In the sermon titled 'The Day of Rest,' Scott Brown discusses the biblical concept of the Sabbath, drawing from Exodus 20:8 and Genesis 2:1-3. He emphasizes the Sabbath as a creation ordinance, highlighting its significance for rest, worship, and community. Brown argues that the Sabbath is not merely a legal command but a cosmic declaration that free people observe. He outlines three main views on the Sabbath: the abrogation view, the transference view, and the permanence view, explaining how each interprets the Sabbath's relevance today. The sermon critiques modern culture's departure from Sabbath observance and its implications for the church. Brown calls believers to guard the Sabbath against cultural and personal threats, asserting its importance for spiritual growth and community. He concludes by urging listeners to recognize the Sabbath as a gift from God, intended for rest, worship, and drawing closer to Him.

Please open your Bibles to Exodus 20 and find verse 8, Exodus 28. 28 It really is a joy to bring this text to us here today this God's God gathering his children together in one place as he has here today like a like a mother hen with her chicks all you know existing under the shadow of his wings forgiven, resting, provided for, instructed, challenged, assured, singing. He sings with us. He breaks bread with us. This is what this passage of scripture breathes.

Exodus 20 verse eight, this is the inerrant, all sufficient. Sweeter than honey, word of God. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In it you shall do no work, you nor your son nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth the sea and all that is in them and rested the seventh day Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Lord we thank you for giving us such direction in life to organize ourselves to be calibrated and recalibrated over and over again. We thank you for your loving kindness.

Oh Lord, I pray that you would give us such a heart within us to keep all of your commandments and to walk in your ways. Amen. Please be seated. God did design worship to be this touchstone in the organizing principle of our lives. He alters our thinking, he changes our emotions, he brings us together with one another, and he redirects our affections on the Lord's Day.

God, of course, as you know, God has always gathered his people together from the beginning in corporate bodies beginning with the family in Genesis chapter three and we gather because this is what God does for his people He gathers them together and he draws them together to draw them to one another and to draw them to him at the very same time. Everything that we do and our worship service is really designed for that. Now we've been studying what we believe concerning the worship of God and we've briefly touched on what is called the regulative principle of worship and we've spent some time making it clear that from the beginning of the Bible into the New Testament until just recently in the 1950s, children were included in worship services. And we've been saying, yes, they can handle it. God designed it.

It actually is made for them. And it's interesting. Yesterday, we had a child raising conference. People are often blown away when they read, like Nehemiah 8 and other places, where children were hearing the law for six hours. No way.

Oh, that happened yesterday and it actually can work and those kids, they did great. But as part of that, I want to continue to explain what we believe about the Sabbath day, about the Lord's Day, what we call the Lord's Day, and others called the Christian Sabbath. And to just begin here in this introductory message, I plan to continue this. This is part one. But it's a very far-reaching doctrine that covers the goodness of God toward mankind, His governing us in our work to actually draw us into work, the deliverance of Jesus Christ from bondage and the celebration of it, and all the way to the eternal rest that we will have in heaven.

And so this series on the Sabbath is going to deal with various texts. I have identified several that are in your outline here today, but the rest of the world would rather not do such a thing as what we read in the Bible. They would rather work, catch up, golf, play soccer, be entertained, anything other than actually dedicating an entire day to delight in the Lord. There's that famous billionaire Bill Gates, he stated his worldview very, very clearly. He said, just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient.

There's a lot more I could be doing on Sunday morning. Well, that's absolutely true. There is a lot more that you could be doing on Sunday morning. Well that's absolutely true there is a lot more that you could be doing on Sunday morning. You know you know the Sabbath actually had a had it had its time in the Sun recently with Charlie Kirk.

You know he was an advocate of the Sabbath and he wrote a book that was published after his death last year called Stop in the Name of God Why honoring the Sabbath will transform your life. You know, he was one of the unusual modern voices that was an advocate of the Sabbath. He was clear on so many things. But what he says is that he found himself exhausted, he had trouble sleeping with this frenetic schedule. And the book that he wrote tells that you know one of his friends told him you know like you need you need to celebrate Sabbath so so he did he did stop in the name of God and he says it changed his life.

