Sermon (October 23, 1981)

by Herbert W Armstrong

Talk about the morning after the night before! But this is the Friday night after the Feast of Tabernacles and we’re a little sort-of sparsely settled here tonight. I guess we’re not all back yet; and, in a sense, I’m sorry to speak on the subject I’ve chosen for tonight. I wanted to have this auditorium full and also the college gymnasium, that as many as possible could hear it. However, some of the other ministers have urged me to go ahead with it anyway. I thought I would turn to a different subject tonight. But I may repeat this again when a larger number of people are here because it is very, very important. This Church has been off the track; and I’m not sure we’re a hundred percent back on the track yet, but we’re getting there. And we’re beginning to please God; and, when we please Him, He blesses the Work and He blesses us.

The nation is in the doldrums. The world is in the doldrums, and in violence, and trouble. This nation is now in a recession. There’s no question about it. I see even the government in the White House has finally admitted it this week, and there may be worse times coming. Now God has been holding things back in world events that are prophesied, things that are prophesied. The MAIN thing next prophesied is the resurrection of the medieval so-called Holy Roman Empire in Europe. Undoubtedly half of it will be in Western Europe and half of it in Eastern Europe – ten nations going together. But it is the way of God, in a time like this, to let things go slow. You know, even a thousand years sometimes are like a day with God; and they whip by very rapidly. At other times, a day is like a thousand years; and it seems like it’ll never end. And God has held things, and is going to hold things, back.

We read in the seventh chapter of the book of Revelation of how He sends an angel to hold back the plagues that were prophesied to come at that time – (Now we’re not quite to that time yet. That is yet future.) – till He seals the servants of God in their foreheads, a hundred and forty-four thousand and another innumerable multitude. And that will be the Laodicean Church. That will be the tag-end last Church of the seven different eras of the Church, the remnant Church; and that hasn’t come yet. A lot of people have been wondering: “Where is the Laodicean Church?” Well, it hasn’t appeared yet. Don’t waste your time looking for it. It isn’t here. You can’t find it. But it will be here. And, when God’s time does come, He will let things happen very, very rapidly. It’s going to take your breath. Now, believe me, it really will.

And I’m looking very closely at world events right now – especially over in Poland and things that are going on there; and the action of Russia in regard to Poland; and what is going on in the Vatican and a few places like that – and so are our news people. We have our own news staff here on campus. I don’t know whether all of you realize that or not. It’s part of our publications: The Plain Truth and others. And our writers that we have, they have teletypes ticking off there 24 hours a day, and all night long and all day long, just the same as newspapers have, and also the news departments of television stations or then television networks, so that we keep abreast all the time. And we have a group of researchers constantly researching news, filing and cataloguing special events and keeping a file of things up to the minute, all the time; so that we’re right on top of these things that are going on in the world. And they are men who also know the prophecies of the Bible.

Well, I wanted to talk about something else altogether tonight. HOW DID LIFE BEGIN? You have to start in the New Testament, in John 1, to find how life really began. I want to see if we can get a little different meaning out of this tonight.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was WITH God, and the Word was God.

Now, ”In the beginning was the Word.” The Word was a Personage that was a great spiritual, supernatural Personage. ”And the Word was with God.” That is, that Personage was with another Personage; and the other Personage was God. And then, in the last {1} part of the verse, we read that ”the Word was God.”

John 1:2-3The same was in the beginning with God. (3) [And] all things were made by him; and without him was not anything made …

Now that Word, we find in the fourteenth verse, later was born of the human virgin Mary and became Jesus Christ. But He was not Jesus Christ originally. He’s just called “the Word” here. But He was God; and They were God there in two Persons. One is called “God” and the other “the Word.” But nevertheless the Word also is said to be God here.

John 1:4 In him was life. L-I-F-E. Now in God was also life. So They lived. The two Personages lived, and They had lived forever.

Now of the Word we find, over in the book of Hebrews, that He was without father, without mother, without beginning of days or end of life, without descent. There was no beginning. There will be no ending. HE HAS AS ALWAYS EXISTED. Now your mind can’t quite conceive that. You think He had to start living and start existing at one time or another. But He didn’t just exist. He lived, or They lived; and They had been living, alive, and actually LIVING – those Two, and apparently only those Two in the whole universe. In fact, there wasn’t any universe yet! They hadn’t created that yet, at the beginning.

But They had been together from eternity, if you know when that began. It didn’t begin. It always was. But, in living, They were living together; and perhaps billions times billions of years, or trillions times trillions of years. You can go on and on, and your mind can’t quite conceive that it’s so great and it’s so long. But now They had lived together, and They knew HOW TO LIVE TOGETHER. Two cannot live together except they be agreed. You will read that in the scriptures that They’ve given us and inspired. So They were in perfect agreement. They lived in PEACE. They lived in harmony.

And while They lived, They also had power of mind – supreme mind, mind that was able to plan and to design everything that has come into existence; to produce it; to bring it into being. They say to bring something into being out of nothing. I don’t think that’s exactly the way it was done. But, being Spirit, They were able from spirit to create all matter and the entire physical universe. But They were not physical. They are and always were Spirit and Spirit Beings, not physical at all.

But the way They lived was the way of life that we call love. That is an out-flowing concern each one for the good and the welfare of the other. However, we find that the One here called God was even greater; and that the Word did only as God said. And so in the third chapter, I believe it is, of Ephesians you read how God created the whole universe and all things by Jesus Christ, the Word. The Word spake, and it was done; and the power that did the creating was the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit emanating from Them.

Now they lived a certain way of living. They had minds to think with and to plan. But they had great accomplishment, and they lived to work and to design and to create. And designing and creating was Their work, Their business. And They were creating in a manner of great accomplishment, and in peace, and in happiness and joy, and the joy of great accomplishment. But They created other beings having minds – first angels, and later They created man. They lived by a LAW; and that law was LOVE, out-flowing love one to the other.

