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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

Delighting in the Sabbath

Father in heaven, thank you so much for this time.

Thank you, Lord, for the wonderful Sabbath hours you've given to us.

And even as we have been blessed by your presence, Lord, we're asking once more that you'd grace us once again.

And that as we study your word together, you'd speak to our hearts and lead and guide us, O Lord, we pray.

We were there this morning for divine service, for our sermon right after the events and their order.

I skimmed through the end of the chapter but I want to focus on it now.

This is what the Bible says, If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord honorable, and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words.

Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." So look here at the end of Isaiah 58 the Bible talks about this chapter talks about the Sabbath.

And we saw that this morning when we were looking at how to prepare for the anti-typical day of atonement.

How can we make sure that we are ready for that time of judgment when Jesus is determining what, who deserves the reward.

And we saw that it was what, afflict your souls.

We also saw that it was what, rest, do no work.

And we looked at rest in the context of Hebrews, but we see it here as well, the literal Sabbath.

In Isaiah 58, it says, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and what?

Friends, Look, here is that commandment that reminds us and tells us to come back to make sure to keep the Sabbath holy.

Not sure about you, but look, When it comes to Sabbath afternoons, when I have Sabbath afternoons, it is very, very difficult.

I think maybe in the past few years, I can only think of 1 time I had Sabbath afternoon off, meaning We had no activities whatsoever.

But I can only remember probably just this 1 time that I had the Sabbath afternoon off and boy was I bored.

Going home after church, relaxing, It is difficult.

And maybe some of you are wondering, what on earth are you talking about?

That is such a blessing in a sense to many people.

I don't like to sleep during the day, no matter how tired I am.

Even though when I lie down on the bed, I don't like to rest, not during the day.

But, You know, on Sabbath afternoon, when I go home and there's nothing to do, it's very difficult.

You get on your phones and your mind tends to wander, and you open up the phone and you get on Facebook, mindlessly browsing away, and before you know it, it's led you off to watch some ungodly video, or at least something that you know is not associated with Jesus and these holy hours.

Which means, you know, every Sabbath for the past few weeks, I'm sure it must have been tough for many of you to keep the Sabbath holy.

You know, especially when we're stuck at home and you don't keep yourself busy, it's been difficult, right?

The Sabbath hours can drag long for those that find nothing much to do to occupy yourself.

And there are some people like me who just can't sleep during the day.

And so friends, you know, what does this mean to us, especially for the Sabbath, like it becomes so difficult to keep.

I've been busy on Sabbath afternoon doing what?

And so on top of that, I study other topics.

This afternoon I had the chance to be able to study for next week's Sabbath sermon already.

So preparation is key to being able to be ready for that, but I get busy on Sabbath afternoons and then I had a chance to walk downstairs for 20 minutes before the guard rushed us up again because no 1 is allowed to go out.

So even in our condo, we're pretty strict here.

But many of us, sometimes we get so bored with the Sabbath.

And when we read, when we read Isaiah 58, 13, we get even more discouraged.

Because here, it says, if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, we're not allowed to do the pleasure, our own pleasure on God's holy day.

How can you not do your own pleasure, but still delight?

How can we delight in something, and at the same time not do our own pleasure, what we love to do.

And to make it worse, this text in Isaiah 58, 13, it says what?

It tells us a lot of things we shouldn't do.

It says, don't find your own pleasure, and then don't speak your own words.

So we can even break the Sabbath by what we speak.

There are 3 things that Isaiah 58 tells us, do not do.

Not do our own pleasure, but yet still call the Sabbath a delight?

The answer is found right there in the middle of the text.

If you go back to Isaiah 58 and verse 13, what does it say?

If thou turn away thy foot from thy Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord honorable, and shalt honor him.

Right there in that word honoring God, is found the answer in how we can actually call the Sabbath a delight.

Look, this word honor, it can mean many things, but it fits right there with that word honor.

It means in the dictionary, so really when you look at the concordance, there's not much difference, but when you look at the dictionary, it means high respect, great esteem, or admiration.

So I want to put honor in a different light this evening, especially in regards to the Sabbath, because God says, look, if you want to keep my Sabbath holy and call it a delight, you got to honor me.

And the way to honor me is not go do your own ways, find your own pleasure, speak your own words.

And we look at this and find it very difficult to comprehend that.

But the way that we can do that is by honoring God.

Well, let's go to the Bibles, to Exodus 20.

And if you're familiar with Exodus 20, you know where I'm going, the 10 Commandments.

Honor thy father and mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

There is 1 commandment that talks about honor.

And in fact, now we understand that there are 2 commandments that talk about honor.

Because even though it's not mentioned in Exodus 20, now we see it in Isaiah 58 and verse 13.

And this is how, this is the key to delighting in the Sabbath.

This is the key to being able to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

We got to honor the Lord like we honor our parents.

Honor God is first, it's the fourth commandment.

Honor your parents is second, it's the fifth commandment.

So we must never, ever, ever put God, pardon me, parents above God.

And we will always remember that if we remember the Sabbath.

But what does it mean to honor our parents?

You see that word honor there is the same Hebrew word in Exodus 20 as it is in Isaiah 58.

And it tells us we shouldn't make it any different.

And we would do well with the Sabbath if we would honor God like we honor our parents.

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Delighting in the Sabbath

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