FOURTH COMMANDMENT: Remember The Sabbath Day, To Keep It Holy.
The Lord has given us the Sabbath Day to be a covenant between Him and us while we are in mortality. We are His children and He expects us to worship Him and show our gratitude for what He has given us.
He has given us this day to rest from our labors. He tells us to work six days for or living and existence on the earth, but then to stop and remember Him.
He wants us to be humble before Him and to praise Him, and if we do, we will be moving towards exaltation and to be more like Him.
He does not want us to do the things we regularly do, but to prepare simple meals and to allow those who labor for us to be free from work also. Even the animals that work for us like on a farm, we are to turn them out to graze and rest also.
It is a day we leave our businesses and be released from the trials that normally trouble us daily. We are even relieved one day a week from His word to Adam when He told Adam:
Genesis 3: 19
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
It is a day to go to church and worship and partake of the Sacrament and ask forgiveness of our sins. We are to rest our spirit, minds and body.
It is a day of singing, hearing and giving sermons and prayers and bearing our testimonies. It is a time to bring our Heavenly Father closer to us and to feel His love and for us to show our love for Him.
It is a day in which we are to analyze our life here, to see what we need to change and what weaknesses we have and how to strengthen them.
It is also a day to study the scriptures, read a good book, visit the sick, preach the Gospel, to visit quietly with our family, to nap and relax, a day to contemplate the glories of the gospel and of the eternal realms.
Instead, we find many people doing their daily work or playing. Stores and restaurants are open, factories are continuously running. Fun parks and beaches are open and sometimes crowded. Movie theaters have long lines for tickets, the canyons and state parks are busy.
Ballgames like football and baseball are played drawing record crowds. Farmers do their regular daily routine of plowing and harvesting and all have pushed out of their mind what the day is and why it is important.
Many go fishing, mountain climbing, boating and the highways are busy, and people are doing their own thing. People are out cutting their lawn when it could have been done on Saturday.
Shopping could have been done on Saturday if they had thought of the Sabbath day and prepared ahead.
Week after week they do the same thing and do not obey the Forth Commandment.
Sometimes many do not have a choice. Their employer compels them to work on Sunday or be fired. Some lucky people can compromise with the employer to be allowed to go to church and still put in some time at work. When employment is hard to find and that is the only job they can find, they find themselves like an ‘Ox in the mire.’
They cannot do much about it, but don’t be the one looking for the ‘mire’ as an excuse from worship.
Change of employment and a financial sacrifice can sometimes be done. Remember, the Lord has promised that He would bless those who live His laws and keep His commandments.
You are in the process of sanctification if you observe the Sabbath Day and strive to keep His commandments.
Alma 13: 12
12 Now they, after being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, having their garments made white, being pure and spotless before God, could not look upon sin save it were with abhorrence; and there were many, exceedingly great many, who were made pure and entered into the rest of the Lord their God.
Do not give up. Put the Lord first in your life.
For more information, go to www.lds.org
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