Now where there are two … You know, a lot of young people getting married say, “Well, we don’t want to have … The husband is not to be boss anymore. We want to live 50-50.” You know you can’t do that! I don’t know whether you notice or not, but the recent royal wedding in England (I was over there at the time.); and in that wedding ceremony there was nothing that the wife had to obey the husband. That was all left out. Oh, it was going to be 50-50. Well, let’s watch and see whether it lasts or not. When you have 50-50 that will always mean the wife is wearing the pants and is the boss. SOMEONE HAS TO BE! TWO CAN’T live together just 50-50: one has to be the leader over the other.

Now, God was the leader. Why didn’t Christ resent that? And why didn’t He speak out for Himself and stand up for His own rights? Why didn’t He? Why didn’t He say, “I’m just as great as He is. I’m going to run things?” No, He didn’t do that. He was the Prince of Peace; He was a maker of peace; He lived the way of peace. He had humility, but He also had power and strength. He had great strength and great power; and He had meekness – if you can understand that, because meekness doesn’t mean weakness.

He lived in a certain way; and that way was out-flowing love, each love for the other. And so that is a way of living, and They made it a law. That is, God – the One who became God the Father later, the One who is called God – made that as a law; and that is a law that we find given (in Exodus the twentieth chapter) in the Bible. Now They had created man, but here They had a law; and that law was given to man. We read of it here in the twentieth chapter of Exodus:

Exodus 20:1-2 God spake all these words, saying, (2) I am the [Eternal] thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt[This was said to the ancient Israelites; and they had just been brought out of the land of Egypt, where they were slaves.], out of the house of bondage.

Then He gave the Ten Commandments. I won’t go over them now. I’m going to go over one of them a little later.

But there was a test commandment, and that begins with verse eight:

Exodus 20:8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

Now that happened to be the TEST commandment. That is the one commandment that the world holds in question. They will accept the other nine, at least in principle, even though they don’t obey them. But they will accept that maybe we ought to have the other nine: but that one, that’s the fourth one, they don’t agree with that at all. ”Remember the Sabbath day, to KEEP it holy.” Now some people don’t know what that means. But God had made it holy and told us to keep it that way (and not to profane it; not to trample all over it and make it unholy) – to keep it the way He made it.

Exodus 20:9-11 Six days shalt thou labour and do all of thy work: (10) But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. [That is, don’t work them if you use them in labour. They did use oxen, and at least don’t cause them to labour and do that kind of work.] (11) For in six days the [Eternal] made the heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the [Eternal] blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Now that is the test commandment. That is the one that people will haggle over and don’t want to obey. They want to change it. They want to make it Sunday.

Our question tonight is “How do you keep it?” I’ve had two other Bible Studies on “The Sabbath Question” prior to this. But it is very important that we understand not only about the Sabbath, and that God commands it, and what it is, and why it is; but how do we keep it. He said, “Keep it holy.” How do you do that? Just what is meant by that?

I want to tell you first about an incident that’ll begin to set the groundwork for it, I think. It was, let me see, it was probably nearly forty years ago. I was holding a series of Sunday night services in the Chamber of Commerce auditorium up in Seattle, Washington. And I had an audience probably not quite as large as this audience, because that was a small auditorium, wasn’t as large as this. It probably seated about, oh, maybe three or four hundred people. But I would always go out a side aisle and shake hands with people going out the door at the end of the service. And there was one lady going out one time, said, “Oh, Mr. Armstrong. I want to ask you a question, if I may?”

I said, “Well, certainly.”

“Well,” she said, “Someone told me that you don’t keep the Lord’s day, and that Saturday is your day. I do hope that’s not true! But I want to ask you personally if that is true.”

I said, “Well, no, that’s not true!” I said, “I do keep the Lord’s day, and Saturday is not my day.”

“Oh,” she says, “I’m so glad to know that!”

“But,” I said, “Well, I’m not sure you quite understand. Now you see, Saturday is not my day. Sunday is my day.”

“Well,” she says, “I’m just glad to know that.”

I says, “Fine. But,” I said, “Monday is my day too. And Tuesday is my day, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday. But,” I said, “when I come to Saturday, that is NOT my day. That is the Lord’s day, and I do keep the Lord’s day. I told you I do keep the Lord’s day, but Saturday is not my day. Saturday is not my day. It’s the Lord’s day.” I said, “You’ve been mixed up, and you’ve been misreading your Bible. You need to read your Bible again.”

She threw her neck, her head, back and “Huh!” And she walked out in a huff; and she never came back again, you can be sure. Well, her mind was already made up. She didn’t understand, but she might have been very sincere in what she believed; nevertheless, that’s what she’d been told.

Now we turn to Mark, Mark the second chapter and verses twenty-seven and twenty-eight:

Mark 2:27-28 And [Jesus] said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. [Now He did not say, “the Sabbath was made for the Jew.” He said, ”The Sabbath was made for man,and not man for the Sabbath.”] (28) Therefore the Son of man [which is He Himself, or Jesus Christ] is Lord also of the Sabbath.

Therefore, the Sabbath must be the Lord’s day. That seemed very plain to me, but other people have been told that Sunday is the Lord’s day. Now I would take a check out of my pocket (except there isn’t one in it) and write it out for a thousand dollars for anyone that could show me any place where the Bible calls Sunday “the Lord’s day” because it just doesn’t.

It speaks of “the Lord’s day” in only one place in all the Bible; and there it really means “the day of the Lord,” and it isn’t speaking of the day of the week. If it did, it would be speaking of Saturday; but it is speaking of a period time. We’ve been in the day of man, or the day of Satan; and we’re going to come to ‘the Day of the Lord’, when the Lord begins to take over and run things. And that what the book of Revelation is all about, because that’s in Revelation chapter one verse ten; and that is the setting, or you might say the summary, of what the book of Revelation is all about.

Now, the Sabbath was MADE. It was one of those things that was MADE. Well, then, who made it? I just read to you in John 1:

John 1:1, 3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God … [and] (3) ALL things were made by him; and without him was not ANYTHING MADE that was made.

