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00:05 Well, good afternoon. Good to be back to share with you today
00:11 on the Sabbath. We're starting well continuing in our series on the uh ten
00:17 commandments because we want people all of us to go back into the Lord's word in
00:23 terms of the most basic commandments basically the ten commandments to find out how we would start to grow again
00:29 from basic principles. Actually ten commandments aren't quite as simple as you'll realize. There's quite a lot of
00:34 things in it. And after each sermon, we will have a Bible study out that the Bible study groups can discuss uh
00:40 because there's such a lot in it. So, let's start with a word of prayer. Lord, we ask that you help us this afternoon
00:46 understand what it means to keep your Sabbath holy. Uh we ask this for Jesus' sake. Amen. Now, is the Sabbath uh
00:55 keeping relevant today? It all depends uh how you look at it. If you look at
01:01 the way the world is run today, it certainly seems to be a great need for the Sabbath. If you look, it's a story
01:08 of this Japanese man called Yugji Udon who was been forced to work in a Nikon
01:14 factory in Japan very very hard. He used to work 11-hour shift rotors and he up
01:21 to a month he would sometimes work up to 250 hours on months on end. He once
01:28 worked 15 days in a row uh without any rest, lost 13 kilograms. At the end of
01:35 it, he wrote a suicide note and he took his own life. In fact, this is happening
01:40 so often in Japan that they call the phenomenon kroshi.
01:45 Uh how many of you here own an iPhone?
01:50 Yep. All right. Then this will concern you. to produce your iPhone. Steve Jobs
01:56 hires 420,000 workers who basically work round the clock um in 300 35°ree heat,
02:04 90 degree humidity, 15-hour shifts every day. They have to meet quotas and
02:11 they're paid about 14 ringgit a day. Recently, 11 suicides. One the worker
02:19 died after a 34-hour shift. Their solution, hire 2,000 social workers and
02:26 Buddhist monks, but no holiday. It seems the world is working at a pace
02:33 where there's no time to take a breath. This is the Leo Wang Eastern Weekly that
02:38 published in 206. 1 million people in China currently die from overwork every
02:44 single year. So these are not small numbers. We seem to be involved in this
02:50 technological age where technology leaps forward but we ourselves human beings
02:56 are still the same. So there's a problem. We have a hurry sickness. I suffer from hurry sickness. How many you
03:02 suffer from hurry sickness? Yeah many of us isn't it? Sometimes you I've seen the ladies they have no time
03:09 they throw their bag in the car, shoe in the car, makeup in the car and then the traffic light they're making up.
03:16 How many of you run, you know, and you're running, not only run, you have to listen to something, you can't do one
03:22 thing at a time, you must multitask, you know. How many of you can brush your teeth and pee at the same time?
03:29 It's quite tricky, but it can be done. Um, so you know, if you look at our basic physiology, we haven't changed in
03:36 the last thousands years of when God created us. But technology has moved forward. You know, you know, if you
03:44 last, if you were a caveman and you met a dinosaur, all you have to do is appear of stress for 10 to 15 minutes when you
03:50 decide whether you want to fight the dinosaur or run away. Nowadays, and and that's what the body is geared up to, a
03:57 fight or flight response with adrenaline. And 10 to 15 minutes, that's all you can. Now, we have unremitting
04:03 chronic stimuli, stress, and at work day in and day out for hours on end, and man
04:10 cannot cope. Maya Freriedman described uh 40 years
04:15 ago higher hurry fitness sickness as the continuous struggle and unremitting attempt to accomplish or achieve more
04:21 and more things or participate in more and more events in less and less time.
04:27 And it's you know what he said this results in the fat lining your arteries to erupt like a volcano. When it erupts
04:34 like a volcano a clot forms in the coronary arteries and you die of heart attack. So people with hurry sickness
04:41 ought to realize that they're leading shorter lives. On the other hand, we've got people who keep the Sabbath day
04:48 aciduously. These are hidic Jews. If you go to uh Israel today, you'll find if
04:56 you hotel, there are two sets of lifts. One for the Gentiles and one for the Jews.
05:02 When you go to the lift for the Jews, there's no button.
05:08 Why? Because you push a button, it takes time, right? It takes effort. So therefore, you're doing work. The the
05:14 lift will stop at every other floor, okay? Alternate floor. So if you're on floor 14, it stops in 13. You cannot
05:21 stop at uh uh one below because if you walk up the stairs is work. So you always stop one floor above your floor
05:27 and you walk down, then you don't work. And women, you can't take a bath on the
05:33 on the Sabbath day. If you take a bath and water accidentally splashes out, you'll be cleaning the floor. you've
05:38 done work. Women, you cannot look at the mirror on the on the Sabbath day because you might
05:44 be tempted to pull out the white hair that you see and pulling out the white hair will cause you to work. The Jews
05:49 are so fanatical about it at some time. This is Antus Epiphies, a very cruel
05:55 leader who uh crushed the Makabian revolt and there was a stage where quite
06:00 a number of Jews were being attacked. It was on a Sabbath day. They refused to defend themselves and they died to a
06:06 man. This is Eric Little, famous Olympian
06:12 runner from Scotland. Uh his story, his life was uh on the basis of a story and
06:18 a movie called Charirots of Fire. And um he came into fame in the world because
06:24 on the 1924 Olympics he was a champion runner. He was supposed to have run and
06:30 won the 200 meter medal, gold medal, but
06:35 it fell on a Sunday and he was a Christian and he refused to run. He even
06:41 called the Prince of Wales to talk to him and yet he refused to run on that Sunday. He gave that up. But he ran on
06:48 the following Monday or Tuesday on a race which he never trained for the 400 meters and he won that. Amazingly
06:55 enough, there are blue laws in the United States, Scandinavia, and Canada.
