Let me read these first three
verses to you. Exodus chapter 35, And Moses
gathered all the congregation of Israel together. That is,
he summoned them to all come together. And then he said unto
them, These are the words which the Lord hath commanded, that
ye should do them. He says, Six days shall work
be done, But on the seventh day there shall be, that shall be
to you a holy day, a Sabbath of rest unto the Lord. Whosoever doeth work therein
shall be put to death. He shall kindle no fire throughout
your habitations upon the Sabbath day. Israel has been gathered
together by the Word of God, by the will of God, and they're
going to be instructed concerning two very vital subjects. Very vital, very important to
God, and very important to the people. In fact, as the years
go by, as we look all the way through the Word of God, we see
that these two subjects always were in there, in the minds of
the people, and always very vital to them. Number one, the Sabbath
day. Number two, the tabernacle. Next Lord's Day, God willing,
we'll deal more with the tabernacle, which that consists of the rest
of the 35th chapter, that is the offerings of the people in
order to make the tabernacle and then those who would build
the tabernacle. But these are the two subjects
that are dealt with in Exodus chapter 35. God's law pertaining to the Sabbath,
God's law pertaining to that tabernacle, which then gave way,
of course, to the temple. Well, the first subject that
he gives them some instruction in, it pertains to the Sabbath
day. Let me ask four questions. I'll try to answer them for you.
My goal is to be as simple as I can be, and let's see what
the Word of God has to say about the Sabbath day. Here are four
questions. First question is, what was the
meaning and the origin of the Sabbath day? So we're looking
for the meaning and the origin of the Sabbath day. That word,
Sabbath, Here's what it literally means. Rest, desist, and cease. You look it up. You can do just
what I did. Take Strong's Concordance or
Young's or whatever kind of concordance you might have. And we have some
available in the library, in the office. You look up the word
Sabbath, and that's what it means. Cease, desist, Rest. Let's go back to that passage
Brother Ron read to us back in Genesis. Look back in Genesis. Let's see the origin. We've got
a definition of the word Sabbath now. Cease, desist, rest. Let's go back and see what the
scripture has to say here in Genesis, the second chapter. Look at the second verse of chapter
2. And on the seventh day, God has
worked six days. Six days. And on the seventh
day, God ended the 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 He sanctified it. What does that
mean? He set it apart from the rest
of the days of the week. It was just an ordinary day,
a 24-hour day like all seven days of the week are, but God,
to teach us a spiritual lesson, He sanctified or He set apart
the seventh day. And the Scripture says, and the
reason He did it is because He had rested. He rested from all
His work which God had created and made. And so you can see
there that word rest is found here because that's the basic
idea of the seventh day, that is the seventh day Sabbath. He sanctified it. And he gave
to Israel this particular law or statute regarding the observance
of the Sabbath day. They were to just desist from
any kind of work. Cease from working. The word
is rest. Rest. Now God rested not because
He was weary. In Isaiah, Isaiah talks about
the greatness of the Lord. And he says, He fainteth not,
neither is weary. God doesn't get tired. God doesn't
get weary like we do. In fact, if you want to go into
creation and you delve into the subject, you'll find that the
Scripture says that He spake and it was done. It wasn't like God is working
with His almighty invisible hands building all of creation, but
rather He just spoke everything into existence. There was darkness
upon the face of the deep. He said, Light be! All of a sudden
the lights came on. There was no exertion of His
mighty power except through His Word. He spake and it was done. That's all He had to do. And
He created all things by His Word. That's very important to
remember that. He created all things by His
Word. Now, we're considering the subject
of the Sabbath, and here I need to give you something that's
very important. If we have any understanding
of the Scriptures, at all. We know that all through the
Word of God, that which the Spirit of grace is teaching us is about
a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. We must never divorce any doctrine,
any truth of the Word of God from that one who is the second
person in the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't ever eliminate
him from any portion of Scripture. No matter your subject, whether
it be creation, whether it be divine providence, God directing
all things to the end that He Himself has ordained, or whether
it be salvation or preservation or resurrection or judgment,
whatever subject that it is that you might be studying and the
Scriptures are speaking of, you must always take it in this context
of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you leave Him out of anything,
you cut the very heart out of the Word of God. In the Book
of God, He is everything, He is all. And like in creation, the Scripture
says, by Him all things were made. Don't leave the Lord Jesus
Christ out of creation. I said God spake and it was done. He created all things by the
Word of His power. Well, who is our Lord Jesus?