So, therefore, the Sabbath is one of those things that was MADE. So, it was made by the Lord. That’s why it’s the Lord’s Day: He made it. It was made by Him. Now He said it was made FOR a purpose: made for MAN. Of course, it’s made for man, but maybe that doesn’t fully express its purpose. It was made for a greater purpose. But it was made for man – for the benefit of man, nevertheless.

Well, we go back and read about WHEN it was made; and we see about when it was made in Genesis 1 and verse 1:

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven [Heavens, plural, it is.] and the earth.

Now we don’t know when that was. That might have been millions or billions of years ago too. Anyway, He created the heavens and the earth; and, as I told you before (in Ephesians 3 and verse 9), God created all things by Jesus Christ. And Christ is the Word. He spake, and it was done. And the Holy Spirit is the power that responded, when He spoke, and brought it into being. But God the Father ordered it, designed and planned it. Christ might have had His part in that designing and all of that too. But now we turn to Genesis the second chapter. Well, first I want you to notice the twenty-sixth verse of Genesis 1, verse 26:

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image.

So, you see, Elohim is a uni-plural which includes both the Word and God. And They’re both God, and God is more than one Person: a Family of Persons. And Elohim is a word like “family,” or like “club,” or like “church.” More than one person belonging to a club; more than one person in a church; more than one person in a family – but only one family, one church and so on. And people can’t seem to understand that. They think there must be a lot of churches. There’s only the one that is God’s Church, only one that is the real Body of Christ. And so Elohim said: ”Let US [Not ‘Me.’ Let US … ] make man in our image, after our likeness.” He was making man after the God kind. He made animals after the animal kind. But He was making man after His own kind, the God kind.

Now in Genesis the second chapter and beginning with verse 1:

Genesis 2:1-2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. (2) And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made …

Now, He did not end creating. He only ended the work. It didn’t say He ended creation, and you notice what He ended was work. Now He was not going to work: He was going to create something by REST. But He’s still creating, and from that time on He’s going to be creating character in human beings. But first He was going to create a Sabbath day. ”On the seventh day God ended his WORK which he had made … ”

Genesis 2:2-3 … and he rested on the seventh day from all of his work which he had made. (3) And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it [Sanctified means set apart for a holy use and purpose. Not for just any old use, but for holy use and purpose. ”Blessed the seventh day and sanctified it … ”] because that in it he had rested from all his work which [he] had created and made.

Now again, it was made for man; and it was made when man was made. It was not made for the Jew. It’s not the Jewish Sabbath.

Now God (hereof spoken of as Yahweh, which means the One who later became Christ and who had been the Word) rested and was refreshed. He is the One who rested on that day. Christ then (or Yahweh, the LORD) put His presence in that day, and also His fellowship with the man and the woman that He had created on the sixth day. On the sixth day He finished creation by creating the man and the woman; and it says, ”male and female created he them.” And so He spoke to them and taught and had a fellowship meeting with them. You notice here in the sixteenth verse, Genesis 2 and beginning with verse sixteen:

Genesis 2:16-17 And the [Eternal] God commanded the man[that He had just created], saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: (17) But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

Now that was pronouncing a death sentence on him, if he took of the fruit of that tree. That tree was a symbolic tree. Perhaps there was a real tree there. I’m not questioning that. But it, whatever kind of tree it was (and I can tell you, I think I can say definitely it was not an apple tree because the world seems to think it was; and the world has to be wrong! But I don’t know what it was. Whether it was crab-apple, or peach, or pear, I don’t know. Anyway, it represented taking to himself the knowledge of what is good and what is evil; and it represented, also, rejecting the Tree of Life. And so He pronounced a death sentence.

In other words, death is simply the punishment of breaking the law. You can’t have a law without a penalty for transgression. Otherwise it isn’t a law. Now He pronounced the penalty of death. So we know that (while the Bible doesn’t give us very many of the words) He probably began speaking to the man and the woman He created on Friday afternoon at sunset; and then through the evening until time for them to go to sleep and get a night’s sleep; and then on the day part of the Sabbath, of that first Sabbath; AND HE PUT HIS PRESENCE IN IT AND HAD FELLOWSHIP WITH THEM at that time.

Well, now, how about us today? I want you to see that He has not quit having fellowship with us. We turn now over to I John in the New Testament, near the end of the New Testament. I John 1, and just verse 3:

I John 1:3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with [the] Son Jesus Christ .

WE ARE TO HAVE FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER AND THE SON, AS WELL AS WITH ONE ANOTHER. Is there AN APPOINTED TIME when we meet together and have fellowship together? Is there? I’ll turn to that a little later, but the Sabbath day is a holy convocation where our presence is commanded. You know, right there is something different in this Church than any other church I know: All members – unless we are simply away and unable to be here, or sick or for some reason unable to come – are present at the Sabbath service.

It is a holy convocation. Now a “convocation” is “an assembly that is convoked” if you look in the dictionary, and to convoke it is to COMMAND it. It’s not come if you want to, or come once in a while, or come on Easter and Christmas as the world does. Of course, we don’t observe those days anyway. We observe the days that God tells us to observe, that God says are HOLY CONVOCATIONS. I will show you later the Sabbath is a holy convocation. Well, let’s turn to Leviticus 23 and verse 3:

Leviticus 23:3 Six days shall work be done: but in the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a HOLY CONVOCATION; ye shall do no work therein: it is the Sabbath of the LORD [Not of the Jew, but of the Lord.] in all your dwellings.

Now you will notice again, it is the Sabbath of the Lord; and it is a holy CONVOCATION . It is set apart for a holy use and purpose, and we’re told to ASSEMBLE TOGETHER. And, when we assemble together, we not only have fellowship with one another but we’re having fellowship with the Father and with the Son. And when we are here in fellowship as we are tonight, this is a night part of the Sabbath; and, brethren, do you realize that, in spirit, JESUS CHRIST IS HERE tonight in this auditorium? This auditorium is dedicated to Him and the Great God, their Name in gold letters out in front in the grand logier. And They’re here and assembling with us, and we’re in Their presence.

