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Chapter
4
God’s
Sabbath Commandment: “Remember
the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” —Exodus 20:8 There is not a negative in that law of Ten Commandments, although it
may appear thus to one who hasn’t learned "the truth of
the gospel" (Galatians 2:5). We have seen how the first three
commandments are open gates to happiness, not vice versa. So is the
fourth. How can the fourth commandment become an
assurance of rest for our souls? It is a commandment that almost the entire world disregards. Why? Is
it difficult to obey? No; God makes it possible for everyone to receive
the Sabbath blessing that is wrapped within it. It’s a part of the
riches of God’s grace He gives to anyone who is willing to receive.
Let’s see what it says: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 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 do no work: you, nor your son,
nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant,
nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.
For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea,
and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the
Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it" (Exodus 20:8-11). There is no end of blessings wrapped up in this commandment! Here
only a few: No one is left out. God is speaking to you and to me, not just to the
Jews. Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man
for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27; "woman" also was "made
for man," but marriage is not only for the Jews!). "Man"
means everyone. The "rest" that is in Sabbath-keeping is what our human
hearts have always yearned for. It is far more than merely taking a nap
to achieve physical rest from labor. It is peace of heart. Billionaires
would give everything for genuine Sabbath-rest! Because He has given the Sabbath as a gift to the world, it’s for
us to enjoy. You never keep the Sabbath alone; you have
fellowship with Him. "I am with you," He says (Isaiah
41:10), and Jesus promised, "I will not leave you orphans; I will
come to you. … If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father
will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him"
(John 14:18, 23). Jesus and the Father will move in with you! (And that
means joy!) Jesus promised, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the
end of the age" (Matthew 28:20), but the Sabbath day brings us into
a specially intimate closeness with Him. It’s like He makes an
appointment with us for a date; and if He is the object of our loving
worship, then we will keep the date with Him. And it’s not once in a
great while; the Sabbath is the special seventh day of every week. The Sabbath is the glue that holds all the days of the week together.
It gives the reason for the week. No human being invented the week; it
is what God gave the world in the beginning when He created the
heavens and the earth in six literal days, as Genesis 1 tells us. The
Sabbath is the memorial of His work of creation; evolution could never
have come into the world to deceive so many people if the world had
"remember[ed] the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Keeping the
Sabbath is therefore the "sign" or "mark" of God’s
true people, for He says, "I gave them My Sabbaths to be a sign
between them and Me, that they might know that I am the Lord who
sanctifies them" (Ezekiel 20:12). His "sign" is like His
signature; it’s like He says, "I have been looking for them, and
here they are—My true people; they keep My holy Sabbath. That
marks them as especially Mine!" We seldom think of the joy that our Sabbath-keeping brings to Him!
Isaiah says that "He shall see of the labor of His soul, and be
satisfied" (Isaiah 53:11). The Sabbath day is like a grand party of
celebration; He invites us every week for this special time to meet with
Him and with His people, and if you are not there, He is sad because He
misses you. There are no distractions on this "celebration" day.
"In it you shall do no work," He promises us. Ezekiel
describes the other days of the week as "the six working days"
(Ezekiel 46:1). There are all kinds of intrusions on those worldly days—heavy
burdens, business, making a living, buying and selling, TV and radio,
cares and labor that weigh us down, news of disasters and crime. There
is no "peace" in the world. But on the Sabbath day all those distractions are laid aside; it’s
like we spend the day with Jesus in His house, as it were as guests; a
day of peace of heart, freedom from worry, a harbor of refuge from the
angry ocean storms, "a garden intersected with streams from
Paradise, a cooling fountain in life’s dry, dreary sand." We lay them aside on the Sabbath day; we don’t let them intrude on
our peace with God because we trust that He will take care of us, He
will bless the labors of our "six working days" so that we
shall have enough to pay our bills without worrying. The Bible tells us
to leave our financial planning and accounts until after the
Sabbath, and do all that work "on the first day of the week"
(see 1 Corinthians 16:2). So this beautiful fourth commandment shows us
how to enjoy the Sabbath with God, free from those tiresome, worldly
intrusions. The Sabbath becomes like a day of heaven on earth. Children
especially love the Sabbath in a home where it is reverenced; they can’t
wait until "next Sabbath comes." When Jesus said, "Let
the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is
the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:14), He meant: let them
come on the Sabbath day. But if we don’t keep the Sabbath holy, they
can’t. On most calendars that are used worldwide, the seventh day is called
Saturday. To make it doubly sure, we can check by reading Luke 23:54,
which tells of the crucifixion of Jesus: "That day was the
Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near." Millions observe Good
Friday in honor of the death of Jesus; that pinpoints the true Sabbath,
for the next day of the week is the regular weekly seventh-day Sabbath.
(Incidentally, God has never asked us in the Bible to observe Good
Friday in honor of Christ’s crucifixion—the Lord’s Supper is the
memorial Christ appointed.) And again we can pinpoint the true Sabbath day by reading the next
verses in Luke: "The women who had come with Him … observed the
tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices
and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the
commandment" (verses 55, 56). The next verses tell of His
resurrection on Sunday: "Now on the first day of the week, very
early in the morning, they … came to the tomb, … But they found the
stone rolled away" (Luke 24:1, 2). Christ had risen! It is so clear a little child sees it immediately: "the
Sabbath day according to the commandment" comes between Friday and
Sunday. ("the Lord’s Day" of Revelation 1:10 is the
Sabbath, for God calls the Sabbath "My holy day," Isaiah
58:13). That's the reason why the seventh-day Sabbath is the happiest day of
the week: it's the day the Lord calls "My holy day." His
presence is in the Sabbath. To the extent that we love Him, we also love
His holy day. There are many sincere people who do not see
this truth. Has God changed His holy Sabbath day? We must pause to examine some
of the reasons why they are perplexed. No, God says, He has not changed His law regarding the Sabbath.
