It's good to be here on the Sabbath day. And that's a subject I'd like to talk about to some degree, you know. People ask, “who are you?” or “what are you”? You know, we think about how we identify ourselves. And in some ways, it's very simple and in some ways rather complex. I'm in an international setting, people might say, “Well, what are you?” “I'm an American.” Ethnically, I would say “I'm a white guy, you know. Bit of American-Indian mixed in".

Although if I were in Europe, white guy doesn't settle it very much. They say, “Well, German, French, Irish?” you know. In politics in America, we've mostly got Democrats and Republicans, some independents. And again, in Europe, there's a much wider array of parties. You know, we think of our family relations. You know, personally, I'm a husband and a father, an in-law with brother-in-law, son-in-law, brother, uncle.

What about your religion? How do you identify yourself there? Well, I think we're all in the same boat here, but if someone asks you, you say, “Well, I'm a Christian.” Well, if you're in an Islamic country, they're probably happy to stop there. But many people like to know a little bit more. “You're a Christian, huh? Well, Catholic or Protestant? Are you Orthodox? Evangelical?” And I've wondered, is there a way to put United Church of God into an adjective form? “I'm a Church of God.” It doesn't come out very well, does it?

But one way I found that I like to tell people of who I am and what I believe how I identify in my religion and how I worship God is I've sometimes said I'm a Sabbatarian Christian, which often gets me the reaction of, “Huh? I know what Christian is, I think. What's Sabbatarian?” Well, I kind of like having the question. It gives me the chance to explain, “Well, I am a Christian. I worship Jesus Christ. I believe He's my Savior, but I believe the seventh day is the Sabbath that God created for us to worship on, and so I do.”

Often the reaction I get to that is, “Oh. Okay.” Some people don't want all that explanation, but it's nice when the question comes, it's nice to be able to share a little bit about what we believe and why. And I think it's also good for us to think that keeping the Sabbath is an important part of our identity. It's how we show who and what we are. We can make a case that it's been that way for a long time. Well, I mean, it's been a long time of how God identifies His people. For each of us, it's only been as long as it's been.

I know I haven't been teaching class every day, so I'm out of practice doing this. You'll have to bear with me when I trip over my words. But we know that the creation account in Genesis describes God making the surface of the earth and then resting on the seventh day. He hallowed it, made it holy. It's almost surprising that we don't see the term Sabbath appear until considerably later. Actually, I'd like to turn there. It's in Exodus 16, is the first time we see that term. And it's a story you're probably pretty familiar with.

It's not long after God led the children of Israel out of Egypt with signs and miracles, humbling the Egyptian nation. And He brought the children of Israel out, parted the Red Seas, brought them into a wilderness. And after they walked around for a while, they said, “Hmm, we're running out of food.” They said it in not necessarily the best attitude. They were concerned, “What are we going to eat out here?” And God worked a miracle. He sent them the what's it stuff. You know, they said, “What is this?” And they called it manna.

And He explained to them, “I'm going to work a series of miracles.” We can say partly to show how much the people would rely on God. “I'm going to send you food every day. And it's only going to last for a day. And so, you got to get out there in the morning before it melts, gather as much as you want, just enough for each people. There's plenty for big families, small families, and gather a little, but you got to go out every day because you can't get extra.” And you all remember what happens if you get extra.

The next morning, it smells bad. It's got worms growing in it. Ah, but God told them, “Wait, on the sixth day, you can get twice as much.” You know, some people paid attention to that. Others didn't. I want to pick up reading in verse 23 of Chapter 16, because when some people did go out or some people were gathering twice as much on the 6th day, they came and told Moses, “Hey, they're messing up. They're all gathering twice as much.”

Deuteronomy 16:23 – “And Moses said, ‘No, this is what the Lord has said. Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you'll bake today, boil what you'll boil, lay up for yourselves. All the remains to be kept till morning.’ And so, they laid it up till morning as Moses commanded. And it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. Moses said, ‘Eat that today for today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today, you won't find it in the field.’”

And it's funny, I read this and I teach it many times but sometimes I have to stop and say, this was the first time of something that lasted 40 years. Sometimes I think every 6th day for 40 years, they had to gather twice as much. And every week, there was a miracle of no manna on the Sabbath. But the manna that had been sent the day before didn't rot. So, He says in verse 26, “Six days gather it but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.”

