Keep the Sabbath | Hugh Ross

all right we just came off of a two-day conference called amp that's how many of you were here oh great fantastic I'm so glad look we take this very seriously that we are equipping ourselves to be able to communicate the gospel to our world in a way that they can understand and be challenged by in other words we want to learn the ability and the knowledge required to share our faith with others but we don't want to be obnoxious is there anything worse than an obnoxious Christian I mean you and you've met them but we want to be able to converse with people out of love and appreciation for who they are created in the image of God and so we had some of the the greatest speakers here this path these past few days JP Moreland somebody that I read and listened to a lot in my 30s Joe Vitale was here who's with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries we had Artie be reasons to believe puts this conference on they have great speakers in their own lineup and every year when Ken asked me okay which speaker would you like to have I'm always gonna say Hugh Ross because Hugh Ross has been around a long time he looks so young and energetic but he's been around along and I think there's there's very few questions probably that he is not yet heard and so I want you guys as we just enjoy this and I want you to I want you to commit to put your put your thinker in high gear and and listen patiently through this because all of you will hear something that will further equip you to be able to share your faith and answer the questions that people ask concerning the hope and the future that you believe in and it becoming a reality you'll give me out you'll be able to give a defense and a reason for the hope that is within you so put your hands together and give Hugh Ross a great CCB warm welcome thank you thank you well thank you it's a pleasure to be back here with you again and I know you're in this series on the ten commandments so I'm gonna be speaking where you're right on right now the fourth commandment the Sabbath but a lot of you at the conference we're asking or how do we connect with reasons to bleedin with me personally and you can do that by using your smartphone just text Huw two three one nine nine six and that's your portal to get all kinds of a free DVDs book chapters and a whole lot more and the ants I do answer every question I get on my Twitter and Facebook pages so feel free to take advantage of that feel free to send your non-christian friends to that site and hopefully we can see them come to faith in Christ and for the few of you who don't have smartphones we are making available this DVD out of our book table there and as we're your pastor Jeff finds interviews me about how I came to faith in Christ through astronomy in physics and how I go about answering questions from skeptics that's a gift for you encourage you to give it to a non-christian friend just for filling out a card but what I'm gonna share with you is my personal encounter first with God's Sabbath and then the Sabbath for us human beings God's Sabbath and our Sabbath now I was not raised here in the United States I was raised in Canada and raised particularly in British Columbia I was able to climb a different mountain every weekend during my teenage years but I didn't get to know Christians until I was 27 that's when I arrived on the Caltech campus to begin postdoctoral studies Christians are hard to find in Canada especially where I was being raised on near downtown Vancouver however at a very early age I did get to encounter some stars and galaxies it all happened one night when the clouds broke and I could see the Stars and I asked my parents so stars up there are they hot they said yes they're hot can you tell me why they're hot and they said we think you'd better go to the library which is what I did and my parents were rather surprised as I came home with five books on astronomy and physics and I was able to tell them why the Stars were hot and at age eight I knew that my future career would be in astrophysics and so I was continuing to bring home every weekend five books on astronomy in physics that's the maximum they let you check out at the library and over the next couple of years this began to alarm my parents they thought I was beginning to be obsessive above physics and astronomy and so they wanted to broaden me a little bit and they knew that would have to remain in some discipline of science so even though they were quite poor they sacrificed a buyer family this big thick book on evolution or biology well I was the only one that read it and I went to my parents and says mom dad the numbers don't add up we have all the speciation before humanity and hardly any after humanity says can you please tell me why we have these millions of species showing up before humans and so few afterwards and they said no but why don't you talk to your science teachers at your school I did and they said well Hugh you're enrolled in this program where you get science exposure from university professors why don't you ask them and so I did no one could answer for me the Enigma of the fossil record and it plagued me year after year trying to find that answer I couldn't find it but I continued my studies in astronomy and physics and that led me to make a significant discovery at age 16 I dedicated that whole year to studying cosmology you say what is that well it's not cosmetology I can't tell you how many times have been introduced as a cosmetologist cosmology there's a study of the origin and history of the universe and so at age 16 I was studying the steady state theory the oscillating universe theory the hesitating universe theory but the one that was really fitting the observations was Big Bang and I knew it was Big Bang there was a beginning to the universe it was a beginning to the universe there must be a cosmic beginner and I wanted to find that cosmic beginner first place I looked for him was in the writings of Immanuel cons day why'd you start there well he's the father of cosmology so I've read critique of pure reason and discovered yet the wrong concepts of space and time and then I looked at de Descartes and a few other philosophers and eventually gave up