It was Jesus Christ who PUT HIS PRESENCE IN THE SABBATH DAY, by meeting with the only man and woman that He had created and who were alive at that time, on that first Sabbath. AND HE MEETS WITH US WHEN WE’RE HERE. It’s a holy convocation, and we are commanded to be here.

Now, how do we keep the Sabbath? Well, one thing is, we attend God’s Church services; and we come into the presence of a holy God. It is a holy convocation. It’s His presence here in the day, in the Sabbath, that makes it holy; and He is here with us. Now, let me give you Exodus 3:1-5. I don’t remember why I put it here, but let me go back to that. Oh, yes:

Exodus 3:1-2 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and he came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb[or Mount Sinai]. (2)And the angel of the [Eternal] appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he [Moses] looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.

It just kept on burning and burning. It probably was a very small bush, a bush that would burn up. Moses must have seen it when he was some little distance away from it; and he kept walking toward it, and it was still burning; he walked on past it, and he looked back. It was still burning! And it was a small enough bush it should have burned all up before that time. Now he was curious, so he looked back:

Exodus 3:3-5 Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. [That is, why it wasn’t burnt out.] (4)And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, GOD called to him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And [Moses] said, Here I am. (5) And [God] said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place wherein thou standest is HOLY GROUND.

Now, what made that ground holy? The ground a couple of hundred yards back was not holy; the ground a hundred and two or three hundred yards ahead was not holy; but that ground right there was holy where Moses was standing. It was the presence of God there that made it holy.

AND GOD’S PRESENCE IS IN THE SABBATH DAY, AND HIS PRESENCE IN THIS DAY MAKES IT HOLY TIME. Besides He blessed it, set it apart, sanctified it, and MADE it holy time; and told us to keep it that way. It is holy to Him, and it’s supposed to be holy to us; and I showed you that in the previous Bible Study. It is a holy convocation. We’re told to assemble. And His presence is here, and that makes it holy time.

Now then, when we come here that brings another thing about how to keep the Sabbath and how to come dressed when you come into the presence of God. You know one time (as a matter of fact, it was on December 1, 1968.) I was in Jerusalem. And I had been in one of the university buildings and visiting with Dr. Aviram, one of the leaders of the Hebrew University, on the faculty; and we had talked for a while and we were leaving, then, for a meeting with the President of Israel. And the time had come for us to leave and walk over to the President’s Mansion, as it was at that time. They later built a, what they call, it’s a small palace, but a very small one that they built for the President in Israel. Because they are a poor nation, they didn’t build a great magnificent one. But, anyway, it was the house where he lived; it was a very nice house.

Well, we walked down the hallway to the elevator; and Doctor Aviram says, “Hey, wait a minute. I’ve got to go back.” He said “I, we’re going into the presence of the President of Israel. I have to go back and put a jacket on.” Now he was just in shirtsleeves, and open collar and no necktie; and it was warm weather, and he didn’t even have a coat on, or a jacket. So he went back to put a jacket on. Well, they don’t dress so well over in Israel. He still didn’t bother to pull on a necktie, because they just don’t do that there. But at least he knew he had to dress properly to come into the presence of the President of the nation, and we were going over to meet the President. Well, of course, I was already dressed up for the occasion. But I just want to show you that did make a great difference.

Now, it makes a difference to God how we come attired when we come into His presence. And I want to mention that now because I find that God’s people, some of them, are very sloppy in the way they come dressed, or attired, to God’s Sabbath meetings. They come any old way. They seem to think they can just dress up any way in the presence of God.

If you want to know how to keep the Sabbath: one thing is you are COMMANDED TO COME TO CHURCH unless you are unable to come. You’d better have a real reason, not just an excuse. There was one man who thought he didn’t need to attend Church and had not been attending Church at all. I wrote and told him about it; and I said, “You are now catalogued as a non-member. You are not a member of the Church (although he thought he was).”

But you are to come properly attired. And God’s people, many of them, have been OFF THE TRACK; AND WE’RE GETTING BACK ON THE TRACK NOW. WE’RE GOING TO COME PROPERLY DRESSED WHEN WE COME INTO GOD’S PRESENCE HEREAFTER, brethren. That’s one of the ways that we’re going to get back on the track.

I’d like to have you turn now, if you will, to Matthew 22. Matthew 22 beginning with verse 11, and Jesus is telling of a parable here. He says that there had been a wedding planned.

Matthew 22:11 And when the king came in to see the guests[coming to the wedding], he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment.

He didn’t come properly attired. He didn’t have a wedding garment on. Now, did that make any difference? And Jesus is showing, Jesus is the King; and when we come into His presence we have to have proper attire on.

Matthew 22:12-14 And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment? And he [the man] was speechless. (13) Then said the king [Now that is God who is saying this. That’s what it means, and says it to any of you who think you can come attired any way at all. ”Then said the king … ”] to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (14) For many shall be called, but few chosen.

Some have been called, but they don’t care. And they don’t care how they ACT and how they treat God with contempt any old way, come attired any old way when they come into God’s presence. Brethren, you cannot do that. You ever see me come here in overalls? You ever see me come with a dark blue shirt on, or something? I try to set you an example. Now, we have never told our ushers “Just turn away people and don’t admit them. Tell them to go home and get suitable clothes on.” And I hope we won’t have to do that.

Now, by that I don’t mean you have to go out and buy special clothes. I mean you should come dressed with the best you have. Maybe you don’t have as good clothes as someone else. That’s all right. Such as you have, use it; but come dressed up. You know, whatever is being dressed up for you and the best that you have. That’s the way you should come into the presence … not because of me, not because of the person who’ll be sitting next to you, but because of the PRESENCE OF GOD AND THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST HERE IN THIS SERVICE WITH US. THEIR PRESENCE IS HERE, AND THEY’RE HAVING FELLOWSHIP WITH US. Can you come into the presence of the Mighty God like just any old way? Brethren, we’re going to GET BACK ON THE TRACK. That’s all. I say we’re not all the way back yet, but we’re getting back there.