You know, as I mentioned, this wasn't the start of the Sabbath, but this is the start of the Sabbath you could say working as an identifier. The people that listened to God, it was evident. You know, they were out there getting twice as much. You know, some tattletales went and told Moses, “They're breaking the rules.” And Moses, “No, no, they're not.” He said, “This is identifying the people that listened.” You know, they did what God said and the people who didn't, a matter of fact, I wanted to... it goes to show I didn't write it down, but it's just later in the chapter where some people went out on the seventh day.

You know, and it's showing they weren't listening and they looked around and go, “Huh? Where's that stuff?” You know, so they got an extra fast day out of it. The Sabbath was distinct to Israel. God revealed it specially to them by a miracle that lasted all that time. I want to turn to Ezekiel 20, if you will, because God uses a special wording here to remind us that the Sabbath is, well, He uses the word sign. It's an indicator of who His people are.

Now, as Ezekiel revealed this as he's talking about some of the reasons that the people of Israel would be punished. It's in Ezekiel 20, and we'll begin reading verse 11. And this is Ezekiel passing on God's word. So, it's like God's speaking in first person. So God says,

Ezekiel 20:11 – “I gave them My statutes, showed them My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them. Moreover, I also gave them My Sabbaths to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.”

The Sabbath is a sign. It's an indicator. An indicator of what? The people that God has chosen and the people that choose to obey God. Dropping down to verse 19 we see that idea repeated. Verse 19 of Ezekiel 20, He says,

Ezekiel 20:19 - “I am the Lord your God, walk in My statutes, keep My judgments and do them. Hallow My Sabbaths and there'll be a sign between Me and you that you may know that I am the Lord your God.” He goes on to say that, well, Israel didn't do that. And God is pointing that out to them.

A matter of fact, at the time Ezekiel is giving this prophecy, the nation of Judah, which separated from Israel, was about to be conquered by Babylon. And Babylonian armies are going to come and they'll destroy the nation of Judah, destroy the beautiful temple that Solomon had built to worship God. I'm pointing out the Southern kingdom of Judah because the Northern kingdom of Israel, the 10 separate tribes, they'd been conquered by the Assyrian Empire more than 100 years earlier.

Now, we want to remember God had given the Sabbath as a sign to all of Israel. At the time, Moses is explaining about the manna, they've got the 12 tribes together. 13, if you separate Ephraim and Manasseh. They all knew about the Sabbath, but the Northern Kingdom when they separated, they stopped paying attention to the Sabbath. They didn't obey God in many ways and God brought the Assyrian army to conquer them. They killed a great many of them, took many more away as slaves, and in history, they disappeared.

You know, they become known as the 10 Lost Tribes. It's only with great difficulty that we try to look in the records in history and try to see where they ended up. Now, we think we know where those lost tribes ended up largely because of the promises that God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So, we look for the fulfillment of those promises. And combining that with what we can learn in history, we believe we see the descendants of Israel in Northwestern Europe, around the world as the English-speaking peoples.

But if that's true, and I think it is true, I think it's ironic that we as a church might be looking and saying, “Yeah, there are the Israelites.” But guess who doesn't know that or doesn't believe it? They don't. Most of those who are descendants from Israel have no idea of that. And I think it might be largely because they lost that identifying sign. If the Sabbath was a sign, they gave up that sign, and they lost track of their identity, the weekly Sabbath and also the annual Sabbaths.

I won't turn there, but in 1 Kings 12, it describes how that first king of the separate nation of Israel, Jeroboam, you know, after he separated and then the tribes followed him and left Rehoboam with just Judah and Benjamin, he looked down and he said, “Now, wait a minute. If these people start going down to Jerusalem to worship God, maybe they'll also fall back to, you know, serving the line of David.” So he said, “We gotta stop that. You know, I'm going to make a couple of calves, put one at Dan and one at Bethel and say, this is your God. And we got to get rid of these Holy Days.”

So, it says that Jeroboam instituted an annual feast day in the eighth month, not the seventh month. He got rid of Atonement and Trumpets, Feast of Tabernacles, and Israel lost the Sabbaths. As I said, they lost their identity. Now, what about Judah? Well, they didn't do a whole lot better. Sometimes better, sometimes not so good. Sometimes better, sometimes not so good. In the end, they went pretty far astray and God allowed the Babylonians to come and conquer them.

As I said, that was the state that was happening when Ezekiel was prophesying. But there was a difference. The Jewish people when they went into captivity in Babylon, it seems got more serious about worshiping this God and the things they needed to do. They went into captivity largely because they'd been breaking the Sabbath, and they'd been worshiping idols. So the things that many of them got very serious about is, “We got to cut out this idolatry and we got to keep the Sabbath.”