And in the book he argues that the Sabbath was established at creation, practiced and defined in the 10 commandments. It was codified and practiced by the patriarchs and the prophets and it was also practiced in the New Testament. And he just simply stopped work and quit focusing on productivity on the Sabbath. He ceased from electronic communication, buying, striving, and he refused to be available when other people wanted him to be available. And he did it to protect time for worship, for his family, for conversation, for taking walks, for being out in nature.

And he said this, he said, "'The Sabbath is not primarily a legal command, "'it's a cosmic declaration.'" An interesting statement. He said, "'Slaves don't rest, free people do.'" That really describes the people of God. He celebrated the Sabbath on Sunday but he doesn't argue that that's the only day. It's what he did. Sunday is fine as well as long as you took a day of rest.

But the Lord's Day is a gift of God that we should take. He calls his people to 52 days a year, 14.2% of the year to cease from work and to rest. That's a big percentage. 52 days just to feed your soul. 52 days just to remind you that he's your father.

52 days to draw near to his people. 52 days to prove that he provides for you even when you stop working. Praise God. 52 days to claim authority over your time. 52 days to demonstrate his kindness toward you.

52 days to teach us to dedicate ourselves to one another and to him. A whole day to see striving and know that he is God. What a great day and it's an amazing thing. Well we're going to get to Isaiah 58 at some point. 52 days to focus on delight, to do his pleasure, which is truly pleasurable.

So there are of course there are various opinions about the Sabbath. There are three views, basically, three main views. There's the abrogation view, this is also called the antinomian view, where grace establishes all law. The Sabbath was revoked at the cross, and it's based on the belief that there's an extreme discontinuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Many of these people actually believe there are only nine commandments.

Throw out the fourth. One, two, three, fine, fifth, excellent, and on. Throw out the Fourth Commandment. Anabaptists, Quakers, Mennonites, and actually most of evangelicalism holds this view. Most of the people around you hold this view.

Then you have what's called the transference view. That means that there's continuity between the Old and New Testament, that the Sabbath should be observed. It's a creation order, ordinance, and reformed Baptists, Presbyterians, English Puritans, Methodists, other people take this view and they argue that the Lord's Day is not dependent exclusively on the Fourth Commandment but it is something that you trace from Genesis all the way to Revelation all the way into heaven. Well that's the argument you're gonna hear from me. Then you have the permanence view.

This is the view that says that the New Testament doesn't nullify any aspect of the Sabbath at all. The Seventh-day Adventists, Adventists, Messianic Christians, they view that we should celebrate all the the ceremonial law. That's the permanence view. And what we'll find here in this work that we're going to do on the Lord's Day. We're going to walk through many, many passages of scripture to just try to help us think again about it.

Well, I say I think again, many years ago, Our church was going through the book of Deuteronomy. We preached every chapter of Deuteronomy. It was really a life-altering thing to see what actually the meaning of the law of God. But we came to Deuteronomy chapter five. There we were, the 10 commandments.

It was so great. We got to the fourth commandment and we thought, whoa, we're not even sure how to apply all this. As elders, so I got up and I preached the fourth commandment just like it was there in the text and some people were shocked. This is probably like 17 years ago probably I think. Others were just like stymied, You know, others were actually offended.

Some of them kind of walked out mad, you know? And then, so we decided, okay, we're just gonna preach through the Sabbath text. So I think we preached through four or five, in detail, expositional messages. And it was really interesting what happened you know the first Sunday what are you telling me what can't I do second Sunday most of the people were like interesting third Sunday Wow that that kind I see what the script and the fourth Sunday it was, I have never had so much joy in my life coming to the worship of God and setting a day aside. Well it took time.

Maybe it'll take time for some of you. So that's what we want to deal with here and whenever you have this discussion people always want to jet to the question, okay, what can't I do on the Sabbath? We'll get to that later. But I want us to understand there's a historical reality here. There was a massive turning point in America in the 20th century.

It was in the middle of the 20th century when largely evangelicals turned away from the Sabbath day. They stopped regarding it as an obligatory day. It had monumental consequences. It was actually part of a very broad rejection of the sufficiency of Scripture in the 20th century. But what did it do?