Now, I say the Sabbath was made forman. It was. It’s made for our rest. And when we work … Now, we don’t all work with our hands and our bodies and our legs. Some people get very tired. I have worked in an Iowa hay farm pitching hay, when the right season comes; and I know what it is. And I know you get up about sunrise, or before; and by noon you’re hungry, and you have a great big dinner. And in the afternoon, you go out and you work; and you sweat, and you work. And by night you’re really tired and rest seems very good. But also I have worked a great many years with my mind; and my body needs more exercise, and doesn’t get enough. And sometimes I’m tired using my mind, and I need to rest it. But it is a time for rest and relaxation.

Now, there’s a reason why we need rest. And sometimes we, well, God made man so we need to sleep nights. Now God does NOT need to sleep nights. He does not sleep, and He never will get tired. But we are. And I wonder if you ever realize why you get tired? When you’re tired, there’s a sort of a pain feeling that you feel, well, in the joints or the muscles of the body. You have a tired feeling. You feel tired. Well, it’s something you feel.

Well, you know, some scientific experiments have been made on that – to find out why you are tired, and why you need sleep, and why you are rested when you have had a good night’s sleep and wake up in the morning. And this is what they find by these scientific experiments: that as you exercise and you use your body, or even using the mind, that the body does absorb certain (What am I trying to think of? The more chemical word … ) acids that do set up a certain acidity in the joints and in the muscles of the body; and that produces that tired feeling. And even if you sit and use your mind all day, you’ll have a tired feeling; and you need total relaxation of mind and rest.

When you are then resting, and your body is resting, and you’re sleeping – you’re still breathing in and out, and your body is breathing, and your blood is circulating. And the blood, just the circulation of blood, without further exercise that does not create a further acidy condition in the muscles and the joints begins to bring off that that is there that was causing the pain. You breathe it out in your breathing. And, by the time you’ve rested all night, it’s all been breathed out. And you wake up in the morning, and that pain is not there. That tired feeling isn’t there any longer.

Now that’s the way some scientists have explained it. And you’ll have to decide whether what they’ve come up with is true or whether it’s false. But, that is, they’ve tested it on horses; and they’ve tested it on people. And they actually have found certain acidity conditions in the muscles at night after a hard day’s work that are not there after a good night’s sleep.

But remember this: the Sabbath was made for man and for man’s benefit; and yet IT BELONGS TO GOD, and it is God’s holy day. Now we come to a scripture that I did read when I was going through these things before, in Isaiah 56; but I want to go over that again because it’s very important in how to observe the Sabbath. Isaiah 56, beginning with verse 1:

Isaiah 56:1 Thus saith the [Eternal], Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.

That means now, today. While that’s in the Old Testament, it’s a prophecy for our time – when His righteousness is near to be revealed, at the time of the Second Coming of Christ. So this is for us today. Verse 2:

Isaiah 56:2 Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; and keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.

Now it was made for, not for the Jew, but it’s made for all men. It’s made for man. So now notice about those that are of another race or another nation:

Isaiah 56:3-4 Neither let the son of the stranger [or a Gentile, or some stranger in another country], that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold I am a dry tree. (4) For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my Sabbaths, and that choose those things that PLEASE ME …

You’ll notice the Sabbath is one of those things that is HOLY to God. Whether it is to you or not, it’s holy to God. But it is one of the things that pleases God. If we please Him, He will bless us. ”That keep my Sabbaths, and . . . [those] things that please Me … ”

Isaiah 56:4-8 … and take hold of my covenant; (5) Even unto them will I give in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. (6) Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the [Eternal], to serve him, and to love the name of the [Eternal], to be his servants, everyone that keepeth THE SABBATH from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; (7) Even them will I bring to my holy mountain [which means the holy nation, or the Kingdom of God], and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for ALL people. (8) The LORD [Eternal] which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered …

He’s going to gather. And that is something too that is yet future and going to happen; because our people are going to go into captivity, and so are the Jewish people. They’re going to go into a captivity, and He’s going to gather them at the time of the coming of Christ. Now we come to the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah and beginning with verse 13. Just verses 13 and 14:

Isaiah 58:13 If thou turn away thy FOOT from the Sabbath, from doing THY pleasure on MY HOLY DAY …

TAKE YOUR FOOT OFF OF IT. QUIT TRAMPLING ON IT. QUIT MUDDYING IT UP. It makes me think of coming in on a floor that has been scrubbed and cleaned and is immaculate. And you’ve been out in the mud, and in a terrible kind of a muddy place on a rainy day. And you come in, and you trample all over it and dirty the floor. Well, if it’s the Lord’s House, it’s not going to please Him to see His floor dirtied all up. Or if it’s a woman, and you do that in her room, how would she feel about it? How does God feel when we trample on His Sabbath day? Let me go back and read that:

Isaiah 58:13-14 If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing THY PLEASURE on my holy day [Now the Sabbath, then, is not a day for our entertainment and pleasure – just plain pleasure; and it’s speaking of worldly pleasure and that kind of pleasure. “On My holy day … ”]; and call the Sabbath a delight[That’s what we should do, call it a delight.], the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shall honour him [How? How do we honor Him?], not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: (14) Then shalt thou delight thyself in the [Eternal]; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father[which is, of course, eternal life in the Kingdom of God]: for the mouth of the [Eternal] hath spoken it.

So, you see, it is not a day for our pleasure. We’re not to walk all over it, or trample that which is holy to God. And I didn’t put this down to use tonight, but God also says how people are very sloppy in the way they serve God; and one of the ways you can sin is putting no difference between the holy and the profane. Now God’s tithe is holy. It’s absolutely holy and sacred to Him, and is not ours. It belongs to Him. And the Sabbath day is NOT OURS. As I say, I told this woman up in Seattle, “It’s not my day. It’s God’s.” It’s not my day. It’s God’s day. It’s not the Jews’ day either. It’s God’s day.