You could say that they kept the Sabbath so zealously that they went overboard. And as we read through the gospel accounts, Jesus Christ was constantly having run-ins with the Pharisees. You know, “What are You doing? You're plucking grain and eating it. You can't do that on the Sabbath.” “You're healing a man on the Sabbath, stop that.” I'm not sure if they said stop that, but they criticized Him quite a bit. They had the idea of building a fence around the Sabbath to keep it safe.

You know, they had rules. You can't carry more than the weight of two dried figs. And don't walk more than a couple thousand cubits. And, of course, they also became very clever at coming up with rules to get around their rules. I don't want to get into that, but it led to one of the profound things that Jesus Christ said about Him and the Sabbath. He said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” By the way, I'm not going to turn there to read it. But that's in Mark 2:27-28, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath."

It's interesting that Jesus had debate and discussion with the Pharisees about how to keep the Sabbath, never about if they should keep the Sabbath. Of course, they should keep the Sabbath. And one of my points though is, you know, the Jews, many of them were already still scattered and back in Babylon because not all came back to rebuild the temple. And a few decades after the time of Christ's ministry, the Romans came and scattered the Jews further.

You know, they conquered Jerusalem and sent the Jews packing. Then for a while, they even said, “You're not coming back here.” But unlike the Northern nation of Israel, they did not become the lost two tribes. You know, Jews are living around the world. You almost can't go anywhere to any nation in the world and not find Jews. And they know who they are. Largely because they kept track of the Sabbath, that sign that showed them they had a special relationship with God. That's what Jews are known for.

I was talking with Mr. Ward before service. He said people he works with when they learned about the Sabbath, they say, “What are you, Jewish?” Jews are known for the Sabbath and kosher foods, almost said kosher hot dogs. Is that? You know, through the centuries, the Sabbath has been the sign, that mark of identity. As I said, the 10 Lost Tribes lost the sign. They lost the knowledge of who they were.

But I want to move on to make a point that there's more to this than just history and what we're looking at in the Old Testament. Because by the time, you know, God had allowed the Romans to destroy the nation of Judah and scattered of the Jews, Jesus Christ had already formed a different organization, a body of people, you know, a nation that had not been a nation. Jesus Christ founded the Church of God. God made the seventh day holy from creation as we see in Genesis. You know, it was a sign between Him and His people.

When Christ built the Church, I believe the Sabbath was still intended to be a sign. You know, it was to continue to identify God's chosen people. Now, I don't think I have to convince you of that since you're here, but it's good for us to review now and then because there are a lot of people that call themselves Christian that say, “No, no. That was done away. You know, that was nailed to the cross.” They base a lot of that teaching on the writings of the Apostle Paul.

Let's turn, if you will, with me to Acts 13, because I think it's important to note that Paul kept the Sabbath, and I don't believe he ever taught that the Sabbath was no longer a sign or important. In Acts 13, if we start in verse 13, and we see on one of Paul's missionary journeys, one is, Mr. Rangel [SP] mentioned, he was sent to the Gentiles for God to use him to open their eyes and reveal spiritual truth. Part of that truth was what day to worship.

Now, he often had that first entry through the Jewish people who already had that sign. So, here it says

Acts 13:13 – “When Paul and his party set sail from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia,” and probably some other names that are hard to pronounce. “John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem. But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch and Percitia and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down.”

So Paul and his party, they went to church on the Sabbath, just like all of you here. You know, after reading the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sat and said “Men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people say on.” So, this is showing that Paul and the group he was traveling with participates in the Sabbath, and they were even invited to speak. Most of this chapter is made up of a sermon that Paul ended up giving.

Sometimes I'm intrigued. Here at our services, we don't see, “Oh, somebody looks interesting. Maybe we'll invite him to come up and give a sermon.” But that seemed to be more of a practice then. Let's drop down to verse 43 if you will. Because at the end of this sermon, it says, “When the congregation had broken up many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who speaking to them persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.” So, they got their attention. They wanted to hear.

And on the next Sabbath, notice it's not the next day. Paul didn't say, “Oh, now we're just going to start keeping Sunday.” But it was the Sabbath, almost the whole city came together to hear the Word of God. And we see the practice would go as it was often for Paul. He first went to the Jewish people he met in the synagogues, but he reached out to others. But in reaching out, he never left behind the Sabbath. The Sabbath would identify those who are God's people.

