Area Leadership Message
The Blessings of Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy
After hearing many wonderful lessons about ways to keep the Sabbath day holy, we concluded as a family that one of our family rules would be to keep the Sabbath day.
Keeping the Lord’s commandments comes with an invitation to “prove me now herewith” (Malachi 3:10). Of course, we were put to the test, and we wanted to prove to the Lord that we believe. One Sunday after church, our daughter who was attending the graduating class at elementary school, was called by her teacher who asked her to come to the school.
The teacher was at the classroom with other students preparing for an island-wide competition on Monday morning. My daughter explained to the teacher that one of our family rules is not to do schoolwork on Sundays. The teacher wanted to speak to my wife, who made the same statement. Then the teacher wanted to speak with me. Of course, I shared the same comment. She was very disappointed. She told us that she believes in keeping the Sabbath day holy, but this was a very important competition where preparation was key to winning. I told her I understood how important the competition was but keeping the Sabbath day holy is more important to us. She hung up on me leaving me speechless.
On Monday morning, our daughter was afraid to go to school where she would have to face the teacher. My wife drove her to school but found the teacher had left our daughter behind. My wife took her to the competition venue where my daughter joined her classmates. Our daughter did not win the competition that day, but she was the only student from her school who won a prize.
The Lord reminded the Israelites to: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
“Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
“But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates” (Exodus 20:8–10).
Then the Lord explained why. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:11).
This is the same message the prophet Abinadi shared with King Noah and his priests. (See Mosiah 13:16–19.) The Lord teaches in Doctrine and Covenants 59:13, “And on this day thou shalt do none other thing, only let thy food be prepared with singleness of heart that thy fasting may be perfect, or, in other words, that thy joy may be full”.
In verse 16 it says, “Verily I say, that inasmuch as ye do this, the fulness of the earth is yours.”
In the words of our beloved prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, “The Sabbath became a day for personal healing. . . . Sunday provided much-needed relief.”
He continued, “What did the Savior mean when He said that ‘the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath’? I believe He wanted us to understand that the Sabbath was His gift to us, granting real respite from the rigors of daily life and an opportunity for spiritual and physical renewal. God gave us this special day, not for amusement or daily labor but for a rest from duty, with physical and spiritual relief.”1
May we always remember to keep the Sabbath day holy. May we also remember that the Lord Himself blessed and hallowed the day for us, His children, to rest from all our labours. He is the God of the universe; He instituted the Sabbath and He made Himself the living example by resting from His labours. It is a holy day to Him, and it should also be a holy day to us.
I testify that the Sabbath day is the Lord’s gift to us, it is truly a manifestation of His pure and endless love. Those who choose to do all they can to keep it holy shall not only see miracles but shall also reap the wonderful, promised blessings.