Good morning. If you'll take
your seats. Let's open this morning's service.
We'll stand together and in the spiral bound hymnal we'll sing
hymn number 20. Hymn number 20 in the spiral
bound. Long, long before the world was
made, God chose to save me by His grace and blessed me in my
covenant head with every blessing of His grace. In Christ my surety
was found, a ransom for God's chosen one. Deliverance was then
proclaimed, and God's great work of grace begun. In the due time my Savior came
to do His Holy Father's will. A body was prepared for Him that
He might righteousness fulfill. When Christ had righteousness
brought in, He took a hopeful load of sin. Dying for me upon
the tree, My Savior put away my sin. Though I was born a child
of wrath, Depraved and helpless, dead in sin, And though I chose
the rebel's path, Despising God and loving sin, My Savior's love
could not be quenched. He sought and found me by His
grace. Awakened by His Spirit's call,
I'm saved, I'm saved by sovereign grace. Amazing free and sovereign
grace, in love Christ Jesus took my place. Chosen, redeemed, and
called by grace, to Christ alone I give all praise. My only hope, my only plea, is
that Christ lived and died for me. In Him alone I am complete. To Christ alone my praise shall
be. Be seated, please. Good morning. Thank you, Adam. We're going to continue looking
at David in 1 Samuel. And if you'd like to turn with
me to chapter 21, you'll find our texts for this morning. But by way of introduction, I
want to look at a couple of other passages. So just mark 1 Samuel. and then open your Bibles with
me to Exodus chapter 20, Exodus chapter 20. All right, let's
go to the Lord in prayer and ask his blessings. Our merciful heavenly Father,
thank you or bringing us from our homes and bringing us here
to thy house where we might meet with thee, hear thy word, fellowship
with thy children, know thy will and know thy mercy and thy grace. Lord, that is our hope. And we're
so thankful that you've made us willing We thank you for the
power of your Holy Spirit that has done so. Made us willing
to believe on Christ made us willing to. To know the and to. To come before the. We thank
you for the. The throne of grace, whereby
our Lord and Savior. Has put his blood on the mercy
seat is rent the veil of his flesh. and whereby you call us to come. Lord, we pray that you would
make that call effectual in our hearts and that you would cause
us to come. Father, we pray for our meeting
that we've planned this weekend. We ask Lord that you would bless
it. Pray that you prepare our hearts to hear your word and
to worship thee. Pray, Lord, for those that yet
don't know thee. And Lord, we pray for our children
and for our friends and family members that you might be pleased
in this meeting to call them to thyself. Father, we pray for
Caleb and for David and for Todd. Ask that you prepare their hearts
with the messages that would glorify Christ and Edify your
people. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. All right, you have your
Bibles open to Exodus chapter 20. I want to introduce this
message with what may appear to be a provocative statement. And probably somebody will listen
to the first few minutes of this message online and turn it off
immediately. not having heard the explanation
of this statement. But the statement is this, the
fourth commandment is to keep holy the Sabbath. And if one
keeps the fourth commandment, they've kept them all. If you keep the fourth commandment,
you've kept them all. Let's read that commandment together. Verse eight. Remember the Sabbath
day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and
do all thy work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath
of the Lord thy God. And in it thou shalt not do any
work. Thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter,
thy manservants, nor thy maidservants, 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 is in them, and rested
the seventh day. Wherefore, the Lord blessed the
Sabbath day and Hallowed it. Now turn with me
in your Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 20. Ezekiel chapter 20. And look with me at verse 12. Moreover, also I gave them my
Sabbaths. to be a sign. Now there's the
significance of this passage. It's the only of the 10 commandments
that God refers to as a sign. And that sign is what I've already
said. That if you have kept the fourth commandment, it is the
sign that you've kept them all. It is a sign between me and them
that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them. Now look at verse 20 in the same
chapter. And hallow the Sabbaths and they
shall be a sign between me and you that you may know that I
and the Lord your God. Now just in case anyone might
be thinking, boy I sure am glad I came to church this morning. If there is any thought whatsoever
that you not doing manual labor today or that you being here
today is the keeping of the Sabbath, that very thought itself is evidence
that you've broken the Sabbath. I was talking to a man who owns
a very large unsuccessful business and he had just heard me preach
the gospel and in conversation he told me in a very brief conversation
that we had, he told me three times that He didn't allow any
of his businesses to be opened on Sunday. And it was one of
those conversations where afterwards, as he walked away, I realized
what he was doing. He was trying to get me to tell
him that closing his businesses on Sunday was going to somehow
merit him favor with God and get him into heaven. And I felt very sad for him.