If you will, turn with me to Hebrews 4. It might've been several years later when Paul wrote this book, and I know there's some debate over whether it was Paul or another disciple, but Paul, to me, seems the most likely. And at this point, he's still keeping the Sabbath. And in Chapter 4 of Hebrews, he spends a lot of time explaining why. Hebrews 4:9, he says,

Hebrews 4:9 - “There remains, therefore, a rest for the people of God.”

Again, you've heard this explained a number of times, bear with me. If you haven't, then I get to be the first. We understand that the Greek in which this was written probably is not translated the best that it could be in this first. You know, throughout this chapter, Paul often talks of people looking for a rest. You know, they seek a rest. And throughout the chapter, the Greek word that's translated as rest is... it's hard to pronounce. It's katapausis. I've heard it.

I like to say katapausis because then it has that word pause built into it, because what katapausis means is stop working. You know, it means taking a rest, literally. That's the word that appears again and again in this chapter, except in verse 9. Here, when he says, “There remains, therefore, a rest.” The Greek word that translated rest is sabbatismos, which is the word from which we get Sabbath. Basically, this could have been translated, “There remains, therefore, keeping of the Sabbath for the people of God.”

I think one of the main reasons Paul wrote it this way is because he's using this chapter to explain that, you know, God's people are looking ahead to something not just behind. We do understand the Sabbath reminds us of creation. You know, that God remade the surface of the planet, and then He rested, not because He was so tired He couldn't work another day, but He set an example, you know, when He hallowed that day.

But we see also that people of God are looking forward to the Kingdom of God being established. And it's from this we often say that the Sabbath also reminds us and symbolizes the millennium. You know, on a weekly basis, the way the Feast of Tabernacles does annually. So, the seventh day reminding us that there's a coming time when Christ will rule on earth is a good reason for the people of God to keep the Sabbath day. That's where he says, “There remains, therefore, a keeping of the Sabbath.”

God's people keep the Sabbath as holy time. God's people look for the time when God will rule the earth, when Satan will be put away. When the transition that Mr. Rangel spoke of will be not only for each of us as individuals but for the whole world, that transition of power. So, you could say that the Sabbath as an identifier shows who we are, what we believe, and what our relationship is with God and identify us as God's people. And it's been that way a long time. We looked back at Israel, but we can see it also in the history of God's church.

If we look in history, we can pretty quickly see that in the early centuries after Christ's ministry, when the church was founded, other people started joining with those called Christians. And many people coming in started bringing in teachings that were not in agreement with what we see in Scripture, including Sunday worship. History shows that a lot of people began calling themselves Christian, who didn't have that identifying sign. And it became common in the Church.

You've probably heard how Constantine, Emperor Constantine of Rome was the first Roman emperor who would call themselves Christian, call themselves, himself. There was only one of him. I got to slow down. I talked to some people, I was joking. I said, “If I drink coffee beforehand, we might end services early.” I got to watch out I'm on track for that. But Constantine made Christianity an official religion throughout the Roman Empire.

You know, and after he convened what we call the Council of Nicaea in 321, now, that council was largely to discuss the issue of Arianism. They wanted to try to work out who and what Jesus Christ was, whether He was God or a created Being. And you know, that's not the point of this sermon, but he issued an edict March 7th of 321, where he said, “On the venerable day of the sun.” On Sunday, the first day of the week is what he was referring to, he said, “Let magistrates and people residing in cities rest. Let all the workshops be closed.”

He was turning away from that identifying sign. It was some years later, the bishops of the church called a Council in Laodicea, and in 337, they made this proclamation. One that should stand out to us even more than Constantine's. Their proclamation said, “Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday but shall work on that day. But the Lord's day...” And what they meant there was Sunday, “But the Lord's day, they shall especially honor. And as being Christian shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out.”

Thus it became that those who were Christians who wanted to obey God and follow the Scripture by keeping the seventh-day Sabbath, they were forced out of what became called the Universal Church or Catholic Church. That became an organization that in my opinion, was not the Church of God at all, because they didn't have a relationship with God. And thus, it was by the time you get to the late 300s and going into the Middle Ages, those who wanted to keep the Sabbath and devoted themselves to worshiping God according to His Word, were pushed out to the fringes of what were called civilization.