on the philosophers and said I need to look at the holy books that undergird the religions of the world so I began with the Hindu Vedas and discovered they were speaking about this oscillating universe didn't call it that I was called the reincarnation of the universe how the universe goes through these cycles of birth and death and rebirth but it gave a specific number has said the period between one birth and the next birth was four point three two billion years and I knew that number was wrong I also knew that the universe had way too high of an entropy measure to allow a universe to rebound from a previous period so I put Hinduism aside the high school I was attending was all 80 85 % Asians a lot of Buddhist and so I looked at the Buddhist commentaries and discovered they had virtually the same theology on the origin of the universe so I said that can't be it I looked at the Koran and they had three accounts of creation but they contradicted one another one of them actually said that the stars are closer to us and the planets I said hey even with the naked eye we know that's not true you can see parallax or the planets but not with the Stars and I eventually did pick up a Bible and when I told you I didn't meet Christians so I was 27 that was to get close enough to one to have an actual spiritual conversation and but I did get to see two Christians from 30 feet away when I was 11 years old and these are two businessman that came into a public school with two boxes without saying a word they left the boxes on her teacher's desk and in those boxes were Gideon Bibles I took the Gideon Bible home didn't touch it for the next six years at age 17 I picked it up and I noticed they gave me Psalms and proverbs and the you know the New Testament I wanted to start on page one so I actually went out and got myself a Bible and started on page one and what does this say on page one very first sentence in the beginning so you all know that verse something I've discovered no matter where I go in the world to speak everybody knows Genesis 1:1 they had me none other clue John 3:16 but they know Genesis 1:1 now as a 17 year old I wanted to know what are these heavens and the earth now read through the rest of the Old Testament discovered you'll never see the word universe but you see this phrase the heavens and the earth 9 times always referring to the totality of physical reality all matter energy space and time and the word tree means to bring something brand-new into existence and then I moved into Genesis 1:2 and what caught my attention this text perfectly follows the scientific method now I was taught the scientific method in grade 1 how many of you were taught the scientific method and grade 1 okay I think the public schools here a little different than they are in Canada I was taught at every single year all the way up through grade 12 so I was steeped in the scientific method but it struck me when I looked at Genesis 1 I was just jumped right off the page 9 years later I found out why the scientific method has its origin in the Bible that's why the Bible so perfectly follows the scientific method what step one of the scientific method don't interpret and to establish the frame of reference or the point of view the frame of reference for Genesis 1:1 is the universe when you moved at Genesis 1:2 it changes the frame of reference to the surface of the waters the Spirit of God is hovering over the surface of the waters a planet Earth then the Spirit of God begins to work explicitly the frame of reference has below the clouds on top are the waters of the earth and what does it tell us that step one of the scientific method step two the scientific method don't interpret can't you also establish the starting conditions and notice Genesis 1:2 continues to do that it says initially it was dark on the face of the waters the waters covered the whole surface of the earth and the earth was empty of life and unfit for life then we go into the six days and which also notices there's three other texts in the Bible that take you through the six days of creation proverbs 8 Psalm 104 and Jove 37 38 and 39 and you go to JoVE 38 it explicitly tells you why it's dark on the surface of the waters God speaks and says I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness it's not dark because there's no Sun Moon and stars it's dark because the clouds would not let light pass through as an astronomer I can tell you earth began with an atmosphere a hundred times thicker than it has today an atmosphere that think will not let any light pass through but then the Spirit of God begins to work transforms our atmosphere and all the rest of the earth now I was curious about these creation days well one of the things I knew immediately just start reading Genesis 1 this word day used in Genesis one must have at least three distinct definitions because three are used there right in the text creation day one it's contrasting days and nights that's the word day for the daylight hours creation day for its contrasting seasons days and years that's a day as 24 hours Genesis 2:4 uses the word day to refer to the entirety of creation history that's a day has a long period of time and so I was curious incidentally there's actually a fourth definition which is part of the daylight hours so yeah I said what is the length of these creation days well I notice that each of the first six days is bracketed by an evening in a morning so the first six days have a definite start point and a definite end point I was expecting to see an evening in the morning for the seventh day but it's not there there is no evening and morning for God's Sabbath of rest it's missing so I said I wondering where it went and began to read through the rest of the Bible and what I discovered is there's three texts in the Bible that tell us we're still in God's seventh day it hasn't ended yet that's why there's no evening and morning for the seventh day well that's the day when God ceases from his work of creation and focuses and other things he's giving us there a pattern for our Sabbath God stops some activities to focus on other activities and as I read through the rest of the Bible I discovered that you have in the New Testament Titus 1:2 and 