This man was a multi-billionaire. And he thought, at closing his
businesses on Sunday, if I had that conversation to do over
again, I would have said to him, Bubba, that's probably the best
business decision you've ever made. I mean, that may be a good
reason for the success of your business. You know, give everybody
a day off. And he obviously is appealing
to the religious right to frequent his business because he's not
open on Sunday. But not performing some outward act
or performing something on Sunday is not in any way what
keeping the Sabbath is. Now, our text this morning will
begin in 2 Samuel chapter, 1 Samuel, I'm sorry, chapter 21. 1 Samuel 21. And we'll begin reading in verse
21. Then, I'm sorry, verse 1 in chapter 21, forgive me. Then
came David to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech was
afraid at the meeting of David and said unto him, why art thou
alone and no man with thee? David had an army of 600 soldiers
and they weren't with him. He only had a couple of men with
him. And Ahimelech the priest was worried. What's David here
for? What's his intentions? David
is fleeing from Saul. And David said unto Ahimelech
the priest, the king hath commanded me a business, and David's gonna
lie to Ahimelech. He has commanded me a business
and hath said unto me, let no man know anything of the business
whereabout I send thee. And what I have commanded thee,
and I have appointed my servant to such and such a place. Saul sent me on a mission, on
a business. gave me a task. Now therefore
what is under thine hand? Give me five loaves of bread
in mine hand or whatever you have present." We're hungry,
we need some food. And Ahimelech the priest answered
David and said, there is no common bread under my hand but there
is hallowed bread If the men have kept themselves at least
from women and David answered the priest and said unto him
of a truth, women have been kept from us about these three days
since I came out and the vessels of the young men are holy and
the bread is in a manner common, yea, though it were sanctified
this day in the vessel. So the priest gave him hallowed
bread and there was no bread there but the show bread. that
was taken from before the Lord to put hot bread in the day when
it was taken away. So the bread was to be changed
out every day. This is the show bread. And the bread that was taken
from the table was by the law only to be eaten by the priest.
David shows up and says well you know I see you're fixing
some new bread and this is kind of common anyway because it's
the old bread just give it to us that we can eat and Ahimelech
gave it to him and he ate it. Now the Lord purposed this experience
for David knowing full well that a thousand years later he would
use this very experience to declare himself to be the Lord of the
Sabbath and to show the meaning of what it is to keep the Sabbath. How important, how significant
it is, how necessary it is to keep the fourth commandment.
and what it really means to keep the fourth commandment, what
the Lord meant when he called the fourth commandment a sign
and how in keeping the fourth commandment you've kept all the
commandments. So God purposed this story, this event, knowing
as I said full well that a thousand years later the Lord Jesus himself
would use this to clarify the truth of who he is and to shut
the mouths of those who have trusted in their works for the
hope of their salvation. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
12. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three record this story. There are hundreds of Old Testament
stories and occasionally one of the gospel writers will make
reference to one or the other. But there are very few stories
in the Old Testament that all three of the synoptic writers,
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you know that the Gospel of John
is a completely different style of writing and a different emphasis,
a different a different pattern of revelation in John, but Matthew,
Mark, and Luke are synoptics, they are similar. And very few Old Testament stories
are told by all three of the synoptic writers, this is one
of them. And so in Matthew chapter 12,
it gives us some understanding of the significance of this event.
David eats the showbread. and gives it to his men, which
is contrary to the letter of the law. But the Lord permitted
it and did not judge him guilty for having done it. And the meaning of this whole
thing gives to me and you some understanding of what it is to
keep the fourth commandment because in keeping the fourth commandment
you've kept all the law of God, kept every bit of it. Matthew chapter 12 verse 1, and
at that time Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn,
now the word corn here it can be wheat also, which is probably
what it was. They're taking the heads of wheat
and rubbing them in the ground in their hands and blowing away
the chaff and eating the grains of wheat. And so the Lord and his disciples
were hungry and they began to pluck the ears of corn and to
eat. And when the Pharisees saw it,
they said unto him, behold, thy disciples do that which is not
lawful to do upon the Sabbath day. But he said unto them, have
you not read what David did when he was an hungered? And they
that were with him, how he entered into the house of God and did
eat the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither
for them that were with him, but only for the priest. Or have
you not read in the law how that on the Sabbath days, the priest
and the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? In other words,
the Sabbath, the rules of the Sabbath were that you could do
no work. Well, the priest had to work on the Sabbath. They
did a lot of work, making sacrifices on the Sabbath, more than any
other day of the week. And so the Lord is, is calling
them into question as to their understanding of what it means
not to work. We just read that in Exodus chapter
20, that God forbids all work on the Sabbath day. And these
Pharisees had interpreted work as manual labor. They didn't
see the sign. They didn't understand the meaning
of what it meant to not work. The answer to that question is
what it means to keep the Sabbath. And having kept the Sabbath,
you've kept all the law of God. And so he brings up this example.
