Shabbat Shalom…. Sabbath Rest

 

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host 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: 

Genesis 2:1-3

 

If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuingyour affairs oh My holy day; If you call the Sabbath “delight, “The Lord’s holy day“honored;”And if you honor it and go not your ways nor look to your affairs,nor strike bargains –Then you can seek the favor of the Lord. I will set you astride the

heights of the earth, and let you enjoy the heritage of your father Jacob –for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.Isaiah 58:13-14 Tanakh the Jewish Bible

God’s True Day of Rest and Delight!

I invite you to give the Sabbath a try, as the Lord God intended you to do — as a day of delight, of peace, of family, of rest. Bring some clarity back into your life, some rest from all the chaos.  Enjoy God’s holy day as an extended period of time wherein you can “have a date with God,” get to know Him better, gently concentrate on Him and everything good. Think of it, a whole day to bask in God’s grace, to soak in His love — a precious barrier against the day-to-day worries and fears of this dark world we live in.

Take your time in getting to know Him — the Sabbath is all about time, and how you use it, a gift from God to you. Give the Sabbath a try. It sure can’t hurt! Ater all is said and done, what IS more important to you, what God wants and asks, or what you have learned through the tradition of men? Think about it. Let it be between YOU and GOD (that’s what the Sabbath is all about, from the beginning to the end, throughout the Bible), come before God and talk to Him about it — you don’t have to tell me or any other person. Have a special date with God, it sure can’t hurt you!

The Sabbath begins every Friday evening at sunset, and carries through bissfully until Saturday evening at sunset (this is the way God set up time to work, the first part of the day is evening, night, followed by day). This is the Biblical plan that God gave us, as a free gift, for our benefit. God instituted the plan of “every Seventh day,” not a people-generated “one out of seven days.” Look at your calendar. Sunday is the first day of the week, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead (think about it, if you KNOW which day Jesus rose from the dead, a day the Bible designates as the FIRST, then you logically know which day is the SEVENTH), and Saturday is the seventh, the day that Jesus kept faithfully, as was His custom, God’s holy day — God does not change.

Pay attention to God, He is holy, as is His holy day, the Sabbath. Think about it, the Sabbath was God’s “day” before He ever gave it to us. The Sabbath existed before sin entered the world, the Sabbath existed before the Ten Commandments were written upon stone by God’s own finger, the Sabbath will exist in the last days of earth AND in heaven. God gave the Sabbath to us, as a gift, the Sabbath was made for man, all mankind, throughout eternity. The Sabbath is YOURS today, as well as mine, it is a free gift, given to you by God Himself.

Not only is it the Jewish Sabbath…

…and not only is it the Christian Sabbath…

…It is God’s Sabbath.

 

 

The article above is from: http://www.truthseek.net/sabbath.html

 

Please take some time and read all they have about the sabbath. Be you a Jew or Christian…. the Sabbath is the same it is God’s day of rest.

because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.

Sabbath Memories

 

“Dear is the Sabbath morn to me,
When village bells awake the day,
And with their holy minstrelsy
Call me from earthly cares away.

“And dear to me the winged hour,
Spent in your hallowed courts,
O Lord, to feel devotion’s soothing power,
And catch the manna of Your Word.

“And dear to me the loud ‘Amen;’
That echoes through the blest abode—
That swells, and sinks, and swells again,
Dies on the ear—but lives to God.

“Often when the world, with iron hand,
Has bound me in its six days’ chain,
This bursts them, like a strong man’s band,
And bade my spirit live again.”

David instructed Zadok to take the Ark of God back into the city. “If the Lord sees fit,” David said, “he will bring me back to see the Ark and the Tabernacle again.” 2 Samuel 15:25

“When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day.”—Verse 4.

We always commiserate those who have seen better days. Poverty, indeed, under any form, appeals with irresistible power to the sympathies of our better nature. The most heartless and indifferent cannot refuse the tribute of pity to the ragged beggar shivering on the street, or seated in his hovel by the ashes of a spent fire, brooding over a wretched past, with the grim spectral forms of poverty hovering over a miserable future.

Sad, however, as the condition of such may be, the force of habit, in one sense, may have become to that squalid pauper a second nature. He may never have known a more prosperous state. He may have been accustomed from his earliest years to buffet life’s wintry storm. Chill poverty may have rocked his cradle, and ever since sung her crude lullaby over his pallet of straw. Far more is to be pitied the case of those who have sunk from comfort into indigence, around whose early home no bleak winds of adversity ever blew, who were once pillowed in the lap of plenty if not of luxury, but who, by some sudden wave of calamity, have become wrecked on life’s desert shore. If there be one being on God’s earth more to be pitied than another, it is the mother of a once joyous home, turned adrift, in the hour of her widowhood, with her ragged children—forced to beg, from door to door, to escape the jaws of hungry famine—ill disguising, under her heap of squalid rags or her trembling notes of sorrow and despair, the story of brighter days.

Similar is the commiseration we extend (let the shores of this Refuge Island of ours bear testimony) to the hapless patriot or the fallen monarch. These may have been hurled from positions of influence or pinnacles of glory more by their crimes than by their misfortunes. The revolutionary wave that swept them from their country or their thrones may have been a just retribution for misrule; but it is their hour of adversity! They have seen better and more auspicious times. Pity for the fallen knocks, and never knocks in vain, at the heart of a great nation’s sympathies.

Such was David’s position at this time. Denied the sympathy of others, his own soul is filled with recollections of a far different past. The monarch of Israel, the beloved of God, the idol of his people; now a fugitive from his capital—his palace sacked—his crown dishonored—wandering in ignoble exile—a wreck of vanished glory!

