Gods Sabbath

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E NTERING INTO G OD ’ S S ABBATH R EST

that they behave differently from the godless, they do not share with the world in its amusements, and they may even take care not to desecrate the Sabbath’s sacred hours. All this was equally true of Abraham, yet, in his efforts to establish God’s kingdom, he trusted and followed procedures which the Lord could not ac cept. While it is good and necessary for Christians to forsake any pleasures of the world that are sinful, they are not to rest satis fied that these differences are sufficient. Abraham had great difficulty in accepting God’s rejection of Ishmael. He thought of his own faith, self-sacrifice, devotion to God’s cause, and the fact that he had done it all for God’s king dom, for which he was prepared to make any sacrifice. How could anything which was the product of these impeccably com mendable motives, be disclaimed by God? Yet the simple fact is that God did not accept Ishmael! So it remains today. Many professed Christians cannot under stand why the Almighty does not accept their works. They look at their zeal, sacrifices, knowledge of the Scriptures, large finan cial contributions, extensive and successful missionary efforts, and their devotion to God’s cause, as absolute guarantees that the Lord must accept what they have done for Him. They feel that He would have to be very ungrateful not to approve of and bless their dedicated efforts. If, like Abraham, they discover that He does not accept their works, their concept of His character tends to harden. They imagine Him to be harsh, exacting, unap preciative, and capricious, when, in truth, He is the very oppo site of these. To prevent us from coming to such erroneous conclusions, God has provided us with the plain records of how He dealt with Abraham, what He could and could not accept, and how He worked and why. He confirmed forever that the only way His kingdom can be built is by trusting in the fixed procedures de termined by law. Anything outside of that has no place, for “... what does the Scripture say? ‘Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inher itance with the free woman’s son.’” Galatians 4:30. Even though God could prophesy that Ishmael would become a great nation, yet He emphasized, “But my covenant I will es tablish with Isaac ....” Genesis 17:21.