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Plymouth-Sorrento SDA Church

Why God Said Remember

Ralph Henderson

Why God Said Remember, Part 1

You know, this morning I was thinking, as your pastor, you know, oftentimes I hear the things, the struggles that you go through, and you know, as a pastor, you know the tensions that go on in a church sometimes and the issues that the people deal with and and This morning I before I begin I just want to encourage you this morning to hold on to Jesus You know, I believe that The devil knows his time is so very, very short.

And I know that in many circumstances, we often don't realize he's using every avenue there is to steal our soul from the kingdom of heaven.

And I don't know what all your troubles are, but I know we all are in the same boat.

And I just don't want us to forget that Jesus is in the boat with us today.

So I hope that you'll remember that today, and I hope that you'll realize that it's not gonna get easier before Jesus comes.

That's why now we have to be developing a walk with him that cannot be severed.

We cannot be allowing ourselves to fall back into the world.

We have to realize that Jesus is calling us out of the world.

You know, when I was 32 years old, my father passed away.

And as I was thinking about this this morning and kind of trying to remember when it happened in 1986.

And I know some of you are doing some addition there, but you know, I thought about it, and just a year and a half before my father passed away, my son was born in 1980, so it was a little bit sooner.

Garrett was born in 84, 86, that's right.

Garrett was born in 84, so 2 years before my father passed away, my son was born.

And they had come to visit us in our new little home.

And my parents had a motor home, and they came, and they parked out in front of our house and hooked up.

And it was just a really nice week to spend with my parents.

My father and I always got along really well, although my father wasn't the type of dad that would come out and throw a baseball with you and do things like that, but I always knew that my father was there for me.

I always knew that he loved me and I always knew that he was doing his best to provide.

And he was very consistent with all of his kids.

He was a very fair man and very consistent.

But 1 day we had a conversation when he was visiting, and I asked my father, I said, you know, I was basically born into the Seventh-day Adventist church.

You sent all of your kids through Seventh-day Adventist schools, and I said, but yet you aren't.

And I said, I'm just curious how a man could encourage his wife to go from being a Baptist to join the Seventh-day Adventist church, but yet not join with her, and then send all of his children through Adventist schools and still not be a part of the church.

I said I'm just curious what is it that kept you from joining and being a part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church?

And he thought for a minute and he said, well you know there was a couple of things that I had trouble with.

He said 1 of them is I never really saw where the Bible said you can't drink wine.

Now you know that was an interesting thing because my dad didn't drink wine.

And then he said and I've never been really excited or I've never been real happy with how they handle tithe.

And he said, and then there's a couple of books that the Bible mentions, and actually the Bible mentions 28 books that are not in the canon of Scripture.

And he was kind of upset because those books weren't in Scripture, and he thought maybe somebody had tampered with it.

Well, we continued our conversation for a little while, and my father stayed with us for another few days, my father and mother, and they left.

And, you know, I really began thinking about what he said.

And you know, Sometimes there are things in Scripture that maybe we don't understand.

Sometimes there may be things that we find difficult to grasp, but what I want you to know this morning before we begin is that there is nothing that you or I need to know today that God has not laid out plainly in Scripture for us.

So I want you to follow along with me on just a brief study.

My sermon is actually in 3 parts this morning.

And I do want you to know too that this is going to be an ongoing series.

And I can't tell you how long it will go because I can't tell you how long God's gonna impress me to keep talking to you about the Sabbath.

But today we're gonna talk about why God said remember.

But before we get into that part of the sermon we're gonna start with another little part of the sermon and I want you to go with me to 2nd Timothy chapter 3.

2nd Timothy chapter 3 verses 15 through 17.

Now if you know your Bible well these verses probably immediately come to your mind but I want to make sure everyone's there.

If you don't have a Bible, there are Bibles under the seats that you can grab, and it's always good to look for yourself to see what the Word of God says.

2 Timothy 3, and We're going to begin in verse 15.

Paul says, "...and that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto..." what?

"...unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

That word perfect in the Greek means complete.

You see, you and I are not complete without Jesus Christ.

But you see, God has told us that all Scripture, if there's something that's not in Scripture, then we don't have to worry about it, do we?

