The Sabbath Day

What day do you worship? What day do you attend religious services? Is it the day God asked to be remembered and kept holy? If you would spend a day to set aside for God, would you rather obey God or another man's reasoning?

1. What is Sabbath?

2. Why did God rest?

3. Why did God give a rest day as a commandment?

4. Are there different kinds of it?

5. What do we gain from it?

6. Is it still binding?

7. Sabbath in the future.

What is the Sabbath Day?

The Day of Rest.

After six creative days, God rested on the seventh and blessed it.

1 And so the whole universe was completed. 2 By the seventh day God finished what he had been doing and stopped working. 3 He blessed the seventh day and set it apart as a special day, because by that day he had completed his creation and stopped working.- Genesis 2:1-3

Thus, Sabbath day was instituted by God, with Him as the first keeper.

Why Would an All Powerful God Rest?

God is all powerful. Therefore, He rested not because He needed it. By resting and letting His prophets write about it, He shows that our existence have other purpose. That our ability to "create" and produce should be balanced by our ability to stop.

He instituted the day of rest so that the man which is created in His image would have the reason to appreciate it more. Seeing that an all powerful God rested inspite of not getting tired nor running out of energy or power, so much so, a limited man should.

God rested His creative activity, although in that period of time, He could make a lot of new things into existence! It is to give a very good example to man that stopping and pausing in our daily lives is not bad, nor a waste of precious time.

By pausing, by stopping altogether every kind of creative activity during the rest day, God can instill in our consciousness the wonderful prospect of eternity. That existing and living forever is something worthwhile to aim for.

God rested to instill to man the correct viewpoint that the Creator is always more important than the created. And that when man himself starts to be creative in his life, he should never forget his own importance over whatever endeavor he may decide to undertake, that no matter what material value was placed on such activity, man, the creator of that activity have to pause and contemplate, to realize that it is he that matters over anything he is currently doing.

Therefore, God rested for our benefit. He instituted Sabbath to teach us His unfathomable wisdom of existence. He rested to let us have the chance to know ourselves and Him who created us.

Why Make Keeping the Sabbath a Commandment?

8 "Observe the Sabbath and keep it holy.- Exodus 20:8

This the clear commandment about Sabbath, to remember the seventh day and keep it holy.

What does this accomplish?

Why did God make His day of rest a commandment?

Here is the clue:

27 So God created human beings, making them to be like himself. He created them male and female, - Genesis 1:27

God created human beings like Himself. It follows that if God rested on a Sabbath, man should likewise rest. We have to remember Sabbath and keep it holy so that we can maintain our likeness to our Creator. It will keep us holy, and it will maintain our close connection with our Creator.

By remembering Sabbath, we recall God Himself who commanded it. By remembering that day when He rested, we would also remember the days of creation that lead to it, thus we remember why we have to be grateful to Him, who for being generous have given everything we need to have a fully enjoyable existence.

We also recall that God in all His power and creative nature, have stopped, paused and enjoyed His creation. Leading us too, in reflection of what have we accomplished in our lives, savor them and give thanks to God who have provided us the life, the ability to do many things and the chance to enjoy what we have done so far.

In celebration of Sabbath, we acknowledge God. That our lives and our abilities are His, that when He asks us to stop, we should respectfully do so, for in reality, without His permission, there is totally nothing that we can do ourselves. Remembering Sabbath is a sign of our humility and gratitude.

Thus "remembering" Sabbath should have a very deep impact in our consciousness.

Now how do we keep it holy?

Holy means being set aside for a special purpose- which in reference to YHWH, that purpose is the use of this particular day in remembering Him. In worship of God. In learning more about His ways. His works, His plans and how can we improve on doing that in our daily lives.

So what should we do in Sabbath?

We can stop all our work for financial gains. Instead, we can do activities that makes us closer to God. We can do these with our family.

We can spend Sabbath days, learning more about YHWH. Talking about Him with each other, and appreciating the things He have done so far and the things He revealed that He will do in the future. We can spend it appreciating nature, and other God's creation in order to see how great our God is.

What Kinds of Sabbaths are There?

There are several kinds of Sabbath days.