But it is not these features of his humiliating fall on which his mind mainly dwells. It is not the thought of his scepter wrested from his grasp—his army in mutiny—his royal residence a den of traitors that fills his soul with most poignant sorrow. He is an exile from the House of God! The joy of his old Sabbaths is for the time suspended and forfeited. No more is the sound of silver trumpets heard summoning the tribes to the new moons and solemn feast-days! No more does he behold, in thought, the slopes of Olivet studded with pilgrim tents or made vocal with “songs in the night!” No more does he see the triumphant procession wending up the hill of Zion—timbrel and pipe and lute and voice celebrating in glad accord the high praises of God—”the singers in front, and the players on instruments behind,”—he himself, harp in hand, (the true father of his people,) leading the jubilant chorus, and Jehovah commanding upon all “the blessing, even life for evermore!”

How changed! To this Sabbath-loving and Sabbath-keeping King nothing but the memory of these remained. “When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day.”

Jerusalem was the pride and glory of the Jew. Wherever he went, he turned to it as to his best and fondest home. The windows of Daniel’s chamber were “open towards Jerusalem.” With his eye in the direction of the holy city, “he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.” (Dan. 6:10.) Jonah was in the strangest of prisons. “The depths closed round about him, the weeds were wrapped about his head, and the earth with its iron bars.” From “the belly of hell” he sent up his cry to God. “I am cast out of your sight, yet I will look again toward your HOLY TEMPLE.” (Jonah 2:2.) Captive Israel are seated, in mute despondency, by the willowed banks of the streams of Babylon. The Euphrates (an ocean river compared with the tiny streams of Palestine) rolled past them. The city of the hundred gates rose, like a dream of giant glory, before their view, with its colossal walls, and towers, and hanging gardens. Yet what were they in the eyes of these exile spectators? Shadows of greatness in comparison with the city and temple of their fathers amid the hills of Judah! When their oppressors demanded of them a Hebrew melody, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion,” they answered, through hot tears of sorrowful remembrance, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” (Ps. 137:4.) So it was with David now. As a bird taken from its home in the forest and placed in a cage, refuses to warble a joyous note—beats its plumage against the enclosing bars, and struggles to get free—so he seems to long for wings that he may flee away to the hallowed eaves of the sanctuary, and be at rest!

He himself, indeed, uses a similar figure. He tells us, in another Psalm, written on this same occasion, that so blessed did he feel those to be who enjoyed the privilege of “dwelling in God’s house,” and so ardent was his longing to participate in their joy, that he half-envied the swallows who constructed their nests upon its roof. (Psalm 84.) He was not without his solaces in this season of reverse and calamity. He had many faithful adherents still clinging to him in his adversity. The best and bravest chieftains from the tribes on the other side of the Jordan supplied his drooping followers with the produce of their rich pasture lands. “When David arrived at Mahanaim, he was warmly greeted by Shobi son of Nahash of Rabbah, an Ammonite, and by Makir son of Ammiel of Lo-debar, and by Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim. They brought sleeping mats, cooking pots, serving bowls, wheat and barley flour, roasted grain, beans, lentils, honey, butter, sheep, and cheese for David and those who were with him. For they said, “You must all be very tired and hungry and thirsty after your long march through the wilderness.” (2 Samuel 17:27-29.)

Glorious, too, was Nature’s temple around him. Its pillars the mountains—the rocks its altar—the balmy air its incense—the range of Lebanon, rising like a holy of holies, with its reverend curtain of mist and cloud, and snowy Hermon towering in solemn grandeur above all, as the very throne of God! Yet what were these compared with JERUSALEM, the place of sacrifice, the resting-place of the Shekinah-glory, the city of solemnities, “where the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord?” (Ps. 122:4.)

This wounded Deer pants for the water-brooks of Zion; Nature’s outer sanctuary had no glory to him, “by reason of the glory that excels.” The God who dwells between the cherubim had “chosen Zion, and desired it for His habitation,” saying, “This is my rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.” (Ps. 132:13,14.) With the windows of his soul, like Daniel, thrown “open towards Jerusalem,” and his inner eye wistfully straining to its sunny heights, his ear catching the cadence of its festive throng, he seems to say, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember you, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.” (Ps. 137:5, 6.)

Do we prize the blessing of our Sabbaths and our sanctuaries? can we say, with somewhat of the emphasis of this expatriated King—“ONE thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple?” Alas! when we are living in the enjoyment of blessings, too true it is that we have seldom a vivid sense of their value. He who is born in a free country, to whom slavery and oppression are strange words, seldom realizes the priceless boon of liberty. But let him suddenly be made the victim of tyrant thraldom; let him feel the irons loading his body, or the worse than material shackles fettering liberty of thought and action, and how will the strains of freedom fall like heavenly music on his ear! When we are in the enjoyment of health and strength, how little do we prize the boon. But let us be laid on a bed of languishing; let the sick lamp flicker for weeks by the sleepless pillow; let the frame be so shattered that even the light tread of loving footsteps across the room quickens the beat of the throbbing brow. In waking visions of these lonely night-watches, how does the day of elastic vigor and unbroken health rise before us! how do we reproach ourselves that the boon was so long ungratefully forgotten and unworthily requited! A parent little knows the strength of the tie which binds him to his child during the brief loan of a loved existence. He gets habituated to the winning ways, and loving words, and constant companionship. He comes to regard that little life as part of himself. He does not fully realize the blessing, because he has never dreamt of the possibility of its removal. But when the startling blow comes—when death, in an unexpected moment, has severed the tie—when his eye lights on the empty chair or the unused toy, when the joyous footfall and artless prattling are heard no more—then comes he to gauge all the depth and intensity of his affection, and to feel how tenderly (too tenderly!) that idol was enshrined in his heart of hearts!