So it is not for our pleasure. It is not for our work, or our labor, if we are busy in manual labor. It is not for our business, if we’re in business. It’s not for shopping. It’s not for going to football games or baseball games. There are a lot of people down at the baseball park tonight in a World Series game. Well, we’re not there. We’re here having fellowship with God; and it’s much better, because people down there are going to be worrying if the Yankees beat the Dodgers tonight, which they probably will! And they’re going to have to suffer. They won’t enjoy it a bit! Now, we can wholly enjoy this service here tonight.

That brings up some other things that have come, that I might discuss right here while we’re on it. This is a question that was brought to me just this evening: “Is it all right to go out to a restaurant for lunch on the Sabbath? Is it all right to save the wife the trouble of cooking food, and you just go to a restaurant? They’re working anyway, whether we go or not. We don’t cause it. And it saves all of that work, and especially if we don’t have to walk very far and we don’t go to the labor of walking too far?” Well, now, that might be.

Others say, “Well, but … You see, we should do all the preparing of food on Friday, so we don’t have to do it on the Sabbath.” And “We don’t have to go to work on the Sabbath, and that the wife doesn’t have to do that anyway on the Sabbath.” Well preparation of food, so far as possible, ought to be made on Friday. That is the preparation day. And a little bit of cooking, a little preparation of food, is allowable on the Sabbath, but remember it is the day that is holy to God. It is not for our work. It shouldn’t be work like regular daily work for the housewife or any one who does the cooking. It should be cut down to an absolute minimum.

But I would like to turn, at this point, back to Exodus the sixteenth chapter; and here we have an Old Testament example. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He hasn’t changed in His way. And I’ve quoted you Old Testament texts showing how He told them to keep the Sabbath in those days.

Exodus 16:25 And Moses said …

Now this is when the children of Israel had not … They were getting hungry, and they didn’t have enough food. And God said that He would take care of that, and He would rain down manna from heaven for them. And God was sending them manna, just raining it down from heaven. Now there’re one or two things I’m going to mention here that I’m not sure about. They had to go out and gather that manna. I don’t know how much work there was in gathering it. I don’t know whether they had to make, prepare it, or wash it, or cook it, or do something to it once they had gathered it, and how much work was involved in that. Those things I don’t know; and I’m sure you don’t know either, because it doesn’t tell us. But:

Exodus 16:25-26 Moses said, Eat that today [This was on a Friday.]; for today is a Sabbath unto the [Eternal]: today you shall not find it in the field. (26) Six days you shall gather it [That’s the manna.]; but on the seventh day , which is the Sabbath , in it there shall be none.

Now some of them thought, “It doesn’t make any difference whether we observe the Sabbath or not. It’s all right.” And, you know, we’ve had people saying that – that “Well, we can compromise; and we can get pretty liberal.” Now we had some people getting so liberal they allowed people to do their regular work on the Sabbath, and everything else, over in England. They’re not … They’re ministers, and they’re not in the Church any longer. One of them is preaching for a Sunday church every Sunday. Another one just got a job in the secular field, regular manual work; but he’s not a minister any longer, and he’s not a member of the Church. Neither one of them are members of the Church any longer.

Now they said for the seventh day … They had the amount for two days that God sent them by a divine miracle on Friday. But on the day that we now call Saturday, God didn’t send any at all; they didn’t go out and gather it at all.

Exodus 16:27-30 And it came to pass [And He said that “there will be none.” ”It came to pass … ”], that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather [They were going to TEST God. They thought maybe God was bluffing.], and they FOUND NONE. [God wasn’t kidding.] (28) And the LORD said unto Moses, HOW LONG REFUSE YE TO KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS AND MY LAWS? [Did it make any difference to God? You bet your life it did! And you are betting your life on it too, incidentally.] (29) See, for that the LORD hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two day; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. (30) So the people rested on the seventh day [after that].

Well, you get an idea there. Now, as I say, I don’t know how much work they had to go to, to prepare that manna. How much work it was to go out and gather it. Maybe it was quite a chore to gather it. Maybe it took time to pick it all up. I don’t know. It takes you time to gather certain berries or fruits off of vines or off of trees. Or like peas in a pod, or other certain vegetables or things that might be quite a chore to do that. Or maybe they had to prepare it after they brought it into the house, or the tent, or wherever they were living in at the time. That I don’t know. But God did not give them any on the Sabbath day.

God plainly shows us that we can eat on the Sabbath. And I think I’ll turn to a text after a bit when Jesus and His disciples were going through a cornfield on the Sabbath day, and they plucked out ears of corn to eat. They went to that much work. And they weren’t walking a great distance; because I know that they didn’t walk over a Sabbath day’s journey, and that’s about three-quarters of a mile. But, nevertheless, they were allowed to go to the amount of work was necessary to eat.

Now I knew a man when I was a boy, and I was brought up in a Sunday church; and, of course, he thought Sunday was the Sabbath. And this man would not ride on a streetcar because then he would cause other men who were working on that day to work to carry him. Of course, they were going to work anyway, whether he got on the car or not. He didn’t stop to think about that. But he walked from way over on the west side of Des Moines to the east side of Des Moines, Iowa, to attend church every Sabbath. He walked about two or three miles over, and three miles back, to prevent riding where other men were working (that were going to work anyway, whether he did it or not). Well, that seemed like the height of foolishness. You see what I mean?

If you go out to a restaurant on the Sabbath, that restaurant’s going to be there; and that food’s going to be prepared whether you go or not. And the other people are going to be working anyway. They don’t keep the Sabbath. They pay no attention to that. And I, ah, I don’t see … God gives us a kind of a principle here, and I think that we can see how to apply it to a given circumstance. On the other hand, if you go out for lunch on the Sabbath … Now, in a way, you can go to a restaurant after sunset. And many, many times on the Day of Atonement I have had a restaurant reservation for six-thirty in the evening. I appear at the restaurant at six-thirty, and I don’t have to go to more than a Sabbath day’s journey of work to get there. And the sun is setting at six-thirty at that time, and they don’t begin to bring any food anyway for the first fifteen minutes or so; and so we don’t eat anything until after dark. So I know that that’s all right.

