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TURNING OFF THE SOUND MIKES

There's something happening out there in our world of 2001 that you would think might elicit a great, big, resounding radio "A-ha!" from this ministry, the Voice of Prophecy. You would expect perhaps, after 70 years of broadcasting and mentioning on a very frequent basis this one particular Bible issue, a rather smug "I told you so." And yet, as we see this particular phenomenon taking place, our reaction is pretty much the opposite.
First, what's going on? In the very popular magazine, Parade, which most of you find in your Sunday morning newspapers, here's an article in the October 11, 1998 issue. The title: Change Your Life . . . Take a Day of Rest. Naomi Levy, the writer, has just finished a book called To Begin Again: The Journey Toward Comfort, Strength and Faith in Difficult Times, published by Knopf.

And what is her agenda, this Naomi Levy? She's pushing a concept known as keeping the Sabbath. She writes in amazement about our hectic, crazy, cell-phone-on-the-freeway pace, and tells about a billboard she saw for a kick-boxing class. Here was the headline: "You Can Rest When You're Dead."

"What's going on?" she wondered. And Naomi observes in her article:

"Picture a day when we allow ourselves to rejoice in physical pleasures — a day of good company, wonderful food, fine wine, perhaps even romance. What might it feel like to treat ourselves royally once a week, to set the table with the best china, to put flowers in our homes, to light candles, to take the time to pray?"

Item Two: Hemisphere magazine, which is United Airlines' inflight publication. Here's an article by Nan Chase, a writer for the Washington Post, and it's entitled Ancient Wisdom. The kicker line reads as follows:

"If you and your family are drowning in a sea of to-do lists, try doing nothing — for one day each week."

And this gifted journalist, after describing her own pulling-out-the-hair lifestyle, writes in the second paragraph of this wonderful article read by millions of going-crazy travelers:

"I decided to try an old-fashioned cure for my Space Age blues. It's called the Sabbath, and it's a mental-health tool that works as well today as it did 3,200 years ago when the Hebrews codified a weekly day of rest as the Fourth Commandment."

Item Three: The respected magazine Christianity Today. And here's an article by Dorothy Bass, who heads up the Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith at Valparaiso University in Indiana. Her title? Rediscovering Sabbath.

"The Sabbath is the most challenging — and necessary — spiritual discipline for contemporary Christians," she writes. And why? She adds this: "We are finite, and the demands seem too great, the time too short."

Item Four — and this is certainly the most well-known of all. Just 2 years ago, Pope John Paul II issued one of his most widely read Pastoral Letters, Dies Domini, running almost 40 pages, where he almost pleads with his entire following in the Church of Rome . . . to do what? To return to the concept of keeping the Sabbath. "Do not be afraid to give your time to Christ," he begs his flock. One church official noted afterward: "This appears to be the strongest words the pope has issued. Period."

Item Five: 2 years ago Last October 150 clergy from a number of denominations gathered together for a symposium entitled "Sabbath Rest," hosted by Marva Dawn, a Lutheran theologian and writer who has authored a Christian bestseller on how to keep the Sabbath.

And now the news item that was probably the most exciting for us to read here at the Voice of Prophecy. It comes by way of an interview a Christian college student had with the very popular evangelical recording artist Michael Card, who has something like 16 number-one contemporary Christian hits, 18 recordings, more than two million albums sold, a number of Dove Awards. Many of you will recall the beautiful song, "El Shaddai," which he wrote for Amy Grant some 15 years ago.

So you can imagine the hectic life a songwriter / composer / performer like Michael Card would lead. How would he find time for his wife Susan, and his four kids: Katie, Will, Nate, and Maggy? Plus find time to write books? And stay active in his local congregation, Christ Community Church?

Well, the answer is quite simple. Mr. Michael Card observes the Sabbath too. Every week, no matter where he is, no matter how many tracks he still has to lay down for his latest project, like the CD of Celtic hymns which just came out, no matter how many pages still need to be written for his new book, Christ in the Creative Process, he stops for a full 24 hours and simply rests in Jesus. Just like they did in Bible times, this man with a beeper and a fax machine and an e-mail account watches the sun go down . . . and he enters the joy of Sabbath rest.

