Important Sabbath Issues

By: Rob Peralta

We all are aware of the "basics" of the Sabbath Commandment. Not to work and keep it holy. But two specific scripture quotes really dial in "how" we can complete this honoring of the Lord on His day. I believe we get out of the Sabbath what we put in it. When we "go through the motions" we get a colder, less alive day with our Lord. We honor it with our best effort, we get a real blessing and closeness to the Lord ( not only that Sabbath but through-out the following week).

The Sabbath is like this. It's a hidden treasure ( surely so with the vast Christian world today) and the map(Bible word), if followed, will lead us to riches ( Lord's blessings).Two scriptures offer us a clear path to understanding important Sabbath issues. In (Isaiah 58:13) we read "If you turn away your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor him, not doing your own things, nor finding your own pleasures, OR SPEAKING YOUR OWN WORDS. Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken this"

In the quote above, I believe a real key is the "or speak your own words". I will give some personal experiences of what I mean. Being fairly new in my church a couple years ago, I was invited by some well meaning church members to go to "lunch" after service. Being somewhat new to the whole Sabbath experience I gladly went along. But I remember, as we sat around the table, that the conversation was mostly about worldly matters (cooking, politics, etc.). Not to mention the obvious "buying of food". Looking back, I can clearly see that, that simple meal really "dis-honored" the Lord in two ways. ( Nehemiah 10:31) says " And if the peoples of the land bring goods or grains on the Sabbath to sell, WE WILL NOT BUY FROM THEM ON THE SABBATH..." So both Isaiah's and Nehemiah's word from the Lord was ignored. Keep in mind, when you buy on His holy day, you are actually encouraging people to "work" that day.

So, fast forward to a couple weeks ago. I knew the correct Sabbath honoring. I was invited by some church members to go to one of the member's homes for lunch after service. As this certainly did not invloved buying or selling I gladly accepted. But the Lord has been working on me to spread the word about honoring His day through NOT speaking worldly things. So when I got this invite, I knew this was my opportunity to try to be an example to some of my fellow church members to keep the conversation on HIM. The "preponderance" of our conversations should be about Him on His day.

As we sat down, sure enough the conversation started to drift to world matters. I then spoke up and told the people about Doug Batchelor's two part DVD series called "The Lord's day". I actually brought one of them to show and tell . I had prepared myself for steering the conversation to the Lord. Then some got real excited to know more and we went on to have a nice long discussion centered around the "things of the Lord". My mission had worked.

God's word says (John 12:26) "...if any man serve me, him will My Father honor". So when I got home that day, I felt I had done God's will by keeping our conversation around "honoring" Him. I took a nap and dreamed. I usually don't dream during the day but I got a clear one, short but clear. In it I see my sister. She is holding her left side of her face and is in real pain. Then I awake. I remember it, but thought "That was strange". Turned out it was from the Lord. He was letting me know He was with me that Sabbath. We can't always know the Lord's ways but I soon found out. I emailed my sister and told her my dream and asked if she was ok. She responded that a few days before she had accidently bite her tongue on the left side and it had gotten infected (painful). There was NO WAY of knowing this except from that dream from the Lord. I had been "honored" by receiving this revelation. He wants to speak to you also! Obey His word and you WILL receive from Him.

Let us keep the Sabbath as holy as possible so that at the end of the day ( or maybe even in the middle of it :-) the Lord will say "Well done my faithful servant". Amen.