Israel's Prophecy Program 

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The Sabbath Day 

Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 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. 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

I. The seventh day of the week (Saturday):

   A. God blessed the seventh day: Made it special (Holy).

   B. God sanctified the seventh day: Set it apart from the other days. (He hallowed it.)

* Why? Because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

* On the seventh day God took a sabbatical/rest

   Just prior to God resting he says something concerning us that is very import to understand with regard to the sabbath day:

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,

   Satan wanted dominion over the earth and so he tricked man into rebelling against God and believing that they could become gods also, which is probably the same trick he used to get a third of the angels to rebel with him.

   When Adam fell Satan became the god of this world, and mankind and the earth came under the curse. The ground was cursed which is the exact same thing that God used to make Adam out of. God intended man to live forever in paradise on the earth, but the fall happened and that was lost to man.

   What the first Adam lost, the second Adam (Christ Jesus) will regain in the kingdom when Israel finally enters into her rest.

Genesis 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

   The term "sabbath" is first mentioned in Exodus when the children of Israel have departed (made an exodus) from Egypt.

Exodus 16:1 And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt. 2 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness: 3 And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger. 4 Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no. 5 And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. 6 And Moses and Aaron said unto all the children of Israel, At even, then ye shall know that the LORD hath brought you out from the land of Egypt: 7 And in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of the LORD; for that he heareth your murmurings against the LORD: and what are we, that ye murmur against us? 8 And Moses said, This shall be, when the LORD shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full; for that the LORD heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him: and what are we? your murmurings are not against us, but against the LORD. 9 And Moses spake unto Aaron, Say unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, Come near before the LORD: for he hath heard your murmurings. 10 And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. 11 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 12 I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God. 13 And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. 14 And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. 15 And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat. 16 This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for them which are in his tents. 17 And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more, some less. 18 And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating. 19 And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning. 20 Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses was wroth with them. 21 And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating: and when the sun waxed hot, it melted. 22 And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man: and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. 23 And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. 24 And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. 25 And Moses said, Eat that to day; for to day is a sabbath unto the LORD: to day ye shall not find it in the field. 26 Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none. 27 And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. 28 And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? 29 See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. 30 So the people rested on the seventh day. 31 And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. 32 And Moses said, This is the thing which the LORD commandeth, Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations; that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt. 33 And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it up before the LORD, to be kept for your generations. 34 As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept. 35 And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan. 36 Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah.

* God gives further instruction to the children of Israel concerning the sabbath day:

Exodus 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10 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: 11 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.

   Here Israel learns for the first time that they, their children, their servants, their cattle, nor the stranger (visitor) that is within thy gates shall not do any work on the sabbath. Nothing is said about all the other nations of the world having to keep the sabbath.

   It was only for the children of Israel and the visitor as long as they were staying at their house. God knew that Israel would eventually try to find loopholes in the rules of the sabbath.

   They tried to hire Gentiles to come and do work for them in their homes on the sabbath, so God prevented that from the very beginning with these instructions.

* Sabbath definition: "The seventh day of the week is set aside by God for the nation of Israel as a day of rest and remembrance."

* The second time the sabbath day is mentioned by name we learn some new things about it:

Exodus: 31:12 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 13 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. 14 Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. 16 Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. 17 It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed. 18 And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

I. The Sabbath was given to the children of Israel as a sign between them and God for ever!

   It was to remind them that it is God that sanctified them or set them apart from all the other nations for a specific purpose.

II. The penalty for violating the sabbath day was the death penalty.

III. It was to be a perpetual covenant with the children of Israel, forever.

* Deuteronomy teaches us another reason for God giving the Sabbath Day to Israel:

IV. The sabbath day was given to the children of Israel so they would remember that it was God that brought them out of slavery.

Deuteronomy 5:15 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.

* The Body of Christ, the church, was never in bondage to anyone and no such statement is mentioned to the church as to their taking Israel's sabbath day and making it their own.

   Nor was there ever anything ever said about Israel's sabbath day ever being changed to the first day of the week/Sunday. .

* The Sabbath Day was given to Israel at Sinai!

   Could the children of Israel have known about the Sabbath and kept it prior to their departure from Egypt? Not according to the Bible:

Nehemiah 9:13 Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: 14 And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant:

   For the 2,500 years from the seventh day of Genesis 2 until that day that Moses stood with God on Mt Sinai, no one ever observed the sabbath day.

Why? Because there wasn't a nation of Israel yet!

   They were called the children of Israel for the last 430 years, but God continually talked to Abraham in the future tense about making a nation out of his descendants.

Genesis 12:2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

 * Israel was to allow the land to rest every seven years as its own sabbath:

Leviticus 25:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD. 3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; 4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.