The disciples are doing work. They're preparing food and they're
eating the food that they prepared. And the Pharisees say, oh, no,
no, no, you can't do that. And the Lord brings up this example
in 1 Samuel. says, have you not heard? Do
you not remember? They knew that story and they
could not refute our Lord's words with scripture. They were left
silent with no defense to give to him. And so then he brings
up the priest and he says, you know, the priest worked on the
Sabbath. They did manual labor and yet
they were blameless before God. So your understanding of working
on the Sabbath is flawed. But I say unto you that in this
place is one greater than the temple. Obviously our Lord's
speaking of himself. But if you had known what this
meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, you would not
have condemned these men who are guiltless. If you had understood
that salvation is by grace and not by works, I will have mercy
upon whom I will have mercy. And those who come to me on the
basis of the law, thinking that their obedience to the law is
somehow going to earn them favor with God and get them into heaven? If you understood what this meant,
I will have mercy and not sacrifice, not your sacrifice. All of your
sacrifices are of no avail when it comes to the salvation of
your soul and the putting away of your sin, only by God's mercy. Can a man be saved? These Pharisees
are looking at the sacrifices they were making. Look at verse 8. For the Son
of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. And that's the title of this
message. The Lord of the Sabbath. Christ Jesus himself is the Lord
of the Sabbath. A term would mean a mark Chapter
two, I mentioned that all three gospel writers make reference
to this. Mark chapter two, verse 23, and it came to pass
that as he went through the cornfields on the Sabbath day and his disciples
began as they went to pluck the ears of corn and the Pharisees
said, wait, wait, wait, wait, you can't do that, this is the
Sabbath. Behold, why did they do on the Sabbath that which
is not lawful? And he said unto them, have you
never read what David did when he had need and was a hungered
and he and they that were with him, how he went into the house
of God in the days of Abiathar, the high priest, and did eat
the showbread, which is not lawful to eat, but for the priest. And
he gave also to them that were with him. And he said unto them,
The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.
Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath. God
doesn't need you and your sacrifices to make the Sabbath holy. You
need the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for you,
not you for the Sabbath. One more passage. Well, we won't
read all that's in Luke. Let me just say this, the same
event is recorded in Luke. And at the end of the event,
the scripture says, and the Pharisees were filled with madness. They were so offended by what
the Lord said that they were filled with madness. They were
overcome with rage and they communed with one another. What are we
going to do with him? We've got to get rid of him. We've got
to kill him. Why? Because what he's saying
robs us of our righteousness. It strips us of the hope of our
salvation. We can't have that. They looked on their outward
conformities of the law as the hope of their salvation. not understanding what it meant
to keep the Sabbath. In Exodus chapter 12, right after
the Lord had given the law of the Sabbath to Moses at Mount
Sinai, the children of Israel are in the wilderness, they're
moving about and, you know, the manna came every day And there
was a man who was caught picking up sticks on the Sabbath day. And they brought him to Moses. And Moses went before the Lord. Lord, what do I do? This man
was picking up sticks to build a fire, to cook a meal on the
Sabbath day? That's work. And God told Moses,
kill him. Put him to death. Now the Pharisees would have
read a story like that and they had, oh, they took the things
that God had revealed in scripture and they made lots more law,
a lot more laws. There's so many steps you could
walk, so many things you could do. I mean, they were very particular
about their Sabbatarian rules. And our Lord is making it clear
to them, you've missed the sign. You've misunderstood completely
what it means to not work on the Sabbath. You've not kept any of God's
law because you didn't keep that one. You keep the fourth commandment,
you've kept them all. You violate the fourth commandment,
you've violated them all. God requires perfect obedience
before him. And the only way that you and
I can be obedient before God is if he gives us the faith to
trust the Lord Jesus Christ alone for all of our righteousness.
