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When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise, than when we'd first begun. — John Newton, “Amazing Grace”
A sermon delivered by Samuel Blatchford (1767-1828) not long before his passing from this life to the next still speaks to a truth of great importance to our own generation almost two centuries later. Preached on November 27, 1825 and published the following year, the sermon was titled The Sanctification of the Sabbath. Among the points made in conclusion (p. 20), we find a powerful argument for adhering to the Fourth Commandment in the recognition that the Christian Sabbath is in fact a foretaste of heaven.
A very great part of the exercises of the Sabbath, duly sanctified on earth, bears a strong resemblance to the employments of the heavenly world. Heaven is an eternal Sabbath. There the spirits of just men made perfect approach with delight the seat of the infinite Jehovah. With adoring praise, they pour forth their lively gratitude. With exquisite pleasure, they contemplate the Author of all things, who governs and actuates the immensity of beings, which occupy the universe of life. The hallelujahs of praise break forth in uninterrupted harmony from every angel, and every redeemed sinner. And, my brethren, in the due sanctification of this holy day on earth; in a general consent to worship God; not to speak our own words, nor to think our own thoughts; to have our meditation of God; to croud [sic] about his altars; to esteem a day spent in the courts of the Lord’s house preferable to a thousand elsewhere: O! this is to congregate with the hosts of glory, and to constitute a heaven upon the earth. Hereby we shall know him who hath sanctified the Sabbath, and be maturing for those enjoyments, where there remaineth a rest, a Sabbatismos, for the people of God.
What a profound thought it is to recall that our exercises of worship on the Lord’s Day are but prelude to joining the heavenly choir itself, to glorify God in heaven even more perfectly forever than we aim to do on earth each week. When we exalt the name of God together from one Sabbath to the next, we begin to taste the delight that awaits us where we will praise Him unceasingly. Read Blatchford’s full sermon on The Sanctification of the Sabbath here, and consider the reward of keeping God’s day holy on earth, which is a but a taste of heaven.