It really led to the trivialization of the church because the Bible was trivialized and not seen in its great context. It really touched off the greatest movement of pragmatism the church had ever seen since the Roman Catholic Church before the Reformation. That's why in America there were laws against doing business on the Sabbath. They're called the blue laws. They were laws that were designed to protect Sunday from ordinary work, from doing business and recreation.

Hey, when I grew up, everything was closed on Sunday. Everything was closed on Sunday. If my memory is correct, The first business that opened in Southern California on Sunday was 7-11, and they were open around the clock seven days a week. So that was it. Why do they call it blue laws?

These blue laws that prohibited commerce, Well, the blue laws, they were called blue laws because they were rigid and gloomy and over-strict. That's why they called them that. But in 1961, 49 of the 50 states had blue laws that prohibited work or doing business on the Sabbath. Alaska, the place of my birth, was the only exception. But even until recent times, the Blue Laws held sway.

There's still, I believe, 15 states that have Blue Laws on the books. But what happened is what happened on a number of levels in the church. The church became a slave to the culture. The church followed the culture off the cliff. And during this period of American history, It really formed one of the greatest departures from the sufficiency of Scripture in American history.

It was a departure from the normal practice of the church. Well you know that we have a confession the London Baptist Confession of 1689 written in the 1600s you have the Westminster Confession of Faith you and the catechisms you have the Heidelberg catechism and many many of the confessions clearly articulate that it's obligatory to celebrate the Lord's Day. I'll just read you part of the the Baptist Confession chapter 22 on religious worship in the Sabbath day. This is paragraph 7. It is the law of nature that in general a portion of time specified by God should be set apart for the worship of God so by his word in a positive moral and perpetual commandment got that that obligates everyone in every age he has specifically appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy to him from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ the appointed day was the last day of the week after the resurrection of Christ it was changed to the first day of the week which is called the Lord's Day.

This day is to be kept to the end of the age as the Christian Sabbath since the observance of the last day of the week has been abolished at the resurrection. So this is the whole idea. The confession continues, paragraph 8. The Sabbath is kept holy to the Lord when men have first prepared their hearts appropriately and arranged their everyday affairs in advance. Then they observe a holy rest all day from their own works, words and thoughts about their secular employment and recreation.

Not only that, but they also fill the whole time with public and private acts of worship and the necessity And the duties and this is important the duties of necessity and Mercy, Those are things that are lawful on the Sabbath. So necessity and mercy. You might work in a hospital, you might be a policeman, this would be a call a work of necessity or mercy. Okay let's dive into the the passages of scripture. We've covered these three views.

We talked about the great turning point and we talked about the confession. Let's first of all go to Genesis chapter two, verses one through three. Open your Bibles to Genesis chapter two, one through three. It's very interesting, Charlie Kirk and others actually start their defense of the Sabbath with Genesis one one, when God was working, God was working. But here we find that God appointed a day of rest.

Now children, I want you to hear this, okay? Here's the deal. Here's what we learn. Are you ready? This is what I want you to take home.

In the beginning, God worked. Work is good. He worked for six days. And in the beginning, God rested. He rested for one day.

And that's what you should do. Work is good, rest is good. Hey by the way, you know, I'm pretty sure I, you know, your parents have not imposed upon you all kinds of work, you know, today that this is actually a day of rest you you get a day without work and our family we worked all the time except on one day the Lord's Day okay Genesis 2 1 through 3 thus the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them were finished and on the seventh day God ended his work which he had done he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done now When we get to these other passages of Scripture, this exact same language is repeated for the day of rest that we participate in. You have this work and rest, the exact same words. He rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown.

So with Genesis 2 verse 3, before the giving of the Ten Commandments, before any of the ceremonial law, God established a pattern for his people and he marked it by a day. He created, he actually created a day and he gave that day a name. And I want to just grasp for a minute how unusual this is. A day, we have, we live our lives by days and months and years, right? A day is marked by the earth turning once in its access at 1, 040 miles an hour.

Okay, that's one day, 24 hours. A month is measured by the cycle of the moon. It travels around the Earth at 2200 miles an hour from new moon to new moon, about 29.5 days. So that's how we mark months, the travel around The year is marked by the earth completing a long journey around the sun at 67, 000 miles an hour. This planet that you're sitting on so sweetly, so calmly, is flying through space.

