Friends of the Sabbath Conference
Brisbane, Australia 6 April 1997
The Sabbath and the Gospel
Sermon by David Hill
Introduction
I don't know what happens in your church but in our group we are sometimes torn between our desire to preach the gospel to those outside the church and our desire to see our fellow brethren come to the knowledge of the Sabbath. We don't seem to be able to mix the two together too well and sometimes we concentrate on one to the detriment of the other. My topic today is "the Sabbath and the Gospel". I know that some of you may be thinking that the two are quite unrelated. And I want to state from the outset that keeping the Sabbath is something that a person does because of his or her salvation not something that a person does in order to attain that salvation. However, today I want to show you that the Sabbath and the Gospel are more closely linked that what you may have perhaps thought. It is perhaps strange to some that we come to a conference like this and call ourselves Sabbath- keepers - but if you were to ask many of us what church group we belong to many of us would call ourselves Seventh-day Adventists or Seventh Day Baptists or Church of God - Seventh- day. For our purposes today I want to make a distinction between the seventh day of creation and the Sabbath. If you look through a concordance you will find that the word Sabbath doesn't get a mention until Exodus 16:23. And some wonder whether the seventh day was known by that name or not until then, and that's an interesting study but I am not going to talk about that today. I want us to study the Seventh Day and the Sabbath separately then at the end of this session we may be able to come to some conclusions on these matters.
Let's begin by having a look at the Seventh Day of Creation (Gen 2:1-3 NKJV) Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. {2} And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. {3} Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctifiedit, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
Last evening we had a wonderful presentation of the beauty of the creation. Why the Garden of Eden? What is a garden for? What would you do in such a garden after all, there were no weeds to pull out. Everything was environmentally friendly in those days. Is it not for relaxation - enjoyment? God created the garden for the purpose of rest. That's what God was doing on the seventh day - trying out the garden. Now God gave Adam and Eve two things: A Law A freewill
He could have put a sign up "NO WALKING ON THE GRASS" But he didn't . Genesis 2:16,17 And Jehovah God layeth a charge on the man, saying, `Of every tree of the garden eating thou dost eat; and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it -- dying thou dost die.'
So Adam and Eve had one law that we know of. (A test commandment) "By the law is the knowledge of sin" Rom 3:20
They knew the consequences of sin. "the wages of sin is death" Rom 6:23
(Gen 3:8-11 NKJV) And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. {9} Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?" {10} So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." {11} And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?"
I want to point out three of the things that happened as a result of having broken that law Firstly: The curse of death was active - "Dying thou dost die" Secondly: The sweet fellowship between Mankind and his Creator was shattered. Thirdly: God pronounced that living means hard work
(Gen 3:17-19 NKJV) Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': "Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. {18} Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. {19} In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return."
Those three things describe the condition of mankind today.
Under the curse of the Law
(Gal 3:10 NKJV) ... for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them."
Separated from their Heavenly Father
(Isa 59:2 NKJV) But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.
Unable to find rest or peace. A state of Restlessness.
So in rebellion and sin we become the object of a curse, separated from God, and without rest.
But in the Seventh Day we see three opposites:
The object of blessing, separation to God, and rest.
So we see in the Seventh Day the grace of God. God's provision of mercy. A soothing ointment for the harsh effects of Adam's sin. If one could but join oneself to the day in some way.
Up to this point we have been discussing the Seventh Day. Now let us focus our attention on the day called the Sabbath day that God gave to Israel.
Now let's turn to: (Exo 20:8-11 NKJV) "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. {9} Six days you shall labor and do all your work, {10} but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. {11} For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
Here is the well known Sabbath commandment which cements the relationship between the seventh day of creation and the Sabbath. There can be no denying that the command to rest draws its authority from the example of God's seventh day rest. The people were told to be imitators of God. By sharing in the divinely appointed day we share in the blessing of it. The last sentence tells us that because God made the earth in six days and rested in the seventh day of creation, the Sabbath, THAT IS EVERY SEVENTH DAY IS BLESSED and what's more it has been declared a sanctified day, THAT IS A DAY SET APART FOR HOLY USE!