07:00 The laws created to enforce religious principles. You cannot trade on Sunday.
07:06 You can't drink on Sunday. And this called blue laws. And the fact they're so ridiculous in the state of Illinois
07:13 that you can't have soda, water, and ice cream because that would be work. So,
07:19 you know what this is? Anyone? Sunday.
07:24 It's a Sunday. It's not an ice cream. It's a Sunday. You know, once you pour chocolate clothing over the ice cream,
07:29 it's no longer an ice cream. So, ways in which you get around it. So, so much confusion about what Sabbath
07:37 really is, isn't it? So, let's look into what scripture has to say. First thing, there are only four points this sermon
07:43 and it's quite simple. It's first of all, the Sabbath is dedicated to the worship of the Lord, which is quite
07:49 straightforward. The structure of the decalogue of the ten commandments are such that it's divided into two. The
07:55 first four commandments are basically to do with how to love and worship God and therefore appropriately we love and
08:01 worship God by keeping the Sabbath. Hasn't changed. Right? The second half of the decalogue will deal with how do
08:08 we love our fellow men as an expression of our love for the Lord. Honor your parents, do not murder, do not commit
08:14 adultery, etc. Second one is the direct it is a direct command. And if you look
08:20 in Exodus, remember the Sabbath day. Keep it holy, right? Seventh day is a
08:26 Sabbath to the Lord your God. Remembering is like remembering your wife's birthday. Not just remember, huh,
08:32 it's the 25th of June. You remember me, celebrate it, you observe it. And so this is a birthday that occurs every
08:38 single week, right? Um and and the reason why they do that is that for the
08:43 six days, the Lord made the heaven, earth, the sea, and all that's in it, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore
08:49 the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. We are following we are actually celebrating the creator. Six
08:55 days of work you work a week you work on the seventh day you stand back and you
09:02 appreciate the one who created the world. Six days a week you manipulate the world but on the seventh you sit
09:08 back and you thank God who created this world for you. This is Abraham Joshua Hershel, a famous
09:14 theologian, a Jewish theologian who said that the meaning of Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space.
09:20 Celebrate the creator, not the creation. And he writes, "Six days a week, we wrestle with the world ringing profit
09:28 from the earth. On the Sabbath, we especially care for the seed of the eternity planted in the soul. The world
09:34 has our hands, but our soul belongs to someone else." On one day a week, we
09:40 take off to acknowledge that our souls, our inner beings belong to someone else
09:47 and that someone else has planted eternity within our souls. That's what we celebrate. We celebrate the
09:53 importance of time. I don't know many of you have watched this very interesting
09:58 movie called in time uh by Justin Timberlake and Amanda Safrid. This is a
10:05 movie where they actually posit this idea that time is the most important commodity that we have. Each man is born
10:13 with a set amount of time and it's written on his hand and not a minute more nor a second less and that's all
10:20 you have. But in this movie, you're allowed to work. You're allowed to make
10:25 money in order to buy time. So every time you work or you do thing or sell your house, you get more time because
10:31 that's all that matters is time to stay alive, which makes sense. And in fact, it tells the story of Justin Timberlake
10:37 and his mother. His mother looks like a gorgeous 25year-old even though she's a few hundred years old uh because of the
10:44 time. And what happens was that every she's run so short of time that she has
10:49 to live day by day. And the son works very hard just to get enough money for
10:55 himself and as well as to just give a little bit of time to give his mother one more day. Every day they would meet
11:01 and as soon as he grabs his mother's hand, one day 24 hours transfers from his hand to her clock and she lives one
11:09 more day. That day the bus was late
11:14 by 10 minutes. And you can see that climatic scene where the mother is running frantically towards the son and
11:21 son is lunging towards her. The hands barely met when the time stopped and she
11:26 dropped and she died. But the show illustrates to us the importance of time. And this is not just
11:32 a show. I have patients nowadays who undergo a very expensive kind of chemotherapy called targeted therapy.
11:40 And these cost up to 20,000 a month. And
11:45 many patients can't afford it. In fact, we had uh Mickey Kwa's son called Michael who son-in-law who had lung
11:52 cancer was put on nexa and that cost 20,000 a month. And our brother Pock was
11:57 trying to raise money for him. Every cent you gave him gave him some time and he calculated 300 ringit for one day. So
12:05 the church members who come at 300 ringgit gives him one more day and the clock was extended on his hand. The most
12:12 valuable thing in the world today, brothers and sisters, is not the house that you own. You know, we're stupid
12:17 when you're young, isn't it? You give up all this time to gain space. More
12:24 houses, more cars, more space. When you're old, you're thinking, "Oh my good, I should give up my space to get
12:30 more time." But sometimes you can't give up space to give time. Time is the most
12:35 important commodity. And so therefore, what God has said, I want you to create
12:41 a memorial in time. You see, you go downtown and you will remember the soldiers who
12:48 died defending this country in the various emergencies and and altercations with other countries and we build a
12:55 monument to them and you remember it's a thing that takes up space and you have to go there to see it. But God is
13:01 saying, look, everywhere you are, you carve off 17th of a week, and that time
13:08 is my time to celebrate me. And we're supposed to celebrate with joy. Here we
13:14 have uh Isaiah and he says, "If you turn back your foot from Sabbath, from doing
13:19 your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight in the holy day of the Lord, honorable, if you honor it and
13:25 not going on your own ways, seeking your own pleasure, talking idly, then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I
13:31 will make you ride on the heights of the earth, I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of
13:37 the Lord has spoken." How do we celebrate the the Sabbath day is actually associated with a huge
13:44 amount of joy? He set it aside not to torture you to make you go, "Oh, I got to go to church today." You thought, "Oh
13:51 my goodness, I better go a bit late." You know, you know, he's created in such
13:56 a way he's blessed it. You know what blessing is? I mean, it's it's like a huge Christmas stocking with lots of
14:03 presents stacked inside. something that you can get that actually brings blessing upon your life. And he's saying
14:09 that if you keep the Sabbath, the promise that you shall delight in the Lord and I will make you ride on the
14:17 heights of the earth, the joy and the fulfillment and the grace that you shall experience is at the heights of the
14:24 earth. And yet sometimes on our Sundays right after the
14:30 service, we don't do that. Instead, we catch a movie about some cartoon figure
14:36 or we play games or you watch the football on end because it's Sunday,
14:42 isn't it? And do everything else or best still go to the complex and do shopping
14:48 because if you buy something makes you feel good, accumulate more space in your
14:53 car for this or that. Very sad because you're going back to the things that you do six days a week. What God is saying
14:60 is that if you actually spend it well and actually do things that have to do with the creator, you
15:08 meditate on your relationship with him. Read scripture. Take some time to slow down. Then you will actually experience
15:15 this joy. Do you have the joy of Sabbath? Because with the joy of Sabbath, it gives you the strength to
15:21 and and the power to live for the next six days. It is a time of joy where you
15:27 know in the Jewish setting they're not even allowed to cry to wear dark
15:32 clothing or to have any signs of mourning. In fact, it's a time of a meal. They always have a Sabbath meal.
