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A Message From Peter James
 


 

Sabbath
 


      

In view of the New Covenant,

Do we have to keep the Sabbath today?

 

Exodus 20:8  Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9  Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

10  But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God:

in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter,

thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle,

nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11  For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth,

the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:

wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

 

When people think of keeping the Sabbath they immediately think of attending

a meeting somewhere. The following scripture is used to support this view point.

 

Hebrews 10:25  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,

as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another:

and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

 

As the scripture states it is certainly good to meet together,

however the commandment makes no such demand.

We are simply told to rest.

This means we should not do paid work or physical work that can be done

at other times.

We should rest so that our bodies, our minds and spirits can be rejuvenated.

If you are a hard working person as we all should be, you would truly

appreciate this day of rest.

 

As in Genesis days are counted from evening to evening.

 

Genesis 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

And the evening and the morning were the first day.

 

Therefore the weekly Sabbath is from Friday evening at sunset to Saturday evening sunset.

 

The idea of resting does not mean filling the day with Television and sport.

 

The Jews surrounded the Sabbath commandment with literally hundreds of fences,

by that I mean do and do not do, in order, they thought to prevent anyone ever

breaking the Sabbath.

Even today some teach that you should not turn on a light, boil water etc. etc.

In fact instead of a blessing the day becomes a yoke, a great burden,

a curse and not a day that is looked forward to and greatly appreciated.

Heavy duties than can be carried out on other days, but it is not wrong if you forgot

to put petrol in your car and you needed to go out to put petrol in your car.

What is the guide?

You have to be at peace internally with what you are doing.

If you feel uncomfortable you probably should not be doing it.

To think that you cannot wash up a cup or plate on the Sabbath is to miss the point.

 

It is also always possible to help some one in need on the Sabbath.

 

Mark 3:1   And he entered again into the synagogue;

and there was a man there which had a withered hand.

2  And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day;

that they might accuse him.

3  And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth.

4  And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days,

or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.

5  And when he had looked round about on them with anger,

being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man,

Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out:

and his hand was restored whole as the other.  

 

I would like to say immediately that the Sabbath rest is forever.

However,it has nothing to do with observing any day to obtain salvation.

Unfortunately many divisions are caused among people,

Christians and non-Christians alike about which day should be observed as the Sabbath.

 

First of all the New Covenant supersedes the Old covenant and expands it significantly.

 

Today we are saved by Grace not law keeping.

It is a gift from the Eternal to us.

 

Ephesians 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith;

and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

 

Romans 7:6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held;

that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

 

Hebrews 8:13 In that he says, A new covenant, he hath made the first old.

Now that which decays and waxes old is ready to vanish away.

 

The truth is since creation the Sabbath was the Seventh day.

Nothing has happened to change the day.

 

Christ said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

We tend to apply it the reverse way thinking, that man was made to keep the Sabbath.

This is the very opposite of what Christ said.

 

Mark 2:27 And he said unto them,

The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath:

 

In Genesis where we read of the creation of life,

we are told that immediately after man was created, God rested.

 

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

 

Genesis 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it:

because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

What we can be certain is God did not rest because He was tired.

He is all powerful and sleep is not a requirement of His, as it is for us.

He rested to enjoy that which He had just created.

 

In Genesis 1, we read on all the days except the second that ‘It was good’.

The second day dealt with the dwelling place of Satan,

as prince of the power of the air.

Therefore it could not be good.

Nothing to do with Satan can be qualified as being ‘good’.

The Eternal was delighted in his handy work.

After he had made man, He said that it was not only good but ‘very good’.

The vessel whom He had created out of the dust of the ground,

and whom He had chosen to dwell within was very good.

This was the pinnacle of the creation, His dwelling place.

 

1 Corinthians 3:16 Know ye not that you are the temple of God,

and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

 

1 Corinthians 3:17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy;

for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.

 

The very first thing that the created man encountered was Rest.

He started his existence as a perfect, but incomplete man in a perfect world,

a world of rest.

Incomplete in the sense that the Holy Spirit did not reside in him.

It was not a world of work and confusion.

Work that generated sweat was only introduced after man’s first sin.

 

Genesis 3:19 In the sweat of your face shall thou eat bread,

till you return unto the ground; for out of it were you taken:

for dust you are, and unto dust shall you return.

Genesis3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden,

to till the ground from whence he was taken.

 

The Eternal had done all the work.

There was nothing that man could add to the completed work.

All that he had to do was enjoy the Sabbath rest and to eat from

the Tree of Life in front of which he had been placed.

He was not commanded to keep any laws, neither was he commanded to worship God.

All he was told to do was to eat from the trees in the garden including the Tree of Life.

The Eternal’s desire was for man to enjoy Him and to mingle Himself with man.

The Tree of Life is none other than Christ Himself.