And God in his kindness makes life so nice here takes 365 and a quarter days to get all the way around the Sun however how do you mark a week Does nature give you a coordinate to mark the week? Did the heavens tell you what week you're in? No, not at all. God created a day and he gave it a name that's not dependent on anything except his own authority. That's the point that I want to make.

You know our clocks and our calendars are all rooted ordered by the movements in the created world and then there is this imposing command under the authority of God to do what God does work six days and rest one so it's a remarkable remarkable thing. Think about it this way too. Think about Adam. This day of rest was most likely Adam's first day alive in the world. God created him and his first full day was a day of rest.

What do you make of that? Well that marking the Sabbath, this is a very important point in Genesis 2, marking the Sabbath from creation is significant because it makes it a creation ordinance. There are many things in the creation narrative that our creation order principles for example manhood womanhood marriage these are creation order principles that are required by mankind you know some of you came to our conference earlier in the year. Manhood and womanhood, the glory of God in the creation order. Well, work and rest for the glory of God in the creation order.

That's the point here. So that is Genesis 2 1 through 3. We start with the creation ordinance, the pattern of God, And then we move to the second occurrence in Exodus chapter 16. And in Exodus chapter 16, go ahead and turn there, Exodus chapter 16 and find verse 4. What we find here in Exodus 16 before the law of Moses was given, before the Ten Commandments, Before the ceremonial law, what are people doing?

They're celebrating the Sabbath. Who told them to do that? Obviously God did. Just like he told Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel to bring a sacrifice. This was the rolling principle for the people of God.

But here you find the Sabbath being understood and practiced before the law. People who argue against the Sabbath say, no, no, no, it's just, it's, well, they either say it's ceremonial law or it's one of the commandments that passed away because of the grace of God. Well, I think this refutes that idea. Verse four, then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you and The people shall go out and gather a certain quote quote at every day That's called work that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not and it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily so the sixth day they gather double verse and then skip down to verse 23 then he said to them This is what the Lord has said, Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil, and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept till morning." Now check down at verse 27.

Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather. They were commanded not to work but they're out there working but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, how long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? This is before the commandment was given. Obviously God was communicating something to his people about worship before the Ten Commandments was given and before the the elaborate principles of worship that are given in the in the Pentateuch.

But what's so interesting they went out on the seventh day to gather and they found none. That is to teach us that you can stop working and be provided for. And if you go out and work on the Lord's Day you won't get the gain you're hoping for. I think that's what that means. So in Exodus 16 it was practiced before the giving of the Ten Commandments.

Let's go to Exodus chapter 20. Of course this is the the most famous passage Exodus 25 verse 8. Exodus 20 verse 8. Now this is the most elaborate and clear section on the Ten Commandments. And it gives tremendous detail, codifying what God had already told the children of Israel and he laid it down in the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments.

Verse 8, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Remember, remember what? Remember what God ordained in Genesis 2. And what do you do? You keep it holy.

It's a very special day. Six days you shall labor. Very interesting word that he uses there. Eved means to serve. It's actually related to to worship actually.

You work and do all of your work the word work it carries the idea of occupation business property workmanship cattle even and it it's a word that indicates a boundary. You shall place a boundary around your work. Do all your work and place a boundary around that work. And then he says, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son nor your daughter nor your male servant nor your female servant nor your cattle nor your stranger who is within your gates for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth the sea and all that is in them and he rested on the seventh day therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and how it is so notice notice the reason for this ordinance in Exodus 20 the reason is the Lord rested He ties it right back to Genesis chapter 1 1 and 2 3.

Okay the Lord rested therefore we rest on a particular day. This is the longest of all the commandments and it actually it reaches to every day of the week. It's not just about Sunday, It's about every day. I've often wondered, you know, the people who say we don't have to celebrate the Sabbath, do they think we don't have to work either? Because work is all bound up in this commandment.

We're commanded to work. People who don't work, you know, they're not allowed to eat, so says the Apostle Paul. But notice too, in here, who governs it? It's the family. It's the family that secures it.