 * The nation came into being when the sabbath was taught to them.  The penalty for the nation for violating the sabbath was different than it was for the individual, and it is laid out in Leviticus 26:

1 Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God. 2 Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. 3 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4 Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. 6 And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. 7 And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9 For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you. 10 And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new. 11 And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. 13 I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright. 14 But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; 15 And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: 16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17 And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. 18 And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. 19 And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: 20 And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits. 21 And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins. 22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate. 23 And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me; 24 Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins. 25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26 And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied. 27 And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; 28 Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. 29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. 30 And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. 31 And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours. 32 And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. 33 And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. 34 Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. 35 As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. 36 And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. 37 And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. 39 And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. 40 If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; 41 And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: 42 Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. 43 The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes. 44 And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God. 45 But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD. 46 These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

 * For 490 years the nation of Judah disobeyed God by not keeping the sabbath and so they owed God 70 years of sabbath obedience, and God got them all back to back when he let the southern kingdom go into captivity in Babylon for 70 years. Then God delivered them out of captivity.

 * Do you remember when Peter asked Jesus this question?

Matthew 18:21 Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

 And what was Jesus' response?

22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

   Do the math, 7 x 70 equals 490. God was not only serious about the individual Israelite keeping the sabbath, but he was equally serious about the nation keeping it as well.

* Did Jesus keep the Sabbath Day?

   Absolutely! But he kept it not as the Pharisees with all their man made traditions and teachings added to it but as it was intended to be kept.

   Jesus Christ is the Word of God and he could not violate his own word by adhering to the Pharisees interpretation of what it meant to keep the sabbath day.

   Jesus fulfilled all of the Law including the sabbath day perfectly and never violated them even one time in the slightest way!

   In Matthew chapter 12 we see an example of Christ correcting the religious people who had perverted his own words concerning the sabbath:

Matthew 12:1 At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day. 3 But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; 4 How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? 6 But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. 7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day. 9 And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue: 10 And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him. 11 And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? 12 How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days. 13 Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other. 14 Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him.

   The only other time the mention of the Sabbath Day is found in Matthew is in chapter 24 in a tribulation context after the church is gone. Hmm, he just skips over the church age, Imagine that. I wonder why.

   The same is true in Psalm 92 which is A song for the sabbath day.

   Psalm 132. This Psalm looks to the future and has in view the ultimate end of God's purpose in creation.

"Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.” I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain" (Gal. 4:10,11).

"One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind" (Rom. 14:5).

  You can't esteem every day alike and obey Exodus 20:8!

   To fail to "rightly divide the Word of Truth" (II Tim. 2:15) is to cause confusion.

   We are now in the dispensation of grace and the nation of Israel has been temporarily set aside in order for God to form the body of Christ (Rom. 11:11-15, Eph. 2:11-16).

    Notice the definition of God's "rest" His purpose in creation was to make a place where He "will dwell."

Isaiah 40:21 says He created heaven and earth "a tent to dwell in" Revelation 21:3 says

   God was giving to man an opportunity to enter into His rest, to have the same appreciation He had for His plan in creation

   But man did not enter into the rest of God.

   So he, and the whole human race plunged into that which is the very opposite of the sabbath of the Lord--the labor and toil, the guilt and unrest of sin.

   Yet God had a plan to redeem and restore not only man but also His whole creation.

   His purpose in the earth focused on restoring His headship over the earth through the kingdom of Israel.

   This is the program that has been "spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:21).

   So He formed the nation Israel and He declared His purpose for them: "ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation" (Ex. 19:6).

 And this is the point of the Fourth Commandment: "Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy."

   They were to take one day each week and "remember" God's purpose for creation and Israel's role in that plan.

   With an understanding of God's purpose for the Sabbath--that it was the embodiment of His plan for the earth--we can understand why it belongs to the nation Israel.

   This also tells us why the sabbath is not for the body of Christ, because we are God's people who will accomplish His purpose in the heavenly places.

   God has presently set the nation Israel aside so that He can form the body of Christ as His agency to reconcile the government in the heavenly places unto Himself.

   As member of the body of Christ--a heavenly people, blessed with all spiritual blessings, meant to execute God's heavenly purpose, the sabbath has no significance to us.

   The sabbath in mentioned only 10 times after the cross and never is it in association with the church observing it. In fact it is mentioned only once by the apostle of the Gentiles and it is used negatively (See 10 below).

1. Acts 1:12 Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey.

   The following 8 are all found in the book of Acts and all have to do with Paul going into a synagogue to reach the Jews who met on the sabbath day to preach Christ unto them.

   These were not Christians assembling to worship the Lord! There were also many Gentiles that attended the synagogues which Paul was able to preach in initially:

2. Acts 13:14 But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down.

3. Acts 13:27 For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.

4. Acts 13:42 And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.

5. Acts 13:44 And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.

6. Acts 15:21 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.

7. Acts 16:13 And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.

8. Acts 17:2 And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,

9. Acts 18:4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.

10. Colossians 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:

 * Isn't that exactly what the seventh day Adventist do to people today who do not keep the sabbath day? Yes, it is, they Judge them.

 * The phrase "the seventh day" is only mentioned once in the new testament period!

   It is used in a memorial sense only:

Hebrews 4:4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.

The End