alma Mater Southern Adventist University there was a flash mob to celebrate a gift the student’s gave to charity. Also at the end our President Gordon Bietz is the guy with the crazy hair (an example of why he gets standing ovations from the student body of Southern each year), I think I even saw our chaplain Brennon Kirstein in this crazy celebration. Now this isn’t the greatest flash mob ever but I cut them some slack, we are Adventist and no one ever taught us how to move or lift up our hands! Enjoy and I love my school!
“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” –Exodus 20:11
Exodus 20:11 points us back to creation, back to the institution of the Sabbath,
“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” –Genesis 2: 2, 3.
This text reminds us that the Sabbath is not some arbitrary law. It’s establishment was not at Mount Sinai when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, but rather was a part of God’s original plan before sin ever entered the world. The Sabbath is as Holy as the establishment of unity between one man and one woman at the beginning of time. The commandment is simply a reminder to all mankind to worship the creator on His holy day.
On December 17, 2002 I asked this beautiful woman to be my valentine and more than 8 years later she still is my beautiful valentine. She is now also the valentine and amazing mother to our two boys. Jesus has blessed this home and we thank Him for loving us first so that we have the capacity to love one another!
“But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.” –Exodus 20:10
We most often think of the Sabbath from a very selfish point of view, as a day for us. The reality is that we have responsibility not only to teach others about the Sabbath, but also to not put them in a position where they may be breaking the Sabbath, such as ignoring the command to not work. Are people working for you on God’s holy day?
“Six days you shall labor and do all your work” –Exodus 20:9
This text is more than about a command to simply not work on the 7th day Sabbath. Exodus 20:9 is to remind us that our lives are not dependent upon our labor but rather on the grace of God. While the rest of the world teaches that ceaseless labor is the key to success, God reminds us that worship of the one true God is of ultimate value in our life!
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” –Exodus 20:8
The Sabbath day is HOLY. The word for “holy” in Hebrew is “Qadosh” which literally means according to Koehler and Baumgartner’s Hebrew Lexicon: “withheld from profane use, to be treated with special care.”
So the question for all of us would be is the Sabbath day withheld in our lives from profane use? Is the Sabbath day treated with special care? I think to know if the Sabbath is being treated in a profane way in our lives we have to understand that to “profane something” means to bring the secular into the sacred. So doing secular activities on a sacred day would be profaning the Sabbath.
Let us all keep the Sabbath Holy!