Sabbath, Part 1

We are here on God's Sabbath day. Why are we here? Why did you take time out of your busy week to stop for 24 hours in doing and thinking and being that which you have been involved in in the last six days?

Why have you striven in these last 18 hours to put God first in your thoughts, imperfectly? God first in what you've said, as you also tend to go back to the way we've been thinking and talking all week, so it's kind of hard to break into more of the Sabbath frame of mind. Why are you pushing yourself into these things compared to what you would think and do the rest of the week? Jesus Christ said, man was not made for the Sabbath, but rather, He said, the Sabbath was made for man.

There's something about this 24 hours of time that is a blessing. It's something that's made for us. Just as a woman was created as a help or as a blessing to the man, Adam. So the Sabbath also was the next deed of creation that followed right on the heels of the creation of woman.

God made another blessing, a gift for man. And this was made for you. It's a help. It's an aid. It's an enhancer. So what's so special about this day? Maybe the secret is in the rest. There's the Bible called Life Application Bible. It's a Bible of various translations, but people will get in and write in the margins. Lots of stuff in the margins. And they'll be eloquent about what this is for and that is for.

So I looked up Sabbath in the Life Application Bible, and it says this, using the commentator's thoughts. The Sabbath was a day set aside for rest and worship. God commanded a Sabbath because... Now here's where we begin to use human logic. Why do we keep this Sabbath? Why did God make the Sabbath?

Well, he says, I think God made the Sabbath because human beings need to spend unhurried time in rest each week. Well, that just makes sense, doesn't it? Going on. He says, a God who is concerned enough to provide a day each week for us to rest is indeed wonderful.

To observe a regular time of rest and worship in our fast-paced world demonstrates how important God is to us and gives us the extra benefit of refreshing our spirits. There we go. Close the Bible. We know, right? Or do we? Many times I think you and I fall into the trap of assuming that this Sabbath day is about rest. It's somehow something that was given to you and me as physical human beings as a 24-hour period in which we need to pause from our busy world and take a break.

And it makes a lot of sense to us. I'm sure that's very nice, but I for one haven't had a rest on a Sabbath in 36 years. And I'm here today to tell you it doesn't make a lot of sense to me that a day would be set aside just so you can kind of be lazy. So let's look at what the Bible has to say.

Let's examine this special time from the perspective of God's Word, not human logic. Let's see why God gives us the special time of His holy Sabbath each week.

What is its meaning, by the way? What is the purpose of the Sabbath? Or what are the purposes of the Sabbath? What relevance does the Sabbath have to your life? And what relevance does it have to the future of the whole world? Today we'll examine five major aspects of the Sabbath day in this sermon, which is Part 1, entitled, God's Blessing for His People. God's blessing for His people. The Sabbath is a unique thing. It's a unique event, we might call it. It is holy time. Holy time.

What is time? Can you define time? I thought I could define time, and then I started trying to come up with a definition, and couldn't really come up with a good definition. So I went online and looked at various definitions of time. A lot of time was calculation of time. Well, that's not what time is. Time is maybe something you calculate, but what is time? Well, it turns out there are two major theories that philosophers have used about what exactly time is, and they argue about them.

They don't even know for sure what time is. But there's one philosophical view held by philosophers, Leibniz and Kant. And they say, time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable, nor can it be traveled. Oh, how's that for a concrete description of something? It tells you what it isn't. It doesn't tell you what it is. I have a definition for time. It's the John Elliot definition. It probably doesn't amount to anything, but it's as good as I could come up with.

And time is now. Time is now. It probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but you could say, now is now. Now isn't then. Now is now. Now isn't when I started the sermon. Now is only now. Now won't be when I finish the sermon. It's now. And this is what time is. It is now. Now. Another thing to know about now is that now is now everywhere. Right now, now is now everywhere. This is maybe easy to get a hold of, but it's now everywhere in the universe. It's now now with God.

It's time. And the time is now. So if I pick up the phone right now and call Paul Vahn, you know, ring ring, get AT&T to call Paul Vahn. We get Paul Vahn on the line. Remember Paul Vahn? He was here this last summer from Australia. He and his wife Sue and their little kids Chloe and Mitchell came and visited us here in the congregation.

Well, if I pick up the phone right now and call Paul Vahn, he's in Australia, down in a city called Melbourne. And it is 9.25 right now, Sunday morning in Melbourne. Now, I imagine at 9.25 in the morning, the Vahn family are probably up. They probably had breakfast. It's Paul's one free day off of work besides the Sabbath.

And sometimes he runs a circuit down there and preaches. So this is his only day to spend with Sue and Chloe and Mitchell. I would imagine this fall, early fall day down there as the summer is waning, they might be thinking about one last trip to the beach, down on the ocean. Or maybe one of those rare times to go pull weeds again with the family. Not sure what they're up to, but it's not the Sabbath. And right now, at 9.26 in the morning, it's Sunday in Melbourne, Australia.