But here's the interesting thing that perhaps you didn't know. Mr. Michael Card keeps today, right here in 2001, the same Sabbath as in the Bible. He celebrates, along with millions of other Christians, the seventh-day Sabbath. That's right. For Michael and his family, the Sabbath begins on Friday evening right at sundown. And it continues, not just for a couple of hours at church, but for an entire night and a day. Twenty-four hours of just plain STOPPING. RESTING. CELEBRATING. RESTORING. LOVING. SINGING, PRAYING, HUGGING, EATING, CUDDLING, FAMILY-ING. During those 24 hours, just as in the Bible, from sundown Friday night to sundown on Saturday night, he and his family do not work; instead they celebrate.

Now friend, that to me is such an exciting demonstration of commitment. Here's a wonderful Christian, a leader, who is embracing a Bible truth that this radio ministry has been talking about since its inception in the year 1929. All around the world right now, people and pastors and congregations and writers are confessing: "We DO need the Sabbath. We've been lost without it; society is crumbling all around us because we don't take time to remember our Creator." Why, then, wouldn't there be at least a little bit of very humble, over-the-radio "I told you so" here on this Monday broadcast? Well, here's the reason.

First of all, the topic of the Sabbath is just too important for that. It really is. I have to agree one hundred percent with Dorothy Bass, who wrote for Christianity Today, when she says: "The Sabbath is THE most challenging — and necessary — spiritual discipline for contemporary Christians." We all agree about things like murder and theft and the profanity on TV and in our movie theaters. We all concede that God the Father is the only true God, that honoring our parents is right, and that charity is a good thing and that the Golden Rule is a necessary truth. But this doctrine of the Sabbath is so hard, so challenging, so needed and yet so seemingly impossible here less than 12 months from a new millennium, that there's just no room for "A-ha's" and gloating. This journey called the Christian faith is such a partnership, such a team effort within the Body of Christ, that as we all kind of wake up together, all we can do is to encourage one another in growth.

But here's a second reason. True, the Voice of Prophecy and its host denomination, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, have been trying to share the Bible's good news about the Sabbath for a long time. And it's incredible to see terrific people from all walks of life suddenly looking toward that celebration, the haven of sweet rest provided by the Sabbath.

But I have to say this very, very humbly. I see these people from here and there and everywhere — and it truly IS a mushrooming movement — and there is such dedication there, such commitment to Jesus, that I actually feel myself sprinting to catch up with THEM. And that's the honest truth.

There are whole congregations out there that are embracing the concept of the Sabbath — and they're so sincere and intense about it, so determined to seek Jesus for those 24 hours, that they serve as an example to me and to some of the congregations where I attend.

I want to spend the rest of this week discussing what these people are discovering. But especially Michael Card, who has taken the Sabbath to what I feel is its logical conclusion. Because he celebrates it every week at the very time I believe is ordained in God's Word: on the seventh day.

Now friend, the issue of the seventh day versus some other day — particularly the first day — is a big one. It's huge, and theologians everywhere concede that. There are many, many differing teachings on that question. Obviously a church like the Seventh-day Adventist denomination would have formulated a very clear position, and you might have yours as well. There's a book in our office entitled From Sabbath to Lord's Day, compiled by seven top-notch scholars, and no thinking person would impugn the scholarship or the Christian commitment of a single one of those great men. This is indeed one of the most complex, fascinating — and interdependent — issues to face a Christian. Meaning that what you think about the Sabbath links to what you think about the Law of God, the teachings of Jesus, the history of the early church, and a whole lot more. It's not a self-contained, keep-it-on-a-shelf tiny teaching.

But you know, Michael Card has a very simple answer to explain why he's now watching that sun go down on Friday night, and why he's worshiping in a special, unique way on the seventh day. Here's what he told that college reporter:

"It's clearly biblical teaching. The Sabbath is one of the commandments." And he relates how someone persuaded him with this statement: "God didn't change any of the other commandments, so He hasn't changed that one."

Well, friend, I imagine by now I have your attention for sure. Be sure to stay with us all week.