Memorial of Creation
When God gave the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, they were a written summary of the laws and principles that God had always expected people to live by. For example, centuries earlier God had chosen Abraham to be the father of many nations “because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (Genesis 26:5). God chose Abraham specifically because he obeyed God’s law. The fourth commandment points to the Sabbath as a memorial of creation, and contains a call for all people to worship God as Creator on His holy day: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8-11).