Because God says that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.

So everything that is in this book we know is inspired of God.

So if someone mentions another book that may not be there, I don't have to worry about what I might be missing because what I need to know is all right here.

Now I want you to go just right across in my Bible, it's just right across the page, 2 Timothy 2 and 15.

Unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.

You see, you may need to know the way of salvation.

As Barry preached last week, what must I do to be saved?

Some may not want to work for what they find out, but everyone wants to know.

And the good news is, is the Bible says that if we study, we can understand what God's will is for us.

But also we should be studying for His approval.

Not so we can go off and rattle off verses to someone else or to beat them over the head with the Word of God, but so that we can be approved by God.

Go to John 5, verse 39, another verse you know very well.

In John 5, verse 39, He said, Search the Scriptures, for in them you think ye have eternal life, and They are they which testify of me.

Now my brothers and sisters this morning, I hope that when you study the word of God, that you are studying to know Jesus Christ.

Because Jesus said in John 17 3, this is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

Are you studying the word of God to know who he is and to know his will for your life?

Just a few chapters over in John 14 and verse 6.

John chapter 14 verse 6, Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

And you see, my brothers and sisters, when we know the truth, we will know the way to life everlasting.

Studying to show ourselves approved unto God and not man.

You see, this morning what I want you to understand as we begin, and the reason why we're veering off a little bit from why God said, remember, is because you need to know this morning that truth is not yours, truth is not mine, truth is God's.

We have the privilege and the opportunity to walk in truth, But truth is God's and God's alone.

You see, the problem that we have in the postmodern world, which we talk about a lot, is that in the postmodern world truth is relative.

And I'm here to tell you this morning that truth is not relative, truth is relevant.

Truth is always relevant because truth comes from God.

And this morning I want to do a short study with you on truth.

Because you see, truth transcends time and culture.

You remember a few months ago we were talking about the character of God.

And in Exodus 34 and verse 6, God is sharing with Moses different attributes of his character.

And the Bible says, And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and what?

And truth, an attribute of God's character is truth.

Now go with me to the book of Psalms, and this will be the end of our little study.

We're just going to hit a few real quickly.

Why God Said Remember, Part 2

Heavenly Father, we have come into your house once again today on a beautiful Sabbath day that you have given us.

As we come into your house to worship you and reflect upon your glory, your majesty, the wonderful works that you have created and made that we might be constantly reminded of you.

We pray that our hearts will be touched deeply today, that we will remember just how important this special day of worship is, and realize that it is the connection between you and your people to tell the world that you are still on the throne of the universe.

We pray for your guidance as we enter into our study today.

We ask that your Holy Spirit would be poured out without measure.

Baptize each 1 of us in your spirit today, and guide us through this study of your word, because we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well this morning I want to thank you for coming and being here for part 2 of this series.

It won't be a huge review, but a short review for some who haven't been here.

I want to remind you what we talked about last week.

So let's begin, as always, with the Word of God.

You remember last week we talked about how God had created everything and that in Genesis chapter 1 we saw that God was essentially the subject of the entire chapter.

God said, God saw, God did, God blessed, God was involved in every act of creation.

And you know it's interesting Because the world today, remember we talked about truth, and we talked about the importance of truth this morning.

As we begin, the first question I have for you to ask yourself is do you really believe in the Word of God?

Are you really grounded on the Scriptures so that as time comes and our feelings tell us 1 thing, but our principles tell us another, where will you stand when the world starts to put pressure on you?

Genesis chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, it says, 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." Remember we discovered last week or were reminded that it was God who rested on that first Sabbath day because he was the 1 who had done all the work.

And of course not that he needed to rest, we discovered that that word rest is Shabbat, meaning that he simply ceased from all of his work.

And we know from inspiration that he ceased from all of his work because he was satisfied that it was all well done.

We also notice that in the beginning that God instituted the Sabbath and that man began to keep the Sabbath from that point on and sadly for those who are always looking for some exact word to say we have to understand that God in giving the Sabbath to man illustrated the keeping of the Sabbath so in Genesis chapter 1 God is not necessarily giving a command to keep the Sabbath.