This is what you should do in your family. No matter what anybody else is doing in the world you do this in your family and then you bring your you bring your people in your family to the worship of God Jonathan Edwards I love what Jonathan Edwards said about the Sabbath here you go The Christian Sabbath is one of the most precious enjoyments of the visible church. Christ showed his love to his church by instituting it. And it becomes the Christian church to be thankful to her Lord for it. Are you thankful for the day?

Here we are. We're gathered here like his little chickens under his wings. I hope you're thankful for that. That you exist in a community of real people with real problems. You're one of them and you're all gathered around Jesus Christ and the Bible says that he's walking among the lampstands of the church the Bible in Hebrews says that he sings with his church and he says here I am and the ones you gave to me, he's singing when we sing together.

Edwards continues, The very name of this day, the Lord's Day, or Jesus' Day, should endear it to Christians as it intimates the special relation it has to Christ, and also the design of it, which is the commemoration of our dear Savior and His love to His church in redeeming it. Every time we gather, we should think, God redeemed me. Or, If you're not redeemed, if you're not redeemed, when we gather together, here's what you should think. God brought me here to redeem me. He brought me here to save my soul.

Would He save your soul today? Would you believe in Jesus Christ? Would you follow him with all of your heart? Would you take his yoke upon you and learn from him and find rest for your souls? That's what this is all about.

Now So it's a it's a commandment that draws people together and unto God. But notice this that and we already know this, but it's a it's a it's a commandment that's threatened. It's threatened by almost everything in the cultures. Many things threaten it. And that's why he says, keep it.

Keep it. It's going to be attacked. It's going to be threatened in your life keep the Sabbath day guard it protect it build a fence around that day and don't allow anything else to run over it because there's a public war against this commandment and there's actually a private satanic war in all of our hearts against it. The devil doesn't like this day and he places many stumbling stones in our way to disfigure it, to eliminate it, to keep it from us, but we must observe it and keep it. This is so pivotal that pagan French enlightenment educational philosopher Jean-Jacques or Voltaire, he wrote this, If you wish to destroy the Christian religion, you must first destroy the Christian Sabbath.

Absolutely. Why did the observance of the Sabbath fall out in the 20th century? The devil desires to destroy the Church of Jesus Christ by diminishing his commandment. Your fear, your fear of the future, will overrun the Sabbath if you let it. Your greed will overturn the Sabbath if you let it.

Your obsession with productivity will overwhelm it. And maybe even worse, your ungodliness will diminish it. And your lack of hunger for God will displace it. And your antinomianism will nullify it. You need to keep it safe from these barbarians that are at the gates because there are barbarians always at the gates of our hearts And it is one of the commandments and I it astonishes me when people live as if there were only nine commandments.

They're very very popular pastors who actually have said from their pulpits, there are only nine commandments. That's astonishing to me. I don't really even know how to process that. All of God's commandments are good. So the instructions for our work life, six days you shall labor.

So this is a day that governs Your time. This commandment governs every day of your week. Let me say it another way. You want a time management principle? You just got it.

God owns your time. God has authority over every minute that we spend in this world. God wants to regulate the use of your time through work and through rest. It's a remarkable commandment actually. We live in a world where people actually quit working when they get too old, whatever that is, and we have a whole movement, you know, afoot in America.

The UBI, the universal basic income, so that nobody has to work. You'll just get a check and it will ruin you this should be resisted the people of God should resist this and they should resist it in the name of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, who established six days of work and a day of rest. So the day is dedicated to the pleasures of God for worship, for mercy. Let me just say it three ways. It's a holy day set apart from all the other days.

It's not like any other day. We should be creating a day like no other day. It should be the sweetest day of the week. You should build you should build up this week, this day. Build it up all week long.

You know give your kids such a desire to come and worship God. You've got to train them to do that. It's a holy day set apart. It's a day without work. Economic activity ceases and it's a day of rest in Christ.

And it applies to all of us. And in it you shall do no work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates that your male servant and female servant may rest as well as you this is a day for everybody even the unbelievers even unbelievers that show up at your house, you should rest. They don't have to, but you should you should make it clear that you rest regardless of what anybody else in the world does. Your family shows up and you find ten reasons to actually break this commandment. You shouldn't do that.

Live your life according to God. It'll be convicting, might be offensive to people. Of course it'll be offensive, but it might turn them around. It might shock them, and maybe they need to be shocked with somebody who actually takes a day of rest. Now there's so much we could say about this.

