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THE COMMANDMENT WE ALL BREAK #2
WIRED FOR A SEVEN-DAY WEEK
There's a story in a recent Christian book by Marva
J. Dawn which typifies the experience most of us have. This talented woman
was involved in a Ph.D. program which required her to learn — now, get
this — Latin, French, and German . . . ALL AT ONCE. She had to learn THREE
languages simultaneously.
Now let me stoke the fires just a little bit more. For whatever reason,
she had a six-WEEK deadline hanging over her head. That's right. In just
six weeks, she was going to be expected to be able translate a thousand
words in a two-hour test in each of those three languages.
Now, I start getting a triple migraine just thinking
about that, but this woman would get up at six in the morning and begin
cramming in one language. Then she'd switch to another, put in a few hours
on that, then go off to all her classes, then come home and bone up on
the third until eleven p.m. After just a few weeks, her head was SWIMMING
with a jumble of words and conjugations and tenses and all the rest. It
was enough to MAKE a person tense, if you'll pardon the pun.
Now, how did Marva Dawn keep from going insane on that kind of pace? I'll
tell you, friend. In fact, she herself confesses the secret. She was a
Sabbath-keeper, author of a recent book called KEEPING THE SABBATH WHOLLY
(that's W-H-O-L-L-Y). Every week she kept a full 24-hour period of time
holy; she worshiped God and devoted her mind to Him for a complete day
once a week.
Can you imagine what that meant? Marva kept her Sabbath on SUNDAY each
week, which is a point we've agreed not to debate during this week of
broadcasts. But as her Sabbath approached, she looked forward to that
magic hour when she could put away those three dictionaries — Latin, French,
and German. She could file away her notes; she could say auf wiedersehen
to her cramming and her intense study. She could allow her mind and her
soul to rest.
And for 24 delicious, wonderful hours, SHE DID NOT STUDY! SHE DID NOT
WORK! She allowed God to restore her, to fill and fulfill her. She permitted
the luxury of a Sabbath to recreate her and make her a new woman in Christ
Jesus. Once a week, she shut off the treadmill; in fact, she GOT OFF the
treadmill and enjoyed instead the haven of Sabbath rest.
There's a point I want to return to later this week, and that's this.
It took a lot of FAITH for Marva Collins to keep the Sabbath! Those deadlines
were still looming! The six-week cutoff was right around the corner. That
extra 24 hours of study might have made a big difference, even a crucial
pass-fail difference in her grueling Ph.D. program. But no. Marva Collins
chose to TRUST GOD by keeping a Sabbath even during that most intense
period in her life.
Friend, we said yesterday that here in the year 1999, men and women NEED
the Sabbath! Life has never been more frantic than it is right now. There's
no need for me to preach to you about this; you know it as well as I do.
My own life is FILLED with deadlines to meet and committees to attend
and radio broadcasts to record. Last year, as we endeavored to build up
a major supply of new programs and have fewer reruns, out of 52 weeks
of daily programs, we recorded all-new messages for 45 of the 52. That's
225 sermons! And on our Sunday radio program, which runs a half hour,
50 new full-length sermons. I can tell you right from my heart that 1998
was a year where I needed the gift of the Sabbath. As a practicing Seventh-day
Adventist, there just aren't words to tell you how desperately grateful
I've sometimes been to see the sun dip behind the California hills on
Friday evenings, and to know that my Sabbath had begun. For the next 24
hours, I WOULD NOT WORK! I WOULD NOT go in to the office! I WOULD NOT
attend committee meetings or dictate letters or write to donors or even
record Christian sermons. I NEEDED that gift of the Sabbath. Believe me,
I resonate with what the Old Testament believers were saying, when they
sang together along with King David in Psalm 118:24:
"This is the day that the Lord has made. We will REJOICE and be glad
in it."