Now, now is now there. Is Paul and his family, or should our Paul and his family, ahead of us in time? Are they sort of, you know, in a time machine? And they're a day at Sunday over there, so they're ahead of us. Maybe I could call and say, hey Paul, who won the game last night here in Arizona? Will you check your Sunday paper and see who won the game last night? Saturday night in Arizona? No, you see, because now is now.

And they won't have the scores, they won't have the stock market, they won't. Now is now. Now, now that we understand this, Paul is not in the future. Time isn't, you see, just a clock. It's not an event on a calendar. It's not something you can necessarily track. Time is now, and we are in the same time, and God is with us in the same time. Let's go to point number one of this sermon, and that is, the Sabbath is time that is hallowed by God.

The Sabbath is time that is hallowed by God. Next Sabbath is not here yet. Now is now, remember? The future has not arrived anywhere. This moment in time is the same everywhere. So logic would dictate that each new Sabbath has not come. Just because you may have a calendar, a bulletin with a monthly calendar on it, you can see a head on the Sabbath, like March 14th, we'll have church at 1.30.

That's just a schedule. A calendar is just a schedule, and it has some events written down. You can't go there. God hasn't gone to March 14th and hallowed that as a Sabbath day because that time does not exist.

See what I'm saying? Now is now everywhere. And so Sabbath, according to this logic, which I am only a human being, Sabbath time is hallowed by God as the Sabbath begins each week.

See, it's not something he can run forward in time and stamp wholly on all the Sabbath day to come, and then sort of recede back to heaven, and it's all done.

Because now is now everywhere. And in order for the Sabbath to be holy, God has to make it holy.

And that's the point of number one. Sabbath is time hallowed by God.

Each new Sabbath would have to be hallowed when it arrives. He can denote it hallowed. He can have it on auto-hollow. I don't know, but it has to be hallowed and made holy when it gets here.

I point this out because it shows that God is involved in every Sabbath. It's not something he just did once at creation and never touched again. Jesus Christ said, I am Lord of the Sabbath, the Sabbath. He is involved in it, and you and I become involved in it. The Sabbaths don't exist until they get here. And really, when you think about the Sabbath, we think of it from one place on earth. But the Sabbath must be being hallowed as the sun sets progressively around the world. Think of that. For 24 hours, God is making time holy as the sun sets.

Every 12 miles west that you go, the sun sets one minute later than it is where you are. The bulletin that we have is also transmitted electronically up to Sholoh. And Mr. Bill Morgan prints it. But before he prints it, he changes the time of the sun sets for every day. Because they're sun sets before us. They're about a hundred or so miles.

So they're a good probably 10 minutes into the Sabbath before it ever sets here. Mr. Randy Love in Yuma prints the bulletin, and he adjusts the sunset time to being later. It's about 200 miles that way, so it could be maybe 15 minutes or so beyond the time that it is here in Phoenix. But you see what happens as the sun sets, the Sabbath begins, and holy time begins.

I don't know how God does that, but to me it's very important to realize that God is very much involved in that holy day. And then as the sun sets at the end of the Sabbath, a dehollowing process takes place. To where as the sun sets, it's no longer holy time. It's no longer hallowed by God. So the Sabbath, my point is, is something that God is intricately involved in. Don't look at the Sabbath as, oh, let's see, what day of the week is it? Oh, what's on the calendar? Oh, what time is it? Whatever. Look at the Sabbath as something that God is very involved in and has been creating for thousands of years and will continue into the future. He is very much the God of the Sabbath.

Jesus Christ said, the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. Now, if you were Lord of the Sabbath, just imagine yourself, you were declared you are Lord of the Sabbath. What would you, what role, what involvement, what perspective would you have of that day in which you are the Lord of? That'd be pretty important to you, wouldn't it? In fact, that Sabbath day is all about our Lord and Master.

But what about His chosen? God's chosen are also very involved in the Sabbath day. We have these things in common. Let's go back to Exodus 20 and verse 8.

Here in the Ten Commandments, as stated in the book of Exodus, as compared to the same commandments stated in the book of Deuteronomy, we read these words. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The words keep it come from a Hebrew word, which means to consecrate, to sanctify, to prepare, to dedicate, to be hallowed, to be holy, to be sanctified, and to be separate. Notice what is told you and me about the keeping of the Sabbath day. Remember the Sabbath day to consecrate, sanctify it, prepare for it, be dedicated to it, be hallowed, be holy, be sanctified, and be separate. This is a special day for the people who God has called out. It's a wonderful merging of a God and His people that are all about hallowing, sanctifying, preparing, being separate from anything else on this day.