15:40 That's why after this service you will all walk over there and we prepared for you very nice beef ball noodles so that
15:46 you could take the time to sit down and have a meal. And when you have a meal, you share time with each other. And that
15:54 time is healing because you minister to each other as you talk to each other and you treat each others as brothers and
15:60 sisters. It's an assembly dedicated to worship. Six days in Leviticus 23:3 you
16:05 shall work. Work shall be done. But on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn
16:11 rest. A holy convocation. You you shall do no work. A holy convocation means a
16:17 holy assembly which you come together as a church on a Sabbath day. So I was told
16:24 of a pastor who went to visit someone on his church by didn't come to church and
16:31 first for the past few weeks. I haven't seen you in church for past few weeks. Oh pastor don't you know I'm not there
16:36 at church. I'm in my bed but when I'm in bed I'm always thinking about the church. It's okay. I'm thinking about
16:41 the church. They say why can't you come to the church just not stop you know just don't don't think about the church
16:47 come to the church no if I if I go to church I'll be thinking of my bed so so if I go to church no point got think of
16:53 bed so therefore I might as well stay home at least my mind will be in the right place all right so uh but the
17:00 issue is you have to come come to assemble with other believers
17:06 and uh this is Deuteronomy uh chapter 5 observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Six
17:12 days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall
17:18 not do any work. You your sons or your daughters or your male servants or your female servants
17:23 on your ox or donkey or any of livestock or the sjuner who is within your gates that your male servant and your female
17:30 servant may rest as well as you. And you shall remember that you were a slave in
17:35 the land of Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and outstretched arm. Therefore the
17:41 Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. The second reason of keeping Sabbath day not only because to
17:47 celebrate the creator. The second reason is because he saved you not Israel from
17:53 Egypt but us through Jesus Christ his son from our sin. So there are two
17:58 reasons we do that. The Sabbath is also a sign of the uh for the covenantal
18:04 people. You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, "Above all, you shall keep my Sabbath. For this is a sign
18:09 between you and me uh and uh me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify
18:15 you." You're a people set apart. And and for for many many centuries, the Jews
18:20 were always recognized by people as a set apart people. They're so distinctive
18:26 uh that they are the only ones who are allowed one day off. Everybody else in the ancient time worked seven days a
18:32 week. They're the only ones allowed. And it became a sign. The Sabbath was a sign of
18:38 Jewish people. The fact that you go on Sunday to worship in the church is clear to all your housemates,
18:46 people around who live with you, people who work around you. It is a sign of your fidelity of faith. The Sabbath is
18:53 to cease work and rest. The word Sabbath itself in Hebrew means cease. The sixth
18:60 days you work. on the seventh day you cease um and basically you shall do no
19:05 work. Your son, your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, your livestock, your subjun, whoever is with
19:11 you is to stop work. This is how you make that day special and holy. Uh for
19:17 in six days the Lord made heaven, earth, and the sea and all that's in them and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it
19:24 whole in Exodus 20. And the reason why he does it is because this is the rhythm
19:29 of human existence. We are created in the image of God. God works
19:36 creatively seven days, sorry, six days. On the seventh day, God rested. And so
19:42 therefore, we follow the same paradigm because we are made in the image of God. And it makes sense.
19:48 This is a story told of a wood cutter who was a very famous wood cutter who a lumberjack who cut many trees down and
19:56 uh he was an older person in his 50s and he was then challenged by a young Turk
20:01 who's 25 years old. I'm going to challenge you for a title of the man who can fell the most number of trees in an
20:07 8-hour day. So they had a competition to the young man full of muscles got out
20:12 his axe and started chopping and this guy was like a machine. tree after tree,
20:18 hour after hour he's chopping. Every time looking at his competitor, the old man, the old man was resting.