You know, the fringes of the Roman Empire, areas now that we would call the Balkan region known as Armenia and then Northern and Western Europe. And as we look through the centuries, trying to approach modern times where history is more clear, you know, it's with great difficulty that we can look for those who had that identifying sign. But if we're looking for the true Church, that's the sign that we look for. It's the one thing that stands out.

Of course, in that regard, you know, we don't have a lot to go on because who wrote the histories? Largely, people that didn't like those other guys. You know, officers in the church or of the government who thought of Sabbath-keepers as heretics. Now, I could spend probably a long time looking at what we think of as the history in different episodes of that. I'm going to skip over most of that, but it involves some names that hopefully will sound familiar to many of us that are old-timers.

You know, names like Waldensians and Albigenses. I've got to write them down, Bogomils and Lollards and Anabaptists. And I'm sure others. Those are the kinds of names that people they didn't like them called them. So, it's funny. Sometimes we would look at that as a mark of distinction and honor. I hope when they're resurrected, it will be. But I'm pretty sure they call themselves Christians, followers of Jesus Christ. Many congregations from what we've seen called themselves the Church of God, in whatever town or region they lived.

As we go forward in time, we can see a little more specifics. There are records from London, England, you know, from the Middle Ages, that to speak of what was called a Millyard Church. I'm guessing it was near a mill, founded as early as 1550. And they kept the Sabbath. And that stands out. It was around 1618, a man by the name of John Trask in London published a book that taught that the seventh day was the Sabbath and that people should keep it. There's an irony in his story because he was thrown in jail and he recanted, “Forget the Sabbath stuff, I want to get out of jail.” I don't know if he said it in those words, but not his wife. His wife refused to give up her devotion to honoring God on the Sabbath. She remained in jail for 15 more years until she died there.

If we move ahead to 1665, that's what we would call a banner year. A Sabbath keeper by the name of Stephen Mumford emigrated from England to Rhode Island, he and his wife. They settled in Newport because Newport... well, in Rhode Island in general, they put up with what we would call today, religious weirdos. I hate to say it that way but the Puritans, they didn't suffer people that had different religions. And a lot of other colonies did not either. But in Rhode Island, people were free to worship God in the way they thought was best. And the Mumfords helped organize a congregation of Sabbath-keepers, mostly converts from the Baptist faith. I should say the Puritans didn't like Baptists much either.

Down through this colonial period, the late 1600s into the 1700s, there's indication that there were a number of small churches scattered around New England and Pennsylvania that did keep the Sabbath. Now, we wonder, what all of the truth from the Bible that we understand did they? And the records are scanty. It seems that there is inconsistency. Sometimes a congregation would come together, and they would be very zealous to study. They'd be like the Bereans, you know, in Paul's time and study what's so.

But history also shows that as a generation or two would pass, sometimes their children and grandchildren would be less enthusiastic about some of the details. It's evident that some congregations retained the Sabbath but not much else of the truth that we know. A matter of fact, in 1802, there was a general conference of seventh-day keeping churches that formed the Seventh-Day Baptist Church. You know, a church that still continues today, but in their organization, they also adopted the belief in the Trinity and the immortality of the soul.

Looking at records of that meeting though, it's evident that there were some pastors who kept the Sabbath and congregations that worked with them that chose not to join that association. Not all Sabbath-keepers followed that line. They didn't believe God was a mysterious Trinity or that man is a immortal soul trapped in a physical body. And so, we can see through the decades in the early part of the United States, there were a scattering of churches that had the truth. They were largely independent, not associated with a larger body.

There was a turning point about the mid-1800s, many members from that... let me say that again, many members of those different congregations sort of were drawn together in a movement related to prophesy. There is a minister named William Miller, who studied prophecies and he believed in the literal return of Jesus Christ. The religious word for Christ's return is advent. One of these days, I'm gonna study into why they call it that. But you know, the Second Advent of Christ, they called it.

William Miller is supposed by some to have kept the Sabbath and others say no, he never was a Sabbath keeper. So, it's not entirely clear, but what he was clear on is he believed Christ was returning and he figured out when. I would have loved to have seen his charts and diagrams, I wonder if they matched the ones, you know, we had in the 1950s and '60s. But he set a date, October 22nd, 1844. Now, he'd had some other dates earlier but figured out they weren't right.

But he convinced a number of people who joined in and across the country there were numerous people that said, “Yes, this is right.” Since they knew Christ was returning and they wanted to meet him, some people gave away their possessions. You know, and early that morning, some of them, it said, even put on white robes and gathered on hilltops or rooftops, waiting for Jesus Christ to come and take them away. He didn't. I was expecting chuckles for that, but maybe my timing was off.