The Sabbath is sacred. It's ultra-special time, in other words. It's something that God is making holy and it's something that we prepare for. We dedicate ourselves. We dedicate our minds and our thoughts and our deeds to this day. We are made holy by God and we are separated from the events that we do in the week, our profane, our common events and work. We're separated from that, but we're also God's separate people. We are separate from worldliness and worldly thoughts on this day. So the result is that each holy Sabbath day enjoins God and His holy people.

And what a special day that is!

The second point that I'd like to bring out today is that the Sabbath was made for man.

As I mentioned well ago, the first holy Sabbath day began immediately after Adam and Eve were created. You tend to think that on the sixth day the animals were made and then on the seventh day the Sabbath started. But wait a minute, when you go back and look at the creation of Adam and the animals before him, then Adam's naming of the animals, then the deep sleep that he was put in, and then the creation of Eve, we find in Genesis chapter 1.26 that this event was followed immediately on the heels by the holy Sabbath day. Let's go back and start in Genesis 1.26 and see how this special day was created for a very special people. More special than what we normally perhaps would tend to think of. Let's review our created state here because the Sabbath was made for created human beings. God said, let us make man in our image. God is going to create a Sabbath day for beings that were made in his image according to our likeness. There's something special about these people and God. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. They will have dominion over everything else in the creation and there will be no animal rights.

Okay, that's what it says here. I just want to clarify that.

So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them, both in his own image. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Again, you will be the one who subdues the earth. You're not equal to the other animals. There's no such thing as evolution. There's no such thing as animal equality. You'll have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Verse 31, then God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good.

So the evening, now here comes sunset of the sixth day and that's the entire night time of Thursday, and the morning, that's the entire daytime of Friday, and then the creation of the animals and Adam and Eve, as we've just read, these things were the sixth day. The sixth day and the crowning thing on the sixth day was Eve. Alright, next God immediately creates something special for man, Genesis chapter 2 and verse 2. And on the seventh day, the seventh day begins right then at sunset, Friday evening, God ended his work. Now which work did he end? Did God just check out, go to sleep? Did he run back to heaven and take a day off? He said, I have enough of this, I've had it. I'm just going to go into, you know, sleep rest mode. Don't bug me. No prayers.

Now let's notice what he said. God ended his work which he had done, and he Sabbath'd. You notice the word there, rested, actually is not the right word. He Sabbath'd. The Greek word written there, I'm sorry, the Hebrew word written there is Shabbath. It means Sabbath. It doesn't mean he rested, it means he Shabbath'd. He Sabbath'd. On the seventh day from all his work which he had done, verse 3, then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he Sabbath'd from all his work which God had created and made. Notice the work which he had created and made. It defines what work he ceased. He ceased creating and making things. He didn't stop any other kind of work. He still went on as life giver, as law giver, as the sustainer, as the one who hears prayers, as our teacher, as the father.

He went on to walk with Adam and Eve in the garden and to teach them.

But notice the Sabbath was God-made. We're not in Exodus here. We're not at the Ten Commandments.

This is something God made from the beginning.

John, back in 1 John, mentions the law. We have to keep the command and the command that you were here to keep as the one you heard from the beginning.

Let's go now to Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 1. We'll look at the festivals of Moses.

The Festivals of Moses. Verse 4 says, these are the feasts of... Oh, wait a minute. Moses isn't there. These are the feasts of the Lord.

Verse 1, it says, The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, The feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my feasts. My feasts, God said. These are my feasts.

Verse 3, Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath.

Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall... Now, what's it a rest from?

A solemn rest and a holy convocation. You can't have total rest, and then a group of three to five million people getting up in the morning, taking that manna they had double the day before, making their meals, getting dressed, and three to five million people going to church.

Going in for the holy convocation that this is called, with the sacrifices and the messages of the day, and coming back, and fellowshiping, and eating, and whatever, and not do anything.

You just can't do that. And you can't imagine an area that was required to house three million people plus their animals. It's about the size of greater Phoenix, is the land required for people and animals of three to five million people to exist in an agrarian society. You're going to be doing some walking, some hiking. You're going to be doing some moving around, and it's going to be a busy day. But notice what we're told to rest from.

It says here, Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do know, as one translation says, servile work on it, or customary work on it, or the kind of work that you do six days a week. It's to be a holy day. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. So the Sabbath was made for man. It's a shift. It's a day of doing something different. It's a day of being involved in something where God made this day, and He blessed it and sanctified it. And we're not to have anything to do with those other profane, unholy things that we do the rest of the week. The third point is that God always commands His people to commune with Him on the Sabbath. God always has commanded His people to commune with Him on the Sabbath. God shares this day with those whom He is inviting and drawing and calling by whatever term you want, and He does not share this day with anyone else. This day is a day where God communes with His people on the Sabbath, and it's one of the things that makes the day so special.

Let's go back in time to when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness.