So it is with religious privileges. In such a land as our own, in which, from our earliest infancy, we have been accustomed to a hallowed Sabbath, an open sanctuary, an unclasped and unforbidden Bible, we do not fully estimate the priceless value of the spiritual blessings bequeathed to us, because never have we felt the loss or the lack of them. But go to some land of heathenism, where the exiled child of a British Christian home finds neither minister nor House of God. Go to the thousands who have betaken themselves to a voluntary exile amid American forests or Australian pastures. Or go to the lands of apostate Christendom, where the Bible is a sealed book, and religious liberty is an empty name; where souls thirsting for the living stream are compelled to drink from some adulterated cistern. Alas! many in such circumstances are content to sink into a listless indifference; cold and lukewarm at home, they are too ready to lapse into the chill of spiritual death abroad. But there are others who have not so readily obliterated the holiest records of the past. Ask many tired and jaded emigrants, conscious of nobler aspirations than this world can meet, what recollections, more hallowed than others, linger on their spirits? They will tell you it is the memory of the Sabbath rest and the Sabbath sanctuary, when, at the summons of the village bell, mountain and glen and hamlet poured forth their multitudes to the house of God; seated wherein, the burdens and anxieties, the cares and disquietudes of the work-day world were hushed and set aside, and in listening to the words of everlasting life, sorrows were soothed, faith was revived, and hope brightened. “O God,” their cry is, “our flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see Your power and Your glory, so as we have seen You in the sanctuary.” (Psalm 63:1, 2.)

Let us seek to prize our means of grace while we have them. In a country which is the reputed citadel of liberty—where the greatest of all liberty, the liberty of the truth, has been purchased by the blood of our fathers, the time, we trust, with God’s help, may never come when these bulwarks will be overthrown—when our sanctuaries will be closed—our Bibles proscribed—our Sabbaths blotted from the statute-book—and bigotry, in league with rampant infidelity, again forge the chain and rear the dungeon.

But remember, that protracted sickness or disease may at any time overtake us, and debar us from the precious blessings of the public sanctuary. Yes! I say the public sanctuary. God’s appointed ordinances can never be superseded or rendered obsolete by human substitutes. Some may urge that books nowadays are better than any preaching—that the press is more potent and eloquent than any living voice. But church or pulpit is not a thing of man’s device. It is a divine institute. The speaker is an ambassador in his Master’s name, charged with a vast mission from the court of high heaven, and the House of God is the appointed audience-chamber. God does not, indeed, (no, far from it,) forsake “the dwellings of Jacob.” The lowliest cottage-home may become a Bethel, with a ladder of love set between earth and heaven, traversed by ministering angels! The secluded sick-chamber may become a Patmos, bright with manifestations of the Redeemer’s presence and grace! But, nevertheless, “Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary.” The promise remains, “I will make my people joyful in my house of prayer.” It is the solemn “meeting-place”—the pledged ground of covenant intercommunion. “THERE I will meet with you, and commune with you from off my mercy-seat!” “The Lord loves the gates of Zion!” “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, and your tabernacles, O Israel!” (Ex. 25:22; Psalm 87:2; Numb. 24:5.)

Reader, let me ask, How stands it with you? Are you conscious of a reverential regard and attachment to God’s holy place? Does the return of the Sabbath awake in your heart the old melody of this sweet singer of Israel—“This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it?” (Psalm 118:24.) Do you go to the solemn assembly, not to hear the messenger but the message—not to pay homage to a piece of dust, (the vilest and most degraded form of idolatry,) but feeling yourself a beggar in the sight of God, with a soul to save, and an eternity to provide for? Do you approach it as the place of prayer, over which the cloud hovers laden with spiritual blessings? Do you go to it as “the house of God,” seeking fellowship and communion with the Father of spirits; desiring that all its services—its devotions, and praises, and exhortations—may become hallowed magnets, drawing you nearer and binding you closer to the mercy-seat?

Oh, let not the blessings of Sabbath privileges degenerate into an empty form, the mere pageant of custom. Let the Sabbath hours be sacredly kept. Let their lessons be sacredly treasured. Let their close find you a Sabbath-day’s journey nearer heaven. Let their hallowed fragrance follow you through the week. Let them be landmarks in the pilgrimage; towering behind you the further you go—like Alp piled on Alp, flushed with roseate light, guiding and cheering you when low down in the valleys of trial and sorrow, and when called to descend the last and gloomiest Valley of all.

David is mourning, in the words which have given rise to these thoughts, over his altered Sabbath joys. It may be there are some reading these pages, who, though they know nothing like him of literal exile and banishment from the sanctuary, may yet be able painfully to participate in his feelings! They are seated, Sabbath after Sabbath, in their pews; their Bibles are in their hands—the living words of the preacher are sounding in their ears; but their experience may be best interpreted by the language of the Christian poet—

“Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?

“How blest the hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.”

Memory can travel back on Sabbaths and communion seasons when a sunshine of holy joy irradiated their spirits; when their Sabbath was one hallowed Emmaus journey—they, during its sanctuary-hours, traveling side by side with Jesus, and He causing their hearts, as He did those of the disciples of old, to “burn within them.” They were used to come and depart, saying, “This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” Now they feel that all is sorrowfully altered. They have comparatively no joy, as once they had, when the Sabbath morning dawns. When they seat themselves in church, there is no fervor in their praises—no earnestness in their prayers—no childlike teachableness in hearing. There is more criticizing of the preacher than worshiping God. There is no living flame on the heart-altar; their befitting exclamation is that of the prophet, “My leanness! my leanness!” They are ready, in the bitterness of their spirits, to say, “When I remember these things, my soul is poured out within me.”

Sad it is to have no food; but sad, too, when we have food and cannot enjoy it! Sad it is, as exiles in a strange land, to have no Sabbath-gates flung open to us, and no Sabbath-bells to welcome the day of God; but sadder still to have these solemn chimes within hearing—to have our sanctuaries open, and faithful ministers proclaiming the words of eternal life, and yet to listen with the adder’s ear—to listen as the dead in our churchyards listen to the tears and laments of the living!

What should be done in such a case as this? Trace the muddy and turgid stream to its source. Discover what earthly clouds are dimming the spiritual skies, and hiding the shinings of the Divine countenance. Sin, in some shape or other, must be the noxious cause. It may be some positive and persevered-in transgression; indulgence in which, shuts up the avenues of prayer, and denies all access to the mercy-seat. Or it may be some no less culpable sin of omission. That mercy-seat may have become unfrequented; the overgrown grass may be waving over its once beaten foot-road; the altar-fire languishing in the closet, must necessarily languish in the sanctuary too. How can the House of God be now fragrant with blessing, if the life is spent in guilty estrangement from Him? Religion cannot be worn as a Sabbath garment, if garments soiled with sin be worn throughout the week.