When Jesus Christ didn't show up, this incident became known as the Great Disappointment. It figures in religious history but even when I taught, you know, American history in college, I would sometimes refer to it because it was amidst of time when, you know, there was a lot of reform movements and people wanting to change the religion. After this, a lot of people did. This Great Disappointment led some to just give up on religion altogether.

But a significant number said, “Okay, we were wrong on the date, but we've got some things right.” A significant number of them continued their belief in the literal return or Advent of Christ, and a good number of those also believed in the seventh-day Sabbath. And hence, the name Seventh Day Adventist. Prominent in those group arising to prominence would be a man named James White. And he had a wife named Ellen who started claiming to have visions and gain understanding of truth.

In 1860, a conference was formed of scattered congregations that believed this, and they accepted the name for themselves of Seventh-Day Adventist. Now, I'm only focusing on them because the records indicate that there were some congregations and some pastors who did not choose to join. They did not accept that name. They didn't accept Mr. White's leadership or that of his wife, Ellen. And so, there was still a scattering of independent Sabbath-keeping churches who were holding onto the truth as they had it.

And the reason I'm mentioning them is if we look for a sign, where can we find the true Church? We see it as a sign. In 1863, some from that movement in Michigan began printing a small newspaper that they called “The Hope of Israel.” Soon after that, it relocated to Marion, Iowa. And then in 1888 to Stanberry, Missouri. And that's the name that rings a bell for me when I study Church history. And they changed the name a number of times but eventually called it “The Bible Advocate.”

A man named Jacob Brinkerhoff edited for many of the years from the 1870s up to 1914. And he was joined in much of his writing by a man named Alexander Dugger. What did “The Bible Advocate” teach? Well, it had articles about Bible prophecy, about how to properly keep the Passover and what foods were intended by God to be eaten and whatnot, which we call clean and unclean meats. And, of course, the seventh-day Sabbath.

In 1900, a church called the Church of God (Seventh Day) was incorporated in Missouri. It printed the “Bible Advocate.” Its mailing list, at that time, I believe was about 1000 copies. So when I think of Beyond Today going out to only a quarter million, I say, well, a quarter million is good but better than 1000. Most of us are familiar with the story of how, you know, in the late 1920s, a former advertising professional named Herbert Armstrong, you know, was challenged by his wife when she became friends with a member of the Church of God (Seventh Day).

I believe her name was Mrs. Runcorn. And she led Loma Armstrong to look in her Bible and see that what it teaches about the Sabbath. She was so excited to tell her husband, Herbert, who turns out, wasn't very excited about it. He determined he was going to study God's Word and prove her wrong. You know, at the time he was challenged by other members of the family to see whether he could prove that there was a God, and if the Bible was His Word. And all the study, Mr. Armstrong was convicted.

He actually became a seventh-day Sabbath keeper. You know, whereas he'd started off trying to prove that that was crazy. He began writing articles that he submitted to “The Bible Advocate.” And in 1931, he was ordained as a minister by the Oregon Conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day). He went on from there to lead what became a very powerful media work. And a church that is known for some unusual doctrines, including the seventh-day Sabbath. I like to say it was a Sabbatarian Christian Church.

And the United Church of God is a direct descendant of that work. And I think many of us are aware of that. I don't want to recount the decades from Mr. Armstrong's conversion that led to, you know, the founding of the United Church of God, about 25 years ago. But I think, you know, we can say we are all directly descended from that work. But I always like to be careful to say, we keep the Sabbath. We believe the things we believe, not because Mr. Armstrong taught them. That's not the reason.

We believe what it says in this Book. We believe he helped us understand what's in that Book, but we believe that the Sabbath is what this Book teaches that God wants us to keep. And that it's a sign. The Sabbath has been a sign between God and those chosen people for a long time. So, I've been going through this history to remind us, you know, the Sabbath is a sign for the group with which God is working. First, the nation of Israel and Judah. It's been the sign of the Church with which God is working. And we can look through history and look for churches that kept the Sabbath.

I think it makes sense then that the Sabbath could also be a sign and identification for an individual person. And I think you'll probably agree with me. I wonder, you know, I don't have time to go around and ask everybody the question, but I've talked to people who've been brought into God's church. And many times, the first thing that they come to understand is the seventh-day Sabbath. Suddenly, their eyes open and they say, “This is different than my previous belief.” And they start wanting to know what else is in this Book that they don't know.