This is weeks before the Ten Commandments that we just read were given. This is some time in advance of the Israelites ever getting to Mount Sinai and hearing the Ten Commandments. Let's go back to Exodus 16 and verse 1. We'll pick up the journey of the Israelites as they have crossed now the Red Sea, and they're journeying on into the wilderness. It says in Exodus 16.1, And they journeyed from Elam, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elam and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. So what it's telling you here is about 30 days before they had left Egypt. But you know, you count 50, don't you, to get to Pentecost. We're not to Pentecost. We're not to Sinai. He just said we're not to Sinai. So they're 30 days into the trip. They've still got almost three weeks to go before they'll hear the Ten Commandments. In verse 4, Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will reign bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. It's not Moses' law, it's God's law. God's law existed before Sinai. God's law existed before the Ten Commandments. Verse 5, And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. Some people have come to the erroneous conclusion that Friday as a preparation day is also some kind of a holy special day, and you don't do much on it. It's, oh, you just almost keep it like a Sabbath. It's the preparation day, because it's mentioned as the preparation day of the Jews when you get to the New Testament. But actually what we find here, on the sixth day, they will go out and prepare twice as much as they do the first five. It's going to be twice as much work.

God set the Sabbath apart from them with a weekly miracle, and He shows His regard for the Sabbath by doing this. In verse 23 it says, Then He said to them, This is what the Lord has said, Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. This is before Sinai, it's for the Ten Commandments. And it shows that God has always had His people keep the Sabbath.

Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil, and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept until morning. So they laid it up till morning, as Moses commanded, and it didn't stink, nor were there any worms in it. Then Moses said, Eat that today, for today is the Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day the Sabbath there will be none. And later, as we just read in Exodus 20, God gives the Ten Commandments, and what does He say about the Sabbath? He says, Remember the Sabbath day. Notice He didn't say, Oh, I've got this new day for you to keep.

Remember. The Hebrew word remember is zakar.

It means to remember, to recall, or to call to mind. In other words, it's to remember something that's already known. Call to mind, something you already know. The Sabbath was created right after the first humans were created. It remains. It exists forever. Its meaning will go on forever.

And God's chosen have always kept the Sabbath of God. You'll remember in Genesis 26 and verse 5, where God says, Abraham obeyed my voice, kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

God's laws have always been there. His commandments have been there, and the Sabbath has been there from the beginning. Now we come to point number four.

Point number four is the Sabbath is a sign.

The Sabbath is a sign. Now you've heard that, I'm sure. You've heard that. I want to give you a little test here. All right, you ready? I want you to take three seconds and imagine a billboard by a highway somewhere. All right, one, two, three. Okay, you got the billboard? You got, you've imagined your billboard out by the sidewalk. Now here's a question. Now that you've got your imaginary billboard, how many of you have imagined a blank white billboard with nothing on it?

Hmm. See what happens? Signs are supposed to say something, and so most people, when they even imagine a sign, will expect the sign to say something, not just be blank.

Signs should say something, and if the Sabbath is a sign, what is the sign about? A sign of what?

People will often say, well, it's a sign of who God's people are.

Sabbath is a sign of God's people. I've heard people say that from time to time. Sabbath is a sign of God's people. It's a sign. It's a sign of God's people. It tells you who God's people are. Oh, really? Jesus warned us about people who keep the Sabbath. Some people who keep the Sabbath. He called them tares. He called them goats. He called some Sabbath keepers false prophets that were to be aware of. Is the Sabbath always a sign of who God's people are? I mean, come on.

Not really.

Jesus will say to some Sabbath keepers, depart from me.

I never knew you. You who work lawlessness. So the Sabbath is not necessarily a sign of who God's people are, nor does the Bible say it is. So let's take a look accurately and see what God says the sign of the Sabbath is. What is the sign about? If you go to Ezekiel chapter 20 in verse 12, I'm going to read this from the New International Version.

Here is a statement from God about what the sign is. Ezekiel 20 in verse 12, I also gave them my Sabbaths as a sign between us. Ha! There it is.

The sign is not a sign to anybody else. It's a sign between God and you. That's what God said the sign is. You can't go out and look around and say, oh, let's see, what does the Sabbath tell us?

It's a, as some of you imagined and held your hands up, that's a white sign. It's a blank sign to anybody else because God said this sign is a Sabbath between us. It means it's a secret sign.

It's going to be as blank as I'll get out to anybody else who tries to read it. A sign between us. It's not a sign of God's church. It's not a sign to the world, not a sign to your friends, not a sign to the family. It's not a badge. It's not proof of anything. It's something between you and God, very private. What is that? Well, he tells us, keep reading, it's a sign between us so they would know that I the Lord made them holy.

