Christians Who Take God's Sabbath Command Seriously

[Walter and Deborah]

Saturday 4-1-23 7th. Day Of The Weekly Cycle Nisan 9, 5783 13th. Spring Day

Dec 4, 2017

I have not addressed the below statement for a while, please check my content on this issue, I don't know if anyone have checked this issue. Maybe on a different Forums site.
I will check it out and put it on this Forums Site.

Christians who take God's Sabbath command seriously often wonder how to keep the Sabbath as a Christian. What principles ... The Sabbath is a day when we pause from our normal labors and activities and rest for 24 hours on the seventh day of the week (from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday as the Bible counts time).

God had finished the work . . . so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Genesis 2:2

We sat atop some beach boulders, my friend Soozi and I, watching the foam send up sea spray in arched curls. Looking at the incoming waves crashing one after another against the rocks, Soozi announced, “I love the ocean. It keeps moving so I don’t have to!”
Isn’t it interesting how some of us feel we need “permission” to pause from our work to rest? Well, that’s just what our good God offers us! For six days, God spun the earth into existence, creating light, land, vegetation, animals, and humans.

Then on the seventh day, He rested (Genesis 1:31–2:2). In the Ten Commandments, God listed His rules for healthy living to honor Him (Exodus 20:3–17), including the command to remember the Sabbath as a day of rest (vv. 8–11). In the New Testament, we see Jesus healing all the sick of the town (Mark 1:29–34) and then early the next morning retreating to a solitary place to pray (v. 35). Purposefully, our God both worked and rested.

The rhythm of God’s provision in work and His invitation to rest reverberates around us. Spring’s planting yields growth in summer, harvest in autumn, and rest in winter. Morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night. God orders our lives for both work and rest, offering us permission to do both.
How would you assess the balance in your life between work and rest? When and how might you pause each day to reflect on God’s example of rhythm and rest?
Dear God, thank You that You made me to follow after Your heart, to both work and rest for Your glory and my good.
INSIGHT
All major ancient cultures have creation legends, and they often depict creation as taking place through some sort of sexual activity among the gods or through acts of violence. Genesis is startlingly different from these stories; it simply states that God spoke all things into existence (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24) and that He formed Adam “from the dust of the ground” (2:7; see 1:26).

When these creative acts were completed, God established His Sabbath rest (2:2–3). This rest would later be implemented for God’s chosen people, the fledgling nation of Israel (Exodus 20:8–11). When God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, He reminded the people, “In six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (v. 11).

By Elisa Morgan|March 22nd, 2023

Rest Genesis 1:31, 2:3

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Read full chapter

Genesis 2:3

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.

Read full chapter

Love, Walter and Debbie

 

Love, Walter and Debbie

[other one]

John 5:15-18
15 The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 And for this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But He answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working."
NASB

 

[Waggles]

The OT commandments concerning one day a week of rest from manual work and labour is a shadow - a physical example - of what was to come in the NT > spiritual rest from our own toils and problems through the power of the indwelling Spirit of God.

There is no commandment or instruction in the NT - no not even in the epistles - to uphold Saturdays as a Sabbath.

Hebrews 4:1  Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short. 
2  For indeed we have been evangelized even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because they were not united by faith with them that heard. 
3  For we who have believed are entering into the rest; even as he hath said, As I sware in my wrath, If they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the world’s foundation. 
4  For he hath said somewhere of the seventh thus, And God rested on the seventh day from all his works; 
5  and in this place again, They shall not enter into my rest. 
6  Since therefore it remaineth that some enter thereinto, and the afore evangelized entered not because of disobedience, 
7  he again defineth a certain day, Today, saying in David so long a time after (even as hath been said before), Today if ye shall hear his voice, Harden not your hearts. 
8  For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day. 
9  A sabbath rest remaineth therefore for the people of God. 
10  For who is entered into his rest hath himself also rested from his work, as God did from his own. 
11  Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no one fall after the same example of disobedience.

Now we as Pentecostal Spirit-filled disciples have enterest the rest given to us by God by his Spirit - a 24/7 sabbath.

[Waggles]

Colossians 2:16  Let no one therefore judge you in meat, and in drink, or in respect of a feast day or new moon or sabbaths: 
17  which are a shadow of the things to come: but the body is the Christ’s. 

Sabbath observance needs to be left where Paul the apostle has placed it - as a matter of individual conscience, conviction, and preference - but never as an obligation to be imposed upon others ...

