Tuesday October 22 Good morning!! :) (Exodus 20:8-11) 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 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. 11 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. Keep the Sabbath. This is the fourth and final vertical command. The Sabbath is to be a day of rest. It is to be a day given to the LORD. Here, this command is grounded in creation - God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. The point is, Sabbath rest is built into the very fabric of creation. Not to rest, and not to permit others to rest, is to go against this creation fabric. There are six days for caring for the provisions of life. Every seventh day a rest is to be taken from such work. But this is no ordinary rest, for it is to be a day given to God, a holy day. This discipline will insure that all of life is rendered unto Him. By practicing Sabbath keeping, by ceasing from the unending demands of work, by giving a day a week to the LORD, Israel will learn that He is at the center of every week, and indeed, at the center of every day. It will be a weekly reminder that life is a gift of , not a product of our own hands. (Bible commentary) In my understanding of this commandment, the LORD is not telling us that we are cease from anything on this day..but from worldly things. caring for the sick, feeding the poor, doing His work is acceptable. It is the worldly things like work and doing business, self indulgence, anything of luxury or vanity is what is forbidden. In our society, where so many things are open 7 days a week and they need to be staffed, it has become difficult to adhere to this commandment and not work if you company wants you to. However, this was a covenant between Israel and the LORD. Some Gentile Christians may choose to keep this commandment but clearly it is for Israel. Saturday was the last day of the week and they rested. After Jesus resurrection on the first day of the week, most Christians now celebrate on Sunday as a memorial per se to the resurrection. Christians worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Messianic Jews observe the Sabbath on Saturday, the seventh day of the week, for the blessing, and to be obedient to the Torah. In the day of Jesus the Sabbath had become an end to itself. In fact, certain Jewish religious leaders had developed a theology that Israel had been created to observe the Sabbath. But by adding so many rules and regulations, the Pharisees made the Sabbath a burden instead of a blessing. By putting it in a box sort of speak with their own attached rules, they took away from its true meaning. It was supposed to help man, not place him in bondage. The Jewish religious leaders missed the human element, because the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). Furthermore, the Son of Man was, and continues to be, Lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8). One man considers one day more sacred than another; but another man considers every day alike. Each one should be convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. (Romans 14:5-6a). No set day is assigned for Christians, although in Acts 20:7 it tells us that they gathered on the first day of the week, So, are Gentile believers obligated to rest and abstain from work on the Sabbath? No. If you take one day of the week to rest and do something other than your normal work, will you have a richer, fuller, and more rewarding life? But for the Jew, the Sabbath can only be celebrated on Saturday. Although the Christian should have their day of rest, whether Sunday or any other day, it should never be called a “Christian Sabbath”, in that, it does not exist. Certainly they should all have a designated day or time to rest and be with the Lord in worship, ministry, and service – still that would never be the prescribed Sabbath of the Torah. To call Sunday worship at a church, the “Christian Sabbath”, is a subtle form of replacement theology, where Gentile believers take that which was given to Israel and claim it as their own in replacement of the covenant with Israel. Thus, because of its great importance, Sabbath worship and Sunday worship cannot be compared. (Bible footnotes) I know that when I go to worship on Sunday I am lifted above the circumstances of the upcoming week. Its like I get filled up to go out and deal with the world. It is my day away from the things of the world.. Have a blessed day and remember to encourage someone today!!
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 06:21:58 +0000
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