Posted on 03/13/2020 4:57:55 PM PDT by pastorbillrandles
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)
The Fourth commandment establishes the Lordship of God over his people’s time.God established in Creation a pattern, the week, six days and one day, that God’s people were called to live by. “…Six days you shall labor…” is as much a part of the commandment, as the part about the seventh day.
Sabbath is rooted in Creation, for God worked, for six days, to Create the havens and the earth, but on the seventh day, God rested, and ceased from all of his labors. Since man was created on the sixth day, the book of Hebrews points out that Man’s first full day was the day of rest. There was nothing Adam could do to help God, the work of Creation was already complete, from there, all of Adam’s work was to spring out of the position of rest which God had ordained for his beginning.
As a gift for his people, God ordained a pattern of labor and rest. What a blessing it is to observe Sabbath! What liberty to shut down, and to put away the tools, and cease from one’s labors for twenty four hours and to simply rest.
Another feature of this Law as it is recounted in Deuteronomy is that it is the mark of deliverance and freedom from slavery and oppression to be able to have a Sabbath! Slaves work non stop and have no rest, not so free and redeemed men and women.
Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt 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, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou . And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day. ( Deuteronomy 5:12-15)
Slaves are driven and cannot stop their labor, there is never a sense in which it is simply done, they work seven days a week, and have no time for God, for rest, family or worship. The further our society drifts from its Judeo Christian footings, the more the commercial and business world demand of men and woman, and families. In many cases, both husband and wife have to work, and children must be put somewhere ( daycare) so that mother and father can slavishly follow their careers.
The Jews were slaves, until “the LORD their God Brought them out of the Land of Egypt and out of the House of Bondage”. They were to remember that and one of the remarkable ways they were to celebrate their deliverance, was in the observance of the Sabbath. Work was to stop, special fellowship, food, prayers and even religious services were to be held, to sanctify the day.
During the French Revolution, which was an overthrow of a Christian society by Atheists, the revolutionaries sought to completely remake society. They decreed an entirely new calendar in which they re- ordained the week, making it ten days, and thus eliminating the seventh day of Rest. The new “work week” of ten days, actually exhausted workers, and even drove some of them mad. Eventually France went back to the seven day cycle.
Thus the Sabbath was a weekly commemoration of the Exodus, celebrating the freedom wrought for the purchased people of Israel. Every week they remembered their former slavery, and that they were now free men and women.
But by the time of Jesus, Israel proved to the world that it is possible to externally keep the Sabbath, but yet not only to completely miss out on the rest yourself, but to deny it to everyone else, in the name of keeping the Sabbath!
For example the Rabbis had commentaries on all of the Law, and eventually they developed commentaries on the commentaries of the Law. By the time of Jesus they had developed 1,200 sub laws governing the Sabbath! By the time the Sabbath was over the average man was relieved. They had managed to destroy the rest, in their laws about the rest. Sabbath is a state of mind, and it is faith. There is no peace for the wicked, as Isaiah tells us.
What is it that originally disturbed the rest which God ordained for humanity? Man was made on the sixth day and thus began his life at rest. Out of that rest was to flow all of his fruitful labors. But Sin has come and invaded our rest, making our labors toilsome and wearying, and infusing our fruitfulness with thorns and thistles.
Hebrews tells us that man has yet to enter into the rest, and that there remains a rest for the children of God.The original rest was disturbed in the garden of Eden by the temptation of theSerpent, and although the children of Israel were given the beautiful gift of the Sabbath, and allowed to live in a Sabbath Land, they fell short also of the rest God had ordained. They had entered their rest, but could’t remain there.
For all Six thousand years of human history is but a tale of toil, frustration, sorrow, thorns, thistles and nearly anything but Rest. But we are on the verge of a seventh millennium, a kind of Sabbath for this sin weary and broken world. If a day is with the LORD is as a thousand years, then human history is but a week, six long days of pain, suffering, disappointment and vanity, but God has ordained the Millennium as a kind of Sabbath for the world.
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. ( Revelation 20:1-3)
When the time comes that the LORD will deal with the troubler and Agitator, who is the Devil, the Dragon, the “Serpent of Old”. When He is finally bound and cast out of the earth for a thousand years, and man’ turbulent, restless history comes to a calm at the feet of Jesus, the earth shall finally enter into a Sabbath as all of the prophets proclaim.
That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers. He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us. ( Isaiah 14:4-8)
In our next session I will explain why the fourth commandment is the only one not re-iterated in the New Testament, at all. There is no record of Christians observing it, there is no renewed commandment to keep it, other than spiritually as in Hebrews 3 and 4.
Then there’s this
Exodus 31:15 Work may be done for six days, but the seventh day must be a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must surely be put to death.
Indeed
There’s so much error in this article, it would soil anyone attempting to answer it all
Take a shot at it...enlighten us
Whoa there. What is a Christian?? Someone who follows Christ and tries to live in His example? What was Jesus' example? Was it not to keep the Sabbath? Did Jesus keep the Sabbath or not, pastorbillrandles? Did Jesus come to destroy the Law? What was Jesus' prayer in Matthew 24:20 (decades in the future)?
Oh I can't wait to see how you twist this around in your next chapter.
In before the Saturday/Sunday battle begins.
Post 6 for enlightenment.
Are you as excited as I am?
This is a target rich environment but I'll only point out that both Jesus and Paul attended Sabbath services, "as his custom was" and Paul said, "follow me as I follow Christ."
LOL!! I knew this was coming... Should have worn my flame retardant underwear!
No better way to spend Friday evening! /s
Paul did attend Sabbath services... to evangelize...I said show me where Christians held Sabbath services in the New testament...we all know unsaved Jews did, that was why Paul went there, and yes it was his custom, he had been an unsaved Jew before he became a Christian...
Can't wait for this "traditional" explanation. The first Christians absolutely kept the sabbath...the biblical sabbath. Any explanation for them not doing so is heresy.
Thanks BiPolar...really enjoy your wit
Really , where do you find that in scripture...we know the Jews did and the Jewish Christians probably did, but there is no Christian exhortation re-iteration of the fourth commandmnt as there are for the others in the New tstament...
If true where does God or Christ make that an out for violating God's commandments?
Storm Hill, I do not know you... so I can’t say that I hold you in contempt... furthermore,we are not wrestling pigs... I assume you are a Christian in good faith interested in discussion of scripture...
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