Self-exile from the joys of the sanctuary! return henceforth to God. If it be positive sin which is marring former blessedness, cast out the troubler in Israel. If it be duties omitted, or perfunctorily discharged, return to former earnest-mindedness. Cultivate more filial nearness to the Hearer of prayer. Seek, on your bended knees, to obtain more tenderness of conscience regarding sin—to have more longing aspirations after the beauties of holiness.

And delay not the return. By doing so, the growing languor and listlessness which is creeping over you, may settle into positive disrelish of God’s house. Imitate the example of the Spouse in the Canticles, who, in mourning over similar spiritual declension, resolves on an instantaneous seeking of the forfeited presence of her Lord. “Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you make your flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of your companions?” (Song. 1:7.) Go with the words which this exile of Gilead employs in the sequel to this Psalm, written on the same occasion—“O send out Your light and Your truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Your holy hill, and to Your tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy.” (Psalm 43:3, 4.)

Yes! go, and prove what the God of the sanctuary can do in the fulfillment of His own promise. He seems now to be saying, “Put me to the test.” “Prove me now herewith, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” (Mal. 3:10.) Every church is a Peniel, where God meets His people, as He met the patriarch of old at the brook Jabbok. Go and see what may be effected by one lowly, humble, seeking soul—some wrestling Jacob, who, like “a Prince,” has “power with God, and prevails!” The lowliest tabernacle on earth is glorified as being the House of God—the dwelling-place of Omnipotence and Love—the hallowed “home,” where a loving Father waits to dispense to His children the garnered riches of His grace! The time may come when the holy and beautiful sanctuary where we worship may become a heap of ruins. The fire may lay it in ashes—the hand of man may demolish it—the slower but surer hand of time may corrode its walls and crumble its solid masonry stone by stone; but as sure as it is God’s own appointed treasure-house of spiritual mercies, may we not believe that there will be deathless spirits who will be able to point to it in connection with imperishable memories, “buildings of God,” “eternal in the heavens,” beyond the reach of human violence, and wasting elements, and corroding years! Does not the promise stand unrepealed in this Bible—let it ever be the inscription on our temples of worship,”—“Of ZION it shall be said, This and that man was born in her; and the Highest himself shall establish her. The Lord shall count, when He writes up the people, that this man was born there.” (Psalm 87:5, 6.)

Oh that ours may at last be the blessedness of that better Church above, which knows no banishment, no exile, no languor, no weariness—where “the holy-day” is an eternal Sabbath—the festive throng, “a multitude which no man can number”—the voice of joy and praise, “everlasting songs;”—where God’s absence can never be deplored—where He who now tends His temple-lamps on earth, feeding them day by day with the oil of His grace, removing the rust perpetually gathering over them by reason of their contact with sin, will, with the plenitude of His own presence, supersede all earthly luminaries, and ordinances, and sanctuaries—for “they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign forever and ever!”

Why Do We Worship on Sunday

This question can be embarrassing, can’t it? Why do you worship on Sunday? Doesn’t the Bible say that the seventh day is the time God consecrated for his people? Where does the Bible say that Christians should sanctify the first day of the week, rather than the seventh day?

It’s a good question, you will have to admit. It’s also a question that
needs an answer. So what can be said?

Creation and Redemption

Begin by considering the evidence of the Old Testament. The Sabbath in the Old Testament was not merely a special day that was to be recognized once a week. It had much richer significance. It pointed forward to the future “rest” of redemption that God would accomplish for his people. The Sabbath was not only a reminder of the rest that came after the six days of creation. It also was celebrated because God had delivered his people from slavery in Egypt.

God repeated the law for Moses after Israel had wandered in the wilderness for forty years, just before they entered the land of promise. When God repeated the law that had been given at Sinai, the Ten Commandments were the same. Not one of the original ten commandments had been changed. But another reason for observing the Sabbath was given. At Sinai, God’s people had been
told to keep the Sabbath because God had rested after the six days of
creation (Ex. 20:11; cf. Gen. 2:3). But in Transjordan, God told Israel to
keep the Sabbath in view of their redemption from Egypt (Deut. 5:15). Not only because of creation, but also because of redemption, the people of God were to rest one day in seven.

We know that Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt by the Passover lamb was only a shadow, a prophecy, of the deliverance that would come through the sacrificial death and powerful resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament saints were looking forward to the coming rest from the burdens of sin, just as each week they looked forward to their rest from work on the Sabbath day.

The Promised Land

So when Israel entered the land of their “rest” under Joshua, they marched around Jericho for seven days. Then on the seventh day they marched around the city walls seven times. When they had completed the march around Jericho the seventh time on the seventh day, the walls came tumbling down, and the people of God began to enter their rest in Canaan. The taking of Jericho was a picture of God’s people entering into their Sabbath-rest.

In a similar way, the seventy years of Israel’s captivity pointed toward the “rest” of the redemption that was to come to the Promised Land. For the seventy years of Israel’s captivity in Babylon, the land “was enjoying its sabbath rests” (2 Chron. 36:21).

These Old Testament experiences showed that God’s people were looking forward to the rest, the redemption, that would be accomplished by God’s Messiah one day in the future. They worked six days in the week, looking forward to the rest that they would experience in the future. They looked to the land of promise as the place where they would enter into their rest from all the burdens of life.

A New Perspective

But now redemption has been accomplished. Jesus has come as the fulfillment of prophecy. By his death and resurrection, he has brought his people into their redemptive rest. We look back to the salvation that has been completed through Christ. “It is finished” was his cry from the cross, and so we know that everything has been done for our deliverance from sin, death, and all other evils in this world.

So now the Christian has a new perspective on the “rest” of redemption. For the resurrection of Christ is an event as significant as the creation of the world. By his resurrection, a new order of the universe came into being. A new way of life for man came into existence. The stone was rolled back from the door of Jesus’ tomb to let the disciples in, not to let Jesus out!

