To understand how and when Christians should honor the Sabbath, we need to look at how it all began.
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. (Genesis 2:2 AKJV)
The Sabbath began when God created the Earth and everything in it, then on the seventh day, He rested. God is always the same (Malachi 3:6 AKJV). He has always expected His people to take one day of rest.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor, and do all your work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD your God: in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: why the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. (Exodus 20:8-11 AKJV)
When giving His people the Ten Commandments, God said, “Remember the sabbath day…” God’s people had been in Egypt for 400 years and had forgotten His ways, including the observance of the Sabbath. It was Abraham who originally received and followed the commandments of God:
Because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. (Genesis 26:5 AKJV)
When God gave Israel the Ten Commandments, He was reiterating to Israel that which they forgot. In Egypt, they were slaves and were used to working every day, now they needed to rest one day is seven and take time to reflect on what He had done. When God delivered them from Egypt, he showed them what day they should honor His Sabbath:
And when the dew had gone, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a fine, round and flakelike thing, as fine as hoarfrost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said one to another, Manna [What is it?]. For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: Let every man gather of it as much as he will need, an omer for each person, according to the number of your persons; take it, every man for those in his tent.”
The [people] did so, and gathered, some more, some less. When they measured it with an omer, he who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack; each gathered according to his need. Moses said, “Let none of it be left until morning.”
But they did not listen to Moses; some of them left of it until morning, and it bred worms, became foul, and stank; and Moses was angry with them. They gathered it every morning, each as much as he needed, for when the sun became hot it melted. And on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each person; and all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses.
He said to them, “The Lord has said, Tomorrow is a solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord; bake and boil what you will bake and boil today; and all that remains over put aside for you to keep until morning.” They laid it aside till morning, as Moses told them; and it did not become foul, neither was it wormy. (Exodus 16:14-24 AMPC)
The word “manna” literally means “What is this?” There was a foreign substance upon the ground every morning but one. This was a miraculous sign showing that when we depend upon God and follow His ways, He will provide for us. Honoring the Sabbath was a way for Israel to keep the connection between themselves and God.
And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, Truly you shall keep My Sabbaths, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you [set you apart for Myself]. You shall keep the Sabbath therefore, for it is holy to you; everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does work on the Sabbath shall be cut off from among his people.
Six days may work be done, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, sacred to the Lord; whoever does work on the Sabbath day shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the Israelites shall keep the Sabbath to observe it throughout their generations, a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the Israelites forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and earth, and on the seventh day He ceased and was refreshed. (Exodus 31:12-17 AMPC)
The Sabbath is a commanded time of rest to remind Israel that they were dependent upon God for salvation and sanctification. It was done to commemorate the covenant God had with His people.
How Did God tell Israel to honor Him on the Sabbath
Moses reminded Israel of how God expected them to honor the Sabbath in the Book of Deuteronomy:
Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD your God: in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your ox, nor your ass, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates; that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you. And remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD your God brought you out there through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 4:12-15 AKJV)
God gave us an example and we need to follow it; taking one day to rest and reflect on what He has done. Israel was the first nation established for God. There was no separation between church and state: every person in that nation was the same religion. God told them everyone had to observe the Sabbath rest. When they failed to do this, God sent a prophet to correct them:
If you turn away your foot from [traveling unduly on] the Sabbath, from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a [spiritual] delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and honor Him and it, not going your own way or seeking or finding your own pleasure or speaking with your own [idle] words, Then will you delight yourself in the Lord, and I will make you to ride on the high places of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage [promised for you] of Jacob your father; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. (Isaiah 58:13-14 AMPC)
Here God makes it a bit more clear: Stop traveling on the day of rest. When this was spoken, traveling took a lot of effort. There were no cars and no restaurants; it was work to travel. Because the prophet also mentions “doing your own pleasure” with traveling, we see that it was only unnecessary travel God was correcting. It was traveling when you don’t really need to, doing it for your own enjoyment.
This is a great example of how we need to look at the heart of what God says, and not just the words. Interactions between Jesus and the Pharisees shows the heart of what God said:
Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman there who for eighteen years had had an infirmity caused by a spirit (a demon of sickness). She was bent completely forward and utterly unable to straighten herself up or to look upward. And when Jesus saw her, He called [her to Him] and said to her, “Woman, you are released from your infirmity!”
Then He laid [His] hands on her, and instantly she was made straight, and she recognized and thanked and praised God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; so come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.”
But the Lord replied to him, saying, “You playactors (hypocrites)! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead it out to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” (Luke 13:10-16 AMPC)
This shows two types of work that is allowed on the Sabbath:
that which glorifies God and releases people from bondage.
that which is necessary to save property
This would include emergency and military personnel
They could observe the Sabbath on an alternate day
More importantly, it shows God’s law - the Ten Commandments, are flexible. Yes, they were written in stone, but there can be considerations in the application of them. Another example of this flexibility is when Jesus traveled with His disciples on the Sabbath:
One Sabbath He was going along beside the fields of standing grain, and as they made their way, His disciples began to pick off the grains. And the Pharisees said to Him, “Look! Why are they doing what is not permitted or lawful on the Sabbath?”