The Sabbath is a sign between you and God so that you will know that God sanctified you. God called you. God set you apart. He has hallowed you. He has done something special to you, and every week when this relationship period comes around, this holy Sabbath day, that God made is a blessing for you, it will be a sign that God has redeemed you and made you his holy child. And that's what the sign is, from God's own lips.

God has sanctified you as a saint, as a son, as a daughter, as an heir, as a potential first fruit, a potential member of his family, and that's your sign. It's exciting.

A special relationship is actually included in the fourth commandment, in the commandments that God gave in Sinai. This sign is included in this. Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 5, where the commandments are also written, albeit either by a different author or at a different time. Not sure why, but there's some other things included, including the first word. Remember, in Exodus chapter 20, we read the first word was remember, or to call to mind. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Here we see in Deuteronomy chapter 5 and verse 12, the first word is the Hebrew word, shamar. When it says, observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, the Hebrew word for observe shamar is treasure, protect, celebrate the Sabbath day. Here's something now that you treasure, this sign between you and God, this special time of you who have been made holy just like the Sabbath is holy.

You treasure this. You protect it. You celebrate it to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Did command society? Six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God, not society's God, your God. This is a special, special day. And here's the sign, verse 15, and remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. Spiritually, you and I were slaves to sin in society, in Satan's world. Remember that.

And that the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm through the blood of Jesus Christ at the Passover. He with an outstretched arm brought you at your baptism out of slavery to sin, and the Sabbath is a sign that you are His special, called, chosen, bought, and paid for child. What an awesome day this is! This is what the Sabbath teaches us. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. It's not commanded to others.

It refers to those who kept the Passover brought out of Egypt, those who keep the Passover baptized, have the blood of Christ over the doorpost, actually, of our hearts, as it were, to forgive our sins. There's no such commandment. There's no such link. There's no such experience with society yet, and yet we'll see, as we'll see, this day portrays a time when that will happen to all people. So we now see a special link that the Sabbath is to God, to His called-out ones. It's a special sign between an individual and God. It is telling Him and her that your sins have been forgiven, that you have been rescued, that you have been saved in the sense that you have been rescued from certain death, and that you now are different. You're unique. You are freed from slavery to sin. Now, nobody else can see that sign. Just God and you.

It shows here, as it says in verse 15, Remember that you were brought out by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

We can't claim any credit for this. It's nothing to do with us, but God with a mighty head and an outstretched arm called us and worked out the process whereby His Son would die for you and me.

And we would then be brought into a relationship with God, stitched together with our God. And every Sabbath have a wonderful celebration as a family of what we are and what the world ultimately will become. In 1 Peter 2 and verse 9, we see this Sabbath Passover message as Peter tells us. 1 Peter 2 and verse 9, how special this relationship is.

But you, he says, are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. See what has happened. We've come out of the darkness of Egypt of sin into the marvelous light. We were called from that. And now we are a special people, who were once not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. And how does that obtaining mercy take place? Through the Passover.

Through what the Passover, not the Passover service, but through what the Passover looks to. And that was the memorial of the death of God's Son, the firstborn son.

Notice in verse 24 of 1 Peter 2, Who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you are stitched together, healed, means stitched together to God, for, verse 25, you were like sheep going astray, but have now turned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. We have joined this family of God. We are now considering ourselves a member of a different nation, a heavenly country.

We have been selected and purified in bots, and we have been hallowed, and we are now keeping a Sabbath that God hallows every Sabbath. He's very involved in it, and Jesus Christ is very involved in it, and that Sabbath is a sign to you that you are one of the ones that has been called and purified and made the special people. With that in mind, do you see how senseless it is to argue which day is the Christian Sabbath with anybody? It's not about a day on the calendar. It's not about a technicality. It just doesn't apply. If a person is not in that relationship, it simply doesn't apply. The correct day is irrelevant if you're not sanctified.

Paul calls that particular discussion useless. In Titus 3, verse 9, he says, "...but avoid foolish disputes and strivings about the law, for they are useless." Now, if it doesn't apply, if a person is not a part of the family of God, what are we arguing about it with them for? Why would you try to convince somebody who's at your door or on the street or anywhere else, or get into some religious squabble with somebody about the technicalities of which day God wants a person to keep?

Outsiders debate the Sabbath using human logic. We obey God's command. They analyze whether and how to minimize it. We analyze when and its deeper meaning and how to maximize the Sabbath.

We see it as a sign. Others will see the day they keep as a badge, as an identifying badge.

They will see it as a relic that ended 2,000 years ago. We celebrate its meaning as a future event fulfilled in the coming Kingdom of God. And by the way, these are different religions altogether. Different gods, different mother and child. Confusion comes in from similar names, a similar text that is sometimes used. But remember, the God of Sunday is the Son.

