Cherished memories from special family Sabbaths

<p>Cherished memories from special family Sabbaths</p>

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Restoration International

Remember the Sabbath Day

Alane Waters

Tom Waters

The Essence of the Sabbath

Spiritually Special Sabbaths

What’s in the Box

Sabbath Memories

Isn't it beautiful how the Lord works through music?

Well today we want to share about special memories.

And even more special because they're Sabbath memories.

You know, in Exodus, the 20th chapter, in the 8th verse, who can tell me what takes place in the 20th chapter of Exodus?

The 10 Commandments, the Law of God, the Law of Love and Holiness.

It says there, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Well, to us it's not only remembering the Sabbath day, but God has continued to draw in our hearts that as we remember the Sabbath day, we find ourselves doing more memorable things upon the Sabbath day.

Special memories that are set in our hearts and we want to share during this time together some of those special memories.

Because even in heaven, we will worship God from 1 Sabbath to the next.

And all through the ages of eternity we will be making special memories with God in heaven.

In Mark 2, 27 and 28 it says, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." And I was noticing that all through the life of Christ, even though he was the creator of the Sabbath, he also was 1 who set an example in making the Sabbath day a very memorable day in the lives of the people that he mixed among.

That's when some of his most special miracles took place was on the Sabbath day.

So not only was it a healing of their physical or their spiritual souls, it was also for their physical healing.

If they would always remember that on the Sabbath day is when they were healed and blessed by God in a special way.

And so as God's people today, we need to turn to the Lord of the Sabbath who can make every Sabbath a very special day.

Christ taught some of his most important lessons on the Sabbath.

He met their needs on the Sabbath and Ever since we've been really young our parents have always tried to make the Sabbath a very memorable day Not just that we should remember that, oh, on the seventh day of the week we need to remember that it's the Sabbath, but that we can always look back and remember the Sabbath of the past because they made it so special for us.

And now as we've gotten older, we help in planning special Sabbaths that we can always look back on and recount what God did for us on that Sabbath day.

We won't always have our children with us.

You know, they get older, they grow up, they leave, they start homes of their own.

And what an opportunity we have to bind their hearts to their creator and their savior.

We should be doing it every day, but a special day God has given us to work on that deep heart binding.

And as we have, you know, as Allison shared, over the years we've done numerous things and we've shared those with you in previous camps.

And there's so many ideas we never have enough time to express them.

But this year we thought we would, in our minds, we went back through the many years and we thought of, well we thought of quite a few, but we thought of 3 special Sabbaths we want to share with you today and the impact that they've had in our family as our young people have grown up.

I remember 1 Sabbath, this is the first 1 that came to my mind, and our children were very young.

Allison was nearly 10, Emily was 8, and Josiah had just rolled over to 5.

And Tom said, let's take this Sabbath and Let's go on a ride We're gonna take you up into the mountains now We live in the mountains, but when he says go up into the mountains, we know he means way back up high in the mountains.

So we all got prepared, we got ready, we got in our truck and we started up the back roads up into the high mountains.

And I had no idea where we were going or what we were going to do, but I just knew that he had something in his heart and he was leading out and I was willing to let him lead.

And so we got to this place and he pulled off the road and I'd never seen this, I mean we'd been by this place before all the way up to the very top where there's some beautiful lakes, but before we got to the lakes he pulled off the side of the road and there was an old logging road and he stopped there.

He says, okay this is the spot we got out and we started walking.

And we walked for nearly, I'd say about 2 miles up this logging road.

And I can remember clearly the road, the scenery around us, the beautiful blue day.

And all through this walk I'm being drawn to nature.

I still don't know what's going to happen.

And we walked and we walked and we walked and we finally came to a place where the road made a little turn and we could hear this creek rushing along the ravine beside us.

And as we turned in the road, because it's all grown up with weeds, as we made that turn there was this old wooden bridge there.

And we got onto the bridge And my husband said, let's stop here.

I found my mind being flooded again with the memory of what prompted this.

We were driving to a camp meeting in New York.

And we stopped at a little rest, like a little rest stop somewhere along the way, and I don't even remember where it was, but there was a big, an unusually big poster, and it was a very personal poster.

And it was a poster of a family, their heart cried that they had just lost their daughter a few days before, in a little tiny town that we were driving through, a little rural village.