20:24 But the end of the day, they counted the number trees that he had cut a grand total of 25. Then they went to the old
20:32 man. Hey 25, you know, do you think you can beat me? And the old man said, no problem. 40 trees. He was shocked. But
20:40 every time I look, you were resting. You know, every hour I rest 10 minutes. During 10 minutes, I'm sharpening my
20:45 axe. So this guy was chopping wood with a blunt axe,
20:51 you know, and all he can do is 25. See, that's exactly what we do on a Sabbath day. When we rest on the Sabbath day,
20:58 we're sharpening our ax. We're revitalizing our bodies, our health, our
21:03 mind, and our emotions so that emotionally we could go through another week. Um, and and here Sabbath is also
21:11 relief for workers. Look at Deuteronomy. On it, you shall not do any work. your son, your daughter. So any of your sons
21:18 work for you in restaurant, you must stop them. Uh your male servants, female servants or your ox or your donkey or
21:24 your livestock or the sinner who's within your gates that your male servants and your female servants may rest as well as you. It applies to your
21:31 maids. Somebody once told me if I you know if I my maid has a Sabbath then I
21:37 have no Sabbath law. You know how am I going to have a Sabbath if he has a Sabbath? you know, you know, so take turns
21:46 as a commercialization of uh of the Sabbath. The given Sabbath has been turned into another activity focused on
21:52 unending personal need, but not on God. So again, gaining you can't take time
21:58 off. You still trying to make money, commercialize it. The whole problem is that Sabbath is being commercialized
22:04 today. Thus says the Lord in Jeremiah, take care for the sake of your lives. Do not bear a burden on Sabbath day or
22:11 bring it by the gates of Jerusalem. Whenever the Old Testament mentioned gates, it's not your iron gate outside
22:16 the automatic one. The gate is a huge place which is actually the central business district. All right? So if you
22:23 translate gate is central business district. So don't bear a burden on the Sabbath and bring it into the central
22:29 business district of Jerusalem. Do not carry a burden of your house on the Sabbath or do any work but keep the
22:35 Sabbath day holy as I commanded your fathers. Yet they did not listen or incline their ears, stiffen their necks
22:41 that they may not hear and receive instruction. But if you listen to me, declares the Lord, and bring in no
22:46 burden by the central business business district of this city on the Sabbath day, you shall keep the Sabbath day holy
22:53 and do no work in it. It is a time where there's no commercial activity going on.
22:58 But the people are like many of us can't wait for the Sunday to be over. Can't
23:04 wait to get out of church service rushing for the door. Look, Amos chapter 8:5. When will the new moon be over that
23:12 we may sell grain and the Sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale? That we may make the ifa small and the shekele great
23:18 and deal deceitfully with false balances. That we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of
23:24 sandals and sell the shaft of wheat. Here they can't wait to get back to work to cheat more people.
23:32 This is the apple factory. is actually run by a very rich businessman subcon by
23:37 Steven Jobes whose name is Terry Go. He's worth $5.5 billion
23:44 worked got money gained off the back of poor workers in China. He says time is
23:51 money and efficiency is life. That's how people live nowadays. Time is money,
23:56 efficiency is life. We live in a world where productivity is the chief value of life. Every listed company is always
24:03 looking at increasing the bottom line which is what? Productivity. They tell you more work more productive. You want
24:10 to rest, finish the work first, then you rest. But the problem is you never finish the work. There will be
24:17 another day, another company to audit, another bank to to to run. It will never
24:23 finish. It's like Alice in Wonderland. If you watched that recently, Alice
24:28 lands in the wonderland is a place of frenetic activity. And the Red Queen tells her now here you see it takes all
24:37 the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as
24:43 fast as that. We live like Alice in Wonderland in a society of which you have to run at the same spot in order to
24:50 stay at the same spot. If you don't run, you'll be pushed back. And we live in that s of society. And in this our
24:55 society, human work requires the Sabbath. The Sabbath shows us that human
25:01 work can be relativized and it can be a protector against idolizing our work. We
25:06 are not machines. We have to rest. Uh the Sabbath day echoes Exodus release.
25:13 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a
25:18 mighty hand and outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. This idea
25:24 that we keep the Sabbath day because we were saved by God evokes obedience and the desire to treat other slaves well
25:32 because God saved us. He saved us. You know what happened in Egypt? They work every day round the clock. The more they
25:40 produce, the more they will asked. It was a horrible life of existence. And then since they come out of the Sabbath
25:46 of the of uh Egypt, God says to remember your time. Remember, you used to work
25:52 every single day. Now I give you one day off. And you celebrate God giving them that salvation.
25:59 Sabbath rest evokes dependence. Here we have the people of Israel saying,
26:04 "Beware. You say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth." You shall remember that
26:11 the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth. You see,
26:17 we we all live in a world where if you work, if you sell beef ball noodle, you
26:23 get money. Now, if you don't sell beef ball noodle, do you get any money? No.
26:28 Most business people, if your hand stops, your mouth stops. Isn't it? That's what they say in Chinese. But the
26:34 whole idea of the Sabbath is that your hand stops, but yet God provides. you.
26:40 God wants you to celebrate the Sabbath as a sign of the of your dependence of
26:46 him. As a sign that you live, you live by grace and not by only the sweat of your brow.
26:52 That's why he gave them mana. If you remember in the desert, there was a place which is totally desolate. There's
26:58 no water. There's no way you can plant anything. They depend on mana from heaven. Every time they collected the mana, they could only collect for one
27:04 day. If you collect for two days and by the next day, it will never keep overnight. Somehow the rats got in, the
27:10 worms got in. It turned bad. Except one day, the day before the Sabbath, they
27:16 collected enough for 2 days. And on that night, no worms came. Allergic somehow
27:21 worms don't come on Sabbath day. And and they were able to see with this miracle that one day just before the Sabbath,
27:28 the the the flower won't go bad. And that taught them to depend. And the same
27:34 lesson is to us today that we will survive. If we stop one day, we we won't
27:39 go bankrupt. It is a test of our trust and our faith.
27:44 And I meet so many of I remember meeting this uh famous First Baptist Church uh member who's no longer here with us. So
27:50 I can talk about him. You see him on Proton is selling SS23, you know. Oh, Peter, I'm still here.