2nd Timothy 1:9 that God begins his works of redemption before he creates anything so it tells me everything that God creates us for the purpose of redemption and when God finished his work of creation what did he do he focused on his work of redemption it's in the seventh day that God completes his work of redemption he started as works of redemption before the six days and he completes it as Sabbath rest and that's how we are to celebrate the Sabbath we stop our employment activities and we focus on the most important issues of life that's the fundamental principle the Sabbath take regular time out of your busy schedule to focus on the most important issues of life but it had a dramatic impact on me at age 17 ever since I was 10 and a half I was plagued by this fossil record enigma when I read Genesis 1 there was the answer the reason for all the speciation before humanity that's when God's creating the reason we're not seeing it today during the human ear God's resting from his work of creation it resolved the fossil record enigma and I can't tell you what a weight that took off of my shoulders for 6 years I've been wrestling with that enigma and there it was of the resolution on the first page of the Bible I told you earlier I was enrolled at that time in this science enrichment program with science University Professors and what I noticed was that the biologists those in the life sciences they were agnostics and atheists whereas those in chemistry physics and astronomy they tended to be deus or theist and when I looked at the Genesis one had also answered for me that disparity why because those in the life sciences typically do their research on day 7 where as astronomers everything we do comes from the past because of the velocity of light we look at the Andromeda galaxy we're looking millions of years ago and so we're exploring the six days of creation which explains why so many astronomers are believers in God and why so few in a life sciences art they're looking on the wrong day God's Sabbath epoch of rest explains why scientists researching present-day data observed only natural outcomes you see this all the time they say we see no evidence for the supernatural handiwork of a God always see his natural process well of course they're looking on the wrong day if you look in the six days you see it everywhere and the failure of most scientists to observe the Sabbath explains why so many identify themselves as atheists or agnostics one thing I want to share with you about my peers they really enjoy their scientific research it's captivating give you an example few years ago I was debating an atheist paleontologist at a university in the state of Washington it was a friendly debate and after the debate we had a private conversation and one for a couple of hours and as paleontologist said I've always identified myself as an atheist but I wonder if I really am so I said well have you ever thought about death no have you ever thought about that the universe might have purposed no have you ever thought that you might have some purpose or destiny no what he admitted is his scientific research was so fascinating and captivating he says is more addicting than the most addictive video game and he says frankly I've never taken any time now this was a gentleman it was close to 60 years of age he had never taken the time during all those years he had never celebrated the Sabbath where he took off time from his fascinating research to focus on the most important issues of life but the conversation ended where he says I think I need to stop calling myself an atheist I just need to actually check out what's going on here another example this happened just a couple of months ago fuzz Ronna her staff belt chemists he also spoke at the amp conference that was here we attend every conference of the International Society for the study of the origin of life they meet every three years and it attracts three or four hundred of the world's top origin of life researchers and they get together to discuss the latest research we go to every conference they hold in North America and we notices every conference we go to is more depressing and despondent than the previous conference why because their goal is to find a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life and the more we learn the more we realize no such explanation really exists the highlight of the conference was Wednesday night they had five of the world's most famous origin of life researchers all of them atheists get up and each had 12 minutes to answer this question can the formation of the building blocks of life be considered as solved while each of them concluded in her 12-minute talk the answer is No moreover they all agreed we don't even know where the building blocks of the building blocks of life come from and said we don't think we'll ever know where those building blocks are the building blocks of life would come from what was different about this conference a few months ago was that they allow lots of time for informal interaction lots of breaks we had times of meals and they would see our name tags reasons to believe and they would say well reasons to believe what and we said well God and they said God aren't you guys scientists and their whole thing was if you're a scientist you're an atheist and so again we got to engage in and said well have you ever thought about the fact that you're going to die soon they said no the same thing I got from the paleontologists and so what we're realizing is their default atheists they've never really considered the issues and I want to share that with you because so many Christians get the idea that scientists are the enemies of the Christian faith they're like the Richard Dawkins people like Richard Dawkins are rare in the scientific community I would agree that most would identify themselves as atheists or agnostics but what I've discovered as you probe they're really Diaz they believe that there has to be something that's set up the universe they just don't think that that God is involved after creating the universe but they've never really considered the issues and was interesting was they would follow us back to the dormitory asking us questions about faith God the Bible