Now I had never thought until this evening, when the question was asked to me about whether it was wrong to go to a restaurant to eat … And I know, when I travel, I have to do it or go without; and so I do. On the other hand, those who eat at home should do all the preparing they can – like baking and things that take time. For example: you could prepare a salad, a cold salad, on Friday. Put it in your refrigerator. And today they have these wax papers and everything, you know, the what-you-call-it wrap that’ll keep it fresh. Reynolds’s Wrap, is it? Whatever it’s called. “Best wrap around” I think I heard one of the commercials say on television. Whichever one that is! And it’ll keep it perfectly! And the refrigerator isn’t “working.” You don’t have to worry about it working anyway. You don’t have to turn it off on the Sabbath, because it’s only a machine. It’s not your manservant, or your maidservant, or your horse, or your donkey, or your son, or your daughter.

Now the thing I want to say is this: On the one hand, we don’t want to be so straight-laced that we make the Sabbath a yoke of bondage: God did not intend that. On the other hand, we don’t want to go to the other extreme and get liberal and say, “Oh well, it’s all right. We can do anything on the Sabbath!” You can’t do that! You’ve got to be careful to keep that day HOLY. Now maybe if you only go a short distance on a Sabbath, and you eat in a restaurant, and it saves you the work at home … Well, I understand some of you were condemning one couple for doing that. And I say that you can’t sit in judgment, and I don’t condemn them.

You have to be honest in yourself. The Holy Spirit in you is an attitude in your mind, and it’s an attitude of where you want to please God more than yourself. I’ll tell you, there’s a rotten attitude that most people have. They want to please themselves more than God. They want to please God as LITTLE as they can get away with. And we’ve had that in this Church – wanting to see “How far can we go in the Devil’s way? How little can we obey God and get away with it?” You’ll never get into the Kingdom with that kind of an attitude. Never! IF THERE IS ANY DOUBT, GIVE GOD THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT EVERY TIME. But what do you do in cases like that?

Now another thing brought to my attention: Here is a family that were driving eight hours on the Sabbath to go to a different Church area than the one where they usually meet, because there was a basketball game on Saturday night at this other Church; and their kids wanted to play basketball. And so the whole family drove eight hours on the Sabbath day in a car, starting early morning, to get to another place in the afternoon so they could be there at night for a basketball game. Now the basketball game probably occurred after dark. That’s usually played indoors, with lights, anyway. But driving a car eight hours, when you don’t need to, is certainly “working” on the Sabbath. And that is foolishness; and that is being liberal; and that is wrong on the liberal side.

Now God said the Sabbath is made for man. It’s made to be a delight, the holy of the Lord. It’s a day of rest, and it’s for our good. It’s not a straight-laced yoke of bondage. Let’s get that straight! We don’t want to go to either extreme. Now this came to me: some want to invite others for an afternoon over to their home for socializing. Not for fellowship, but just for a social afternoon. Well, it depends how are you spending your time? How far do you travel? How much work is involved? A lot of those things enter in. I’m not going to strain at a gnat or swallow a camel. On the other hand, I’m not going to be so liberal that I say that you can just get away with anything you want. Why can’t we get a balance, brethren? Why can’t we get a right balance? It depends on what you do and how you do it.

Now I mentioned on one of the Friday nights, when I was talking on the Sabbath, where I had been preaching at another place, and we were flying back; and it was still before sundown on the Sabbath, and I was tired. I had been preaching the night before; I had preached at the afternoon, as I remember; and I had worked on the plane; and we’d had a meeting of ministers and their wives after the afternoon service in this other city; and now we were flying for some three hours or more back home; and I was tired. I had been working my mind and my mind was fatigued. I needed some physical exercise; but I couldn’t get that on the airplane. Maybe I could run up and down the aisle a little bit? But, if I did, I think Captain Black would be calling in, telling me to sit down and behave myself; because, if you would run, that would jar the plane.

Incidentally, by the way, I noticed in my office today I felt myself rocking back and forth a couple of times. Did you ever notice? There was an earthquake here today, a very slight one; but I noticed at exactly ten thirty this morning, and then a little later again, a couple of times each time.

Anyway, coming home (And I’ve mentioned this once before.) I took out a deck of cards, and I was playing a little Solitaire at my desk in my office in the plane. I didn’t know what to do. I was weary. I was mentally weary. I had tried to sleep, and I couldn’t sleep. And I had to unwind, and I had to relax. And the most restful thing I could do was to play a little Solitaire. I wasn’t trying to win! I was just trying to do something to rest my mind a little bit and relax. But, you know, a minister aboard sort of very subtly balled me out a little bit for that: ‘I was breaking the Sabbath.’ Well, I’m not quite that straight-laced. Now if I thought, if I were doing it for pleasure and for the excitement of enjoying it, I would say it was wrong. A lot of it depends on what is your motive? What is your intent? What is your purpose? What’s on your mind? WHY do you do it?

I couldn’t get physical exercise. I was too tired to go back and talk with the others on the plane. I was just tired. I wanted to rest my mind; and that, for me, was rest. All right, I tell you I did it. And I tell you that I would tell you, under the same circumstances, you could do it. It would be right, and I don’t think that was wrong. If I did, I certainly would never do it again. But I – unless someone can show me that was wrong – I probably will do it again.

Now the Sabbath is not for our pleasure. On the other hand, it is not the opposite. It is made for man; but it is God’s day, to honor Him. It is made for man. It is made to be a delight to us, a relaxation from the normal weekday occupations; and where your normal weekday occupation is mental, perhaps you need mental rest on the Sabbath. Did you ever think of that? Depends on what your work is.

I want to read that one now about Jesus’ disciples going through the cornfield on the Sabbath day. Let’s see, that’s in Mark the second chapter beginning with verse 23:

Mark 2:23-28 And it came to pass, that [Jesus] went through the corn fields on the Sabbath day [Or maybe it was the grain field, but whichever. Some translations have it grain field.]; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck ears of corn. (24) And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful? [Now verse 27.] (27) And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath[And that’s where He said:] (28) Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.

And it is His day, but it was made for man.