27:57 Sunday I'm selling or Saturday I'm selling. Friday I'm selling. Oh, every day I must sell because people buy car
28:02 every day. And what about night time? Can you come to live group? No, no, no. you know, light time must do all the paperwork. So, he works seven days a
28:08 week because he has no trust in the Lord. This is the Foxcon workers, you
28:14 know, as a result of that hoo-ha. Everybody got 30% raise. So, 14 ringgit
28:20 an hour goes up 30%. You calculate now and but the trouble is, you know what the management did? Cut overtime.
28:27 30% raise and you cut overtime and then you're basically at the same place and they're not happy. You know why? They
28:32 want to get more money. given a chance, they would gladly work seven days a week. And that's sad, isn't it? It
28:39 actually we actually want to work like that for the sake of money, giving up all our time, all our time to gain
28:46 space. Pearl Bennish wrote a book. She's a
28:51 Jewish woman who lived during Awitch and her her diary was called to vanquish the dragon. If you go to Germany, you will
28:58 see this sign outside most of or almost all of all the uh um uh uh concentration
29:05 camps. And the words say or m
29:10 which is translated work makes you free. Isn't it ironic? You lock up all these
29:16 Jews inside. You make them work seven days a week every single day. And outside there you put a sign that says
29:23 work makes you free. The only time they were free was when they were dead. And
29:28 so this is how they dehumanize people. And and Pearl Banish wrote how uh they
29:35 had a certain quarter to produce every single day. And what she did because she
29:41 wanted to celebrate Sabbath because that Sabbath kept her sane, kept her believing that she was a human being. Uh
29:47 they took everything away, but they couldn't take her faith away. And so what she did was every day she worked a
29:52 little bit harder and and produced but was supposed to produce five uh uh coats
29:57 a day. She produced six but the six she hid away. So by the time it came the seventh day she already had six coats
30:05 lined up ready. And on that seventh day she sat at the sewing machine and closed
30:12 her eyes and meditated on God. When a when when the guard goes by doing something and the guard goes away
30:18 asleep. Sounds like a lot of our workers. But she did that because she felt that
30:25 the Sabbath was important. She honored her God and grace was given to her. In fact, many Jews survived simply because
30:32 they celebrated the Sabbath. It was something that they could not break. It was the celebration of time. They there
30:38 nothing to give God. You are in prison. You're stripped naked and bare. All you can give God is time. The Nazis can't
30:47 take that away. They can't take away your faith. If you fail to keep the Sabbath in those
30:52 days, you'll be stoned to death. Today, you will deprive yourself from God's life and God's grace. Now, come to the
30:58 New Testament. Now, how does Jesus change it? Jesus comes as the
31:03 fulfillment of the Sabbath. And you know what the Jews had done with the Sabbath? They taken the Sabbath and they added a
31:10 whole bunch of laws in a book called the Talmud. And if you look here, there are 39
31:15 categories of prohibited work which you cannot do. Imagine if you had a fire in your house tomorrow, Malcolm.
31:22 You couldn't extinguish the flame. See, cannot extinguish. Let it burn down. Trust God.
31:29 You couldn't plow. If you wrote, you couldn't even write anything. You couldn't erase anything. You couldn't
31:35 cook. You couldn't wash. You couldn't sew. You couldn't do so many things. And you couldn't carry any burdens. You know
31:42 what carry burden? Most of you here, especially the girls, you're already carrying a burden. You know how heavy
31:48 the burden is? Food equal in weight to a dried fig. One fig. If you carry anything more than one fig, you you are
31:55 actually having a burden. Wine for mixing the goblet. Milk enough for one swallow. Honey
32:02 enough to put on the wound. Water enough to moisten the eye self. Paper enough to write on a customs house notice. In ink
32:08 enough to write two letters of an alphabet. It's ridiculous. So it becomes
32:14 an unending system of rules.
32:21 Jesus defines the true meaning of Sabbath. It's not just rules and he tells you this very important thing. The
32:28 Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord even
32:34 of the Sabbath. This is very very very important. We're not made for a bunch of
32:39 rules. The rules are supposed to work for us. That's the difference. Jesus saying, let
32:46 me tell you a story. Luke 13, an old woman who was teach uh Jesus was at a
32:53 synagogue and there was an old woman with a disabling spirit for 18 years. For 18 years, she was bent over like
32:59 this. We have we actually have a modern disease like that. It's true. It's called ankle-losing spondilitis. the
33:06 type of inflammatory arthritis that causes them and they all walk like this. I remember who has it very uh uh our
33:12 former MCA chief um not the one in the sex tape uh the other one um the one
33:19 before him his mom was my patient and she's got ankalizing spondilitis very bad she used to be a rubber tapper she
33:25 bent and and not only that's painful and it's uncomfortable and you can never look up in the world when you actually
33:32 have that disabling disease when people look at you nobody comes near you nobody touches you because you have a disease
33:39 And a disease means you are ceremonyally unclean and you are a sinner. Imagine
33:45 going through 18 years of your life where nobody looks at you, nobody touches you, nobody hugs you, nobody
33:51 cares for you. And this is a woman who is torn outside her community. She is an
33:58 alien. She comes to the synagogue and what Jesus does is Jesus heals her
34:03 immediately. She was made straight and she actually glorify God. You know you
34:10 do that in church, people will be jumping up and down. Praise God. Isn't it? Have a feast. Many more will come up
34:17 there. You actually have the synagogue leader. But the synagogue leader was indignant.