• The seventh day sabbath. Exodus 20:8

• The 15th of Nisan or the 1st day of the week of the feast of unleavened bread (Regardless of the day of the week that it will fall). - Leviticus 23:7, Numbers 28:17-18

• The 21st of Nisan or the 7th day of the week of the festival of unleavened bread (Regardless of the day of the week that it will fall). - Exodus 12:18, 13:6, Leviticus 23:8, Numbers 28:25

• Feast of the Pentecost - Occurs 50 days after the day of first fruits / barley sheaf waving (50 days after Christ's Resurrection, regardless of the day of the week that it will fall) Also called Feast of Weeks - Exodus 34:22

• Trumpets (Rosh Ha-shanah) The 1st day of the 7th month (Ethanim / Tishri) (Regardless of the day of the week that it will fall) - Leviticus 23:24, Numbers 29:1

• Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) The 10th day of the 7th month (Ethanim / Tishri) a day of fasting (Regardless of the day of the week that it will fall) - Leviticus 23:27, Numbers 29:7, Leviticus 16

• Feast of the Tabernacles (Sukkoth) - The first day is the 15th day of the 7th month (Ethanim / Tishri) (Regardless of the day of the week that it will fall) - Exodus 34:22, Leviticus 23:34-36, 39-43, Numbers 29:12

• The 8th day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Shemini Atzeret) 22nd day of the seventh month. (Ethanim/Tishri) (Regardless of the day of the week that it will fall)- Leviticus 23:36,39, Numbers 29:35

So there are 7 special Sabbaths to celebrate aside from the weekly seventh day Sabbaths.

These Sabbath days can fall in any day of the week.

There are also Sabbath years.

• Seventh Years

• Jubilee Years (50th year)

What Are Our Benefits in Keeping Sabbath

What are the benefits of Sabbath to mankind? Sabbath is rest. With remembering and keeping them, humankind will have a rest from various kinds of human preoccupations. Spiritual, physical, emotional and financial. With it, we remember how special we are in God's sight being made in His likeness, and commanded to do as He does. Rest on the Sabbath.

The various kinds of Sabbaths that God have put in place afforded mankind the means of balancing daily life. Our bodies are not pushed to the limit of physical exhaustion because of trying to keep earning 7 days a week, the whole year round. Our minds are put at ease by remembering that our existence and sustenance does not really depend on our limited ability, but in fact are God's loving provision. With Sabbath, our spiritual need is being filled, a need that we may deny but it is always there as a built-in aspect of our humanity. As Christ has said, we don't live because of bread alone, but also because of every will/word of God. (Matthew 4:4) and finally Sabbaths were designed to maintain financial balance among God's covenant people.

Sabbath years which occurs every seven years, gave the poorest members of the Jewish community the chance to gather produce from the land. While the land have the chance to replenish its soil nutrients, ensuring bountiful harvest.

If the last is not clear to you, this is how Sabbath accomplish that. Every Jubilee Sabbath year, all sold land will be returned to the original tribe owners, all debts cancelled, all Jews who have been sold or enslaved by other Jews due to debts will be released, unconditionally. Because of this, no Jewish family will be forever poor or forever enslaved.

These Sabbatical years and Jubilees reminded the chosen people that, whatever we are enjoying in this life is God given, that He decide how we should use the land and when not to use the land. Those Sabbaths control man from being greedy by continually squeezing the land to the last drop it can provide. While at the same time, it showed compassion to those people who fell to slavery because of financial hardship.

And Sabbaths make us in tune with God's timetable. If man have kept remembering the weekly and yearly Sabbaths from the days of Adam and Eve, we will know exactly when our liberation from evil will occur. Because almost all High Sabbaths are closely tied to God's own plan of action with regards to mankind.

Lastly and most important of all, Sabbath keeping shows that we belong to God as His chosen people, it is a proof that we are in sacred covenant with Him, awaiting the promise of our God.

12 The Lord commanded Moses 13 to tell the people of Israel, "Keep the Sabbath, my day of rest, because it is a sign between you and me for all time to come, to show that I, the Lord, have made you my own people. 14 You must keep the day of rest, because it is sacred. Whoever does not keep it, but works on that day, is to be put to death. - Exodus 31:12-14

Is It Still Binding?

Like all other laws of God, Sabbath commandments will forever be binding. Even if someone insist that the Ten Commandments are given only to the covenant people, Sabbath institution precedes that.

Actually, humankind should always want to celebrate Sabbaths. Because Sabbaths are for our own benefits. Like what have been discussed above. It provide us many things that will be hard any other way.

God's promised freedom from existing evil in our time is connected with the Sabbath Jubilee, and like the Israel of old, our debts(sins), our sold properties(lost eternal life) and our enslavement(death and old age bondage) will be cancelled and God's glorious covenant people will once again be free!

Therefore, all God's Sabbaths are wonderful topics to learn and appreciate, they will help us immensely in understanding the flow of time that we live in and will give us the proof that we are putting faith in God's unfailing promise. Because God is the perfect time keeper and His will is perfect.

Therefore, if we are God-fearing and would happily spend a day for God, we would do well not to waste that day and offend God by deciding any other day than what He commanded. Remember Sabbath and keep it holy.