Why Should We Keep the Seventh Day Sabbath?

This message explores the importance of the seventh-day Sabbath by asking whether it matters which day is observed and examining which day God instructs people to keep holy. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Why should we keep the seventh-day Sabbath? Why not keep Sunday like most professing Christians do today? Does it even matter which day we keep? The answer is that it does matter. Let's see which day God tells us to keep holy. The seventh-day Sabbath was a unique creation. It was not until God's physical creation, including man, was complete that the Creator brought the Sabbath into existence. God created or made the Sabbath by resting, whereas everything else was created and made by working. The plain truth about God's holy Sabbath day begins in the second chapter of the book of Genesis. In the first three verses we read, Thus the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them were finished, 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. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made. In these verses it is clearly stated that God made the Sabbath on the seventh day of creation. The Sabbath is also the fourth commandment. When we go to Exodus chapter twenty, and we read the commandments, we find in verses eight through eleven the Sabbath command. God says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor and do all your work, 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 manservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath, the Sabbath day and hallowed it. God did not rest because he was tired from all the work that he had done during the previous six days. God is composed of spirit, and therefore he never becomes tired. The prophet Isaiah in Isaiah forty twenty eight says, Have you not known, have you not heard, the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary, his understanding is unsearchable. Notice that God blessed the seventh day, and he sanctified it by resting on the seventh day of the creation week. God put his divine presence in it, making it holy. He set it apart from the other six days of the week for holy use. In doing so, he also made every future seventh day of the week holy. Our Maker established the Sabbath at the time from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. Each week, when that time arrives, we are in holy time. It's God's time, it's not ours. God made it holy, and the fourth commandment he commands us to keep it holy. Did you know that God made the Sabbath for man? Notice what Jesus Christ, the creator of the Sabbath, said in the Gospel of Mark. And he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Every seventh day from creation week it was set apart by God as time to be specially observed by mankind, regardless of race or nationality. The Sabbath was made for Adam and for all of his descendants, including everyone alive today. The seventh-day Sabbath was to benefit all who would ever live if they would keep it as God intended. Jesus was the Lord God who revealed himself to ancient Israel throughout the Old Testament. God the Father created all things through him. We read this in Colossians 1, verses 13 to 16. Jesus Christ is also the Lord of the Sabbath because he's the one that made it. In Mark 228, it says, Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. The word Sabbath literally means rest in Hebrew, the language in which the Old Testament scriptures were written. Physical rest and mental relaxation after a busy week are obvious reasons for keeping the seventh-day Sabbath. God knew that humans would need periodic rest and a break from work. Those who observe the Sabbath as God intended experience what a real blessing it is. But the purpose for keeping the Sabbath goes far beyond simply resting on it and being refreshed physically. Keeping God's seventh-day Sabbath every week reminds us that God is the creator of all that exist. The Sabbath is actually a memorial of God's creation, which includes God's great spiritual purpose for creating mankind. God set aside or hallowed one day of the week to be a reminder of Him as the creator and of His purpose for our existence. The Sabbath is a time that we can be spiritually rejuvenated by having close spiritual contact with God. It allows us time to think more about God, to pray to him, to worship him, to fellowship with the brethren and to study our Bibles. The Sabbath gives us time to understand more about his awesome purpose for our lives and how to achieve our incredible human potential. The Sabbath is to be a sign between the Creator and His people. In Exodus 31, verses twelve and thirteen, he says, Surely my Sabbath 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. A sign identifies. The Sabbath identifies who the true God is, and God wanted ancient Israel and us today to remember that He is our creator, our sustainer, and supreme ruler of all of His creation. So He singled out the Sabbath and told us to observe it as one great sign by which we could be reminded of who He is. But this special Sabbath covenant reveals that the Sabbath does more than identify the Creator. It also identifies who the true people of God are. Most people do not want to be identified as being different from the rest of the world. Most simply will not keep the fourth commandment unless they truly want to obey all of God's commandments. Therefore, it is a crucial test of obedience today, just as it was for ancient Israel. Keeping the Sabbath identifies those who have surrendered to God, those who obey all of his commandments. The Bible shows that Jesus, our perfect example, kept the seventh-day Sabbath, and we are to walk as he walked. In Luke 4, verse 16, we read, So he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. Jesus taught his disciples how to live the Christian way of life. He showed also that he is the Lord of the Sabbath, and showed us how the Sabbath was intended to be kept. Also in Luke 4 31, it says, Then he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and was teaching them on the Sabbath. Jesus regularly attended religious services on the Sabbath day. That was his custom. He obeyed his own command to meet every Sabbath. In Leviticus chapter three, we see the Sabbath in all the holy days, the annual Sabbath mentioned. In verse three, he says, Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. This is the day that he would naturally have observed, because he is the one who made the Sabbath and ordained that it be kept holy. Even the women who came with Jesus from Galilee observed the Sabbath a few days after he was crucified. In Luke 23, verse 56 it states, and they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. Notice the words according to the commandment. Here we see that Luke knew about the Sabbath commandment and knew that it was still in effect. And this was written about thirty years after the death of Christ. Then in the very next verse, we see that the first day of the week, Sunday, was a regular work day. In Luke 24, verse 1, it says, On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they and certain other women with them came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared. The scriptures also show that it was the Apostle Paul's custom