"Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily, My Sabbaths
ye shall keep:"
-Exodus 31:13
Millenniums ago, God gave our Biblical forefathers a special day of religious
observance far surpassing in importance any human "holiday" ever conceived
by the mind of man. That day was "the Sabbath." It was a day of rest,
for worship in the Temple, for contemplation of the things of God, and for the
ceasing of all ploughing, harvesting, business, and labor. What purpose did
God have in all of this, and has that purpose now changed? For answers, let
us go back to the origins of Sabbath observance and listen to what God says
about it.
ORIGINS OF THE SABBATH:
In Genesis 2:2 we read, "And 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." The Hebrew word translated, "rested" in our Bibles is
"SHABATH' (pronounced shaw-bath'; modern English word, 'Sabbath'). Strong's
Concordance #7673 gives a very fine definition of this word, Shabath or Sabbath:
"To repose, i.e., desist from exertion, ...to cease, celebrate, ...leave,
put away or down, make to rest, (be) still, take away."
So this is the day that all "exertion " stops, when our own work
is "put away," when we instead "rest and be still," and
"celebrate" the countless blessings which God has given to us. The
late Bishop Daniel Wilson called it, "an indispensable preparation for
the heavenly blessedness." Yes, Sabbath observance is a foretaste of the
Kingdom! The Sabbath Day symbolizes the 'everlasting Sabbath' of the Kingdom
of God; it allows us on this one day per week to emulate that future Sabbath
rest which will be seven days per week, every week, when Christ's Kingdom has
overspread the earth. As such, the Sabbath plays an important, central part
of "Kingdom living" for believers, both now and in the ages to come.
It is one of our most ancient institutions; from earliest times, the keeping
of the Sabbath was the mark of God's servant people. During the persecutions
in the early Church, many became Christian martyrs after being asked this key
question by the Roman authorities: "Do you keep the Lord's Day?" Yet
as moral law from God dating back to the time of creation, it is binding upon
all men, not just Christians; and it is the Sabbath DAY which is to be kept
holy, not merely the part of the day spent in congregational worship. It is
first of all, a memorial of God's Sacred Rest on the seventh day of creation;
and the Reformer, Martin Luther, expressed that "if Adam had continued
in innocency, yet he would have had a sacred seventh day." Has the Sabbath
changed to meet our modern needs? Times change, but eternal truths do not!
Today a major concern on the minds of working people is "job security."
In ancient times, there often was none, as family existence and well-being tenuously
depended upon a successful harvest. Yet, the Sabbath commandment expressly includes
the times of ploughing and reaping in which it was very, very hard for them
to interrupt work. Exo. 34:21. Why would they cease work, even when it appeared
to interfere with their own "well-being"? The key to God's purpose,
I believe, is in the words of our definition: CELEBRATE and REST.
A CELEBRATION OF GOD'S GOODNESS
The company of nations known as "Christendom" (which, by the way,
means, 'Christ's Kingdom') have had at least one other thing in common since
receiving the glad tidings of the gospel: they've set aside one day in seven
as a national observance, calling it "the Sabbath," and "the
Lord's Day." The significance of our keeping of this day is found in a
statute containing a very early prophecy from patriarchal times.
In Exodus 31, verse 12, we read: "And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,.
'Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily, My Sabbaths ye
shall keep; for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations,
that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you...Wherefore the children
of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations,
for a perpetual covenant. IT IS A SIGN BETWEEN ME AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL
FOREVER; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh
day He rested, and was refreshed."
We learn from these verses that the Sabbath was to be kept by Israel as a sign
that they were indeed the people of God. It was an outward symbol of God's covenant
with Israel! Moreover, this was a perpetual covenant between God and Israel
which they were to observe and obey. No other race can be found throughout history
that have continuously kept such a national holy day, and it is even today only
found among the Christian-Israel people of the world. Former U.S. Supreme Court
justice, David J. Brewer, in his 1905 book, "The United States: A Christian
Nation," well stated that the Christian Sunday Sabbath is "a day peculiar
to [the Christian] faith, and known to no other." Was this sign annulled
at Calvary? No! For not only do we find it evident in the earth today among
God's own people, but we are expressly told that "it is a sign...forever."
How then do some call it abolished?
Read the language of Exodus 31, Deuteronomy 5, and Ezekiel 20 and notice the
great New Testament themes of covenant, sanctification, and redemption that
are bound up with the Sabbath. "And remember...that the Lord thy God brought
thee out thence (from Egypt) through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm;
therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." (Deut.
5:15, the Fourth Commandment). Through the Sabbath, we celebrate God's redemption
of His Israel people from Egypt (and many times since), as well as their sanctification
(Ezek. 20:12) from sin and wickedness. It is also a sign of our covenant relationship
with God. (Ezek. 20:20) These material and spiritual blessings were given to
Israel, and through these chosen servants the entire world has been blessed!
Truly, we offer thanks to God, and a celebration for His goodness when we observe
the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.