34:23 This is my church. How can you come here and heal people in my church? And you know what he said? He healed on the
34:29 Sabbath. And he said to the people, this fellow was a China man. Because when when when China man has something wrong
34:35 with you, he never go to you directly. He go behind your back. So he went behind Jesus' back. He had no guts to
34:41 confront Jesus and said to the people, you know people six days a week wish to
34:47 work or to be done. Come on those days and be healed. Not on the Sabbath. Huh? Right. So this is indirectly criticizing
34:54 Jesus. And what did Jesus do? Jesus said, "You hypocrite." All right. So next time anybody talks behind your
34:60 back, you you point out you hypocrite. All right. Do not does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his
35:06 donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman or
35:12 a daughter of Abraham whom Satan uh has bound for 18 years be loosed from this
35:18 barn on the Sabbath day? He says, you know, you guys have a donkey or an ox tied up, but you untie him to lead him
35:25 to water. But this woman tied up by Satan for 18 years and you're unhappy. He's being released from the bonds of
35:32 Satan. And the people's response was as he said these things, all his adversaries are put into shame. All the
35:37 people rejoice and all the glorious things that were done by him. And Jesus changed the Sabbath and let people
35:44 realize the Sabbath is created for men. For the Sabbathkeeping is embracing people. Six days a week you embrace
35:52 things, possessions, and rules and do your business. On the seventh day,
35:57 you embrace people because people are the most important commodities in the world. And what do you do? Use the most
36:04 important commodity which is time in order to minister to people. So after
36:10 service, don't just rush off, stay back because your conversation,
36:16 your smile, your discussion with somebody else ministers to that person. We take time on Sunday to rest from our
36:24 work. to reflect on what God would have us do in our lives and how we should
36:30 grow in our relationship. As we grow in our relationship where our inner capacity, our ability to care for people
36:37 grows as well. If we continue to live in a society where rushing from one assignment, one homework, one project to
36:45 another, then we will never develop the depth of time in order to be so healed
36:51 and refreshed by God so that we could be a minister to other people. Sometime you sit and talk to other people, you find I
36:58 don't have much to to talk to them, but I only talk to them about my job or this or the stock market. You know why?
37:03 because you have never taken time to reflect so that God could speak to you and refresh your soul on a Sunday.
37:10 And so what did Jesus do on a Sunday? He went and he healed the man with a withered hand. He healed the the the
37:17 invalid. He said it's lawful to do good things on a Sunday. You do good things and give rest to other people. Supposing
37:24 you before coming to church, you had a flat tire. Oh, Sunday cannot fix. No,
37:30 you you fix a flat tire. Fix a flat tire. to wash dishes in order to help someone on a Sunday you wash dishes to
37:36 help someone because an act of love we embrace people on a Sunday see here we
37:42 actually have the expression of the Jews on Sunday the expression of keeping Sabbath was to avoid certain tasks Jesus
37:48 is saying no on Sunday you engage people you restore people to community by
37:53 pointing to God because the woman was isolated she was crippled she was judged
37:59 unclean she was torn out from society she was out in the cold. What Jesus did
38:04 was heal her so that she could be restored to her community. And what we do on Sunday is we restore people to the
38:11 community of God. And so if you had to be playing basketball on a Sunday with
38:16 non-Christian friends in effort to restore them to the community of God, that's fine. That's great work too. Um
38:23 so Sabbath ought to change the world by us discovering new insights in our own calling. refresh, reflect, renew
38:31 relationships so that we can better reflect God's character. When we sit across the table with the beef ball
38:38 noodles, we're actually affecting each other. You're actually influencing each other.
38:45 Fellowship over meal is one of the most powerful ways which we influence each other's lives. That's why families want
38:52 to sit together to eat. Why is it the father come and eat on himself, the the daughter comes in, eats on herself, goes
38:58 off, you know, and then families embrace sitting together because you sit together, something magical happens.
39:04 Fellowship happens. We take time to discover each other. It takes time to grow closer to each other. That's what
39:12 the Sabbath is for. And uh said Jesus provides the ultimate
39:19 Sabbath rest. Here is a little bit of a difficult concept. Let me go slowly
39:24 here. Hebrews chapter 4 says, "So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
39:30 For whoever entered God's rest has also rested from his work as God did from
39:35 his. Let us therefore strive to enter the rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience." It says here
39:42 there is a Sabbath rest for the people of God. And whoever has entered into his
39:47 rest has rested from his work as God did. All right. Now let's look at God's
39:53 rest. Here we have is a sign in Exodus forever between me and the people of
39:59 Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on seventh day he rested and was refreshed. Here is God
40:06 being depicted as someone who worked hard and he stepped back to reflect on the beauty and glory of his creation. He
40:14 experienced joy as he contemplated his creation. He looked at all the animals
40:19 and it was good. He looked at all the human beings who were created. It was good. He looked at the stars. He looked
40:25 everything was good. It's like my my friend Richard, you know, he's been he's not here, but I'm going to gossip about
40:30 him anyway. So, he he's bought a flat or two condo in in Panga and he been busy
40:37 for the last 6 months, you know, putting this in new kitchen. I saw him went shopping for his kitchen. You probably
40:43 see a 90in TV in his house and thick plush carpets getting everything ready. But oh that's fun but but not quite the
40:51 you know what the best time is when it's finished and it's ready and we're
40:57 invited to his house for the housewarming then not only will be nice imagine it's
41:04 finished it's ready the 90-in TV Richard is sitting there legs up watching it by himself leaving in the kitchen cooking
41:12 by herself no it's nice when you got a whole bunch of FPC people over and we're looking at