He is the Word of God. And all things were made by Him
and without Him was not anything made that was made. Do not divorce
our Lord Jesus from any truth of the Word of God, for when
you do that, you suddenly have a non-truth. You've got to always
associate everything with our Lord Jesus. The Savior said this
to the Jews who were big Sabbath day observers. to them the tabernacle
and then the temple, that meant everything to them. And he says
to them, you search, you do search the scriptures. And they did. But he said, you do it thinking
that in them you have eternal life. And then he says, listen,
he says, these are they which do what? Testify of me. Don't talk about creation and
leave Christ out of it. Don't talk about divine providence
and leave Christ out of it. Scripture says, by Him all things
consist. All things are held together.
Don't talk about salvation and leave Christ out of it. He is
salvation. When that man Simeon in the temple
looked into the face of the Lord Jesus, just a little baby, he
said, mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Don't talk about salvation
unless you make it all about our Lord Jesus and His work of
redemption. And don't talk about judgment.
Don't talk about judgment and leave our Lord Jesus out of it,
because in John chapter 5, the Savior said, the Father's turned
all judgment over to the Son. And don't talk about the resurrection
unless you talk about Him of whom He said Himself, I am the
resurrection and the life. You see, every subject in the
Word of God has Him as its very heart and soul. And so it is in creation. In creation. Ron read to us these verses from
chapters 1 and 2 in Genesis. From this we conclude this, God
did the work of creation without any aid from anybody, without
any assistance from anybody, without any direction from anybody,
without any counsel from anybody. It would appear that the angels
of God looked on as God created. And I say that based upon Job
38 in verse 7. When the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy. So if you ask me what
was the very first thing God created, I'd say the angels.
I've got to say that because there were witnesses to creation. But those witnesses of God's
creative greatness were in no way contributors to creation
itself. Because they are created beings. God needed no assistance. He
had no assistance. He had no advisors. He had no
counselors. He made all things by Himself. There was no one to urge Him
to create. There was no one to help him
out with creation. This was the work God undertook
to do. And now let me add this, as God
began the work of creation, He finished that work. That's what it says here. and
then he rested. In other words, he did not rest
until his work of creation was ended. Notice two very special
words here in Genesis chapter two, verses one and also in verse
two. And here are the words, and I'll
emphasize them, thus the heavens and the earth were finished. They were finished. and all the
host of them. And look at verse 2, and on the
seventh day, God ended. And again, get your Strong's
Concordance and you'll find out that finished and ended are identical
words in the original. We're not trying to give anybody
a Hebrew lesson or a Greek lesson. We don't need that. All we need
to know is these words said before us that that which God undertook
to do, He finished it to His own delight. He was very, very pleased. In
fact, at the very end of chapter 1, verse 31, and God saw everything
that He had made and behold, it was very good. Very good means
exceedingly agreeable to Him. You see, only that which God
can do is going to be exceedingly agreeable to Him. Nothing that
we do can be exceedingly agreeable to Him, but everything that God
does Himself, everything that comes forth from His almighty
power and creative glory, everything that He does is absolutely agreeable
to God. There's nothing disagreeable
to God concerning the work that He had done. A needful question needs to be
asked, and I've kind of answered it already. Why did God rest? Well, He wasn't weary, and He
wasn't tired. He rested because He had finished
the work. I made mention of this verse
a while ago, I'll give you the reference, Psalm 33 and verse
9. He spake and it was done. He
commanded and it stood fast. Mr. Spurgeon, in one of his messages
on this, he made a statement I think is very worthwhile and
worth remembering. He said, God's works are very
sublime in their ease, And when he did it, it was instantaneous. This was an easy thing for God
to do. And we can't even begin to commence
to understanding that. But it was easy for Him to do.
He spake and it was done. That's all He had to do. And
you say, well, I can't wrap my mind around a God like that.
Well, who can? Nobody can. This is the problem
of much of religion today. They want a God that they can
understand. A God that they can, to some
degree, wrap their minds around. Our God is invisible. He inhabits
eternity. He made all things by Himself
and for His pleasure. It says in Revelation. Isn't
that wonderful? We believe in God's creation.