"I am the Lord, I do not change" (Malachi 3:6). There is
nothing in the Bible to suggest that He made any change in His holy law.
"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul" (Psalm
19:7). Why should He change anything that is "perfect"? He
loves us too much to change such a blessed gift! Jesus regularly kept the seventh-day Sabbath, for we read in Luke
4:16 that "He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as
His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day."
Yes, when He said to the Jews, "I have kept My Father’s
commandments," He told the truth (John 15:10). All of the apostles followed His example in keeping the Sabbath on
the seventh day. For example, the Book of Acts tells of 84 sabbaths that
the Apostle Paul kept, but not one Sunday! "But," someone may ask, "doesn’t it tell of one
first day of the week that Paul kept?" No, Acts 20:7, 8 tells of
one Saturday night farewell meeting that Paul held with the
Christians in Troas, because he was planning to walk 16 miles next day
(Sunday) to Miletus, and they would never see him again. (No apostle
would have walked 16 miles on the holy Sabbath day). Luke describes that night meeting as being on "the first day of
the week" because the Bible says the Sabbath begins at sundown
Friday evening and ends at sundown on Saturday evening (Leviticus
23:32). Any night meeting on "the first day of the week" would
therefore have to be on Saturday night. And Mark 1:32 tells how on one
Saturday "at evening, when the sun did set," the Sabbath being
over, the people brought many sick people to Jesus to be healed. That is a delightful way to keep the Sabbath, "from evening to
evening," sunset to sunset. If you try to keep it from midnight to
midnight, you’re asleep and you can’t consciously welcome God’s
holy day! How could you welcome some special visitor who came at
midnight while you were asleep? On Friday evening at sundown the family
gathers to sing, read a Bible story, and in prayer to welcome another
precious Sabbath day. Why do many observe Sunday, and not the holy
Sabbath day that the Lord "blessed and hallowed"? We must examine the reason. It is simple: someone without the
authority of God changed it. He instructed His holy prophet Daniel to
predict that this would happen. In chapter 7 the prophet described the
rise of four world empires in history (Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and
Rome), after which there would arise another great power, the
"little one [horn] … speaking pompous words" (verse 8) that
would combine church and state and would "intend to change times
and law" (verse 25). Both Daniel and Revelation state that he would
exercise his great power for 1260 years. Paul described the same power in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 as one "who
opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is
worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself
that he is God." John’s book of Revelation describes the same power: "And he
was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies … And
authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who
dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written
in the Book of Life of the Lamb" (13:5-8). We have to decide then which "power" we will follow—the
holy One who created the earth in six days and sanctified His holy
Sabbath for us to keep, or the one who has dared to change God’s law
and direct people to observe Sunday instead. Let us not be afraid to be different than the
majority. Jesus said: "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and
broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in
by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads
to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:13, 14). All through
the history of the world that principle has been true; Jesus is real, He’s
alive and watching, and He always identifies with those few who follow
Him. The Good News is that He loves us far more than we think! He paid a
supreme price to redeem us; He can never forget us. He still loves us so
much that He wants us to spend eternity with Him. He is lonesome without
His people! We live in the last days. Now, as our great High Priest in
God’s sanctuary in heaven, He is working night and day, worldwide, to
prepare a people to be ready to meet Him when He returns. But they need a special preparation, like
children going to school. He will be our Teacher, and we can be in His "class."
Therefore, Sabbath after Sabbath around the world, He meets with His
people who follow Him as the Lamb of God, and by His Holy Spirit He
teaches and prepares them to be ready in that great day when He will
soon appear. Nothing that is happening on earth is as important as that
special work now going on! When Jesus said, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest," He was inviting the world to
enjoy His Sabbath-rest. After creating the world and us in six days, He
rested on that first seventh-day in Eden. But "we" were
created on the sixth day of that first week, so for "us" the
sabbath was a celebration of all the work that God had done and
had "finished." "We" had done nothing! The Sabbath is still a "sign" of our resting "in
Christ" and thanking Him for what He has done, not glorying in
anything we have done in saving ourselves. It follows that true
Sabbath-keeping is possible only when we understand and appreciate what
it cost the Son of God to save us by His great sacrifice. Only when we
permit that agape to "constrain" us can our
Sabbath-keeping be devoid of the polluting love of self in some way. To appreciate "the width and length and depth and height"
of that love (agape) of Christ will make keeping the Sabbath day
holy the greatst joy of your life. And children will learn to love the
Sabbath also. If Christ's "yoke" is thus set before them as
"easy" and His burden as "light," they will get so
they can't wait for another Sabbath day to come. They will enjoy being
":guests" in the "house of the Lord." As the most precious gift of repentance is received by His people,
they will be endowed with the ability to proclaim the Sabbath more
fully, so that many dear ones now scattered in what Revelation calls
"Babylon" will be able to hear the "voice" from
heaven that says, "Come out of her, My people." Just now the Holy Spirit is calling people worldwide to keep holy His
Sabbath day; for that’s the special day when He meets with them to
teach them. And His great fourth commandment assures all who will
believe, they will know the joy of Sabbath-keeping rest "in
Christ." |
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