No wonder that the two terms are often used synonymously.
The Bible gives three reasons for Sabbath keeping: BLESSING (Isa 56:2 NKJV) Blessed is the man who does this, And the son of man who lays hold on it; Who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, And keeps his hand from doing any evil." SANCTIFICATION (Exo 31:13 NKJV) "Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: 'Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. REST AND REFRESHMENT (Exo 23:12 NKJV) "Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed.
That's familiar isn't it! But there is more! It is not just a weekly rest. There is a principle of working for six and resting on the seventh which has other applications. Every seventh year was to be a sabbath rest for the land.
Another application of the principle of the Sabbath Commandment can be seen in:-
(Exo 21:2 NKJV) "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years; and in the seventh he shall go out free and pay nothing.
(Deu 15:1-2 NKJV) "At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts. {2} "And this is the form of the release: Every creditor who has lent anything to his neighbor shall release it; he shall not require it of his neighbor or his brother, because it is called the Lord's release.
So the Sabbath pictures a RELEASE from DEBTS as well as deliverence from slavery! Now what relevance does this Sabbath have to people like us? Are we slaves? Do we have a debt that needs to be cancelled?
So at this time the Seventh Day as the SABBATH HAD AN APPLICATION TO HUMANS on a national level. Now it is not just a day which has been blessed but a means by which people can be blessed. Now it is not just a day which is holy, but a sign of holiness for the nation. Now it is not just a day when God rested but an ongoing WEEKLY period of rest for a whole nation. So we see that what Jesus said is true, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."
Now I was taught somewhere along the line that the Sabbath was A PROMISE OF THE REST WAITING IN CANAAN. (Exo 33:14 NKJV) And He said, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." (Josh 1:13 NKJV) "Remember the word which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, 'The LORD your God is giving you rest and is giving you this land.'
But I not so sure that that is quite accurate. At least I cannot find that in my bible. In fact my bible says that the promise of the land was given to Abraham and the sign of that covenant was circumcision.
(Gen 15:18-21 NKJV) On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates; {19} "the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, {20} "the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, {21} "the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites."
(Gen 17:7-10 NKJV) "And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. {8} "Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." {9} And God said to Abraham: "As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. {10} "This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised;
Now let's skip our way down through history and open your Bibles to: (Heb 3:16-19 NKJV) For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? {17} Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? {18} And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? {19} So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Israel did not enter in to the full rest that God intended her to. Even though he kept his promise in a sense he nevertheless held back the fullness of his gift.
(Heb 4:1-12 NKJV) Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. {2} For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.
Those who failed to enter the rest do so because of a lack of faith.
{3} For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: "So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest,' " although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. {4} For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; {5} and again in this place: "They shall not enter My rest."
Here we see that the promised rest which was withheld is called "My rest" ie God's rest.
{6} Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, {7} again He designates a certain day, saying in David, "Today," after such a long time, as it has been said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts."
Hang on a minute. Didn't God keep his promise to Moses? (1 Chr 22:17-18 NKJV) David also commanded all the leaders of Israel to help Solomon his son, saying, {18} "Is not the LORD your God with you? And has He not given you rest on every side? For He has given the inhabitants of the land into my hand, and the land is subdued before the LORD and before His people. At the dedication of the Temple Solomon declared: (1 Ki 8:56 NKJV) "Blessed be the LORD, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised through His servant Moses.
The Writer of Hebrews points out that Israel did not enter God's Rest. {8} For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. So we see that while the Mosaic promises were fulfilled, a greater and more excellent rest remains for the Church of God. This rest then is still attainable. The seventh-day Sabbath rest was not fulfilled in the nation of Israel. By connecting the seventh day with the promise of GOD'S REST for his people, the writer makes it clear that the rest to which the Seventh day Sabbath pointed was not the Mosaic rest fulfilled in Joshua or David. Then what is pictured by the seventh day Sabbath rest is something greater and more wonderful than the ancient land of Canaan. It is therefore not and never was an exclusively Jewish Sabbath. It symbolises God's rest, a rest that was denied to Israel because of their unbelief! It APPLIES to solely CHRISTIANS! Because it typifies GOD's Eternal Rest.
