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Verse:Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. —Genesis 2:3
Since ancient times, the number seven has been considered a symbol of completeness and perfection. The climax of joy and contentment is often referred to as “being in seventh heaven.” No wonder there was so much mystical expectation about Saturday, July 7, 2007. That date happened to be the seventh day of the week, plus the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the millennium —expressed numerically: 7/7/07. Many gamblers believed that the day would be a lucky day.
The wedding-planning website, TheKnot.com, had thirty-eight thousand couples register 7/7/07 as their wedding date —more than triple the number of couples being married on any other day of the year. In addition, Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis was held in several places around the world. Meanwhile, in many Brazilian cities, the Seventh-day Adventist Church organized special events emphasizing the seventh-day Sabbath as the Dia Mundial da Alegria (World Day of Joy).
I participated in that major crusade, preaching on the meaning of the Sabbath at the campus church of São Paulo Adventist University —Engenheiro Coelho.
What a joy to celebrate the Sabbath on the seventh day, according to the commandment (see Exodus 20:8–11).
The Sabbath comes to us every week, interrupting our frenetic and competitive life routine and reminding us of our spiritual priorities.
It is God’s sanctuary in time, telling us that life is more important than things and inviting us to spend special time with Him and with our fellow human beings. The Sabbath is a channel of God’s blessings to humanity and a prototype of the Sabbath the redeemed will keep throughout eternity (Isaiah 66:22, 23).
God’s invitation and promise for us today is, “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob” (Isaiah 58:13, 14, NIV).