This is the second in our heart-to-heart talk
regarding the fourth commandment.
And I'm in a series of messages with you now
on God's 10 rules for living.
I want to remind you once again
that each one of God's 10 rules for living are vital.
But in giving them to Moses,
God said more about this fourth commandment than any other.
He needed only four words in regard to killing.
But he used 94 words to tell us to remember the Sabbath day,
to keep the Sabbath day holy.
And we read it.
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 manservant,
nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle nor thy stranger
that is within thy gate.
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that in them is,
and rested the Sabbath day.
Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
Oh, this is glorious.
This commandment has been spoken of
as referring only to the Sabbath.
And as I told you in our last little heart to heart talk,
that if you were to stop 10 people
and ask them the fourth commandment,
I would say almost without exception,
they would say, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Because we have always thought of this fourth commandment
as referring only to one day, the Sabbath day.
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 the other six days.
There are seven days in every week, not just one, seven.
And this commandment does not refer to just one out of seven.
This commandment takes in the whole seven days.
And stripping the commandment for the moment
of all the explanatory and the expulsatory sentences,
it'll be found to consist of just two simple
in the whole seven days.
And it's made of just two simple injunctions.
First, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
That's one day out of seven.
Now here comes the second part of this commandment.
Six days thou shalt labor and do all thy work.
Therefore you have the complete week of every man's life.
One part of this commandment is just as important
as the other.
The reason for this is found in the fact
of the kinship of man to God,
this relationship that God has with man.
Every side of his nature,
every part of man's nature is a result
of divine thought and action.
That's the reason I want you to know something.
You are important to God.
I don't care who you are.
You may be unimportant to everybody else in the whole world.
You may be steeped in sin.
You may be so low that you have to reach
up to touch bottom and yet I want you to know something.
You are important to God because you are a part
of God's great creation.
He sees you as an individual.
That's right.
Every side of your nature is a result of divine thought
and action is constructed upon the basis of thought.
This wonderful command, this fourth commandment
is constructed upon the basis of thought and action.
And consequently, the threefold nature of man
resulting in the one person fulfills its highest possibilities
within this realm only.
The first word of God therefore is six days
thou shalt labor and do all thy work.
The complex system of present day civilization
makes it possible that some men may live without work.
And it's just too bad.
For in so doing, we have gone absolutely contrary
to God's plan and purpose for man.
And man always gets into trouble when he makes plans
and laws and works for the people.
He makes plans and laws and works contrary
to the divine will and purpose of God.
If the truth, our present day civilization
has made it possible that not only scores hundreds
but literally thousands and thousands
right here in our own nature, over two million
are unable to exist without working.
And that's just the beginning.
The youth of today have gotten the idea that it is smart.
You are a success if you can live,
have the pleasures of life and not have to work.
But we're suffering from it.
One of these days, the whole bottom is going to drop out.
Why?
Because we are living contrary
to one of God's rules for living.
It's like that.
I'm telling you the truth.
God has so ordained that man has got to work
in one form or another.
It is God's purpose for man to work.
Not one day a week, not two, not three, six.
I'm telling you the truth.
I want you to see something.
Something that's very marvelous.
Man needs bread.
But God does not put bread in man's hand.
Man must work for that bread.
What does God do?
The soil is stored with forces of life.
But man has got to work for it.
Man has got to labor with it
before man's needs are fulfilled in that loaf of bread.
The harvest comes by the way of human work.
Man needs bread.
He works upon the soil
and the golden harvest is God's crown upon human labor.
This act of labor is not the result of the fall.
It is not the result of sin.
It is part of the original intention.
For man was placed in the Garden of Eden
to dress it and to keep it.
It was always a part of God's plan.
Even before the fall of man.
Even before the fall of man, that man was to work.
Search the Bible, search the Word of God.
Begin with Genesis all the way through
to the last word in the book of the Revelation.
You will not find premium on laziness.
You will not find God's blessing upon a lazy man,
a lazy woman.
The word does say that a father
who provides not for his own family
is worse than an individual.
That father is to work.
That father is to make a living.
It doesn't say that it is the purpose and plan of God
that the government should keep a man's family.
It doesn't say that.
There's no place in the Bible
that says that a man is to be kept.
It does say that man is to work with his hands.
That's the word.
In the process of the centuries,
men have been discovering the secrets of God
long locked in the treasury of nature.
All of these rightfully understood and applied
minister to the possibilities of increased power
to do the work that provides for the needs of the human race.
God has put these things there.
They're in the earth.
God has made provision for them.
They are all a part of God's plans and God's purposes.
They are hidden to the sight of man,
and man must work.
Work to bring them forth.
To that side of the commandment,
the vast mass of human beings are obedient,
not willingly always, but of necessity.
This being granted the infinite love
in perfect understanding of the need of his own creation
provides that every seventh day,
man should lay aside the tools of his craft
and enter into the upper reaches of his life's possibilities.
It's well worth a careful note
that the old essential Hebrew idea of the Sabbath
was not that of gloom,
but rather a gladness.
See that?
Oh, to me that's glorious.
The Sabbath was a day of delight,
a holiday, a day in which man ceased from his toil.
And he came to a place of worship.
Men joined together, a day of gladness
in giving praise unto the giver
of every good and perfect gift.
Thanking God for his blessings upon him
during his six days of labor.
That's the reason I say to you again, believe me,
no man can keep the Sabbath
without having kept the other six days in labor.
Neither can you keep the other six days
without keeping the Sabbath.
The Sabbath.
Don't you see something that's very beautiful?
Oh, to me this is very exciting.
One compliments the other.
He who never works is unfitted for worship.
And he who never pauses to worship
is rendered incapable of works.
And there you are.
Paul saw it.
And this is what he said in 1 Corinthians 16 chapter.
Up on the first day of the week,
let every one of you laid by him in store
as God have prospered him.
Six days you work.
Six days you earn your living.
The seventh day, a day of gladness.
When you lay aside all work, you worship God.
You give thanks unto him.
It's a recognition of the sovereignty of almighty God,
the one who's giving you the strength to work.
You recognize the mighty creator.
You recognize the fact that it was his sunshine.
It was his rain.
After all, he was the one who made the grain grow.
He was the one who kept the body intact.
He was the one who gave the strength in that body of yours.
And upon the first day of the week,
that seventh day, you and I are to come.
A day of rest, a day of gladness, a day of honoring him.
A day when you acknowledge his sovereignty.
A day when you acknowledge your utter dependence upon him.
A day when you bring into the storehouse the first fruits,
the best, as God hath prospered you.
It's a time when our souls catch up with our bodies.
Catch up with our bodies.
A long time ago, oh, it's been years ago,
I remember something that someone said.
An old man said one of the most profound things,
probably not knowingly, but these are his words.
I let my mules spend one day a week outside the mines
to keep them from going blind.
Think of it.
Think about those words.
I let my mules spend one day a week outside the mines
to keep them from going blind.
Many a man has gone blind in soul
because he's forgotten to remember.
Many a man has gone blind in soul
because he has not come out into the sunshine of God's love.
He has forgotten to remember that Sabbath day,
that day of worship, that day of gladness,
that day when he acknowledges the sovereignty of Almighty God.
When he acknowledges the sovereignty of Almighty God.
If a precious miner has to bring his mules
from out of the darkness of the coal mines
one day a week to keep their sight intact,
how much more should you, should I?
Thoughts of God's great creation
come from out of the material and into the light of the Spirit.
It's only then that we'll have the brightness
and the light of his glory in our soul.
No, you cannot separate these two commandments.
They are one.
And the man who bows down to nothing
can never bear the burden of himself.
Amen.