A REST UNTO THE PEOPLE OF GOD
But keeping the Sabbath is not just a matter of celebration. As its name indicates,
it is also a day of rest. In Old Testament times, the land was to have a Sabbath
or rest every seven years, during which time no planting or harvesting was to
be done. (Exodus 23:10). Some modern scientists say that this was done to break
the life-cycle of the soil insects, so that most would die off and the crops
would be almost insect-free (without pesticides!) the following year. Others
add that the land rest allowed it to lay fallow and rejuvenate; this prevented
it from becoming worn out through over-use. God decreed essentially the same
type of Sabbath for man, a rest one day out of seven. The human body needs a
time of rest and relaxation to re-invigorate and rebuild damaged tissue. There's
no such thing as a non-stop human dynamo; and a vacation once a year is just
not enough!
But to clarify one common misconception regarding the Sabbath rest, it was
not to be just a day of idleness, sloth, and inactivity. A wonderful and inspiring
passage of scripture is to be found in Isaiah 58, verse 13, where we read: "If
thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy
day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt
honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking
thine own words:"
Then comes the promise: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will
cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the
heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
God's Sabbath day is a rest from the cares of this world that weigh us down.
It is not sloth, but a setting aside of our own duties and obligations and turning
unto His. We are thus commanded to make Him the center of our lives, thoughts,
and actions on this day. Worship Him! Serve Him! Earnestly seek to let nothing
interfere with a proper observance of the Sabbath, for He has declared it a
sacred holiday. And if we will do that, then the greatest (spiritual and material)
blessings which God gave to Jacob and the Patriarchs will be ours. A prize immeasurable!!
I would lake to share with you some insightful remarks by two well-known Christian
expositors. Bishop Westcott wrote: "The Sabbath is the Lord's Day, not
ours. Man's true rest is not a rest from human, earthly labor, but a rest for
divine, heavenly labor." Dr. Benjamin P. Warfield had this to say: "Rest
is not the true essence of the Sabbath, nor the end of its institution; it is
the means to a further end, which constitutes the real Sabbath 'rest.' We are
to rest from our own things that we may give ourselves to the things of God."
Yes, do we indeed keep the Sabbath rest, or do we remember God only if there
is time after our weekend "chores" are finished? Does God come last
or first in your life on the Sabbath day? This is the true rest so many lack,
for Bible reading, prayer, and worship are the best means available to soothe
and comfort our worried, overburdened minds and hearts. Please try it - do it
with vigor - and you will be blessed.
QUESTIONS ON CHRISTIAN HEARTS
Many today have been led to believe that the Sabbath was part of the ceremonial
laws of the time of Moses; and if ceremonial, then transitory, temporary, and
abolished when Christ came to inaugurate the Age of Grace. Many, in fact, believe
that Christ came to earth in order to sweep all of God's laws right out the
door. "We're New Testament Christians," they say, thinking that the
Sabbath is removed along with everything else that belongs to the 'old dispensation.'
But such would be license, not grace! In answer to this, the New Testament declares
in Hebrews 4, verse 9: "There remaineth therefore a rest (literal translation:
a Sabbath) to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also
hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His. Let us labour therefore
to enter into that rest..."
But others fear that the "correct" day of the week is not being observed
by modern Sunday worship. On this question, we have the example of the early
church. In the Book of Acts we find that the earliest Christians visited the
synagogues on Saturday in order to witness to Israelites still tied to the Jewish
religion, then met together themselves on Sunday, which they called, "the
Lord's Day," (Rev. 1:10) as a memorial to the day of His resurrection.
We are now in the Pentecostal (or Church) Age, inaugurated by God's Holy Spirit
on the day of Pentecost. (See Acts chapter 2: Pentecost means Fifty, and fifty
days after the Saturday Passover falls on a Sunday.) The Holy Spirit gathered
the believers together for worship on Sunday for a reason: we are no longer
in the "Passover Age," but in a new era inaugurated by God! Certainly,
if Christ's Apostles and the faithful in the early church worshipped at God's
command on Sunday, then we can do no wrong by following their example. In Colossians
2:16 we are told, "Let no man therefore judge you...in respect of an holy
day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days." To judge over which day
to keep is not in conformity to the voice of the Apostle.
This leads naturally to one final question. What if we must work on the Sabbath,
either for needed services, civic protection, or some other reason? Then keep
another one day out of seven if you must, but at least fulfill the principle
behind God's commands. The Sabbath principle is an eternal truth for our continual
well-being!
PENALTIES FOR DISOBEDIENCE
A law without a penalty to encourage compliance would be weak and ineffectual
indeed. We therefore find these pointed but heartfelt words of admonition from
the mouth of Jesus Christ Himself, in Matthew 7, verse 21: "Not every one
that saith unto Me, 'Lord, Lord' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but
he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven. Many will say to Me
in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name? And in Thy Name
have cast out devils? And in Thy Name done many wonderful works?' And then will
I profess unto them, 'I never knew you! Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.'"
Iniquity means 'lawlessness,' or disobedience to God's laws and commands. We
may profess the Name of Christ, but it is by our "fruits" or actions
that God will know our heart's true desires. If we love Him, we will be obedient
to Him. Believer, do you have Christian "fruit?"
We pray that this brief study will encourage you to make the Sabbath a matter
of prayerful consideration, and to strive to ever be more obedient to Him from
Whom all blessings flow. Dear reader, why not worship God this coming Sabbath!