Romans 14:5  One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 
6  The one who observes the day, observes it in honour of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honour of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honour of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Waggles

[AdHoc]

On 4/1/2023 at 9:06 PM, Walter and Deborah said:

By Elisa Morgan|March 22nd, 2023

Miss Morgan wrote many truths, but she forgot to tell that ONLY Israel got the Ten Commandments. In Genesis 2 no one but God took a Sabbath, and in Hebrews 3 and 4 the future Sabbath is defined by the length of time that Israel occupied the Good Land before being cast out - that is, just under 1,000 years. Now, that's interesting because God defined every day as "the evening and the morning" BUT NOT THE SABBATH! It is a glaring omission. Much more, the Lord's Sabbath was Adam's first day (as he was created last on the 6th day) and Adam died in just under 1,000 years.

Then, what was further missed, was that even though only Israel was named in the Covenant of Law (which contains the Sabbath), this Law, with all its ordinances was abolished by Christ's death. 

14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; 16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: (Eph 2:14–16)

These three verses tell us;
- That the New Man is made OUT OF TWO companies. That is, some Jews and some Gentiles

- The the Law is a "partition" because it forbade Jews from having relations with Gentiles

- That Jewish and Getile believers needed to be "reconciled" because the Law made them enemies

- That the abolishment of the Law "made peace" so that God could have UNITY in the New Man

- That the Law, FOR CHRISTIAN, ex-Jew or ex-Gentile*, is as dead as Christ was

(Naturally, those Jews who refuse Christ are still subject to the the full Law. The Gentiles never received the Law)

 

* I use this terminology because 2nd Corinthians 5:17 say that the New Man has no past. Ethnicity is gone.

[Marathoner]

That's my understanding as well, @AdHoc. The Law was never given to the Gentiles, but this never meant that wickedness among foreigners to the Law wasn't accounted for. God judges all souls, for all souls are His (Ezekiel 18). 

I've never understood why some who were never given the Law strive to subject themselves under its dominion. Don't they know that righteousness does not come by works of the Law? No man may boast.

However, I know that Armstrong's cult (Worldwide Church of God) went even further than the Seventh Day Adventist Church, teaching that observing feast days were required in addition to Sabbath day observance. His cult harmed the faith of many.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Marathoner
typo

[other one]

21 hours ago, Marathoner said:

His cult harmed the faith of many.

I experienced that for a very short time.

[kwikphilly]

Interesting but not applicable to those of us not bound by the Law....I was not born or have any ancestors that were Jewish,I have never been under the Laws Written by Moses,Inspired by God ..no not ever

What I was born unto was a family who learned about traditions of men through a false doctrine,citing commandments, rules and mandates that were not even there's to keep to begin with

But then I was Born Again and I heard" IF you LOVE Me you will follow My Commands" - those are not an obligation,not a mandate,my Lord & Savior Knows that IF we love Him we love Our Father & IF we love God we love one another as we love ourselves ....it is by Grace,through our Faith in Christ Jesus that the all of the Law & the Prophets are Fulfilled 🙏

Enter into God's Rest- Jesus IS our Sabbath,the Prince of Peace ❤️

With love in Christ, Kwik

[ChristB4us]

Jesus defended His disciples that were profaning the sabbath by pointing out in the scriptures of how those that had profaned the sabbath had entered the Temple when they had done this sin and yet were guiltless, because they were in the Temple.  Abd so Jesus pointed out One greater than the Temple was here in defense of His disciples for profaning 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.

The new reality is our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ is in us and with us always for why when we profane the sabbath day, we are guiltless because we are saved.

1 Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth........ 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Romans 14:4 Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. 5 One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. 6 He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. 7 For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. 8 For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

Can anyone truly keep the sabbath day when the other part of keeping that sabbath is to stone to death those that fail to keep the sabbath?  So no.  Is any sabbath day keeper allowing others to work on the sabbath for them to enjoy their luxuries like eating out or shopping on the sabbath or getting gas?  So is anyone really keeping the sabbath?

If anyone seeks to be justified for keeping the sabbath then you have fallen from grace, because you are denying Him as able to justify you alone by faith without the deeds of the law.  Believe He is able to make you stand by His righteousness alone, apart from the law.

Romans 10:1Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. 2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. 5 For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.

Romans 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. 27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Saved believers are free to honor the Lord any day of the week, including the sabbath day but do not seek to be justified by it nor judge others for not doing as you do, les you deny Him as able to make you or them stand by His righteousness alone.

 

 

 

[Tzephanyahu]

Shalom @Walter and Deborah

Good post.

It's interesting to see just how many words is dedicated to the Sabbath within the ten commandments compared to the other commandments, such as murder or adultery.  It's just about the same amount of words dedicated to talking about idolatry! As below..

 

“I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before Me.
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
"You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
“You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
but the seventh day is a sabbath of Yahweh your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female slave or your cattle or your sojourner who is within your gates.
For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore Yahweh blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male slave or his female slave or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”