If he causes us to see that the works of our flesh are filthy
rags, that man at his very best state is altogether vanity, That
in us there is no good thing and that we have nothing to offer
to God to earn our salvation or to merit favor with him or
to open the door of heaven for us. That if the Lord Jesus Christ
and the work that he performed on Calvary's cross is not everything
in our salvation, then we have no salvation. Christ must be
all. And if we add anything to what
he is or who he is and what he's done, we have violated the Sabbath. And so these religious organizations
that pride themselves today, I mean, there are churches that
are committed to the five points of Calvinism. That, you know,
I mean, these people are staunch reformed Calvinists who are Sabbatarians. And it's Christ plus what they're
doing and not doing on Sunday for the hope of their salvation. Now, as I would have said to
this man who owned a business, God enables you to not have to
work on Sunday. That's a good thing. rest physically. And we don't have to crack the
whip of Sabbatarian rules and regulations in order to get believers
to come to church. That's their motivation. You
see, they're putting men under the law Well, listen to what
Paul said in Galatians chapter 6. As many as desire to make
a fair show in the flesh. That's what they're trying to
do. They're trying to make a fair show in the flesh. And as many
as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain
you to be circumcised. Now circumcision is sabbatarian
rules. Circumcision is whatever you
do to try to earn favor with God. And so what the Lord's saying
is, whether you have Sabbatarian rules and regulations, whether
you have dress codes, whether you have dietary laws, whatever
they might be, if you are in any way looking to those things
for your salvation and thinking that somehow that's going to
add to the work that Christ finished, then your very attempt To keep
the law is your violation of the law, because you haven't
kept Sabbath. As many as would desire to make
a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised,
lest they should suffer persecution for the offense of the cross. You see, These men were offended
by what the Lord Jesus said because he robbed them of their circumcision. He robbed them of their righteousness.
He took away the hope of their salvation. He interpreted what
the meaning of keeping the Sabbath was and it didn't have anything
to do with picking corn or healing a man. In the Gospel of Luke, right
after the Pharisees did that, the scripture says the Lord found
a man that was crippled and he healed him right there, purposefully. I mean, he didn't take him, he
did it right there in front of those enraged Pharisees. And he said, is it lawful to
heal a man on the Sabbath? He asked them that question.
Oh no, you can't do that. He did it right before their
eyes. To show them, you've missed the
sign. You don't understand what it
means to keep the Sabbath. Doesn't have anything to do with
what you do or don't do. And like I said, we don't have
to crack the whip of the law to get people to come to church.
I've said this before, I say to you, I know that a teenager
might hear this and go home and say, preacher said I don't have
to go to church. But I would say to the rest of you adults,
don't come if you don't want to. Don't come. Don't give if you don't want.
Don't do anything you don't want to do. You know, God puts it on our
hearts to want to meet with him and be where he's pleased to
speak to us and to manifest his grace and his glory and the fellowship
with his people. We don't have to enforce Sabbatarian
rules. Matter of fact, the very doing
of that destroys the gospel. It destroys the gospel. We're
free. We're free, we're not under the
law, we're under grace. The first mention of the Sabbath
is found in Genesis chapter two. It's not called the Sabbath here,
but the word Sabbath means rest. It means rest, that's what the
word Sabbath means. So turn with me to Genesis chapter
two. Look at verse one. Thus the heavens
and the earth were finished. Six days the Lord worked and
he created everything in those six days. And he crowned his
creation with the creation of man on the sixth day, the number
for man. And he looked at what he had
made and it was very good, very good. He was pleased with his
work. Thus the heavens and the earth
were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day,
God ended his work, which he had made. And he rested on the
seventh day from all his work, which he had made. And God blessed
the seventh day and sanctified it because in it, he had rested
from all his work, which God created and made. If you're gonna keep the Sabbath,
you're gonna have to join the seventh day Adventist. If you're gonna keep it in its
Old Testament form, legalistically, if you're gonna
keep it. If you want to be approved of God for having kept
the sign of the Sabbath, don't go down there. Don't go to Seventh-day
Adventist. They're promoting their Sabbath
keeping. You realize the Old Testament Sabbath is on Saturday,
not on Sunday. on Saturday and that's their
insistence. We're the only ones faithful
to keep the Sabbath because we meet on Saturday and we don't
work on Saturday. Years ago I was a bill collector.
I was an awful job. knocked on a guy's door on Saturday
that was a Sunday Adventist. He peeked open the door, he said,
I'm a Sunday Adventist, I can't talk. I mean, the guy was a deadbeat.
He hadn't paid his bills in I don't know how long and, you know,
about to lose everything and slammed the door in my face,
said, I'm a Sunday Adventist, I can't talk to you, it's Saturday.