I want to return to a concept I mentioned yesterday. We read how at the
very end of Creation Week, God Himself put the Sabbath in place. He worked
six days and then He rested on the seventh, and ESTABLISHED that seventh
day of rest as a precious and necessary safeguard for our blessing. Friend,
He KNEW we'd need it. That's why He didn't wait a thousand years or even
ONE year. The Sabbath was in the blueprint from the very FIRST WEEK. Even
in Eden, the Sabbath was there for our benefit before this planet was
one week old.
Think about something with me, because in the next minute I'm going to
tell you just about all the astronomy I know. We know what determines
a DAY — that's the earth rotating once on its own axis. We know what makes
up a YEAR — when we complete one full circle around the sun. And we have
a MONTH pegged, when the moon orbits around the earth. But have you ever
stopped and thought about what makes a WEEK? There's nothing in the sun,
moon, or stars . . . or even in the behavior of our own planet. Nothing
special or noticeable happens with a seven-day cycle — and so we ask,
Where did it come from? Who started printing up calendars that read: Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friiday, Saturday?
Listen, friend, it was GOD who made the seven-day week . . . and He designed
it with a Sabbath day of rest. He designed Adam and Eve AND the descendants
of Adam and Eve to have body clocks and emotional cycles that REQUIRED
a one-day-in-seven break. He wired that into your system and mine. Not
TEN days, not every FIVE, but SEVEN. That's His plan and His design and
His diagnosis for your life here in 1999.
Something kind of interesting showed up on the TV show Jeopardy the other
day; maybe you noticed. The category was pastimes of U.S. presidents .
. . and Alex Trebek confirmed that Calvin Coolidge liked to SLEEP eleven
hours a day while he was president. You know, here in 1999 it's hard to
imagine that a United States president — or someone RUNNING for president
— would have time or DARE to TAKE time to sleep eleven hours a day. It
just seems to us that those days are gone forever. Hey, a president's
got to work 20 hours a day just like all the rest of us, right?
A reporter following Pat Buchanan around in late February marveled how
this Republican candidate could speak at a rally, dash to a plane, nap
for half an hour, change his shirt, get off the plane and shake hands
and make a speech at a mall or factory, fly to another state in another
time zone, put on another clean shirt, splash some cold water on his face,
and get off the plane to make another speech and then appear on a talk
show or C-SPAN or draft a new proposal about trade or this or that. And
keep up this pace for weeks on end! NOT taking one day off a week; NOT
allowing yourself any down time at all. No time to restore; no time to
rest or recharge batteries, spiritual or otherwise.
I heard that in the 1992 election drive, George Stephanopoulos had spent
SIX STRAIGHT MONTHS working to get President Clinton elected. He hadn't
had one day off in SIX MONTHS. And frankly, friend, that's the pace most
of us would operate at without the Fourth Commandment and the Sabbath.
Let me say again: this is what we need. We NEED the Sabbath. And I try
to imagine what kind of world we would have if every single believer were
to spend that full divinely-mandated 24-hour period of fellowship with
their Creator and Lord every single week. If we all left our jobs and
our pressures and our desktop computers, and simply walked and talked
with our Savior for a FULL DAY each week, 52 weeks a year? What would
that do to the crime rate and the divorce rate? How transforming would
that be in making us more loving and lovable, more Christlike?
I'm grateful for the privilege this week of peeking across some fences
and denominational boundaries and appreciating how a renewed emphasis
on the doctrine of the Sabbath is sweeping North America. Listen to what
Baptist minister Walter Chantry writes in his book, Call the Sabbath a
Delight:
"When God issued this fourth commandment He understood humanity much
better than we do. Failure to practice this moral law is a root cause
of moral decline, social disorder, and widespread human suffering. No
successful recovery of mankind can be devised without the inclusion of
the fourth commandment in the remedy."
You know, it's sometimes startling to feel a need deep inside of yourself
. . . and then discover not only that there's an ANSWER for that need,
but that God provided that answer long before you ever FELT the need or
even long before you were even BORN! That's precisely the experience millions
are having as they open up their own Bibles and discover there that precious
FOURTH Commandment.
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