The week can be draining. You probably read that sentence and think rather naturally that I am about to blame society’s delinquency for it. But guess what: In the perfect, utopian society ushered by Jesus Christ in the World Tomorrow, the week will still be draining—and it should be!
Part of the Sabbath command, you see, is to work six days—and to do it with your might. After you have put in a real week’s work, God gives you something special, something He made especially for you: the Sabbath day. This day is so special that it had an effect on Almighty God Himself: He was refreshed: “[F]or in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed” (Exodus 31:17).
As a young person, you might look at the Sabbath as restrictive, noting all of the things you can’t do during this time and look forward to having the restraint removed at sunset. But wouldn’t you like to be refreshed? And as the Sabbath rolls around, don’t we need to be refreshed, restored and rejuvenated by God? You can be—and you will be if you keep the Sabbath the way God instructs.
God and the Word spent the entire week of creation hard at work. Our planet was, according to the Hebrew, tohu and bohu—without form and void—as a result of Satan’s rebellion. They spent a week carrying out a physical restoration of our planet and then placed the first humans into this new, thriving environment.
In contrast, consider what happened on the seventh day of the week: “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 that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made” (Genesis 2:2-3). During creation week, God did not sanctify any other day. He stopped His physical creation on the seventh day and created something spiritual: His Sabbath.
This is Satan’s world, and we live in it. We are, on a daily basis, exposed to the self-centered, ungodly lifestyles of those around us. Given the carnal, materialistic behavior we see all around us, it is especially inviting to step further away from the society we live in and embrace our spiritual family, receive spiritual instruction from God’s ministry, and fellowship with those of like mind.
Of course, we have to do it God’s way to get the result God intends. Isaiah 58:13 shows that we are not to do our own ways, or find our own pleasure, or speak our own words on the Sabbath. But of course He expects us to find pleasure in His Sabbath—He calls it a delight! We will find that pleasure by keeping the Sabbath God’s way, doing His pleasure and speaking His words. This is not a time to stream movies, surf the Internet and pursue our own desires; it is a time to pray, study God’s Word and reflect on His plan. You have been given a fantastic opportunity: one full day every week to deepen your understanding of God and His plan—to draw closer to Him. We should look forward to the start of the Sabbath day, and love every minute of it. Noting the exact time of sunset and counting down to the end of the Sabbath—anticipating the moment you can turn your television back on—shows God that you don’t appreciate this special time the way you should.
Just look at all of those people around you in society and think about the refreshing that they need. Your neighbors aren’t receiving the spiritual restoration you do on the Sabbath—they have never had God’s truth in the first place. All of society needs the sort of restoration our planet received in Genesis 1, a forerunner to what will happen when Jesus Christ returns.
The seventh day of creation pictures the World Tomorrow—and what a day of refreshing that will be! After 6,000 years of Satan’s world, with all of its materialism and carnality, God’s government will be restored to the planet. Disease and sickness will be eliminated, and the land will be restored to health. Everyone in society will receive the benefits God’s way of life brings. And at the end of a hard week of productive work, every man, woman and child on Earth will be refreshed, rejuvenated and restored by the proper observance of the Sabbath.
And you can experience a foretaste of that restoration today! At the end of every week, God gives us a day where He has placed His presence, where we can distance ourselves from the carnality and materialism that have built over the week, replacing them with the same God-centered, spiritual focus we will teach in the Millennium. What’s more, a properly observed Sabbath has the same results for us today that all of those people will experience, the same result that God Himself experienced at its creation.
What an opportunity God gives us at the end of every week: to cast aside this material world and spend the Sabbath day with Him—and to be truly refreshed.