He is illustrating how man is to keep the Sabbath.

He is instituting the Sabbath into the lives of mankind.

The Sabbath was then to be kept or observed, and that's what we're going to be talking about today, as a memorial of creation, a reminder of our Creator.

A special day that God had set apart and blessed and given for mankind.

Now you remember that there are 2 institutions that came directly from the week of creation, the Sabbath and marriage.

And I want you to see very clearly this morning as we look at both of those institutions how the devil is raining his attack on both of those and the reason why is because he knows that if he can go into a home and Divide a family that the chances of him getting the entire family are much greater once he has separated the husband and wife.

So this morning you need to understand that God is trying to help you stay close to Him by keeping close to your wife or your husband in your marriage.

And to understand that as we look at the news around us, there is a huge assault on marriage, the institution of marriage.

Because the world is not accepting what God says in His Word.

Man is wanting to come up with his own ideas, his own rules and regulations.

I thought it was interesting the other day, I was listening to someone who was talking about as the Supreme Court is about to turn over this ruling that marriage is between a man and a woman, there was someone talking about it, and they brought out the fact that that the gays or the homosexuals or lesbians should have their rights just as well.

And then someone responded and said, well, if we go and we take marriage to the next level, then who is to say that a group isn't going to come along following that and say, well then those who think incest is okay should be able to do what they like, those who think bestiality is okay should be able to do what they like.

He said, well those things are morally wrong.

Now I wish I would have been the interviewer then, because the first thing I would have said was, where do you get your moral compass?

Where are you getting the morals that you live up to?

If you think that's morally wrong, did you find that in scripture?

Where are you getting your moral compass?

You see my brothers and sisters we live in a world that doesn't believe in the Word of God and in that world those people are not setting their moral compass by the scriptures of God.

So when you follow the scriptures of God, then you indeed are going to be a unique and peculiar person.

So we want to realize this morning those 2 things.

The 2 very things that God gave to man before the fall in a perfect world, in a perfect environment.

The 2 things that God gave to man are under the greatest attack today.

And we want to keep that in mind as we continue on.

There were 3 specific things that we saw in Genesis chapter 2 that God did in instituting the Sabbath.

We know that He rested, we talked about that.

We know that He blessed the Sabbath day and that He sanctified it.

Now I just want to briefly touch on those before we look at how we keep the Sabbath.

Number 1, in resting we know that God ceased from His labor, not because He was tired, but because He saw that all He had done was very good.

In Exodus 31, verse 17, we are told that He rested on the seventh day and was refreshed.

And that word in the Hebrew, rested or refreshed, is nephash.

And that word means simply to breathe like a sigh.

Can you imagine what it must have been like when God finished creation and He looked at all that He had done, and He went, ah...

You ever did something, you know, you finished it and you stepped back and you looked at it and you went, ah...

That's what God must have done as he looked at all of creation and saw that it was very, very good.

Number 2, he blessed it, or as the Hebrew word barak says, now it's interesting because that word means to bless God as an act of adoration.

Isn't it interesting that as we come together on Sabbath, we are to worship God with adoration and praise.

And that very word blessed means an adoration of God or to bless man with a benefit.

And God gave us the Sabbath as a benefit, a blessing to us.

In Review in Herald, August 3, 1897, it's put in this way, God gave the Sabbath to be a blessing to man.

It was to be to him a memorial of God's creation.

It was to remind him of God's sacred rest for which reason he had blessed the Sabbath and hallowed it.

Which takes us to the third thing that God did.

It was significant among all the other days of the week.

And what's interesting is how once again, man has tried to make it insignificant.

Man has tried to choose this day or that, and you know, as time progressed, we were starting out with just Saturday or Sunday but you know I listened to a strangely enough a Baptist minister just recently a well-known Baptist minister in the Orlando area and as he was talking about the Sabbath my ears perked up and I thought, well, this will be interesting to see how he explains the Sabbath.

And he began talking about the importance of the rest on the Sabbath and how we need to take time out from our week.

And as I was waiting and listening, And then he began to say this, which really took me by surprise.

Now he said, now you may not be able to rest on a Saturday or a Sunday.

You may have to make your Sabbath a Tuesday or a Wednesday.

