A king had seven special mango trees which he had planted near his house. They were full of good and sweet mangoes.

Now one day when the mangoes were ripe, the kind king called all the men of the village to his house. He told them:
“Now my men, you see there are seven trees full of ripe sweet mangoes next to my house. My family and I could have many days of feasts with them. I could sell them and make lots of money. But I have decided to let you have some of them. From six of the trees you may pick as many of the mangoes as you want. You can take and share with your families. You can even pick and sell them for money if you want. But the seventh tree at the end of the row is mine. Do not pick from that tree, its fruit is mine to eat. From all the other six you may pick the fruit but leave the seventh tree for me. If you love and honor me as your king, you will not touch my fruit.”

So the men of the village went to pick the mangos for themselves and their families and also some they picked to sell. But some of the village men were very unhappy. They said the king had left the best and sweetest mangoes for himself. They said he was unkind and unfair to keep the seventh tree for himself. He should have let them pick from all the trees or at least let them choose which of the trees they should save for him. Some of the unhappy men even went and knocked all the mangoes out of the seventh tree and stomped on them with their feet. “If we can’t have them” they said angrily, “then the king can’t have them either.”

Now what do you think of those men that said the king was unfair and stomped on his mangoes. Were they good men? Did they love their king? Did they obey him? No, of course not. And what do you think the king will do to those men? Of course he will punish them in some way.

But this story has a lesson and that is why I have told it to you. The Bible tells us that Jesus is our king (1 Timothy 6:14, 15). The 7 mango trees are like the seven days in every week. Jesus owns them all but He has given us six days to do our work in. But the seventh day is to be kept for Him.

He says,
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou [you shall] labour, and do all thy [your] work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work…” (Exodus 20:8-10)

This was part of the Ten Commandments. It is commandment number 4. And Jesus also says “If ye [you] love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) Keeping the Ten Commandments shows whether we really love Jesus or not.

But God says, if we don’t keep the Sabbath, if we use the Sabbath for doing our own pleasures or for working on that day, then we are stomping on Jesus’ Sabbath just like those men stomped on the king’s mangos (Isaiah 58:13). The Sabbath is a holy day and should be a day we spend worshipping God and learning more about Him. We have six other days every week to do all of our work.

But what day is the Sabbath? How will we know what day we should be keeping holy and worshipping God on? We can find the answer in the Bible. We know the Sabbath is the seventh day and there are seven days in every week. So what day is the seventh-day in the Bible.

We can learn this by looking at the time when Jesus died and was buried and rose from the grave. The Bible says Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week or Sunday (Luke 24:1-53; Mark 16:1-6).

The day before the first day was the seventh day Sabbath (Mark 16:1) now called Saturday. So Saturday is the true Sabbath of the God of the Bible. It is Jesus’ day because he said he is the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27, 28).

But what do most people do on the true Sabbath, on Saturday. They work on it. They play games on it. They go shopping on it. They are just like the men in the story that stomped on the king’s mangoes. They forget that God has given them six of the days of the week to do their work and their shopping on.

But if we love Jesus we will “keep His commandments.” We will spend the holy Sabbath hours worshipping God. Doing things like going to church, or studying our Bible are good ways to spend time with God on Sabbath. But we can also spend time out in God’s creation learning lessons about Him and His truth from the trees, birds, flowers, and animals He has made. And we can also spend time doing good things like visiting people and sharing with them about Jesus and His love for them. But we should not spend the Sabbath hours doing our own work or pleasure.

Jesus gave up everything for us when He came to this world and died on the cross to save us from sin. He has shown that He loves us. But do we love Him? How do we show Him that we love Him?

Like Jesus said we show that we love Him by keeping His commandments. But if we don’t keep all the commandments, then do we really love Him?

(c) Light in Darkness