Yeah, well, you're keeping the Sabbath. The Lord often rebuked the Jews for having polluted
his Sabbath. Thinking that keeping the Sabbath
has anything to do with what we do or don't do on Saturday
or Sunday, you know why the church now meets on Sunday, because
our Lord raised from the dead on Sunday. And in the Old Testament,
the day of rest was at the end of the week. And in the New Testament,
the day of rest is at the beginning of the week. In the Old Testament,
they had to rest after they worked. In the New Testament, we rest
before we work. You see that? In other words,
we do what we do as unto the Lord because we have rested in
Christ. We don't try to find rest after
we've done all of our work, trying to be saved. You see the difference? It's
a world of difference. It's an eternity of difference.
Our rest is already accomplished. All ye that labor and are heavy
laden, come unto me and I will, Learn of me. I'll give you rest
for your soul. My burden is light. My yoke is
easy. Why? Because He bore the burden
of our sin on Calvary's cross. And He wore the yoke of the law
and He was the end of the law for righteousness. He fulfilled
all the requirements of the law. And now God in His Holy Spirit
causes us to see Christ is my rest. His yoke is easy, his burden
is light for me. It wasn't for him but it is now
for me because he's bore the weight of it. He's bore the full
weight of it. So I flee in faith to the Lord
Jesus Christ and in doing so we are the true circumcision
which worship God in the Spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus and
we have no confidence in the flesh. That's the keeping of
the fourth commandment. And in keeping the fourth commandment,
you've kept all the commandments. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
four. You know, as I said, God feeds
his sheep. I was thinking about, you know,
we see these pleas for support on TV where they show emaciated
children in a third world country that are starving and a famine.
And I have to divert my attention from that. I mean, it just breaks
your heart. You want to help, but what can
you do? But I thought about those children
compared to our children, which we have to threaten sometimes
and not allow them to get up from the dinner table until they've
eaten all their vegetables. And we crack the whip of the
law in order to get them to eat what we've served them. And I
thought, those children they're showing us on TV, you would never
have to do anything to make them eat. They're starving. You know, if you've got to have
the law hung over your head to make you come to church or make
you want to worship God or serve him or know him, that's just
a fat, spoiled child who's not hungry. We're not hungry. God makes you hungry. You don't
need any of that, do you? You just need some crumbs from
the master's table to be pushed out and you're there, you're
there to eat. Job, I'm sorry, Hebrews chapter
four, look at verse three. For we which have believed, We've
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. We've rested all our hope in
him. We're trusting him and him alone
for all of our salvation. For we which have believed do
enter into rest. As he said, as I have sworn in
my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works
were finished from the foundations of the world, Not talking about those works
that were performed in Genesis chapter one in the creation of
the world. He's talking about the work that
the Lord Jesus did as the lamb slain before the foundation of
the world when he entered into that covenant with his father
and committed himself to be the sacrifice for the sins of his
people. That work was accomplished before
the world ever began. What can we add to that? It's
finished. It's done. Look at look at verse
nine in the same chapter. There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. For he that is entered into his
rest. That's the rest of Christ. He
also has ceased from his own works as God did from his. Genesis chapter two, God ceased
from his labor, why? Because he was finished, that's
why he ceased. Why did he rest? Because he was
tired? No, because he was finished. We rest in the finished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that the Lord himself is
our Sabbath. He's our Sabbath. And if we,
by God's grace, have kept the fourth commandment, we've kept
them all. Kept them all. You say, but there's a Pharisee
within me that's always looking for something to do. Well, and
that's why the next verse is there. Look at the next verse.
Let us labor therefore, and it is a spiritual labor. What is
the spiritual labor? to not rely upon anything that
you've done for your hope of salvation. That's a spiritual
labor. To look in faith to the Lord
Jesus Christ alone for all of your salvation, that's a spiritual
labor. Because the natural thing is
just to fall into a works thought, to fall into a works mentality
or a works gospel. Let us labor therefore to enter
into that rest, lest any man fall of the same example of unbelief. They fell because they thought
that they're keeping the outward laws of the Sabbath. We're earning
them favor with God. And in doing so, they violated
the Sabbath. You keep the Sabbath spiritually. The sign is the only of the 10
commandments that's called a sign. It's a sign because it points
up and it points down. It points up to your relationship
with God, those first three commandments, and it points down to your relationship
with man, the rest of the commandments. And he that keeps the Sabbath
that's kept all the law of God. Isn't that glorious? Amen. All right, let's take a
break.