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Enjoy God’s Created Works, May 16
Elements of Good Health
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.
Genesis 2:2, 3
God reserved the seventh day as a period of rest for man, for the
good of man as well as for His own glory. He saw that the wants of man
required a day of rest from toil and care, that his health and life would
be endangered without a period of relaxation from the labor and anxiety
of the six days.
The Sabbath of the Lord is to be made a blessing to us and to our
children.... They can be pointed to the blooming flowers and the opening
buds, the lofty trees and beautiful spires of grass, and taught that God
made all these in six days, and rested on the seventh day, and hallowed
it. Thus the parents may bind up their lessons of instruction to their
children, so that when these children look upon the things of nature, they
will call to mind the great Creator of them all. Their thoughts will be
carried up to nature’s God—back to the creation of our world, when the
foundation of the Sabbath was laid, and all the sons of God shouted for
joy.
Happy is the family who can go to the place of worship on the
Sabbath as Jesus and His disciples went to the synagogue—across the
fields, along the shores of the lake, or through the groves.
The Sabbath bids us behold in His created works the glory of the
Creator. And it is because He desired us to do this that Jesus bound up
His precious lessons with the beauty of natural things. On the holy rest
day, above all other days, we should study the messages that God has
written for us in nature. We should study the Saviour’s parables where
He spoke them, in the fields and groves, under the open sky, among the
grass and flowers. As we come close to the heart of nature, Christ makes
His presence real to us and speaks to our hearts of His peace and love.
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