And I thought, isn't that interesting now?

Really just whatever day happens to work for you can be your Sabbath and you remember 1 of the truths that we studied last week is that this Sabbath is not yours or mine it's whose it's God's Sabbath given to man that we have the privilege of observing it Let's look at a couple of verses this morning as we think about God sanctifying the Sabbath.

I was going to start reading 13 and you'd have been on 17, and you'd have said, what kind of version do you have?

So I'm on verse 13, are you there with me?

Exodus 31 verse 13, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily what?

My Sabbath ye shall keep, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the Lord that..." What?

"...does sanctify you." You see, when God sanctified the Sabbath, it was not only to set that day apart, to set that day aside as holy and special, but it was also to let His children know that He is the 1 that does the sanctifying.

Why God Said Remember, Part 3

Well, just a little brief review for those of you that were not here.

In part 1 of our series, Why God Said Remember, we were reminded that the Sabbath is really God's day and it was instituted at creation and given to man as a gift.

A reminder that he is our creator and as we sang just now, that he alone is worthy of our praise and worship.

It is not a day for the Jews, it is a day for all mankind throughout all generations.

A day of worship and rest sanctified and blessed, a day that will maintain its sanctity throughout eternity.

In part 2 we saw the importance of observing the Sabbath.

We live in a world today where man is trying to downplay the importance of the special day that God has given us to the point that Even those who claim to be followers of Christ don't keep the Sabbath the way God originally intended that it should be kept.

And so we were reminded how important it is because in observing the Sabbath we are testifying to the world of our allegiance to God and our faithfulness to Him.

Today we are going to look at the Sabbath as a sign of our allegiance to God.

The Sabbath will be the final test that man will face before Jesus comes.

And as we begin this little journey this morning, I want to take you all the way back to the beginning of what most Seventh-day Adventists understand as the great controversy.

The world pretty much understands that there's a battle between good and evil, but as Christians we know that there's a real controversy going on in the spiritual world around us and that battle is for your soul and for mine.

The only difference in this war is that the side of love will not force their desires and their will upon you or me, yet the other side will do whatever they can through whatever means they can to steal your soul from the kingdom of heaven.

This great controversy between Christ and Satan began as we all know in heaven when Lucifer rebelled against God.

You see, Lucifer was looking around at all the glory and majesty of heaven.

Lucifer, holding a pretty high rank in the kingdom of heaven, decided that, you know, really, I think I should be the guy up there.

I want all of these angels to worship me.

And you see the issue of the great controversy began when sin was found in Lucifer's heart.

Isaiah chapter 12 verses 12 through 14 gives us a pretty clear illustration of what took place.

Lucifer had determined in his own heart that he wanted not to be like the Most High, but he wanted to replace the Most High.

And as the controversy continued, we know that the controversy was then brought down to earth, and the battle continued as the war went on.

Although cast out, he continued to seek the worship of men and women in this world.

Now most of you know that this is a true fact that the devil through his sophistries is trying to lead men and women astray and even to the point of desecrating the true Sabbath and making people forget the true importance of the Sabbath and what it means.

I want to just remind you of a few brief illustrations and we're not going to go there.

I'm going to give you scriptural references if you want to write them down but due to time this morning we won't go to these because we have some things that I think are more important, but I want you to see some illustrations of the issue of worship as it began in the very beginning.

If you go back to Genesis 4, verses 1-7, you will see that little illustration of the controversy that took place over the issue of how to worship God.

Remember, Abel brought his sacrifice to God, which was the accepted sacrifice of a lamb, And Cain wanted to bring the fruits of his own labor.

And God said, this isn't what I ask you to bring.

You see, my brothers and sisters, we need to understand that in the plan of salvation, it's not what you do or what I do that earns us the way to the kingdom.

It is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.

Then on down through time we saw where Joshua challenged the children of Israel.

You remember that in Joshua 24, verses 1 and 2, and 14 and 15, where Joshua told the children of Israel, choose you this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will what?

You see, there's always this continual battle.

The devil is trying to divide and conquer, even in the midst of God's people.

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Why God Said Remember

Why God Said Remember, Part 2

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