41:17 this carpet we're looking his 90-in TV. We're putting our legs up there together with him and we're enjoying that kind of
41:23 fellowship that we hope would have gone the whole day. We just sit down and relax. That's a picture of what the
41:29 Sabbath is. It is a time that's leisurely where there's God's rest. You know, you guys in the second service are
41:36 the ones the cleverest ones in church. You know why? Six days a week you get up
41:42 at 6:30 in the morning you fight a 2-hour traffic go to KL with all the smog and then at night you come back at
41:48 9:00 at night and the seventh day you want to do the same thing and come to work come to church at 8:45
41:55 if you're smart you sleep up to 11:00 because there's only one day a week
42:01 where you could sleep in isn't it and yet you are to come early please you should make all services at 11:00 but I
42:08 know but some of you by tradition like to come earlier. In fact, some of you pride yourself to have the kind of dedication to come early. But no, I
42:15 prefer to sleep. If I didn't have to preach, I would be here. Never mind. So,
42:21 the whole idea is resting. Sunday is resting. It's okay to sleep, to chill
42:28 out, put your legs up, have a beer. All right. This is the picture of what it is going to be God's rest. And the Sabbath
42:35 glimpse into what should have been. When you have the Sabbath rest here,
42:42 God finished. It's like Richard finished 90 inch TV all come and enjoy. He calls
42:48 Adam and Eve to enjoy him. Unfortunately, they sinned. And when they sin, the fall came. God could not
42:55 sit back. God even can't even invite him into this his new condo in Bangza because you're all sinner. So if you're
43:01 all sinners, you can't go to Richard's place. Okay? You're going to be redeemed. Then you can go to Richard's
43:06 place. So, so therefore you can't have the true Sabbath rest. And so what happens is that from now to the end of
43:13 time there we celebrating Sabbath like little trailers before a movie. Before a movie a little trailer, a little trailer
43:19 see what is really going to be like. It's a glimpse the the rest that you have. The blissful sleep until 11:00 on
43:25 every Sunday is a is a reflection of what will be one day when really be rested and refreshed uh with God. And
43:30 then what happens is Jesus is the one who actually gives us a rest for for we
43:36 who have believed entered into that rest. So there's a special Sabbath rest with God forever. And you can only enter
43:42 by believing in Jesus. Because that's why Jesus said, "Come to me all who
43:48 labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and
43:54 learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your
43:59 souls. How will you find rest for your souls? Jesus is giving them a picture. The picture is of an ox, a big ox, and
44:08 he's pulling the big yoke and is pulling the plow along. The junior ox is the
44:14 apprentice ox. He is loosely tied to the yolk of the older ox. And is he learning
44:20 the process? What he'll do? He'll trot along. But the main yoke is all held by the major ox. And what it's saying is
44:28 that Jesus is saying, "Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me." It means you don't
44:34 take any burden. You know, you're just walking in the side. And he's taking the heavy lifting. That means he takes our
44:40 burdens, our worry, the guilt and shame of our sin. He takes it upon his own
44:46 shoulder. And when he takes that load and puts it on himself, what do you feel? rest.
44:52 You feel cool. You feel refreshed. And that's the only kind of you may rest
44:58 on a Sunday and you still got sin hanging in your heart and the guilt and frustration and the meaning's life.
45:03 That's still a burden. You know, it mean a lot of people who do not know Jesus Christ. They could be the richest people
45:08 in the world who don't have to work at all. But they have a huge burden of guilt or unhappiness and don't know what
45:15 they want to do with their own lives. Jesus saying, "I can give you the real rest if you take my yoke and believe in
45:22 me." So what we have here now is that the first day of the week now is appointed to what the last day will look
45:28 like. It's a present gift and a blessing to come. So now we actually have Jesus
45:33 Christ through Jesus Christ. When we actually celebrate the Sabbath day, we actually looking forward to one day when
45:39 we really be with God resting forever. Fourthly,
45:45 the Sabbath is the Lord's day. Now in the Jews is Saturday, Christians is Sunday. Simply because there was a
45:51 change in the New Testament. On the first day of every week, each of you has put something aside, store it up, the
45:57 tithe that he may prosper, so that when I come, this is Corinthians 13, on the first day of week when we were gathered
46:03 together to break bread. So the Christians started to meet on the first day of the week because this celebrated
46:11 the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So they changed it from Jewish tradition. If you look in history, the Jews were
46:18 the only one who had a Sabbath or Saturday as a holiday. For the first 300
46:24 years, everybody worked every single day except
46:29 the Jews who had holiday. And after the the Christians used to worship on the
46:35 working day which is Sunday. And that's why when you read in Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 the people used
46:42 to come for the Sabbath meal together Sunday meal together. The rich people will come at 4:00 because got nothing to
46:48 do what the whole day watching TV you know going to ice skating and then they come at 4:00 very late and then they
46:54 would have the Sabbath meal together the the Lord's supper. Their Lord supper is not nowadays us giving you a little
46:60 dinky bread you know real roasted turkey ham whatever you got and they really
47:05 whacked it and sat down a big meal and it lasted for hours and the poor people
47:10 will come in at about 9:00 why cannot get time off by time you come 9:00 half
47:16 the meal gone already those are the beef ball noodle hopefully some left I hope so I told him to save and then
47:24 you know nothing left all the good food been whacked they got upset and that's why Paul says
47:29 you know you're not recognizing the body the body means each one of you you must care and love for each other so here we
47:35 actually have a situation where it was a working day and Constantine under the influence of Christianity in 3 uh AD 321
47:43 then made Sunday a holiday and then then the Christians celebrated Sunday as a
47:48 holiday as well a day of worship together and since then until now the influence of Christianity was so great
47:55 all over the world people are given one day off. That's a fantastic how Christians can affect the world.