Because of his new form of existence in his resurrection body, he could pass through stone walls and locked doors without needing to open them.

The Resurrection of Christ

So it should not be surprising to find the disciples following a new pattern of worship and work. They began their week assembling with the resurrected Christ. Consider carefully the following evidence that the redemption accomplished through Christ’s resurrection determined the day for Christian worship:

1. Jesus Christ arose on the first day of the week (Matt. 28:1). He entered into his rest from labor, not on Saturday (the seventh day), but on Sunday(the first day of the week). As Jesus entered into his rest on the first day, so he encourages us to begin the week by resting in the confidence that he will provide for all our needs for seven days with only six days of labor.

2. Jesus Christ appeared to his assembled disciples on the first day of the week, as well as to Mary and to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus(John 20:10; Luke 24:13). By these appearances on the first day of the week,the resurrected Lord set a pattern for meeting with his disciples. Theybegan expecting to meet with him on the day of his resurrection, which is the first day of the week.

3. Jesus appeared to the assembled disciples one week later on the first day of the week, with doubting Thomas present this time (John 20:26). Already a new pattern of assembly for worship was emerging. God’s new covenant people were making it a habit to assemble together on the first day of the week,
the day of Christ’s resurrection. Jesus honored these assemblies by
appearing to the disciples at this time, and encouraged their faith in him
as the resurrected Lord.

4. The resurrected Christ poured out his Spirit on the assembled disciples exactly fifty days after the Sabbath of the Jewish Passover, which was the first day of the week (Acts 2:1; cf. Lev. 23:15-16). The word Pentecost means “fifty,” referring to the fifty days after the Sabbath of the Passover. Forty-nine days would span seven Jewish Sabbaths or Saturdays, and the fiftieth day would then fall on a Sunday, the first day of the week. So it would appear that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit came on the first day of the week, when God’s new covenant people were assembled for worship. So
the pattern would be established more firmly. Both the resurrection of
Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit occurred on the first day of the
week.

5. As Paul spread the gospel of Christ among Jews and Gentiles throughout the world, the first day of the week was used as the time for Christians to assemble for worship. In Greece, Paul and Luke assembled with the people of God to break bread and to hear the preaching of God’s word on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7). This was the day that the people of the new covenant assembled to hear God’s word.

6. Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth to establish the pattern for
their presenting of offerings for the service of the Lord. He ordered the
Christians in Corinth to follow the pattern that had already been set with the churches in Galatia (1 Cor. 16:1). On the first day of every week they were to consecrate their offerings to the Lord (1 Cor. 16:2). This schedule for honoring the Lord had become the pattern for God’s people throughout the churches. The churches were not to present their offerings any time they
wished. Rather, on the first day of each week, all the Corinthian Christians were to follow the pattern that had already been set among the Galatian churches. The first day of the week was the designated time for the presentation of offerings to the Lord.

The Lord’s Day

7. The apostle John, now aged and perhaps the only living member of the original twelve apostles, had been banished to the island of Patmos. In this circumstance, he could not assemble for worship with the people of God. But the apostle informs us that “on the Lord’s Day” he was “in the Spirit” (Rev.1:10). The significance of his being “in the Spirit” seems quite clear. He had entered into the presence of the Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit, and was offering his adoration to him.

But what is the meaning of the phrase “on the Lord’s Day”? In one sense, it may be said that every day of the week belongs to the Lord, and so might be called the “Lord’s day.” But John is referring to something more specific. He does not speak merely of “a” day that has been consecrated to the Lord. Instead he speaks of “the” Lord’s Day.

That one day that may be called “the Lord’s Day” was the day in which he proved to the world that he was Lord. On one particular day, Jesus made the universe understand that he was Lord of all. That day was the day of his resurrection. On that day, he conquered the last of the sinner’s enemies, which is death. On the first day of the week, he showed that his power could overcome all enemies, even death itself. That day is “the Lord’s Day.” So by the end of the lifetime of the first apostles, Christians knew abouy one day of the week that was called “the Lord’s Day.” On that day, they celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That day became the time for their assembly as they rejoiced in the resurrection of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Honoring God
So it is the same today. The original commandment to honor God by worship one day in seven still holds, since this requirement was a part of the Ten Words laying down the moral standards of God for men. One day in seven must be consecrated for worship and service to him. Both creation and redemption show that God must be honored in this way.

From the creation of the world until the coming of Christ, that day was the last day of the week. People in the days of the Old Testament were looking forward to the rest that the Savior would bring.
But now Christ has come. He has risen victoriously over all his enemies.
This victory he won on the first day of the week. On this day he meets with his disciples as they assemble to commune with him.
So we are to celebrate the rest he has won for us. We are to taste and
anticipate his rest by offering our worship on the first day of the week.
For it is the only pattern demonstrated in the Scriptures of the new
covenant for the worship of God’s people today.

O. Palmer Robertson
The author has served as a pastor and a seminary professor. Presently he teaches at African Bible College in Malawi and Knox Theological Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Reprinted from New Horizons, March 2003.

HOW TO SPEND A PROFITABLE SABBATH

(Editor’s note. Though I do not believe that New Covenant Christians are under obligation to keep the Old Covenant Sabbath, I have found the following article to be filled with practical and profitable counsel.)

My dear friends,
The design of the present address is to direct you, “How to Spend a Profitable Sabbath.” How rich a boon has celestial mercy bestowed upon our laboring, toil-worn world in the way of sacred rest. What would we do, as regards either body or soul, without the Sabbath, to invigorate the impaired energies of the one, and recruit the weakened piety of the other? If the man of wealth and leisure, whose time is all his own, to spend it, if it pleases him so to do, in reading, meditation, and prayer, feels little need of such a season of repose—not so the tradesman, the servant, and the laborer. How sweet to them, as Saturday evening is closing upon them, and all the weariness of six days’ labor is pressing them down, is the reflection, “Tomorrow is the sabbath of the Lord.” There is no need to prove to them by elaborate argumentation, that the sabbath is of perpetual obligation, for they cannot persuade themselves that He who has loved them in Christ Jesus, would have left them without such an opportunity as this affords, in their scene of toil, to dwell upon his love, and enjoy it. And hence, and often as the season comes round, they meet its very dawn with the words of Watts—

“Welcome sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arise—
Welcome to this reviving breast,
And these rejoicing eyes.”