The breaking of it brings judgment to the people of God. I won't elaborate on this. Numbers 15, you know, great on this, numbers 15, 30 through 36, Second Chronicles 36, Ezekiel chapter 20. The children of Israel were taken captive in Babylon because they broke the Sabbath for 490 years. And God sent them into 70 years of captivity.

They skipped 70 Sabbaths. 70 times 7 is 490 and God punished them for 70 years in Babylon because they broke the Sabbath. It's not a small thing. Here's the fourth text Deuteronomy chapter 5 verses 12 through 15. So open your Bible there.

Now again, you're going to find this common language here. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Deuteronomy 512. Deuteronomy 512. I hear those pages flipping.

I'll wait. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy. As the Lord your God commanded you, six days you shall labor and do all your work. Notice the continuity. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In it you shall do no work, you nor your son nor your daughter nor your male servant nor your female servant nor your ox nor your donkey nor any of your cattle nor your stranger who is within your gates or your relatives who showed up, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And remember, now, in Deuteronomy 5, we are given a different reason. Remember, in Exodus 20, the reason was, you are a slave in the land of you sorry in in Exodus 20 it was remember that God rested now you rest here he gives a different argument He says remember you were a slave in the land of Egypt. That's the reason. And the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm.

Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. So in Exodus 20, the reminder, the case for the Sabbath is that God rested. Now the case is God wants to give you rest from your bondage. You've been set free. That's why he wants you to do this.

He wants you to remember at least once a week that you've been set free. You've been set free from the bondage of Pharaoh. It's the bondage of Satan. Back in Egypt, Pharaoh gave them no rest. They had to beg for rest.

They begged for it and then Pharaoh said, yeah but you can't take your kids. That's what they did. But it was a land of bondage. And God does not say to you and me, more bricks, less straw. So what God says to his children, he says, I'm going to give you 52 days a year of rest.

He's going to say, come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest that's God's message for his people now we have not finished this outline have we no we certainly have not so we're going to continue to be continued we're gonna continue to pick up the passages that relate to this. We'll speak briefly about the prophets, and we will deal with the New Testament. We will deal with the practice of the Apostles who celebrated the Lord's Day on Sunday and we will also talk about some of the verses that maybe sound like you don't have to regard a day. We'll deal with those as well at another time. And so what should you do?

First of all, You should recognize that this is a creation order ordinance. Second, you should keep it. You should do everything you can to keep it from the barbarians of the culture and your own heart. And you should prepare for it. And you should be careful not to profane it.

And don't mess up your family through your neglect. Here's what happens when people don't honor the Sabbath in their families. Their children don't grow up loving the church in the same way. And that's really significant. There's so much to say about this, but I want to close with some words from Thomas Watson about the Sabbath.

The Jews called the Sabbath the day of light. So on this day the sun of righteousness shines upon the soul. I hope you feel it today. The Sabbath is the market day of the soul. I love this the cream of time.

It is the day of Christ rising from the grave and the Holy Ghosts descending upon the earth. It is perfumed with the sweet odor of prayer which goes up to heaven as incense. On this day manna falls. This is angels food. This is the souls festival day on which the graces act their part When we are about Sabbath exercises We are dressing ourselves putting on our wedding robes in which we are to meet our heavenly bridegroom, the Lord Jesus.

And is this not delightful? On the Sabbath, God makes a feast of fat things. He feasts the ear with his word and the heart with his grace. Well then we may call the Sabbath a delight. To find this holy delight is to be in the Spirit on the Lord's Day." And then this last phrase, forgive me for reading such a long section, when the falling dust of the world has clogged the wheels of our affections that we can scarce move towards God.

The Sabbath comes and oils the wheels of our affections and they move swiftly on. God has appointed the Sabbath for this end that you might know that God is your father he's your provider he gives you rest and He gathers you together under his wings with his other little chickens so that you might be happy in him. Would you pray with me? Lord I pray that you would just give us wisdom for how to conduct this day. We thank you for giving us a day.

We thank you for teaching us how to live, to work, and to rest, and to find all of our consolation in the greatness of your grace and in the beauty of holiness with your sanctified people amen Thank you.