Now there were examples about healing on the Sabbath, and Jesus was criticized for that. We come to Luke 13 now: Luke 13 beginning with verse 10:

Luke 13:10-12 And [Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. (11) And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years and was bowed together [She just couldn’t straighten herself up.], and could in no wise lift up herself. (12) And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.

He didn’t even ask her if she wanted healing, or anything of the kind. He just had mercy on her and told her that she was healed.

Luke 13:13-17 And he laid his hands on her: and IMMEDIATELY she was made straight, and glorified God. (14) And the ruler of the synagogue answered [It was in the church service on the Sabbath.] with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day, and said to the people, There are six days on which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day. (15) [And Jesus] answered him … Thou hypocrite [He called the ruler of the synagogue a hypocrite! ”Thou hypocrite!”], doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to water? (16) And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from her bond on the Sabbath day? (17) And when he had said these words, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all of the people rejoiced for all of the glorious things that were done by him.

So He did heal quite often on the Sabbath day. And the Pharisees, in other cases beside this, rebuked Him for it; but He said that “You feed your livestock and you water them on the Sabbath day.”

Now I knew a turkey raiser in the Church (up in the original parent-church of this Philadelphia era) in Eugene, Oregon. He was a turkey raiser and, as soon as he was converted and baptized and began to keep the Sabbath, on Sunday he would … He had to grind feed for his turkeys. He would grind one-seventh, no, one-sixth of the amount of feed that it took for a whole day’s feeding on Sunday; and on Monday he would grind another sixth; and on Tuesday another sixth; and on Friday finally a sixth. And by that time, by Friday, he had six sixths or a whole day’s extra feeding ahead. Now, he’d have to out and feed it to them; but the labour of grinding it he did, he spread it over the six days before he came to that so that he didn’t work on the Sabbath day.

And it was for baptizing this man before he came to see the truth about the Sabbath that I was chastised by other Sardis ministers up there. But I told them that the Scripture says baptize them and then teach the things that God had said. Matthew 28, in the Great Commission: go into all the world and preaching the gospel and baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have told you.

Well, they cannot understand these things until they receive the Holy Spirit; and they receive the Holy Spirit after they’re baptized, and you lay hands on them for the receiving of the Holy Spirit. And, beside, that’s when we’re brought into the Church. We’re not brought into the Church by water baptism. That’s another thing I’m going to have to speak out on some of these days. Water baptism is not entrance into the Church! BY ONE SPIRIT we’re all baptized into the one body of the Church. We need to realize that. By one Spirit! Not by water. But water baptism is, nevertheless, commanded.

Now, let’s see, Luke 14 beginning with verse 1 And it came to pass, as [Jesus] went into the house of one of the … Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day, that they watched him.

Now here He actually went in to eat with an unconverted man, a Pharisee, on the Sabbath day! Now, if I would do that today, I know that there’d be some that would criticize me and say, “Ah, Mr. Armstrong went in to eat with an unconverted person on the Sabbath day.” Well, I want you to know that Jesus did it here; but He never sinned, did He?

Luke 14:2-6 And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy. (3) And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and the Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? (4) And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go; (5) And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit [or into the ditch, or whatever], and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day? (6) And they could not answer him again to these things [or, they didn’t bother Him anymore on it].

Well, as I’ve heard someone say: “Don’t go and throw your ox, or your horse, or someone, into the ditch on Friday so you can pull him out on the Sabbath.” And I think you get the point there. It was one that I heard up in Eugene, Oregon years before I even came down here. Well, acts of mercy and things like that are perfectly okay on the Sabbath. Now, do not get overly straight laced; but do NOT get liberal or compromise with what is right. The Sabbath is made, not to pollute it, to remember – that it belongs to God and not to us, it’s His day, and how He tells us to keep it.

A Sabbath day’s journey was permitted, you read in Acts 1 verse 12. And that was from Jerusalem there – well, by the place where the wall is at Jerusalem now – up to the Mount of Olives. That’s about seven-eighths of a mile, but also it’s uphill. And it talks about going up a Sabbath day’s journey (and not coming down). Walking uphill. On an automobile or a plane you can do about the amount that would be the same as walking approximately a mile on the level, or even a trifle over a mile on level ground, that would be work. How much work is there in driving an automobile and riding in one? Even riding in a car all day long gets to be very, very tiresome. So you can’t go eight or ten hours a day on the Sabbath. That would be going too far. But the main thing is just don’t tempt God, one way or the other. Let’s try to do what is pleasing in His sight and try to be sure that we are pleasing God.

Now, let me see, finally here in Romans 11 beginning with verse 33{2}:

Romans 11:33-36 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (34) For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counselor? (35) Or who hath first given to him, and it shall not be recompensed to him again? (36) For of him, and through him, and to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

And, with that, I’ve just tried to cover tonight to give you the principles involved. And God’s law is like that. It is a principle to be applied to various circumstances. Now, you’ll have to use wisdom. The thing is: Are you trying to see how much you can get away with? If there is any doubt, give God the benefit and not yourself – every time. But it’s not to make you miserable. It’s to be a happiness and a joy, and a joyful occasion for us. We must honor God. Remember that He is in our presence in Sabbath services; and we should conduct ourselves accordingly, not being either too liberal or straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. I think you can apply it your own way and be sure that you’re pleasing to God.

And remember, you’re being judged NOW. And, if you do wrong, God is judging you now. I’m not. God is. Your judgment day is not coming later. It’s here now. You’re being judged hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute, and day-by-day. Every one of us is. And let’s remember that we’re the first to be judged, and judgment is on us.

So, hope to see you all tomorrow. And I hope there’ll be more people back for tomorrow, as I had a very important message for tomorrow afternoon that I wanted too. But I suppose there won’t be any more people back tomorrow because most of them have … I don’t know why we always take so long to get back from the Feast. That’s another thing. We want to take every advantage. When there’s any doubt we always take the advantage to ourselves. Well, some of us are going to find that it’s going to cost us our chance of getting into the Kingdom if we do that. Just remember that, brethren.