The various mental associations, equally serene and delightful—the hallowed pleasures—the recollections and anticipations—the pure immortal hopes—the rapt exercises of devotion, which, like the day-spring from on high, bless the passing hours of the Sabbath, and render it the best type of heaven itself, make it a blessing to the child of God, which he would not part with for ten thousand times the gain he could acquire by devoting it to business and to wealth—and his heart would claim it as a privilege to keep holy the Sabbath day, even if his conscience did not dictate it as a duty.

If, my dear friends, you would keep up the power of godliness in your souls, if you would live by faith upon the Son of God, if you would overcome the world and set your affections upon things above—spend well your sabbaths! These are the days of the soul’s gains; her golden seasons for growing rich, in all that constitutes spiritual prosperity; her times, not only for the enjoyment of devotion, but for gaining new light to guide the conscience, and fresh strength to invigorate all her religious and moral principles. Religion would retire from the world with the sabbath, and would be feeble and sickly in the church, if, indeed, it could live even there, without the aids of this holy day.

But how may our Sabbaths be made profitable and pleasant to us?

1. By a deep impression of their inestimable value, and a great concern to spend them well. That which we esteem of no consequence, we shall be at no trouble to apply to any useful purpose. The first way, then, to spend a profitable sabbath, is real solicitude to do so. And are you destitute of this? Taken up as you are with the cares, labors, and anxieties of the world; urged by incessant demands upon your time; distracted by various claims upon your attention by objects all around you, and worn down by labor day after day, until, if you were not too busy, you are too weary to meditate on things unseen and eternal; ought you not to be anxious about the improvement of your sabbaths? Ought you not to be full of desire that these days may be well spent? If they are lost to your soul’s interests, nearly all time is lost, and no portion will be well employed for your eternal welfare. Professing Christians are not duly impressed, in general, with the importance of this matter. They complain how much their time and attention are occupied with this world’s business through the week, and yet are not sufficiently impressed with the necessity and vast importance of spending well their sabbaths.

2. Endeavor, as much as possible, to keep up through the days and business of the week, a spiritual frame of mind. The great obstacle to the profit and pleasure of our sabbaths, is the intrusion of worldly thoughts and anxieties. These are the obscene birds which light upon the sacrifice, and which we find it so difficult to keep or drive away. Why is this? Just because we allow our minds to be so deeply, I may almost say wholly, occupied by earthly pursuits during the six days of labor. It is not safe nor proper to shove out our religion from working-days, and trust entirely for its preservation to the exercises of the sabbath. We cannot easily make so sudden and entire a transition from things secular to things sacred—as to be wholly carnal and worldly up to Saturday night, and then entirely to throw off the world on Sunday morning, and be wholly spiritual through that one day. The day of devotion and the days of labor act and react upon each other; they who would keep up their piety in the week, must be diligent in cultivating it on the sabbath, and they who would successfully cultivate it on the sabbath, must not let it down very low during the days of the week. It is a fatal error, and sad delusion, for a professor to quiet his conscience, when reproaching him for his backslidings of heart, by the answer, “Sunday is coming, when I shall fetch up this lost ground.”

3. It is desirable, where it can be accomplished, to end the business of the week early on Saturday evening; and thus secure a portion of time for reflection and devotional exercises. Unhappily, the modern habits of trade render this all but impossible with many, who are kept hard at work until almost, if not quite, sabbath morning, and then retire to rest so jaded, that they find it difficult to rise early next day for the worship of God. But where time can be commanded, it ought to be, and an extra half-hour or hour spent in the closet on the eve of the sabbath, communing with God, the Bible, and our hearts. It was the custom of the Christians in America, at one time, to begin the sabbath at sunset on Saturday evening. This cannot and need not be done, but they who would enjoy and improve the season of holy rest, should not, if they could help it, drive business or social festivities to a late hour on Saturday evening. That evening ought not to be a visiting time, except it be such visits as would prepare the mind for sabbath occupations. Should a few godly friends in the same neighborhood determine to meet at that time for prayer and Christian communion, this would be not only proper in itself, but a useful method of preparing for the exercises of the sacred day.

4. We must not only abstain from worldly labor on the sabbath, if we would improve it to any spiritual purpose, but from worldly THOUGHTS. When the tradesman closes his shop on Saturday evening, he should lock up in it all his worldly thoughts and anxieties, plans and purposes—nor allow any of them, if possible, to escape, to molest him on the Sabbath. An eminently holy friend of mine who carried on trade in London, and lived in its environs, used to say, he always left his business on Saturday evening on London bridge, to be taken up there again on Monday morning. This is a blessed kind of self-control, and to a considerable extent may be acquired by labor and prayer. Let the tradesman say, and try to give effect to his saying, “I will leave my business in my shop on the eve of the Sabbath, and endeavor to forget on that sacred day that I have a business.” Of course it will require great pains, but if such pains are taken, it may and will be done. Oh, how many turn the house of God into a house of merchandise, and while hearing sermons, or professedly joining in prayer, or receiving the sacramental emblems, are thinking about buying and selling, and reflecting upon the business of the past week, or making arrangements for that of the coming one! How sinful is this in the sight of God, what a detriment to religion, and an injury to the soul!

If you would keep away worldly thoughts, do nothing to produce them. Never open business letters on the Sabbath, nor even have them brought to your hands. It is a great reproach for professing Christians to be seen going to the post office for or with their letters on the sabbath. Do not converse with others about trade and politics on the day of rest, and never touch a newspaper. Such practices turn away the mind from spiritual things, and divert the whole current of its thoughts. There can be no real communion with God, no steadfast beholding the things that are unseen and eternal, if we thus keep the world at our elbow, and place its objects before our eyes.