And He said to them, “Have you never [even] read what David did when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were accompanying him?— How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was the high priest, and ate the sacred loaves set forth [before God], which it is not permitted or lawful for any but the priests to eat, and [how he] also gave [them] to those who were with him?” (Mark 2:23-27 AMPC)
To get to the place where He would teach, it seems the Lord traveled on the Sabbath through a grainfield. Picking grain was work, but it was necessary work because they were hungry. The Lord finishes rebuking the Pharisees by explaining this:
And Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made on account and for the sake of man, not man for the Sabbath; So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:28 AKJV)
In essence, the Lord is saying, “The Sabbath is to give man an opportunity to worship and honor God. Man shouldn’t make an idol out of the Sabbath by placing it above all else!” We need to keep this in mind when deciding how to honor God on the Sabbath.
These are the basics of the Sabbath. How they are implemented into the lives of God’s people and Christians is a bit more complicated.
Christians and the Sabbath
Over time Israel created many traditions concerning God’s ways. These are recorded in the Talmud. Jesus spoke about these traditions:
And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men…” thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.” (Mark 7:6-8, 13 ESV)
We must be careful not to let the traditions that blinded Israel, blind us as well. Our Lord also said this about their traditions:
Then Jesus said to the multitudes and to His disciples, “The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat [of authority]. So observe and practice all they tell you; but do not do what they do, for they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy loads, hard to bear, and place them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not lift a finger to help bear them. (Matthew 23:1-4 AMPC)
It is clear that the strict traditions of the Pharisees’ traditions are not what God wants. Strict rules of observance are heavy burdens upon people. However, God never changes, so we do need to observe a Sabbath. One day out of every seven we should be at rest, and spend time focusing on God. Does it have to be the same day as Israel? Paul shared this with the new converts:
Therefore let no one sit in judgment on you in matters of food and drink, or with regard to a feast day or a New Moon or a Sabbath. Such [things] are only the shadow of things that are to come, and they have only a symbolic value. But the reality (the substance, the solid fact of what is foreshadowed, the body of it) belongs to Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17 AMPC)
We must listen to our Lord concerning the Sabbath. We should seek God about what day we should honor Him with a Sabbath. Exactly what we should do should be guided by the Holy Spirit:
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. (Romans 8:14 AKJV)
The Holy Spirit should lead us in how to implement the observance of the Sabbath, including what day we should observe it. Because it is one of God’s commandments, and Abraham also observed it, so should we.
Our Church Sabbath
I sought the Lord more diligently in prayer following a trail of breadcrumbs, signs and nudges from the Holy Spirit, He led me to the conclusion that God wanted our church to move our sabbath to Saturday. This is not because it has to be on Saturday, but to keep any “little ones” from stumbling as Paul urges us in Romans 14. We will read 2-6, 10-15, 19-21, leaving out the examples Paul gives for expedience sake.
One [man’s faith permits him to] believe he may eat anything, while a weaker one [limits his] eating to vegetables. Let not him who eats look down on or despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains criticize and pass judgment on him who eats; for God has accepted and welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on and censure another’s household servant? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he shall stand and be upheld, for the Master (the Lord) is mighty to support him and make him stand.
One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike [sacred]. Let everyone be fully convinced (satisfied) in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. (Romans 14:2-6 AMPC)
Why do you criticize and pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you look down upon or despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God [acknowledge Him to His honor and to His praise].
And so each of us shall give an account of himself [give an answer in reference to judgment] to God. Then let us no more criticize and blame and pass judgment on one another, but rather decide and endeavor never to put a stumbling block or an obstacle or a hindrance in the way of a brother.
I know and am convinced (persuaded) as one in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is [forbidden as] essentially unclean (defiled and unholy in itself). But [none the less] it is unclean (defiled and unholy) to anyone who thinks it is unclean.
But if your brother is being pained or his feelings hurt or if he is being injured by what you eat, [then] you are no longer walking in love. [You have ceased to be living and conducting yourself by the standard of love toward him.]... (Romans 14:10-15 AMPC)
So let us then definitely aim for and eagerly pursue what makes for harmony and for mutual upbuilding (edification and development) of one another. You must not, for the sake of food, undo and break down and destroy the work of God! Everything is indeed [ceremonially] clean and pure, but it is wrong for anyone to hurt the conscience of others or to make them fall by what he eats. The right thing is to eat no meat or drink no wine [at all], or [do anything else] if it makes your brother stumble or hurts his conscience or offends or weakens him. (Romans 14:19-21)
God wants us to follow the instructions of Paul. We shouldn’t argue over what day the Sabbath is observed and we don’t want others to stumble. This is a worldwide ministry. To keep from offending those, especially our Jewish brethren, we will hold a “Sabbath Service” from this point forward instead of a Sunday Service. How each person honors God on the Sabbath and even what day they choose to do it, is something each person needs to decide with the help of the Holy Spirit.
As I prepared this message, I looked at what day this Saturday Sabbath message would occur on: the Festival of Parim. Israel celebrates the day their people were saved by two people: Esther and Mordecai. The story of Ester is a foreshadowing of the two witnesses: two people who saved God’s people from perishing.
We join our brothers and sisters in Israel today in the Festival of Parim. With the eclipse coming on April 8th and all that it symbolizes, we know the time is close. God is preparing the Online Christian Church. We need not “offend” God’s people, Israel, when it is easy to observe our Sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday. This is readying His church for what is coming!
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