to keep Sabbath. In Acts 17, the first two verses, we read now when they had passed through Ampophilus and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures. It is quite plain from these and other verses that the Apostle Paul observed the same day that Christ did. And if Christ lives his life in us today through the indwelling of his spirit, we also will be keeping the same day that Jesus kept, the seventh-day Sabbath. Christ trained Paul for his ministry to the Gentiles, apparently during the three years while he was in Arabia. Had Christ done away with any of his father's laws or changed the Sabbath to some other day? Certainly not. If he had, he would have revealed it to the apostle Paul. But no changes were made. Paul taught the Church of God exactly what Christ had taught him to preach. Some might ask, well, what about the Gentiles? Didn't they observe Sunday? The answer is no. Paul, even in a predominantly Gentile city, observed the seventh-day Sabbath. He did not preach to the Jews on Saturday and to the Gentiles on Sunday. In Acts 18, verse 4, the scriptures make it very plain that he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded both Jews and Greeks. On another occasion we see that Paul was preaching to both Jews and Gentiles on the Sabbath, and after the Jews left the synagogue, the Gentiles asked Paul to preach to them again on the next Sabbath. Notice what it says in Acts 13, verse 42. So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. Notice how many came to hear Paul on the very next Sabbath. In verse 44, we read, On the next Sabbath, almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God. Notice that it was the practice of many Gentiles to meet with the Jews on the Sabbath. And because these Gentiles were interested in Paul's message, they asked him to speak again on the very next Sabbath, not the next day, which was Sunday. Even though this would have been a good opportunity to do so, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, did not tell them to cease assembling on the Sabbath for worship. If we could find even one text in the New Testament giving us as strong authority for Sunday observance as we do for Sabbath keeping, we then would have scriptural authority for observing the first day of the week. But it just isn't there. The phrase first day of the week is found eight times in the New Testament, but in not one of these eight texts is there found any authority for changing the seventh-day Sabbath to Sunday. When we study the Bible as opposed to Sunday worship, we find that men, not God, change the Sabbath to Sunday, the first day of the week. And they had no authority to do so. The weekly cycle remains unchanged. Would God set apart a certain day of the week, put his blessing on it, make it holy time, command it to be kept holy forever, and then let that holy time become lost so that we would not know when to keep it today. Absolutely not. God has seen to it that the knowledge of when to keep his holy Sabbath day has been preserved. God entrusted the tribe of Judah, the Jews, to preserve the oracles of God. We read this in Romans 3 verses 1 through 2. They were to preserve the Old Testament scriptures, the calendar, which includes the weekly cycle and the true Sabbath day, as well as the correct dates for the annual festivals. We can be certain that the Jews preserved and observed the right day for the Sabbath up to the time of Jesus Christ, because Jesus kept the same seventh-day Sabbath that they did. There can be no doubt that Jesus kept the Sabbath on the correct day of the week. And we only have to go back two thousand years to see which day is the seventh day of the week. The one that made the Sabbath would not have been keeping the wrong day of the week holy. Once again, as noted earlier, Luke 4 16 says, so he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, and as his custom was he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. But could time have been lost between then and now? Well, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the Jews eventually migrated to all parts of the world. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Jews in China, for instance, had no way of communicating with the Jews in Africa, nor could the Jews in Europe communicate with other parts of the world. And if the weekly cycle had been changed or mixed up, the Jews in one part of the world would be observing one day for the Sabbath, while the Jews in another part would be observing another day. But everywhere, in every nation on the planet, we find that the Jews have always been observing the same day that Jesus kept, the seventh-day Sabbath. It is because God entrusted the preservation of the oracles to them, which includes the calendar and weekly cycle and God's Sabbath day. This practice of the Jews is a strong proof that we have not lost the right day for God's Sabbath. Even though the Jews in general have lacked spiritual understanding, have disobeyed the laws of God, and although they have become overly strict in keeping the Sabbath, by adding many of their own customs and traditions, the Jews have faithfully retained the knowledge of the correct day for God's Sabbath. Christ told them in John 7, 19, Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me? What about now? Must the Sabbath still be kept at the end of the age? What Christ said proves that his church would still be keeping the Sabbath even at the time of the end, just before his second coming. For instance, in Matthew 24, verse 20, he commands us to pray that our flight may not be in the winter or on the Sabbath, referring to a flight to a place of protection at the end of an age. Christ clearly shows in this verse and others that his church would continue to keep his Sabbath commandment. The early Church of God fled from Jerusalem before the city was destroyed by the Romans in AD seventy. True Christians were keeping the Sabbath at that time. But this prophecy is dual and its main fulfillment is yet in the future. It shows that God's people will then, at the time of the end, still be keeping his Sabbath. For nearly two thousand years, God's church has continued to keep all of the commandments of God, including the seventh-day Sabbath. Revelation 12, 17 says the dragon was enraged with the woman, symbolic of the church, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, notice, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. In Revelation 14, 12, we have another verse that says, Here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. As we conclude, let's notice God's admonition to Christians living in the days shortly before the second coming of Jesus Christ, the days in which we now live. In Hebrews chapter ten, verses twenty-three through twenty-five, we are told, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. We are to assemble, we are to convoke on the Sabbath. He says not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. God never changed the Sabbath to Sunday. It does matter to God which day we observe and keep holy. Will you keep the seventh-day Sabbath holy? As Jesus Christ and the apostles did, and as God's church still does today.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

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