We must endeavor, as much as possible, to divest ourselves of a secular frame of mind, and put on a holy, serious, and devout one. Not that we should be gloomy and sad—no, while every dream of levity, every trifling disposition, every feeling of unhallowed mirth, is suppressed, and the mind is resolutely and conscientiously directed toward religious truth and duty, the Sabbath, seeing it is a feast and not a fast, and a festival of great and lasting interest, should be a day of cheerful gratitude, and of joyous thanksgiving, as becomes the auspicious season, which the great Spirit of the universe has set apart for receiving the homage of his creatures, and for ratifying his grace to the children of the dust. “It is not for Israel in the hour of hope, in the prospect, yes, the possession of redemption, to hang their harps upon the willows, as if nothing befitted their condition, but silently and in sorrow to listen to the sullen murmurs of the waters of Babylon.” “Rejoice in the Lord. Enter into his gates with thanksgivings, and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name.”

The Christian, always cheerful, should let his joy not only be felt internally, but seen on the sabbath. If he is the head of a family, he should illumine his dwelling on that day especially, with the light of his countenance, and present to his children and his servants, who then have a nearer and better opportunity of observing what kind of man he is, the type of happiness and holiness; the gladsome spectacle of one who, in the passing hours of an earthly sabbath, realizes the emblem and the pledge of “the rest remaining for the people of God.”

5. If we would spend a profitable sabbath, we must not waste “the sweet hours of morning” in slothful indulgence upon our bed. They who sleep away the morning until they have scarcely time to get ready for public worship, can expect no benefit, for they seek none, from the ordinances of God’s house. Early rising is essential to a devotional spirit. If we secure no portion of time for private prayer before breakfast, we can rarely get any through the day. The sabbath is the last day we should allow to be abridged by lengthened slumbers. If, then, you would spend well this holy season, say, as did the Psalmist, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed, I will sing and give praise. Awake, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp; I myself will awake early.” Awake to prayer, reading the Scriptures, and meditation. Arise to seek the favor of God. “His morning smiles bless all the day.” Be found at his footstool wrestling for his grace to come upon your souls in the ordinances of religion. Can he who goes prayerless to the sanctuary expect to be blessed in it? What right or what reason has he to look for favor from the Lord, who will not sacrifice half an hour’s sleep to seek it by prayer? The slothful Christian can no more expect to prosper, than the slothful tradesman. On the other hand, what a rich communication of light, and love, and joy, might he not look for, who rises early to obtain it by supplication, and who always goes from the closet to the sanctuary.

6. If we would gain benefit by the word, we must make our PROFITING the specific object of hearing it preached. By profiting I mean our growth in religious knowledge, affection, and practice; in other words, the increase of our holiness, spirituality, and heavenly-mindedness. In nothing, I believe, are professing Christians more deficient, than in their manner of, and motives for attending the public means of grace. It is painful and humiliating to think how extensively the gratifications of taste, and the pleasure produced by eloquence and oratory, are substituted for the cultivation of the mind in scriptural truth, and the improvement of the heart in Christian excellence. To be pleased—and not to be profited—is the object of the multitude. Hence the question, so often asked of those who have been listening to the solemn truths of salvation and eternity, “Well, how have you been pleased today?” And hence also, the common answer to such an inquiry, “O greatly delighted. It was a most eloquent sermon.” Pleased we may and ought to seek to be, but only as we are profited. Eloquence we may covet and admire; but then it should be the eloquence of truth, and not of mere rhetoric; the eloquence which makes us hate sin, love God, and mortify our corruptions; the eloquence which leaves us neither time nor disposition to praise, or scarcely think of the preacher, but absorbs us in the subject; the eloquence which burns into the very heart and consumes our lusts, and stimulates and strengthens our virtues; the eloquence of the Bible, and not of the schoolbook.

What sabbaths we would spend, if before we left our habitations to take our seats in the house of God, we entered our closet, and, as in the presence of God, solemnly placed such questions as these to our souls, “What is, or should be my object in going to the house of God today? Am I going to be pleased or profited? Is it my wish to hear merely the preacher—or his Master? Is it the manner in which the truth is to he stated, or the matter of the truth itself, that I am anxious to hear? And what is now the state of my soul, and what are my wishes in reference to it? Do I want my lukewarmness to be kindled into the glow of holy love? Do I desire my corruptions to be mortified, and my languishing graces to be revived? Do I seek the conquest and eradication of some besetting sin, and am I prepared to be pleased with any sermon, though destitute of all the attractions of eloquence, that will accomplish this object?”

The Christians who take this view of the end of preaching; who go to hear God’s truth and not mere eloquence; who, while hearing, consider that it is God speaking to them by and through his minister; who pray while they hear, and whose prayer it is, that they might be profited; these are the people who spend not only pleasant but improving sabbaths.

7. Much of the improvement of our sabbaths depends on the state of our minds during what may be called the DEVOTIONAL exercises—the prayers and the singing. If we consider these, as too many do consider them, only supplemental and inferior parts of the service, in which we have little interest, and which require but little attention, we shall not derive much spiritual advantage from the ordinances of God’s house, and the occupations of the day of rest. It is to be feared, that a sinful vagrancy of thought, which they take no pains to check, characterizes the frame of many people during the season of prayer; and that at the very time the cloud of incense is rising before the throne of heaven, their mind is wandering to the very ends of the earth, and instead of communing with God upon the mercy seat, they are conversing with the most trifling—or perhaps, with sinful objects. The prayers, if they are such as should be presented, simple, fervent, devout; and the singing, if it be such as alone ought to be conducted in the house of God, congregational, plain, solemn—have a peculiar adaptation to give intensity to the devout feelings of the heart, and to promote our personal piety; and those people will profit most, who endeavor to enter deeply into all the sentiments and emotions of these parts of the worship of God.

