A Word about the Sabbath

 

Today I want to share a word about the Sabbath, as I comment on Deuteronomy 5:12-15. This passage reads:

Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work--you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

In the creation account in Genesis, we can see that God did His work of creation in six days, and then He rested on the seventh. If God thought it was good to take a day of rest, so should we! And, if we lay that fact aside, our focal passage for today gives us several other excellent reasons to observe the Sabbath.

First, We Must Realize That This Is A Command:

God is personal, but He is also transcendent. God is love, but he is also just. God is the Sovereign Lord of the Universe; he created it and he created us. He owns the Universe, and He also owns us . . . and, therefore, He gets to tell us what to do. 

Deuteronomy 6:4-6 says: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.” Verse 13 goes on to say: “Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. “

In the New Testament Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love me, keep my commands.”  He also told us in the Great Commission, “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”

Therefore, we know we are to obey God’s commands, including this one: “Observe the Sabbath and keep it Holy.” One way we can love our Lord is obeying him and keeping the Sabbath.

Second, We Must Earn The Sabbath:

Before we enjoy the Sabbath we must work. 

We know that when Adam and Eve sinned, one of the consequences that resulted was that the garden had to be cultivated by the sweat of Adam’s brow. This is not pleasant! I have memories of working in my dad’s garden as a teenager. He always waited until the heat of the day to pick his peas and beans. It was hot and sweaty work.

Work is good, however, and it is affirmed in many places in the Bible. Like in Proverbs 18:19 which says, “He who is slothful in his work is a brother to him who is a great destroyer. The Proverbs 31 woman is also another example of where the Old Testament affirms hard work and productivity.

Likewise, in the New Testament, we also see work being affirmed. In Matthew 10:10 Jesus said that “a laborer is worth his hire,” and Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.”

I once heard Dr. Jim Henry tell a story of the young staff member of his church who had missed several days of work. He asked where he was and was told that he was at home taking care of a sick child so that his wife could go to her job. Dr. Henry made the point that the work the young minister did at the church was important, and that he needed to fulfill his responsibilities to the church the same way that his wife fulfilled her responsibilities to her employer.

Today we have a culture that seeks fame without accomplishment, but Proverbs 22:19 says, “Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before unknown men.” If you want to garner the attention of people who matter, then do your job!

To be balanced, we also must not become workaholics or make work itself something we worship.  In that vein, Ecclesiastes 2:11 says, “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.” But in Colossians 3:23-24, Paul instructed the members of that church who were bondservants in this way: “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.”

The key is in having the right attitude! We must work for God’s glory and for our own blessing as well. In the movie Chariots of Fire, Olympian Eric Liddell is quoted as saying, “When I run, I feel His pleasure!”  When we do our work well, so should we!

Third, We Must Observe The Sabbath:

Observe in this case does not mean to watch, but to take part in. Just like we recognize Federal holidays, we also need to recognize the Sabbath.

What that means is that we are to rest on the Sabbath. And not just us, but also those who work for us and the mechanisms by which we do our work.

God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows how our bodies and minds work. As Psalm 139:13 reminds us, He knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. He knows that we need to work and also that we need to rest.

In the previous centuries, armies marched on foot. 

In WWII some German infantry units marched on foot literally thousands of miles into and then back out of Russia. 

In Korea, the Chinese armies were made up of veterans who had marched the breadth of China during the Communist takeover of that country, and then down into the mountains of Korea. 

Because of modern transportation systems. we don’t know any of this today, but what a smart general knew in those days was that you can’t march an army for day after day without wearing them out. If an army didn’t rest a day every two weeks or so, the amount of distance it could march started to decline. In fact, a “forced march” was when a unit had to march without sufficient rest, and that was only done in an emergency.

Even equipment needs rest. Navy ships will return from a deployment and go right into a maintenance cycle or even into dry-dock. Airplanes are withdrawn from service at regular intervals for maintenance checks and up-grades. Even the lowly family minivan needs its oil changed on a regular basis.

The Bible tells us that Jesus also rested. He would often leave His followers and go off by Himself to pray and recharge. The Scriptures put it this way, “And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.”

Jesus also knew His followers needed rest as we see in Mark 6:31: “And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.”

Vance Havner, a great revival preacher of the last century once quipped; “‘Come ye yourselves apart…, and rest a while’ is a must for every Christian. If you don’t come apart, you will come apart!”

We must observe the Sabbath! Not only is it a command but it is also good for us!

Finally, We Must Separate The Sabbath:

Not only are we to observe the Sabbath, but we are to make it Holy. We often think that Holy means Righteous but to make something Holy means for it to be set apart or separated out for a special purpose. Of course, the special purpose mentioned here is a righteous one. We are to worship the Lord our God on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath is not just a day off. It is a day when we glorify and honor our God. 

Why? Because He deserves it!

God had saved the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. He brought them through the wilderness, feeding them, guiding them, and sustaining them. He fought their battles for them and gave them victory. Finally He brought them into a land flowing with milk and honey. He deserved their praise and worship.

God has saved us out of the slavery of sin. He feeds us and sustains us with His Spirit as we journey through this world which is not our home. He fights our battles for us and He gives us victory over our problems and our hurts. Finally, He will bring us to be with Him in heaven someday, where there will be no more tears and no more sorrows. He deserves our praise and worship.

Not only does God deserve our worship, we must know that we were made to worship. We were made to worship Him, but we often substitute other, false Gods for our devotion. 

God, of course, knows this. That’s why the first Commandment says, “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.”

That’s also why Deuteronomy 6:4-6 says: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.”

We need to worship. We yearn to worship, and we need to worship God on the Sabbath.

So Why Do We Need To Keep The Sabbath? Because It’s Good!

It’s good to obey God.

It’s good to rest and recover.

It’s good to worship God.

So how do you treat the Sabbath? Is it optional to you? Is it important? Are you using it the way God intended it? 

Every blessing,

Dr. Otis Corbttt