God's Sabbath

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E NTERING INTO G OD ’ S S ABBATH R EST

thoroughly and widely inculcated that even God’s true children tend to think along these lines until they have been re-educated in the divine principles. Even then, there is the constant danger of reverting to the world’s way of thinking. To whatever extent Satan’s lies are adopted, even subcon sciously, the Sabbath is seen as a device designed to exalt God at humanity’s expense, and the tendency is to regard it as an op pressive yoke of bondage. This leads many people to reject it ut terly, while others tolerate it in the hope that God’s favor thus earned will bring them rich rewards. In these last days, the Lord is delivering His children from Sa tan’s deceptions and offering them a true concept of His charac ter in exchange. He wants them to see that He is truly a God of love in whom there is no selfishness whatsoever. He desires ev eryone to understand that the Sabbath is in reality a love-gift from the Almighty invested with incalculable blessings and ad vantages. In truth it can be said: “The Sabbath was made for man ...” Mark 2:27. As the almighty Creator designed the perfect life-style for His children, He included the Sabbath institution to maintain their security and happiness. Even in sinless Eden, the Sabbath was indispensable to their welfare. Together with marriage, it came to our first parents, and through them to us, as a much needed love-gift from the Infinite (see Genesis 2:3,22). “God saw that a Sabbath was essential for man, even in Para dise. He needed to lay aside his own interests and pursuits for one day of the seven, that he might more fully contemplate the works of God, and meditate upon His power and goodness. He needed a Sabbath, to remind him more vividly of God, and to awaken grat itude because all that he enjoyed and possessed came from the be neficent hand of the Creator.” Patriarchs and Prophets , 48.2. Understanding how and why God saw that the Sabbath was essential to man, will greatly increase our appreciation of His character and of the Sabbath. When these truths are thorough ly grasped, the Sabbath will no longer be regarded as a restrict ive yoke of bondage. It will indeed become a delight to all who know and keep it (compare Isaiah 58:13). We need to strive diligently to understand why the Sabbath is so essential to us, for the better we know these things, the more