8. In order to spend a profitable sabbath, great care ought to be taken to improve well, the time of travel to and from public worship. It should be our aim, where the matter is within our choice, not to live at too great a distance from the sanctuary; much time is lost, much distraction of mind is produced, much weariness of mind is brought on, by not attending to this, and the mind is prevented by fatigue from enjoying its ordinances, when it reaches the house of God; and by the same cause, from profitable reflection on returning home. We should not allow the impressions produced by public worship, to be effaced by general conversation on our way back to our own homes, or around our own table. On reaching our place of abode we should seek the retirement of the closet, to recall what we have heard; to perpetuate by reflection and meditation, our feelings, convictions, and purposes; and to sanctify all by prayer.

Instead of wishing to indulge our appetite by a warm and plentiful dinner, in the preparation of which we have deprived our servants of their day of rest, we should be content with simple and cold fare, and consider the sabbath as a day rather to feast the mind, than the body. The afternoon should not be spent in lounging over the table and the wine, but partly in meditation and private prayer; partly in catechizing the children; and partly, where it can be enjoyed, in domestic psalmody and thanksgiving. Every family should be a choir, where there is a capacity for vocal music, and, in order to this, it would be desirable that singing should be more cultivated than it is. If, instead of our sons and our daughters being trained to music—merely as a drawing-room accomplishment, and for the purpose of having their simplicity corrupted, and their vanity flattered by showing them off before company—they were trained for domestic harmony in song—to what a holy and happy account might their musical talent and acquirements be turned! What harmony is sweeter—if that of the great congregation be grander—than the dulcet sounds which gladden the habitation of a godly family on the Christian sabbath, when parents and children blend their vocal and instrumental music in the praise of Almighty God, and the Lord Jesus Christ!

9. Before the day quite departs, and sleep drowns in oblivion, or only keeps alive in dreams, the solemn engagements and topics which have filled its fleeting hours—we should be found again in our closets, reviewing the whole, and pouring over all the silent and dewy influence of prayer—this being done, then taking care, as the last duty of the day, as we lay our head upon our pillow, and resign ourselves to slumber, to fall asleep with the petition, “Seal this instruction upon my heart, O God!”

10. One more step should be taken, and that is, to secure a portion of time on the Monday morning before we re-plunge into the business, and labors, and anxieties of the world, to look back on the day that is past, for the double purpose, first, of recalling the views, emotions, and purposes, that were suggested by the services of the sanctuary, and the sabbath; and then, of settling with ourselves a plan for reducing them all to action.

There are one or two classes of Christians, who perhaps may feel that the foregoing remarks are not so applicable to them as to some others, and to whom, therefore, I would now suggest a few hints. Many SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHERS happily know by experience the value of the sabbath, but are in danger of losing something of its enjoyment, and even of its improvement, by the bustle and labors of their office. It is, I am aware, an act of self-denial, and no small sacrifice, to surrender the calm repose of the closet and the sanctuary, for the active, and sometimes harassing duties of the schoolroom and the class. You, my young friends, need great care, lest you lose the profit of the sabbath for yourselves, while you are seeking to render it profitable to others. Rise early in the morning for meditation and prayer, before you go to the scene of your labors. Endeavor to discharge your duties to the children in a spirit of seriousness and prayer. Avoid all trifling conversation with your fellow-teachers. Let the intervals of worship be well employed in retirement, and try as much as possible to keep your attention fixed on the sermon and the prayers in the house of God, even when seated amid your youthful charge. Endeavor, in humble dependence upon the Spirit of God, to be useful—and then, “in watering others, you shall yourselves be watered.”

The POORER MEMBERS of the church demand a little special attention. Be, my dear friends, peculiarly thankful for this short, sweet respite from the curse denounced on fallen man, “In the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread until you return unto the ground.” Enter into God’s merciful provision for your comfort, and do everything to enjoy and improve the season of rest. Let everything necessary to be done for the order, comfort, and cleanliness of the family—be finished on the Saturday evening, and even have the food prepared for the sabbath’s meal. Let not the husband deprive the wife of her day of repose by requiring her to give up her attendance upon public worship, or if detained at home by young children, to endure the additional privation of losing her opportunities of private and solitary devotion, in order to gratify his palate by a warm dinner.

Nor should the husband refuse to take his turn in looking after the house and the young family at home, that his wife may have an opportunity to enjoy the refreshing influence of public worship, and “the communion of saints.” Few people are more to be pitied than the poor mothers of young families, who are united to husbands, who have not tenderness enough to give their wives a share of the sabbatical privilege. Let such women, amid all their privations, keep up the expectation of “the rest that remains for the people of God.”

Yes, heaven is an eternal sabbath. There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. No domestic cares shall follow you there. No family labors or duties shall there detain you from the assembly of the saints. No ungenerous husband shall there hinder you from going to the sanctuary of God. No infirm body shall obstruct your enjoyment, or be a clog upon the spirit that would otherwise mount on the wing of devotion to God its supreme good. Eternity shall roll on, and its repose shall never be broken in upon, by a single sorrow, sin, or labor—your soul shall end its weary pilgrimage, and lie down to rest forever in the presence of God, where there is fullness of joy, and at his right hand where there are pleasures forevermore!

In such manner, my dear friends, we may spend our sabbaths upon earth both pleasantly and profitably—and spend them in the prospect and hope of a heavenly and eternal one, and in preparation for its exalted services, and its complete felicity. The sun of that day shall never set; its holy convocation shall never break up; and its services never know a termination, an interruption, or intermission. “Remember therefore the sabbath day to keep it holy.” “Let its high and sacred character be ever present to your minds, persuaded that it was appointed for no trivial purposes—that if there are benefits of a subordinate nature to be derived from it, such as the respite afforded by it, from the labors of the week, these are not its most noble distinctions; but that it is an institution founded by a mandate of the Deity to secure from oblivion the most momentous facts, and to exist throughout all generations, a memento of the creation of the world by the power of God, and the salvation of man by the death of Christ. Let the day, therefore, which testifies to the world that God is righteous, powerful, and good—and that man is redeemed, and immortal—be spent in a manner correspondent with these stupendous facts!”

By John Angell James, 1846 as found @ www.gracegems.org