Sabbath

 

“Thus the heavens and the earth

were finished,

and all the host [multitude] of them.

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.

And God blessed the seventh day,

and sanctified it [made it holy];

because that in it he had rested

from all his work

which God created and made.”

Genesis 2:1-3

 

1. The Sabbath is a Covenant, and a sign that we are God’s people.  Beside Exodus 20:8-11, see Exodus 31:12-17 (note:  God rested from His work, and was refreshed.  To a people who had just come out of slavery, what meaning that must have had!  To those today who work slavishly, how wise.)  Also Ezekiel 20:11-12, 19-20 . . . keeping the Sabbath makes us holy, gives us the understanding, convinces us, that the Lord is our God.

2. God can prepare a way for us to keep His Sabbath . . . we need faith enough to keep the commandment.  See Exodus 16:14-31.  Ordinarily the Children of Israel could not keep the manna overnight.  But the day before the Sabbath they were to gather 2 days’ worth, and it did not breed worms, as on other days.

3.  Even the land was given a “sabbath” on the 7th year.  Exodus 23:10-11.  Letting the land lay fallow made it more productive, and letting our minds and bodies rest makes us more productive (and less grouchy!).

4.  We should not buy or sell on the Sabbath.  Nehemiah 10:31.  After the Babylonian Captivity, Nehemiah and Ezra made it their life’s work to bring the remnant of the House of Israel back to their God, including the keeping of the Sabbath.  The people covenanted that they would not buy”ware or any victuals ” on the Sabbath (housewares, hardware, etc., nor food).

5.  We should not go pleasure seeking on the Sabbath.  Isaiah 58:13-14.  God promises great blessings if we will “call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable”.  Keeping the Sabbath is not to be a drudgery, but a delight!  It depends where our hearts are–in recreational activities, or in worshipping, serving the Lord, and in doing good.  In what do we find happiness?  It tells a lot about who/what we choose to be.

6.  There are certain physical needs that must be met on the Sabbath, and we should not condemn the guiltless.  See Matthew 12:1-8.  Jesus and His disciples were walking through a field of grain (King James English “corn”) on a Sabbath day, and they were hungry.  It was not unlawful to eat from a field when you were hungry, as long as you didn’t carry any off.  But it was unlawful to winnow the chaff from the grain, etc.  Of course the disciples were rubbing the chaff away so that they could eat the grain, and some said that was doing work on the Sabbath.  Jesus pointed out that when David (later King) and his men were at the point of starving, they ate the old shewbread, which only the priests were supposed to eat.  Also, that the priests serving in the Temple on the Sabbath were exempted from those points of the Law of Moses.  See also Mark 2:23-28, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath”.  Thus, caregivers cannot simply refuse to give care on the Sabbath–the sick must be cared for, children must eat, if an ox falls in the mire it must be pulled out (see Luke 14:1-6, but don’t kick it in first), if someone vomits it must be cleaned up . . .

7.  The Sabbath is a day for doing good.  Matthew 12:9-13.  Jesus was teaching in the synagogue, and there was a man with a withered hand.  People watched him to see if he would heal the man on the Sabbath–looking for a way to fault him.  Jesus said, if any of you have a sheep that falls in a pit on the Sabbath, you would pull it out–how much more is a man worth than a sheep?  “Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.”  Another time there was a woman whose body was bowed–for 18 years she could not stand up straight.  When Jesus healed her on the Sabbath, “the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation” that she should have come to be healed on a day other than the Sabbath.  Jesus pointed out that they all would lead their livestock to water on the Sabbath, “And ought not this woman, being a daughter [descendant] of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?” Luke 13:11-17; see also John 5:1-18 a man healed on the Sabbath, and John 9 a man blind from birth healed–notice the two different ways these two men reacted to the adversarial questions of ecclesiatical leaders of the day.