{9} There remains therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God. (NASB)
Now what is this rest which in the Greek is the word SABBATISMOS? Does the writer say seventh day rest? No, he says Sabbath rest. Sabbath in the bible is only used in regard to a cyclic periodic resting. A weekly resting. That is what the Sabbath is- a weekly rest - on the seventh day.
{10} For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. {11} Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.
Is it a future or a present rest or both? In Heb 4:2 we are told that it was offered through the gospel. From Hebrews 3:12 and 19 we know that those who failed to attain it did so because of an evil heart of unbelief, from verse 13 deceitfulness of sin, from verse 18 and 4:6 disobedience, and from 4:2 a lack of faith.
Now let's go back to Hebrews 3:5 and read from there because it will become very clear when you appreciate the context.
(Heb 3:5-11 NKJV) And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, {6} but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. {7} Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you will hear His voice, {8} Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, {9} Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. {10} Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, 'They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.' {11} So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.'"
You see what the writer is saying is that rejection of Christ is far more serious than rejection of Moses. The Israelites rejected Moses and failed to enter the rest of the promised land. We have a far better promise at stake. It is the promise of eternal rest. The seventh day is a promise of GOD'S REST - what He calls "My rest". It is far greater than the promise given through Moses. If the Sabbath originated with Moses and was given only to the people of Israel as a promise of temporal rest then it has been fulfilled and was finished at the construction of Solomon's temple. How then could God justly send Israel into exile for polluting the Sabbath? How could the prophets chide the post-exilic Jews for violating the Sabbath? The Sabbath, which is derived solely from God's seventh day rest and is inseparable from it must be a sign of the eternal rest in the Kingdom of God.
THE SABBATH IS A SIGN OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. How do we enter the Kingdom of God?
We must first acknowledge that we are under the curse of the law. The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life. The curse is death but blessing is eternal life!
(Gal 3:8-14 NKJV) And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed." {9} So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. {10} For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them." {11} But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for "the just shall live by faith." {12} Yet the law is not of faith, but "the man who does them shall live by them." {13} Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"), {14} that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Secondly we must realise that in our sinful state we have been cut off from God. We need our sins forgiven and our sinful hearts cleansed.
(1 Cor 6:9-11 NKJV) Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, {10} nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. {11} And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
We may then come to Father through Jesus Christ the Son.
(Mat 11:28-29 NKJV) "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. {29} "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
This is the rest the that is typified in the Sabbath day. By keeping the Sabbath day we enjoy a foretaste of the blessing, the sanctification, and the rest of that promise. The Sabbath is a bridge which spans the six millennial days of the cosmic week joining the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden to the tree of life in the Paradise of God. But we appropriate that rest of GOD through a person not a day.
Jesus Christ became accursed for us. Having paid the price of sin only he can redeem us.
(Rom 6:16-18 NKJV) Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? {17} But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. (2 Cor 5:17-21 NKJV) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
In Christ the Sabbath blessing is found!
{18} Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, {19} that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. {20} Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. {21} For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
In Christ is the restoration of Sabbath fellowship with God
(Phil 3:20-21 NKJV) For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, {21} who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.
In Christ we may enter the Sabbath of true rest.
(Rev 7:9-17 NKJV) After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, {10} and crying out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" {11} All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, {12} saying: "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen." {13} Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?" {14} And I said to him, "Sir, you know." So he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. {15} "Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. {16} "They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; {17} "for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
This is the Lord of the Sabbath. This is the gospel of the Sabbath
(Rom 5:1-2 NKJV) Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, (THE BLESSING of the SABBATH) {2} through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, (THE SANCTIFICATION of the SABBATH) and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (THE ETERNAL REST of the SABBATH).