It seems like the Sabbath identifies God's truth to them, and then the Sabbath becomes an identifier that they're following God. Now, I think I've heard this story a number of times from my grandmother, how she learned about the Sabbath and began looking for a church that kept it. My father-in-law, who might well be watching right now, if so, hope you're feeling better. I've heard stories about how he went to his wife and said, “Wanda, I just have to do this.”

You know, how many of you have felt that way? When you learned it you said, “I can't not do this. The Sabbath stands out.” And I think we can see in God's word that He means it as an identifier. You know, we've already turned to Ezekiel 20, where God said the Sabbath was a sign. The Hebrew word that's translated sign there is owth. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it correctly. I've seen it spelled O-W-T-H, sometimes A-W-T -H. Since Hebrew wasn't written with vowels, we've got to guess. But that word owth can be translated as sign. It can be translated as a signal, a beacon, a mark. It's an identifier.

There's a place in Scripture where God specifically uses that for an individual. It's in Genesis 4. I'm only going to read probably one scripture there. But if I start telling the story that's in Genesis 4, you'll instantly recognize it. Adam and Eve had many children we think, but we only know the names of three of them. In Genesis 4, we learned that Cain became very angry with his brother, Abel, and killed him. And God confronted Cain and pronounced a punishment on him.

Interestingly, that punishment was not the death penalty. He banished him and Cain wasn't satisfied with that. Cain said, “Well, I'm going to be an outcast, anybody who finds me will kill me”. And then, God responded in 4:15, telling Cain, says,

Genesis 4:15 – “The Lord said to him, ‘Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.’ And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.” The Lord set a mark. Hebrew word there is owth. That same word for the sign between God and the children of Israel.

You know, I don't want to follow up on Cain’s story, but I'm just making the point that we can see from the language that the Sabbath certainly can be a sign, not only for the Church, not only for the Israelites but for you and for me, each of us individually. Sabbath identifies us. And we can say, “How does that work? How do people know?” Now, people have wondered with Cain what was it? Did he have to wear something around his neck? Some people speculated God changed his color.

The Sabbath as a sign for us, it could be this. I could pin this onto my clothes everyday. So, I just thought of this yesterday. I printed it out on a printer. You know, for something to be a sign, it has to be noticeable. It has to be something that can be observed. Well, what do people observe about you that tells them you have that sign? It's not this kind of sign.

Well, let me mention another word in Hebrew. When God made the Sabbath holy, that word for holy is qadash. If I'm pronouncing it properly, qadash. I've seen it spelled with a K or a Q-A-D-A-S-H. It means holy. It means sanctified. It comes from a root word that means different. The Sabbath is different. And if we look, we can see there are times when God was giving instructions to the priest in Israel, one of the things He wanted the priest to do was to show His people the difference between the holy and the unholy. Make sure they know the difference between the holy and the profane.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, not Saturday, Sunday, they're all profane, meaning they're not holy, but the seventh day is holy. It's different. So that means we should treat it differently. You know, I mean, the time feels similar. Although, if you talk to a 10-year-old who's not watching TV or playing video games, time feels very different and slow on the Sabbath. I always say once I got a job working six days a week, I thought, “Oh, I love the Sabbath.”

Well, how is it different? It's not all that complicated. The basics in the 10 commandments, God said... Well, He said, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days, do all your labor but not on the seventh. It's a day of rest.” So we don't work. That's pretty basic, but it's different. Another thing we're taught is that the Sabbath is a holy convocation, meaning a gathering together for a holy purpose. You know, Paul later said, “Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together.”

You know, so there's two basic things about the Sabbath that are different. We don't work. We gather together, and we worship God. Now, beyond the basics, we can read in Isaiah 58, Isaiah 58:13. I like to say, if thou shall not work and holy convocation are the letter of the law, Isaiah 58:13 tells us a little of what I think of as the spirit of the law. You know, what should be the intent of how we keep the Sabbath?

God says, “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,” - don't trample all over it. Don't treat it as profane – “Turn your foot away from the Sabbath from doing your pleasure on My Holy Day and call the Sabbath a delight.” Again, it's not a drag. “It's a delight, the Holy Day of the Lord, honorable and honor Him. Not doing your own ways nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you'll delight yourself in the Lord.” - And He goes on from there - “Then, you'll be treating the day as different. It'll be a mark, a sign on you if you do these things.”