48:03 Now, this is the last passage and you need to understand very importantly how we're a little bit different in the
48:08 New Testament. There's no legalistic keeping of the Sabbath, but of its principle. Two
48:14 Colossians 2:16-1 17. Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in question of food and drink or with regard to a
48:21 festival or new moon or a Sabbath. These are shadows of the things to come but the substance belongs to Christ. What
48:27 he's saying is that you know the real stuff is coming to faith in Jesus Christ
48:34 that will give you the ultimate rest and if you already done that you fulfilled the Sabbath and all the rest new moons
48:42 festivals Christmas Easter or even Sunday itself is a shadow of the real
48:47 thing right it's a shadow so you can't say exact oh we don't have a Sabbath
48:53 police and we can't have all your addresses those of you who don't come this Sunday, next Sunday we'll send them
48:58 seven police to your house. Ah, you are not there on Sunday. We don't have that anymore because we don't legalistically
49:04 keep it. We don't judge each other. It's no longer a judgment call. So here we
49:10 have in the New Testament, there's no actual direct command to keep the Sabbath law except that it's part of the
49:15 decalogue. And when Jesus came, he always kept the Sabbath. He goes worship on the Sabbath day too. He didn't say
49:22 don't keep it. He kept it. Okay? But there's no legalistic insistence on a particular day. It's like the tithe.
49:28 When you come here, you don't have a sign outside the door. Pay tithe 10%. Not a dollar less or a dollar more. We
49:35 don't have New Testament there's no mention of a tithe at all. It's mentioned on giving as cheerfully as
49:41 your heart desires because there's no longer any legalistic regulation. We live by the power of the
49:47 Holy Spirit. And so therefore the spirit is we still have a Sabbath principle because the Sabbath principle is a
49:54 creation ordinance. It is a rhythm of human life. It's how we are created. It is because we worship God. We still have
50:00 the Sabbath principle and we provide rest for our workers because the Sabbath not only affects Christians, it affects
50:06 non-Christians. The Indonesian person who works for you is still entitled to rest on the Sabbath day. It's part of
50:12 being a human being. And so therefore, you can't say that you don't keep it. So
50:17 therefore let's apply this. Suppose you work for an auditing house
50:23 like Erns and Young or Price Waterhouse and one of those famous names and they
50:29 make you work for the peak period. Oh tell thing you have to work peak period for the whole one month because
50:36 everybody's year end is always you know Edin looking at me one month she probably is three months. All right. And
50:42 and you have to work a month of Sundays and so therefore you can't come to church at all. What are you going to
50:47 say? Uh in a situation if it's an emergency period or if it's a very
50:52 difficult period, you know, companies like I think it's okay for Christian not to come to church on Sunday and take
50:58 your Sabbath on another day. Uh I'm sure the company will give you leave otherwise it's against labor law and
51:05 celebrate that with some Christian friends and worship to the Lord. That's fine. Or you can join a life group and worship there too. So that you're not
51:11 legalistic, you know, uh and you don't have to make up, oh, I missed three Sundays, so I must have three separate periods of time. You don't really have
51:18 to be legalistic about that. Uh but as long as you work but not for commercial gain, if the motive is for commercial
51:26 gain that I'm going to get richer and all that, then then that breaks the Sabbath principle. For example, if you
51:31 were lucky enough to be like Eric Little and asked to run 100 meters on a Sunday.
51:37 If I was Eric Little, I I'll run on I'll run on Sunday and Monday I take my day off. No big deal. All right. I'm sure I
51:44 can find some friends to worship with on on on Monday as well. So, that's not a big deal. Or let's say you had an
51:50 earthquake. Are you going to say, "I can't dig people out from the rubble. I
51:56 work three weeks in a row missing a Sunday because I I got to rest on the Sabbath day. No, you work the three
52:01 weeks because it's an emergency. All right. So, uh we need to be very careful
52:07 when we apply this. So, the challenge to us, remember the Japanese man who worked
52:13 so hard until he died. He left a suicide note. Guess what his suicide note said?
52:23 The time I spent has been wasted. God gives you X number of time is
52:29 printed on your arm if you watch the movie in time. Don't believe just because you're young there. The number
52:35 is very large. A lot of young people die too. That's all you time you're going to
52:40 get. Uh not a minute more or a minute less. It's all written. You can't see it. This guy,
52:49 everything I did was wasted. Sad, isn't it? And you look at Eric
52:55 Little. Eric Little wrote his favorite verse. The Lord declares, "Far be it for
53:01 me. For those who honor me, I will honor." So Sabbath is part of the ten
53:08 commandments. It's when we go back to the blessing of Sabbath. And when we keep the blessing of Sabbath, God
53:15 blesses us. You see, those who honor me, I will honor. God doesn't owe you
53:23 anything. And if you give unto God, he will bless you richly because he said God blessed
53:29 the seventh day and made it holy. You know, the seventh day is like a Christmas stocking. You know what he put
53:34 inside Christmas stocking? Presents. When you go to Christmas, you take out the presents. You keep the Sabbath day,
53:41 your souls will be rested. you'll find delight and joy in him and you help others do the same. Let's pray. Father
53:50 Lord, we thank you for your word and we pray as children of yours that we
53:58 be obedient with this regard that we will keep the Sabbath principles in our lives and even for the people who work
54:04 under us that we may never forget that they too are human beings and ought to be blessed because the seventh day was a
54:12 day where you put aside and you put aside for every single mankind as a
54:17 reflection of your benevolence as the reflection of your love and the reflection of your grace. So we as your
54:23 children should never deny this to anyone who belongs to the human race. And for
54:29 us we pray that we will learn to trust you to depend on you even if you have to
54:34 take one day off. And we pray as we relax and you refresh afterwards that we will learn to embrace
54:40 people, embrace relationships, spend the time to reflect that we may
54:46 better reflect your quality, your character and touch more lives. We ask for Jesus sake. Amen.