It is the resurrected, in some cases, it is the Mother, the Great Mother, and it's the boy moon. It is Ishtar, it is Tammuz. It's the Babylon mystery religion. It's the image of Daniel that Jesus Christ is coming back to destroy. And one thing about the Sabbath is that when we celebrate it, we are to separate. This isn't about some argument that we have with religion, with the false religions of this world. And so, consequently, in Colossians 2, verse 16, Paul says, don't let anybody judge you about your Sabbath. Don't let any outsiders in, just don't even go there. Don't hear the comments. Don't get into discussions. Don't let anybody badger you about or even have a discussion. Talking about outsiders in Colossians 2, 16. He says, so let no one judge you in food or drink or regarding a festival or a Sabbath, a new moon or Sabbath, which are a shadow or types of things to come.

Then he concludes by saying, accept the body of Christ, but or accept the body of Christ. Don't let outsiders judge you in anything that God tells you to do, except the body of Christ, the church. This is where those things are discussed.

That's what that's saying in Colossians 2, verse 16. The discussion remains within the church.

The fifth point is, the Lord of the Sabbath taught its meaning. Jesus Christ, or what Jesus was born and grew up. He began to have a ministry at a certain point. His ministry was all about teaching us the meaning of the Sabbath day. If we only look at some of the events that happened, if we only look into what he said and what he did, there is so much there that he teaches about the Sabbath day. In his day, he contended with religious leaders about various Sabbath issues. They had turned it into a hypercritical legalism. And the Sabbath day was sort of the pinnacle of the Pharisees' hypercritical legalism. As a little background, Israel had broken the covenant under Jeroboam and had gone into captivity in Assyria in about the eighth century BC.

About 200 years later, Judah left the covenant and went into captivity under Babylon in the sixth century BC. Some exiles returned to Jerusalem under Ezra Nehemiah and rebuilt the temple. And the leaders determined then, we are going to stay faithful. We're never going to break this law again. We'd never want to get cast out of this area again. And so, over time, various groups, including the Pharisees, began to build out from God's law what you might call fences, protective fences. So instead of, say, breaking a law, you couldn't even get close to breaking a law if you didn't jump the fence. So by Christ's day, what the Jews had done was they had, or the Pharisees had done, they had 39 main categories of fences around the law. And under those categories, they had subcategories. And under the subcategories, they had rules. Let me give you a few of them.

By the time Christ day came, they were ignoring the Sabbath and they were into this hypercritical legalism of their rules. Some of the main categories included things like sowing, plowing, reaping, gathering, threshing, winnowing, cleansing, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking. Now all those seem related, but at the same time, those were some main categories with regards to not breaking the Sabbath. And each main category had subcategories with rules. For instance, plowing was a main category. A rule in a subcategory was spitting on the Sabbath is illegal.

Because if you spit and it hits some dirt, it might move the dirt and that could be plowing.

See? Work. Now maybe your dog got loose or you need to tie up your dog. It might be work if you tied much of a knot in the rope that held him to the tree. So the rule was, in the subcategory of work, you can only tie a knot that you can untie with one hand. Anything more complex than that, you might be getting too close there to doing some work.

Mirrors or shine brass that a woman could see a reflection in were outlawed for Sabbath use because, under the heading of work and a subheading, a woman might see a gray hair and pull it out, making her work on the Sabbath. No mirrors.

If you had shoes, you could not wear shoes on the Sabbath if they had any nails fastened, fastening the leather down because lifting your foot with a shoe that had nails would be an unnecessary burden on the Sabbath. The weight of the nail would be an unnecessary burden on the Sabbath. Harvesting. Under the category of harvesting, you could not walk through grass on the Sabbath because you might bend or even break a blade of grass under the subcategory, threshing. That was threshing. Moving. I don't know what category this one is. I'll put it under the moving category. If your house catches on fire, you can only remove from the house what you are wearing. Nothing else. You can't pick up anything. Only what you are wearing. However, it did allow for you to put on all the clothes that you owned and get out the house with them. So there were hundreds of rules about the Sabbath by Christ time. It was a day without meaning. Again, it was hypercritical legalism. The Sabbath observance was central to Jesus' teaching. Think of all the references that there must be in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Bible. How many times is the Sabbath mentioned and commanded and introduced?

And yet, when you come to the four Gospels, the Sabbath is mentioned more times in the four Gospels than it is in the Pentateuch. That's how central the Sabbath is to God and was to Christ's ministry. Jesus taught us about the Sabbath in a progressive way during his ministry. Now, what do you think he started out with? What would you think that he would start out teaching on the very first Saturday, the very first time he began his ministry and began to preach?

Well, the answer is it's found in Matthew 4, verse 23. And he began with the overall meaning of the day. Matthew 4, verse 23, and Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues. That's on the Sabbath. That's when they met, was in the synagogues on the Sabbath. Preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and performing miracles. That was how he began. That's what he started with.