Now, we could spend hours and hours discussing exactly how to do that. A matter of fact, as part of ABC, I like to get the students in a circle and discuss it because one thing we see is the Bible doesn't give us a long list of dos and don'ts. We each sort of make up our own list of dos and don'ts to try to fit within that. And I don't want to get into the weeds of those dos and don't, but I wanna make the point that the Sabbath is something that guides how we live. And it stands out when we do it that way.

You know, how many of you have jobs where people notice you never work on Saturday? Even if it's mandatory overtime, you're not there. Or if you have your own business, you won't accept a job. You know, you don't have your shop open or anything like that. It's funny, I noticed it's not the Sabbath but the restaurant chain Chick-fil-A has become very notable because they're closed on Sundays. Any of you pulled into a parking lot for one on Sunday, like, “Finally, there's not a line.”

They stand out. If we ran a restaurant, I hope it stand out because, “Oh, they're not open on Saturday.” It's something that's noticeable. If we think of those edicts back in the 300s by, you know, Constantine and the bishops of the Catholic Church, they saw the Sabbath as an identification of people that they consider to be heretics. They called them Judaizers, “We'll know 'em when they're not working on Saturday. So, let's make 'em work.”

You know, the rulers at that time determined that Sunday worship would be the sign for what they considered to be Christianity. We don't see that. We see God's Word telling us no. I'm going to like this. I ought to save this for my notes. This is the sign of me being one of God's people. Now, I find it interesting. You know, we've long understood this, the symbolisms from the books of Daniel and Revelation to show that what's portrayed as a beast in the end time seems that it'll be a modern-day revival of the Roman Empire.

The Roman empire in ancient times outlawed keeping the Sabbath and enforced Sunday worship. They did it before. There's good reason to think that that could happen again if there's that revival, if the Beast comes up again, as it's prophesied to do. Our understanding then is that that symbol, that mark, that they enforce will be forced worshiping on Sunday. Our long-time teaching has been that's what it means when it says the mark of the Beast.

If that's true, if they outlaw keeping the Sabbath, make it a law that you must work then and must rest on Sunday. If keeping the Sabbath becomes a crime, it'll identify some people, won't it? It'll show who's devoted to worshiping God and the way of His word and who is not. It'll show it just as much as those who got twice as much manna on the sixth day, standing out from those who wandered out on the seventh day and said, “Hmm, where is it?” You know, which group do we want to be in? I think we all know.

And again, I don't want to get into a discussion of, you know, what is or what isn't the mark of the Beast. I think our traditional teaching is accurate. You know, we see it tied to buying and selling. And so that's made people that sometimes think, “Well, it's gonna be credit cards, barcodes.” What else? You know, masks, vaccines. I don't think so. I think it's still tied to what the Beast enforces. You know, we'll see if there's a literal physical thing that they wanna put in your right hand or in your forehead.

But I'd say the primary way to identify that mark isn't buying or selling, the primary way to identify it is that it belongs to the Beast. It's the mark of the Beast, not of buying and selling. But if there's a mark that's counter to God's law, which we know God's way, God's sign is keeping the Sabbath, you know, I'm not gonna worry about what the Beast sign is. Again, I don't think it's a mystery we can't figure out, but rather than worry about that, I wanna make sure I have the mark of God on me.

You know, I want that mark to be seen in what I do and in what I think that could be symbolized by my right hand and my forehead. I wanna be sure that I'm very focused on making sure the Sabbath stands out. I think I skipped over to my notes. I'm wondering how many of your neighbors dressed up and walked out to their cars carrying a Bible today? Maybe a few but none of mine did that I know of. Now, sometimes I think they look at me like, “What in the world is he doing? It's 90 degrees and he's wearing a suit.”

Well, again, think of this as a review because you all get it. You are here. I just wanna remind us that it matters more than we sometimes think. We don't want to be lax in making that our sign. Let's proudly bear this mark of being God's people. You know, if people ask, “Who are you? What are you?” There are a lot of ways to answer that question. You know, “I'm a Sabbatarian.” Doesn't have to be the first thing you blurred out. But among the ways we identify ourselves, I hope is, “I keep the Sabbath. I understand the seventh day is a day that God wants me to worship.” You know, we're Christians who are Sabbatarians. The Sabbath is an important part of how we worship. It's an important part of the way we live our lives, and it's an important way of identifying who and what we are.