You say, well, I just can't go along with God's creation. Well,
if you go along with the Word of God, you have to believe that
God created all things. Now, if you don't go along with
the Word of God, if the Word of God, I'm going to be speaking
about the Word of God this evening, if it's not the very foundation
for all that you believe and for all that you do, we have
no common ground. There is no foundation upon which
we can even speak about things. The only authority we bow to
is this authority of the Book of God. He spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Creation was the fruit of the
Word of God. and God's acts are easy to him
and instantaneous. The emphasis, therefore, here
in Genesis 1 and into Genesis 2 is that God rested because
there was nothing more for him to do. That's pretty simple. He looked at everything He had
made and it brings Him great delight. I'm very pleased with
everything I've made. So He rested. In other words,
He didn't do any more creating. Guess what? He's not creating
any more water. He's not creating any more water.
Plenty of it. And He has ordained this system
of evaporation. Don't worry about, well, we're
going to lose all water one day. Water will always be here as
long as this earth stands. Don't worry about the sun burning
out. God put it up there. It seems
like people worry about things, they discuss things that are
just useless to discuss and think about. I'd rather talk about things
like that than to talk about man's depravity, man's need of
God's grace, that salvation which is all in, by, and through the
Lord Jesus Christ. I'd rather talk about those other
things. Let's save Mother Earth! The
Earth is not our mother. You can't save it. It's doomed. Did you know that? You can't
save it. I'm not saying don't be responsible. We should be responsible. I agree
with that to a degree. But I tell you, this world, it
got along just fine before you got here and before I got here.
And when we leave, it'll be doing just fine still. And it will
do just fine until God says, well, it's time for me to just
renovate this earth with fire. and nobody's going to save it
then. Rather than worrying about how can we save the earth, you
better be concerned about how can my soul be saved? Now that's a subject to consider
right there. How can God be just and justify
an ungodly sinner like me? That's something to devote your
attention to now. I'm not going to worry about
the earth. Earth will be just fine. What I'm going to concern
myself with is that salvation of God that's in Christ Jesus. The Lord rested on the seventh
day because He had no more labor to do as far as creation is concerned. Now, learn this. This, the Lord's
work of creation, pictured our Savior's work of salvation and
redemption. Now go to Hebrews chapter 4 with
me. Hebrews chapter 4, and here's
my second question. Go to Hebrews chapter 4. Here's
my second question. First question, what's the meaning
and origin of the Sabbath? We've learned that now. Second
question, what is the message of the Sabbath? The message of
the Sabbath. You see, as God the Father began
and finished the work of creation, that was a picture of our Lord
Jesus who began and He finished the work of redemption and salvation. And he did that by his work upon
the cross of Calvary. In fact, when the great apostle
began to speak about our Lord's work, he uses for a starting
place, if you would, in verse four, creation. For God spake,
the Scripture spake in a certain place, Hebrews 4 verse 4, of
the seventh day on this wise. And God did rest on the seventh
day from all His works. God rested. Even so, our Lord Jesus, He came
into this world to do a work. It's the work God gave Him to
do. It's the work of redemption,
redeeming us from the curse of the law. It's the work of reconciliation
to bring us back to God, which He did by His death. This was
the work He undertook to do Himself. Listen, He can make a world by
His Word. But He cannot just speak the
Word and save us. He must Himself, God Himself,
the Creator, must come down here in the second person of the Trinity.
He must live a life of perfection and obedience to God's holy law
in every aspect of it, even the seventh day Sabbath observance. And He did that. He finished
that. In fact, he says in his high
priestly prayer, I finished the work that you gave me to do.
He was made under the law. Did he finish obeying all the
law? Christ said he did. He said,
I finished the work you gave me to do. And one part of that
work was obedience to God's law. And then he says in John 19 verse
30, it is finished. That's His death. By His death,
He satisfied God's justice. By His death, He put our sins
away. By His death, He saved us. So our Lord Jesus did the
work of redemption and reconciliation, and He did it by Himself. He
did it all by Himself. Who did the work of creation?