What was Jesus's first miracle on the very first Sabbath of his ministry?

Well, what happens at the very start, the very first thing that takes place, once Jesus Christ comes back and the Kingdom begins? Well, the removal of Satan, of course, pictured by the Feast of Atonement, in part.

If we go to Luke 4, verse 33, now in the synagogue, there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone, what have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? The word destroy in the Greek means, did you come to put us out of the way?

That's the very first miracle that he did on the very first Sabbath, and the very first thing was to put Satan and his demons aside.

What was his first sermon topic? In Luke 4, verse 18, we find a description here of what Jesus Christ was coming to do, what the Messiah will come to do. Luke 4, verse 18, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. This is what he got up. This is his message. He was handed the book, and he turned to Isaiah, and here's what he read. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel, the good news of the kingdom, to the poor, and he has sent me, notice, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of the sight of the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the approved era of the Lord, which is the kingdom of God. That's what his message was about. And the Sabbath miracles that took place supported that message. They were millennial-themed miracles. Let me explain that to you.

In Isaiah 35, verse 4, I'm sure you're familiar with this. It says, Say to those who are fearful-hearted, Be strong and don't fear, Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God, He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, The ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, The lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb shall sing. And the Sabbath miracles pointed to those millennial events that would take place once God's kingdom begins.

And so in verse 40, on that first Sabbath day, when the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to Him.

And He laid His hands on everyone and healed them.

He began to do the opening of the eyes of the blind, the unstopping of the ears of the deaf, the lame people were leaping like deers. His miracles portrayed that which the Sabbath is also referring to, the coming kingdom of God. For just as there are six days in a week, there are 6,000 years where Satan is ruling. And just as there is a seventh day of the week, there is a thousand year millennial reign that begins the kingdom of God here on earth.

There are other Sabbath lessons that He taught. The Sabbath foretells the harvest of the firstfruits. When Jesus Christ returns and the kingdom begins, you and I will be raised to meet Christ in the air and we will be glorified. The firstfruits will reign with Christ and they will work to bring in an even larger harvest at the Second Resurrection. And so in Luke 6 and verse 1, we come to the second Sabbath of Christ's ministry. Luke 6 and verse 1, Now it happened on the second Sabbath after the first that He went through the grain fields, and His disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate them. This is a very feast of Pentecost, a feast of firstfruits, kind of a setting here with grain that's ready to be harvested. By who? The disciples and Jesus Christ, both being part of this harvest. And they went through the grains and ate them, rubbing them in their hands. Now, of course, the Pharisees saw that. And you know, you're miles ahead here of just walking on grass, that you might bend or break. You're actually rubbing some grain in your hand. And the Pharisees said, What are you doing that's not lawful to do on the Sabbath? Because it was violating a subsection of their harvesting rules. And yet, in Deuteronomy 23 verse 25, notice what God says, When you come into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand. That was always there. They weren't doing anything wrong. In fact, if you had a crop, you had to leave them so that people could come through on the Sabbath or any time and get some fast food. That's what it was. It was fast food. Look at them. They're fast food.

Here's another forecast of the millennium in verse 6 of Luke 6.

Now it happened on another Sabbath also that he entered the synagogue and taught. And a man was there whose right hand was withered. So the scribes and Pharisees watched him closely whether he would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against him. Now here's where it gets real interesting. Verse 8.

But Jesus knew their thoughts, and their thoughts were that a rule and one of their subsections was, you could not assist anyone on the Sabbath unless it was a life-threatening situation.

Can't help anybody on the Sabbath unless they're going to die. Then you could help them otherwise. So what we have here is, here's a man whose right hand is withered. It's not fatal. It's been that way a while. And they are looking to find an accusation, and he knew their thoughts.

So he said to the man with the withered hand, Arise and stand here. And he rose and stood. And Jesus said to them, I will ask you one thing. Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil? To save a life or to destroy?

See, this notion of just resting on the Sabbath and doing nothing is the absence of doing good, of saving a life, of being helpful. And this is the point he brings out. He teaches us here. And when he looked around at them all, he said to the man, Stretch out your hand. And the man did so. And his hand was restored as the other hand was.

But they were filled with rage, and they discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

So another forecast of the kingdom of God will be a time when people will be instilled with a mind of helping and serving. And when the old mind of get and take, of evil and hatred will be pushed out. There's another lesson.

Christ will return, and he will liberate the captives who are held sway by Satan.