and science and I remember this one atheist from MIT we're in the elevator she held the elevator door because you want to talk to us for another 10 minutes and so people have an eagerness to discuss the most important issues of life we need to give them that opportunity and so just what we Christians do is we can get more people celebrating the Sabbath simply by engaging them on the most important issues of life the Sabbath is devoting regular time to consider the most important issues of life and that involves devoting regular time to the study of God's to revelations this is what's unique about Christianity God's given us two books of Revelation not one book but two books and each book has multiple books the Bible the book of Scripture has 66 books the second book God has given us is the book of nature you know Psalm 19 God's words are written upon the heavens for all of us to read what you see in the book of Job how God uses the animals as a way to communicate spiritual truths to all of us the book of nature gives evidence that the book is Scripture and so we do it reasons to believe we expose people to the book of nature to bring them to the book of Scripture and bring them to the foot of the cross of the one who created everything now I ask you all a question how many of you have met people who say I don't need to go to church I don't need to go to read a Bible all I need to do is get out in nature and just have communion with God in nature how many of you have heard that okay almost off of your interesting I hear it repeatedly yeah they do that but they're not really reading the book of nature they're going out there yeah it's beautiful that's warm and they have good feelings that's what they tell me oh yeah I pray all the time I go up my backyard and I have good feelings well it's not really what prayer is all about and they're really not reading the book of nature now the Bible tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God Psalm 97 6 says the heavens proclaim His righteousness and all people see his glory that's the way it was fifty years ago and all the way back to the beginning of human that time it's different now a paper was published in science making the point that less than half of the world's population today has ever seen the Milky Way why because they live in cities like Los Angeles and so you look up at the sky and you see maybe 30 stars I was in Shanghai I looked up at the sky didn't see a single star in a clear night because of the light pollution and the air pollution that is there but when Abraham looked up he saw over 15,000 stars now this is a photo taken by a friend of ours of reasons to believe in Monument Valley but this pales in comparison to what Abraham was able to see even in the darkest sight in the United States he can only see about six or seven thousand stars with a naked eye light pollution is everywhere and so we're not seeing the heavens like we were before but when you look at the heavens they proclaim the glory of God they'd be claimed the righteousness of God when you say who made all these where did all this stuff come from Who am I compared to the vastness of the universe see that's what what reading the book of nature is all about it's not just simply looking the stars but asking yourself the great questions the heavens are not just beautiful they're proclaiming spiritual messages and I could speak a whole hour just on the messages you can get through the heavens but it's not just that look at the world of nature around you you know it's something that hit me as a teenager is that we are living at the most scenically beautiful time in the entire history of the earth our planet has never looked as beautiful as what you see here the last ice age carved up these magnificent canyons yosemite is a relatively recent phenomena Yosemite Valley but it raises a question why is it so beautiful and why is it so beautiful now isn't it interesting God put his human beings on planet Earth at the time when our planet has never been more beautiful than it is right now only the last 10,000 years have we had the spectacular scenic beauty on our planet and it's not just beautiful it proclaims a message you know what I would do at Caltech I'll be sharing my faith with my fellow astronomers and physicists in all hallways and I would get somewhere but when I took him up into the High Sierras into a meadow and we'd be having dinner overlooking this beautiful scene and I would ask him what are you feeling right now and there says one atheist astronomer says this is really weird but I think I'm having a spiritual experience and so I just asked him a question what do you think of this scene they said it's gorgeous beyond description words aren't justified I said can you tell me why it is so beautiful that led to a four-hour conversation that culminated and a presentation the gospel and his commitment that he would start reading the book of Scripture so get people out there we notice we do that with our youth we take them out of the church and we take them in a beautiful place on the weekend we need to be doing that with everybody and Joel tells us that the animals communicates spiritual truths to us what's interesting about the birds of mammals is God designed them to relate to us to come to us and to have relationships with us you don't see that unless you go out into the wilds why because the animals have been exposed to abuse of human beings but when you actually get out of to a place where the animals haven't been abused you see that they behave differently here's an example this is a 450 pound bear he was ahead of me in the trail above me which is not a good place to be typically but he walked off the trail and sat down in his little thicket and just stared at me and me take close-up photos of it bears actually have this desire to be with humans and here is this 25 pound wooly Marmot and this typically they do they hide in their little rock holes but when he saw me he came out to greet me okay and this went on for many minutes and allowed me to get within three feet and take close-up photos and actually did a little dance for me okay these creatures really do want to relate to us here are wild goats and I just saw this repeatedly with