God did all by Himself. Who did the work of salvation
and redemption? God the Son did and He did it
all by Himself. Nobody could help Him. Isaiah
says, quotes the Lord, I've trodden the winepress of God's wrath
alone. No man was with me. Nobody could
enter into doing the work that God demanded for the payment
of our sins. The work of enduring the wrath
of God. All the hell that we should have
endured, endured forever. Christ Jesus bore it in His soul
during those few hours of darkness upon the cross of Calvary. He
did it by Himself. That's what Hebrews chapter 1
and verse 3 says. Look at this. Look back a page
or two. who being the brightness of His
glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all
things by the word of His power, when He by Himself purged our
sins." You don't go to purgatory to purge yourself of your sins. Our Lord purged His people from
their sins by His substitutionary sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. That's where He washed us. That's
where He bathed us. That's where He made us right
with God. And therefore, He sat down on
the right hand of the Majesty on high. No one assisted Him in this work
of redemption. He said, it is finished. You
see, just as God began and finished the work of creation, and then
rested, our Lord Jesus began and finished the work of redemption. And He rested. Go back, turn
back over to Hebrews chapter 4. Look back at Hebrews chapter
4. Look at verses 8 and 9. If Jesus, and that word Jesus
is Joshua. It's talking about the Old Testament.
If Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have
spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. Now look at verse 10. For he
that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his
own works as God did from his. Once again, He mentions creation
and He lays right alongside of it the truth of redemption. Just
as God began and finished the work of creation and rested our
Lord Jesus when He came into this world, He began and He ended
the work of redemption and He has now rested from that work. It's done. It's finished. He's not redeeming anybody today. He's not reconciling anybody
today. Redemption and reconciliation,
propitiation, which is a great big long word that means the
satisfaction of divine justice, that was finished. As God finished
His work of creation, the God-man finished the work of redemption
and reconciliation at the cross of Calvary. And we know He finished
it because God raised Him from the dead. That's what the resurrection
means. It means a whole lot of things,
but especially it means that, that the work is ended. And watch
this. Our Lord, once He finished the
work of creation, on which day did He rest? The seventh day. Our Lord Jesus, when He finished
the work of redemption, on which day did He rest? The seventh
day. He died on Friday afternoon. All day Saturday, the Sabbath
day, He rested in the tomb. His body rested. Why? The work's finished. And what
happened on the first day of the week? The first day of the
week, His soul came back and rejoined that body. He finished
the work of redemption. Just like God began and finished
the work of creation, our Lord Jesus began and He finished the
work of reconciliation, the work of redemption. And let me ask you another question. And before I do, let me give
you this. What would you think of a person,
anybody, who insisted God had help in creation. We say, that's foolish. That's
foolish. Even so, it is absolutely foolish
to think that anybody could help God in the matter of salvation. Well, I know God created all
things, but you know, I have to add my approval to it. Everything's made whether you
approve of it or not. And people say, well, I know
the Lord Jesus died on the cross of Calvary, but we have to add
our approval on it to everything that He did, and we call that
approval faith. Faith doesn't add to what He
did. Now listen to me. Is faith necessary? Yes, it is.
But it doesn't put sin away. Faith doesn't reconcile you to
God. Faith doesn't satisfy as justice. Well, what about preacher
repentance? Repentance is vital. It's a turning
away from. Turning away from our sinfulness.
Turning away from our religious works upon which we depended
for salvation. We're turning away from our false
ideas of God and self and Christ Jesus. Is repentance necessary? Yes, it is. But, that doesn't
add to what Christ did at the cross of Calvary. In fact, both
repentance and faith are gifts from God. And He gives those
gifts because the work of redemption has been finished, and our Lord
Jesus has entered into His rest. Which brings me now to the third
question briefly. Well, how do we keep the Sabbath
today? I should have given you the title
of the message to begin with, Keeping the Sabbath. How do we
keep the Sabbath? Well, look here in Hebrews chapter
4 and verse 11. How do we keep the Sabbath? Now,
if we're looking for a day, that was yesterday. If you're looking
for the seventh day of the week, it's not today. Today is the
first day of the week. If you're insistent and there
are many, I have several people who are good friends who think
we should still be keeping the Sabbath. Well, if you really
believe that, can you show me in the Word of God where God
ever changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday? You can't
find that. So if you're going to be a Sabbath-day
observer, you've got to do somewhat like the Seventh-day Adventist. Hey, we'll be meeting today.
Guess why? Why not? Because it's not the
seventh day. It's the first day. They meet
on the seventh day. So if you want to observe a day, Like I say, there's some people
I know who I believe are children of God who still insist on observing
a Sabbath day. And according to Romans chapter
14, they're the weaker believers who still set apart a day. That's right. They don't see
that our Lord Jesus is our Sabbath. So how do we keep the Sabbath?
