Well, sirs, here we are today in the Fourth Commandment.
And this is in a series of heart-to-heart talks
that I've been bringing you on God's 10 rules for living.
Oh, I know we speak of them as the 10 commandments.
But in reality, in these 10 commandments,
God has given not only to the children of Israel,
not only to Moses, but to you, to me, to all of humanity.
Anyone who is a part of humanity has a part in these 10 rules
for living.
And remember, man did not make.
These are God's rules.
To break any one of them, man will suffer.
Now, each one of God's 10 rules for living are vital.
Know that one is just as vital as the other.
But in giving them to Moses, God said more about the fourth
commandment than any other.
Take that into consideration before we begin our little
heart-to-heart talk regarding this fourth commandment.
Think of it.
Of all the commandments, of all of these 10 rules for living,
this one that we are about to go into,
God said more about this one than any other.
He needed only four words in regard to killing.
Thou shalt not kill.
But he used 94 words to tell us to remember the Sabbath day,
to keep it holy.
Now, in the first place, God tells us to remember.
In a scientific sense, one never forgets anything.
Never.
Every thought we have is registered forever on our minds.
But practically, we can forget almost everything.
And you know that's the truth.
We can forget dates.
We can forget names.
We can forget things that we're supposed to do.
Man can even forget God if he desires to do so.
Some things, you know, we forget on purpose
because the remembrance of them is not pleasing.
Other things we forget because our minds are preoccupied
with other matters.
And one of the things that we so often forget
is to keep God's day.
But God says that man needs to set aside a day each week
to keep it holy.
And to fail to keep that day holy is to suffer.
If you fail to keep that one day holy,
you will suffer in exactly the same way as you would suffer
if you were to break any one of the other commandments.
For not one commandment is more important than the other.
To break any one of them, you suffer.
All right, let me read you the 94 words
that God used in this fourth commandment.
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work.
But the seventh day is a Sabbath unto the Lord thy God.
In it, thou shalt not do any work,
thou nor thy son nor thy daughter, thy man servant,
nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle,
nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that in them is,
and rested the seventh day.
Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
Read it for yourself.
It's in the 20th chapter of Exodus.
And here in this fourth commandment,
it provides for the perpetual maintenance of a symbol
of the relationship that exists between God and man.
For remember, the first four of the Ten Commandments
of God's Ten Rules for Living
refer to a relationship, deals definitely with a relationship
between God and man.
Therefore, we see immediately that this commandment
deals definitely with that relationship
between you and God, between man and God.
At regular intervals through all the days,
man is to turn wholly from that which is material
to that which is spiritual.
By the recurrence of the Sabbath,
he is to be reminded that every day is measured and planned
in the counsels of God.
And it's just like that.
In every hour of human life, the physical and the spiritual
interact upon each other.
And in the proper interrelation,
each contributes to the strengthening of the other.
You cannot separate the material from the spiritual
or the spiritual from the material.
And that is the reason that man has gotten himself
into the mess that he is in today.
That's the reason the world is in the condition
that it is today.
That's the reason nations are in the condition
that nations are in today.
My friend, that's the reason you as a family
are in the condition that you are today.
A little family, maybe a family of two, of three, of four,
are the destiny.
The reason you are in the condition that you are today,
without the blessing of God, without the favor of God,
without the smile of God, without the consciousness
of God, without the presence, is because you have tried
to live your life without the spiritual.
It is all material.
And as surely as the life of an individual
or the life of a nation is all material without the spiritual,
for you cannot separate one from the other.
One complements the other.
One strengthens the other.
Of this fundamental law of human nature,
the Sabbath is the perpetual symbol.
For the days of earthly probation,
the value of the Sabbath is created
by the intervening days.
The light of the seventh is a perpetual suggestion
of their true meaning and final import.
The right understanding of this relation
is all important to a true conception of the meaning
and the method of the fourth commandment.
Consider something, something that is most important.
This commandment is twofold.
I know that when one thinks of the fourth commandment,
they only think of it in the light of the Sabbath.
If you were to stop 10 people and ask them,
what is the fourth commandment, without hesitation,
they will say, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
That's it.
My friend, this is a mistake.
The full weight of that part of it,
which refers to the seventh day, is only appreciated
as it is remembered that one half of this commandment
has to do with six days.
This commandment is twofold.
And stripping the commandment for the moment
of all the explanatory and expository sentences,
it will be found to exist of two simple injunctions.
For this rule for living has two separate parts.
You are not to keep one part of it
without keeping the other.
One part of this commandment is just as important as the other.
First it begins, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
That's one part.
Don't stop there.
Remember I told you there were 94 words in this commandment.
Not just seven, 94.
Here's the second part.
Six days helped thou labor.
Uh-oh, somebody says I knew there was a catch in it.
That's right.
Do you want to know something?
You cannot keep God's Sabbath day.
You are not fulfilling this, his fourth rule for living,
unless you have kept the rest of the commandment,
unless you have worked six days.
Oh, somebody says I wish my wife hadn't heard that.
That's right.
I'm going to tell you something.
The will of God for a man is that he should work.
Not one day a week, not two days a week, not three days a week.
And that is why we are continuing to get into even a
deeper mess than we've already gotten ourselves into.
Man is doing everything he possibly can.
Now my friend, I believe in you, yous.
Yous are wonderful.
But when you try to get men to the place in their lives,
when they are only working four days a week, three days a week,
you're asking for trouble.
You're going absolutely contrary to the word of God.
God's plan for man is six days a week.
The same as coming here as a slave driver, your old-fashioned.
I don't care what you call me.
These are not my words.
These words come from the highest authority
in heaven and earth.
These are God's words that I'm giving you.
This is a part of God's plan for man which constitutes a happy
life, a successful life, which will give joy,
which will give contentment, which will give peace, success.
We've gotten to the place where man is doing everything under
God's heaven to get out of work.
Over two million people being supported by the government
when according to God's rules, every one of these two million
should be out working six days a week.
It's like that.
The will of God for man is that he should work.
It is also that after the seventh day,
he should cease his work and back day worship.
I can prove to you that it is a part of God's original plan that
man was to work.
I'll go into this a little deeper in our next
heart-to-heart talk by just one giving this word.
Man was placed in the Garden of Eden.
Oh, that Garden of Eden was wonderful.
It was beautiful.
Beyond our wildest imagination.
But I don't believe that you could find a rocking chair any
place in the Garden.
God never produced a lazy Adam or a lazy Eve.
He placed man in the Garden, read the scripture,
and this is what it says, to dress it and to keep it.
Even the Garden of Eden and all of its beauty,
God himself having prepared it.
I'll go a little further than that.
I believe that when we come to the place where we are abiding
in our eternal home, that which will be heaven forever and ever
to God's redeemed, there will still be work to do.
So if you don't want to work, don't plan to go to heaven.
That's right.
That's it.
Sure, my friend.
He gave this gorgeous garden.
He could have so purposed and planned that man would not have
to support himself.
That man would not have to work.
But he knew human nature well enough to know that if man did
not work, man would get into trouble.
Human nature has not changed.
It's still the same today.
Unless man is busy six days a week,
that man sooner or later will get into trouble.
Amen.