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It Is Written

John Bradshaw

The Day That Changes Every Day

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

On the night of July 4, 1776, a Philadelphia printer named John Dunlap worked late into the night.

Dunlap was printing copies of the Declaration of Independence which had been adopted that day.

His copies of that now famous document were intended to be read in town squares or given to military leaders to read to their troops.

It was the first printing of the Declaration of Independence, and only about 25 copies of Dunlap's document survive today, 250 years later.

In 1989, a man visiting a flea market stumbled across 1 of those very declarations in the town of Adamstown, Pennsylvania, just 50 miles as the crow flies from where it was printed.

He didn't know he'd found the red document.

So he paid $4 for the painting, a dismal dark country scene.

When he removed the painting from the frame, the frame fell apart.

But then he noticed a folded piece of paper which had fallen out of the frame as well.

The words, Declaration of Independence, were written on the back of the document.

It was in pristine condition, having been preserved all those years by the frame it had been tucked into.

It sold at auction for $2.2 million, $5.25 million in today's money.

And then it was sold again nearly 10 years later for around $7.4 million, around $13 million today.

The man at the flea market looked at something pretty ordinary, but when he had a closer look, he found something truly precious.

It might be that if you were to take a closer look, you'd discover something precious, maybe something you weren't looking for, Maybe something surprising, but something valuable and a blessing for your life.

In recent times, a book written by media personality and political activist Charlie Kirk on the subject of the Sabbath soared to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list, 3 months before the book was even released.

The title of the book is, Stop in the Name of God!

Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life.

Now, this isn't an advertisement for the book.

The point I'm making is that this subject is getting more air, more press, more recognition now than it has in a very long while.

And I wonder if that's because God wants you to make a discovery, maybe 1 you weren't expecting to make, a discovery that will change your life even more than finding and selling a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Now that already sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?

Humans were created in a world which every night the sun sets and the body rests.

When you sleep, your body slows down and you benefit your immune system and your cardiovascular system.

That's your heart, blood vessels and blood and the hormones that regulate your body, and you regulate your metabolism, and you manage stress better, and on and on.

A Bay Area billionaire who has dedicated his life to better health and long life says that sleep is his superpower.

Now I know that's sleep and Sabbath doesn't mean sleep but rest.

Rest is when you slow down, let go of some of the stress, take time, make time for yourself, and make time for others.

And that's evident right at the beginning of the Bible.

The Bible starts with the creation story.

On the second day, the atmosphere, the firmament.

Then birds and sea creatures on day 5, and land animals and humans on day 6.

God created Adam, then Eve, and then He said everything was very good.

The Bible tells us, Genesis chapter 2, this is right back at the beginning.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them.

And On the seventh day, God ended His work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.

And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." So, it isn't as though God created something on the Sabbath.

It was a day like the ones before, except that God did 3 things on this day.

He blessed that day and he sanctified it.

Now, I can understand a person wondering what the big deal is.

If you've never paid any attention to this at all, you might be like the man who bought the $4 painting at a flea market.

He was stepping back from His labors and showing us the importance of resting and remembering.

So, He was making this day different, special.

And then He sanctified the day, which means He set it aside for a holy use.

When God was about to give the 10 Commandments, He told the people to sanctify themselves, to be set apart, to be holy.

Mount Sinai was sanctified, meaning the people couldn't go on that mountain.

It was, at that moment, set apart for something special.

The sanctuary where God would dwell in the midst of His people as they wandered in the wilderness, that was sanctified, set apart for a holy purpose.

Paul wrote, For this is the will of God, your sanctification.

God's people are to be sanctified, and God sanctified the weekly day of rest.

It was important for His people, even back in the Garden of Eden, to focus, to recognize what was truly important, and to take special time for each other and for God, to recognize God as the Creator, the source of all life and the source of all blessing.

I was talking with a lady at the airport.

She'd been working there for years, and we got talking about how things were back in the day.

She talked about how she was 1 of 5 children, all sitting at the dinner table with the parents.

The point she was making is that back then we made time.

It's not necessarily that we had time, but we made time.

A lack of time is 1 of the prime enemies of modern life.

It's an enemy of the family and of society.

That lack of time can be the enemy of your emotional stability and of your relationship with God.

What might happen if you did something radical and took the time for God that God gave you to take?

What if you were to say, I'm walling off a day and I'm taking it for God?

What if you said, no work on that day because I'm taking that day for God?

What if you said, no shopping on that day, no TV on that day, no mindless scrolling on the internet on that day, because I'm taking time out of all of that for God and showing that He is first in my life, making Him first in my life.

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The Day That Changes Every Day

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