 

Christ Sums up the whole concept when He refers to His dwelling in us

and calling Himself a vine tree.

 

John 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches:

He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit:

for without me you can do nothing.

When you see something mentioned in the first book of the bible

the book of beginnings which is Genesis you often see the conclusion

in the final book of the bible, Revelation.

You will also find that the Tree of Life is in the midst of Paradise.

 

Revelation 2:7 He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches;

To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the Tree of Life,

which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

 

We come to another place of rest when Israel was delivered out of Egypt.

If the nation had not been so rebellious they would have reached the promised land

in a few days and not 40 years later.

The land of Canaan was not just any old land.

It was a place of rest of good homes, good agriculture,

with an abundance of milk and honey.

The animal husbandry would give milk and the fertile land flowers

which produced honey, fruit and food.

 

Psalm 95 which is also expounded in Hebrews 3:

8 Harden not your heart, as in the provocation,

and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

{provocation: Heb. contention}

9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.

10 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, 

It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:

11 Unto whom I swore in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

 

We can see from the above to enter into the rest of the Eternal was a privilege.

 

The intention was for them to enter into the rest of Christ, which was Christ.

We can clearly see that this was not a condition that would last one day

during the week but a continuous process.

From captivity to rest that was the plan.

Consider the reason for leaving Egypt.

Moses was told to let the people go so that they could Keep, that is enjoy,

a Feast to the Eternal.

For us today it is the same.

We are supposed to enjoy a continuous feast to the Lord.

Unfortunately for some of us we are wondering around in the wilderness complaining

and not learning a great deal and most certainly not entering into the Sabbath rest,

and the peace which passes all understanding.

We need to take the admonition above and learn from the mistakes

of those who went before us.

 

The next place that we come to a Sabbath rest is the time of what is called the Millenium.

The thousand year reign of Christ on the earth with his overcoming saints.

This will be a thousand year rest when like Isaiah says the desert will blossom

like the rose and the lion and the lamb will lie down together.

 

Isaiah 11:6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;

and a little child shall lead them.

 

Isaiah 65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,

and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, says the LORD.

 

Revelation 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them,

and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded

for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God,

and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image,

neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands;

and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

 

There will be peace on earth and not just endless peace conferences speaking

about peace whilst war ravages the earth.

Whether we realise it or not if believers understand,

they will know and appreciate that they are in or should be enjoying the Sabbath rest

every day, additionally with the weekly ordained day of rest on the Sabbath.

 

Hebrews 4:3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said,

As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest:

although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

 

That is what it says.

As we have seen and there are many additional verses in the gospel

of John which makes the definite statement that as believers

we are in Christ and Christ is in us by His Spirit.

 

John14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

 

John 15:4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,

except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me.

We are baptised not in the name of Christ but rather into Christ.

 

Literal Translation

Matthew 28:19 Going, then, disciple all nations,

baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

 

An organic change takes place although we most likely do not feel anything.

If we go into something it means that we have come from somewhere.

We are leaving the old man behind and become a part of the One New Man

– The corporate Christ – The Church.

 

A study of the bible will show that Christ is the centrality of all positive things.

He is our peace, and our Sabbath rest.

 

Ephesians 2:14  For he (Christ) is our peace, who hath made both one,

and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;

 

If Christ is our Sabbath rest then we have to ask the question - what is the church?

The answer is that as stated previously, we are the temple of God.

The Church is therefore the corporate body of Christ.

The Church is the New Jerusalem mentioned in Revelation 21.

It is not a material building but a spiritual organism.

We are called to be made into precious stones and our assigned parts of the building.

Precious stones are produced by tremendous heat and pressure.

 

Christ is the Sabbath rest.

 

Have you noticed that there are some people with whom you meet,

and speak and you end up feeling encouraged and uplifted.

That is experiencing the Sabbath rest.

Ideally this happens in personal contact but it can happen even over long distances by phone.

You might meet and pray with one or two other Christians.

When this is finished you feel re-invigorated and renewed.

This is the Sabbath rest.

You can enjoy the Sabbath rest on your own.

It is a time of rejoicing.

 

When we realise this, instead of resisting meeting together we would look forward

to our meetings in small or larger groups because we then experience the Sabbath

rest regardless of what day it is, in addition to the rest on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath rest was designed and will last forever but we can

and should start enjoying it today.

To argue about which day we meet together for a worship service is to miss the point.

The Sabbath rest is something that we should be enjoying on a continuing daily basis

as well as on the Sabbath day.

That is also our inheritance.

 

The only way out of our dilemmas is Jesus Christ.

        He is the only way of escape.

             Praise the Lord.

          Come soon Lord Jesus.

                  Amen.

       

 

 

 

 Messages By Peter James

(Bible Explanations, Messages of Life, Hope & Encouragement)