goats you know goats are mentioned the book of Joel has creatures that are easy to tame while goats you contain them in about a minute they'll come right up to you if you want to read more about this I've written about this and hidden treasures in the book of Joel how God designed these animals notice what causes them to run away from us it's our sin well likewise is their sin that causes us to run away from God take out the sin factor they want to come to us take out the sin factor from a human being we want to come to God and relate to God read the book of Job that actually tells us many spiritual lessons we can get from these animals the problem is people aren't reading the book of nature and so they're not having that contact and again you can read more in this book improbable planet how God actually designed the world of nature to make possible the redemption of billions of human beings well what about the Bible you know the Bible is the most available unread book in the world almost everybody has a Bible but how many people are actually reading it and how many people are actually reading it the way God intended that we read it I mean have you ever heard of this program let's read through the Bible in a year or two years you know very popular in churches you know what I'm trying to promote within my churches let's read through the Bible in six weeks you say how can you do that well you know my son's read through those Harry Potter things in a month and there's way more words and harrypotter than there is in the Bible but here's something I've learned in working with new Christians on this pick a theme because a lot of people think the goal of being a Christian is reading through the Bible once know as a believer who follows the Sabbath command were committed to read through the Bible 20 30 40 times in the course of our life or more now to make that work you need to have a program of reading through the Bible quickly I mean if you can read through Harry Potter in one month why not read through the Bible in one month the problem is Harry Potter is not very content rich the Bible is the most content rich book you can pick up pick a theme pick one theme I'm going to read through the Bible and glean everything is got to say above marriage and divorce or everything about raising children or everything above finances or everything about science and creation pick a theme and look for those things and train yourself to ignore everything else and so that's not a good thing to do yeah but you're going to be reading it again you're going to be picking up the other topics and that way you can kind of see what the whole scope of Scripture has got to say on the object because a problem with taking two years to read through the Bible number one most people don't make it they get stuck at a place and they stop is that what you've read that me in January I will not be able to integrate what you read in November if you read through it quickly you will actually see on a whole scope of Scripture and again if we're actually observing the Sabbath we're going to be able to do this repeatedly and the observance of the Sabbath we're taking regular time and don't be a legalistic about this it doesn't have to be you know a particular day as it says in Romans 14 any day it will work just take regular time away from your busy schedule and your work to focus on the most important issues of life and if you do that what you will discover is it'll prepare you for the mission that God has called all of us to complete and what does that mission always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to get the reason for the hope that you have but do this with gentleness and respect and if you're honoring the fourth commandment you will be prepared to give good reasons and if you're prepared to give good reasons and incidentally it doesn't have to be the same reasons I've developed ok whatever reasons you develop and God will use and this is a promise I'm gonna make to all of you if you've prepared good reasons you will see God supernaturally bringing people to you to hear those good reasons and give their lives to Jesus Christ the first five or six times it happens you'll think it's a coincidence but when it happens three or four hundred times you realize this is the Spirit of God at work if you want to see an example look at the book of Acts the book of Acts is filled with stories of God's supernaturally bringing people who are not yet believers to those who prepared good reasons to share with them and bring them to faith in Christ and again if you got questions feel free to use your phone the text of that number and you know I'm available to answer questions on Facebook and a Twitter but thank oh I want to close in prayer let me do that father in heaven we want to thank you for the privilege of being alive in the 21st century a time when knowledge is exploding not only about what we see in the book of nature but our understanding and what you've revealed in the book of Scripture lord I pray that you would give each of us a motivation to take time on a regular basis away from our busy work to focus on the most important issues of life and thank you how you've revealed answers to those questions in your two books the book of nature and the book of scripture and as we honor the Sabbath lord I pray that you would make a sensitive to the opportunities you're bringing us to share the reasons that we've developed for the hope that we have in Christ with others that we may see many come to know you as Lord and Savior and speed the completion of what you want to see achieved on your Sabbath the completion of the redemption of of human beings and preparation for our eternity in the new creation in Jesus name Amen thank you

Channel: ONE&ALL

Views: 57,039

Rating: 4.7775531 out of 5

Keywords: Ten Commandments, Jesus, hugh ross, pastor hugh ross sabbath, rest, amp conference, hugh ross ccv, keep the sabbath, keep the sabbath hugh ross, youtube church, one & all youtube, one and all, one & all church, Jeff Vines, pastor jeff vines youtube, jeff vines youtube, one & all jeff vines, ccvsocal, ccv youtube

Id: nuxgUoQRU5E

Length: 35min 9sec (2109 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 25 2018