The captives of this world are held sway. They can't do anything about it, unless they're one of the precious few whom God calls and releases them from that slavery, releases them from slavery to the sin in that system. Otherwise, it will require Christ and the bride to eventually release them from being captives of Satan. In Luke 13, and verse 10, he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity. This isn't just an infirmity, but actually a spirit was in her causing an infirmity. For eighteen years, she was bent over, and in no way could raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said to her, woman, you are loosed from your infirmity. And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. And he said to the crowd, there are six days on which men ought to work, not five in an arrest day on a preparation day, but six days on which men ought to work, corresponding to six thousand years of Satan's rule. Therefore, come and be healed on one of them, and not on the Sabbath day. But the Lord answered and said to him, hypocrite, does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it away to water it? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound. Think of it, for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath. You remember we read in Luke chapter 4, 18 already how Christ came to loosen the bonds. He came to free the captives. That would be His coming, now for you and me, but ultimately for all mankind. And so His lesson is that upon His return, the captives will be loose, just as this woman was loose literally from Satan binding her over for eighteen years. So people will be loose from being bound by Satan. Now a question as we wrap this sermon up, who will assist Christ in the kingdom? Who will be chosen to reign with Him? Well, Jesus on the Sabbath day tells us about that as well. Let's look in chapter 14 in verse 1. Now it happened as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath that they watched Him closely. Now here's an interesting encounter. This tells us a little something that you might not otherwise know.

The Pharisees who are ultra strict had a large meal on the Sabbath day, and that was okay.

He went into the house of one of the rulers to eat bread on the Sabbath, and they watched Him closely. The other thing is that He has now gone into the den of Pharisees. He's gone to their house. It must be an interesting place to be, but He uses it as an opportunity to teach.

In verse 7, so He told a parable to those who were invited when He noticed how they chose the best places, saying to them, our Lord, the Lord of the Sabbath, didn't just go in and sort of schmooze with everybody and try to be liked and accepted. He just cut right to the chase and said, I see some of you came in here and got some of the chief seats. That's going to kind of rankle them a little bit. Verse 8, when you're invited by anyone to a wedding feast, don't sit down in the best place. Go to verse 10. When you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place. Now you and I have been invited. We have been called. We have been chosen. Don't rush up to the front and try to push yourself up. You see? What He's telling us is, when you're invited into the church and the family of God, go and sit down in the lowest place so that when He who invited you comes, He may say to you, friend, go up higher. Then you will have the glory and the presence of those who sit at the table with you. Verse 11, for whoever exalts himself will be abased, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. So on the Sabbath, we learn then it's those who come in humility, those who come in meekness. That is, it's not about me. I don't really know how to do it. I need to humble myself, put myself down, as the opening prayer today asks, that God would help the ministry put themselves and their will down and let His will come through. That's the ones that God can use. God can exalt those into His Kingdom, into His family, as He will.

In verse 12, when you give a dinner or a supper, don't ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, your rich neighbors. Verse 13, but when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maim, the lame, the blind. That's what God did. He called the poor the world, the weak of the world. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

We are all brothers and sisters, and we shouldn't be playing some little ego game or partiality games or anything like that. It's not wrong to have a friend, but we don't exclude anybody. We are all together in this, and we go together.

And Jesus said in verse 16, A certain man gave a great supper and invited many. And this is the kingdom of God, and God invited many. But what happened?

Verse 18, all came with one accord and said, and began to make excuses. And the first said, I bought a piece of ground. I'm building a house.

You know, I'm going to have a farm. I'm going to have a garden. I'm encumbered with the cares of this life.

I ask that you have me excused.

And another said, I bought five yoke of oxen. I need to go test them. I ask that you have me excused. Another said, I've married a wife, and therefore I can't come. In other words, my head is spinning around in other areas. I'm not really about you, your kingdom, your way of life. I'm not really about this relationship.

And so that servant came and reported these things to his master. In verse 23, the master said to the servant, You go out into the highways and the hedges and compel them to come into my house, that it may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.

This gives you just an overview of some of the teachings that Christ gave about the Sabbath, on the Sabbath, by the Lord of the Sabbath.

And it just shows the importance of this hallowed time that you and I are privileged to live each week.

In conclusion, the Sabbath observance is central to all of God's covenants. His covenant with Abraham, His covenant with the Israelites, His covenant with David, His covenant with the saints, the covenant to future generations.

It's rich with meaning for those who are being called because it's a sign that you have been rescued by God, that you have been removed from Satan society and you are now a child of God, that you are bought and paid for with Christ's blood, that you are no longer a of Satan society or a slave to sin, that you are a special child of God, a holy, special child of God, hallowed personally by God Himself. He's the one that made you, specifically you, holy.

It shows that you are preparing for the age to come that the Sabbath represents and celebrates the Kingdom of God. Your observance of the Sabbath in this way screams that you declare your citizenship in a heavenly country and not here on earth. And it shows your trust in the rescuer who will never leave you or forsake you as you go forward in this relationship with God. So I hope that you'll appreciate even more this special blessing for God's people that the Sabbath day is. And next time in part two we'll examine the proper observance of the Sabbath by God's end time saints.