Verse 11, let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest
any man fall after the same example of unbelief. How do we keep the
Sabbath today? Believe on Christ Jesus, cease
from your labors, desist from all efforts to save yourself,
and just rest in Him. Is that clear? We just rest in
Him. Don't lift a finger. Well, I
know it's all in Christ, but you know you've got to live it,
preacher. Now, hang on a minute. We do seek to live for His glory
and honor after conversion. Living it's got nothing to do
with our acceptance before God. Our acceptance before God, hear
me now, don't misunderstand me, has got everything to do with
Jesus Christ and Him crucified, buried, risen again. Everything. Cease from your labors to save
yourself. Some people are striving, working,
being miserable, Those things are not going to help you. What will help me, preacher?
Rest. Desist. Cease. Find rest in Christ Jesus. And here's the last question.
What's the penalty? for violating the Sabbath. I read it to you back in Exodus
35. Death. Death. That's about as serious
as you can get right there. You read the laws of the Jews,
if any man was found picking up sticks on the Sabbath day,
death. They're going to kill him. They found the man. In fact,
it's recorded, they found the man picking up sticks, they did,
and the elders arrested him. Moses came back in and said,
what are we going to do? He got to be killed. My goodness,
that sure is severe, isn't it? It's because it's a picture!
You see, just like the tabernacle is a picture, of our Lord Jesus,
so is the Sabbath day. It's a picture of our Lord Jesus.
He is our Sabbath. Rest in Him. But if you don't
rest in Him, now listen to me. I'm talking to you who are watching.
I'm talking to all of you too. If you think there's something
you can do to merit God's favor, God's going to get you one day.
You're going to have to die. Because here's the key. Rest. Decease. Cease from your labors. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to His mercy He hath saved us. What would you think of somebody
who said, I want you to bring gold and
silver and wood together. I'm going to build a tabernacle
again. I'm going to reinstate the tabernacle." And I say to
him, bless your heart, God's tabernacle has already come.
That's our Lord Jesus. In fact, if we saw somebody and
they said, you know, I'm building a tabernacle for God. I'm going
to start offering the sacrifices all over again. Why, we would
say to somebody, they need help. They need help. Why is that? Because that tabernacle
in the wilderness and that temple that took over from the tabernacle,
they're not important anymore. They were pictures of our Lord
Jesus. Even so, what about somebody
who says, I'm going to keep the Sabbath? That's just as foolish. Isn't
it? Sure it is. It's just as foolish.
And let me give you one more reference. Isaiah 58. Isaiah chapter 58. So to somebody who says, I'm
going to build another tabernacle, or somebody says, I'm going to
observe the Sabbath day, I would say you are without spiritual
understanding. Our Lord Jesus is our tabernacle. Our Lord Jesus is our Sabbath.
Remember what I said at the very beginning of the message. Do
not divorce the Savior from any truth in the Word of God. You
just can't do that. And all the Word of God is truth.
So you can't divorce Him from the Scriptures. And I'll quote a verse to you.
The Savior said in Matthew 11, He said, come unto Me. All you
that labor and are heavy laden, you've been working and striving
and crying and all of this sort of thing. He said, come to Me,
I'll give you rest. Rest. Cease from your labors. And look here in Isaiah 58. 13
and 14. This is what God says to Israel,
and it pertains to the Sabbath day. if thou turn away thy foot
from the Sabbath." In other words, you stop working on the Sabbath
and stop walking on the Sabbath. That's what he means. If you
turn away your foot from the Sabbath, and from doing your
pleasure on my holy day, and you call the Sabbath a delight. The Sabbath is a delight. the
holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, not
doing, nor finding thine own pleasures, nor speaking thine
own words, then thou shalt delight thyself
in somebody, in the Lord. and I will cause thee to ride
upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage
of Jacob thy father, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it." Just find your pleasure in the
true Sabbath of Christ Jesus. Can you do that? Can you just
rest? And you know, I'll tell you how
difficult it is to just rest in Christ Jesus. It'll take an
act of God to bring you to it. Because we just want to do so. We find our rest in Him who entered
into His rest because He began the work and He finished it to
the satisfaction of God. Let's sing a closing hymn. We
haven't sung this in a while, but I do like this song, 252
Only Trusting.