And their little girl was just out riding her bicycle, and that's the last they ever saw of her.

And I saw that sign and it made such an impact on me.

I mean, I've seen all the, you know, the missing children things and, you know, you see them in stores when you go in, but this 1 was so graphically personal.

And it just happened a few days before in this little town.

This was a little town, a town of maybe 500 people and their little girl had been taken.

And my mind went back to the experience of Daniel and my mind remembered Little Maid in the Bible and I thought, what about my children?

What if 1 of my children is taken from me?

What if 1 of my children would be taken away?

We would be separated by some circumstance, would my child be ready for that separation?

And I went back and this was the theme on my mind when I said, stop here.

And we stopped on that bridge and I shared with my family the heart desire that I had.

That if somehow, someday we would be separated, that my children, that my wife could hold on to the hope that every 1 of us as father, mother, brother, sister, was praying for the 1 who was separated.

That no matter what the circumstances they would be in, that they would know and that they would remember this.

Where we made a commitment to God and we made a commitment to each other.

And when we prayed together there on that bridge, we prayed that God would forever put this in our minds, that we would never forget it.

And if we were ever separated and we don't know what's ahead, do we?

We know there's a time of trouble coming on this earth, such as never was, but that if we would ever be separated that we would let God put it in our minds that all the other members of the family were being faithful and were praying and that 1 day we would reunite with God no matter what happened to us.

That Sabbath has always stuck in my mind as a really high day.

And even though I've never really been lost from my family all by myself when I didn't know if I would ever see them again, I've always thought of it many times throughout the years that if I ever did get lost that would always be such a comfort to me to know that everyone in my family was thinking about me, was praying for me and praying that I would be faithful and that they were making a commitment to me to be faithful as well and that we would have that day to reunite whenever the Lord would come, if not before.

And it was just such a highlight in my mind, and it's just been 1 of those things that stuck with me for all these years.

As I see it, that's where the importance of our own religion as young people comes in.

Because we can't just have it as the religion of our parents, just doing what they tell us to do.

Because we may not always have our parents there to depend on.

We need to have our own experience with God, so that should something happen, and should we be separated, we can have that hope of coming back together and being reunited.

And so that Sabbath is especially good for us as young people to help encourage us to make our faith more present and pertinent to our daily lives.

I too have never forgotten where we stood when my father brought it to us.

You know, not in a scary way or this is what's going to happen, but if this should happen can we all commit to each other that we will be faithful?

And that just made such a deep impression on my heart that I've never been able to forget it.

And just it's been a very good inspiration and a comfort like my sister said a comfort to know that whatever happens in this insecure place there is a secure hope if we'll be faithful.

And just it's so encouraging to know that as a family we're striving for that goal.

And whatever path God brings us across, he is able to carry us through if our faith is founded in him.

And we will be reunited if we're all faithful.

Well, I can visualize that spot as if we were standing there right today.

You know, the older we are, the stronger the impact is on us, I believe.

And I have thought of that through the years in different circumstances, but it came very real.

That Sabbath came very real to us a few years ago when we were traveling overseas and we had quite a very stressful itinerary through Europe and ending up in England and on our way to Ireland.

And we got into London and we lost our 2 girls on the London Underground.

We in America are used to trains leaving at a time and if you're there with 10 minutes within that time you get still get on but that's not the way it is there.

Especially the inner city commuter underground.

It's not for long distance travelers, it's for the commuters of the city.

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Series

Remember the Sabbath Day

Sabbath Memories

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Remember the Sabbath Day

Spiritually Special Sabbaths

1h

Remember the Sabbath

28m

InVerse, 4th Quarter 2023: Adventist Heritage

03 The Prophetic Gift

29m

Daniel 7, The Sabbath, and Health

46m

How to Keep The Sabbath

1h 8m

The Big Questions (Evening Meetings)

7. How to Ace Your Exams and Still Be Normal

1h 13m

Revelation Made Simple

4. Revelations Eternal Sign

40m

InVerse, 3rd Quarter 2022: The Sabbath

03 Legal Meditations

27m

OYC 2012 Plenary Sessions

Parables in Marriage: The Honeymoon

48m

Lovely Lord of the Lord's Day

6 - May’s New Heart

30m

Our Communication

36m

Pause for Peace

43m

Sound Doctrine