In Exodus 31, we read from verse
32, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto
the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep,
for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations,
that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore,
for it is holy unto you. Every one that defileth it shall
surely be put to death. For whosoever doeth any work
therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six
days may work be done, for in the seventh is the Sabbath of
rest. Holy to the Lord, whosoever doeth
any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel
shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their
generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between
me and the children of Israel forever. For in six days the
Lord made heaven and earth, And on the seventh day he rested
and was refreshed. And he gave unto Moses, when
he had made an end of communion with him upon Mount Sinai, two
tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger
of God. Sabbath is a sign between me
and the children of Israel, for in six days the Lord made heaven
and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. Six days may work be done, but
in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whosoever doeth any work in the
Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. in six days the Lord made heaven
and earth. God spake and created the heavens
and the earth. He divided the light from the
darkness. He spake and the world was brought
into being. He spake and the seas were separated
from the dry land. He spake and all living things
grew forth upon the ground. He spake and created all the
living creatures in the heavens, on the land and in the seas.
He spake and created man from the dust of the earth and breathed
life into him and made him a living soul. He caused man Adam to be
put into a great sleep and he took out of his side out of the
rib of his side he made woman and gave woman unto man that
he should not be alone. God brought forth all living
things, mankind included, and created them in six days and
having finished the work of creation, he rested on the seventh day. He rested on the Sabbath and
was refreshed. He finished the work. In six
days He created the heavens and the earth and all that is therein.
Likewise at the cross, God in Christ came into this world and
went to the cross to bring in a new creation. The last Adam,
the second man, went to the cross to bring in a new creation. And in six hours at the cross,
God worked in Christ. The Son of God worked and laboured
as he bore the sins of his people and took them away. And through
His death, through His labour of faith upon the cross, through
His work of faith, as He suffered under the outpouring of God's
wrath upon Him. And God poured down, the Father
poured down His wrath upon the Son. through that work of faith as
Christ believed that the Father would take away the sins of all
his people and blot them all out and bring in everlasting
righteousness. As he suffered, as he labored,
he delivered his people and he brought in a new creation. And
at the end of the six hours, he cried out, it is finished.
And he was laid in the grave, his people with him. And at the
end of the Sabbath day, the physical Sabbath, at the end of the Sabbath
day, as the light dawned on the first day of the week, Christ
and his people rose again from the dead. They rose up together,
Adam with his bride. Out of his side she was taken
as he slept, the people of God, the bride of Christ, all for
whom he died and suffered. Out of his side she was taken
and on the first day of the week, the second man, the last Adam
and his bride, rose again in newness of life, in everlasting
life, a new creation, to live and rest together in glory forevermore. On the first day of the week
and the end of the Sabbath Christ entered that everlasting and
eternal rest which he brought his people into. That people
created anew in Christ without sin, having the righteousness
of God put to their account through His shed blood, that people and
their Saviour entered glory and entered into a rest that can
never be taken away. They entered into rest, they
entered into that seventh day that carries on eternally. The light of the sun will never
be taken away. The sun has risen and is setting
glory on high and he shines forth in glory. He is the light of
the new heavens and the new earth. There is no sun in that kingdom
we read in Revelation. For the Son of God is the sun. He is the light of that kingdom
and He ever shines forevermore. There is one everlasting Sabbath
day into which this people enter. An everlasting and eternal rest. That is the fulfilment of this
Sabbath. which God spake of unto Moses
in Exodus when he delivered the law as tablets of stone on Mount
Sinai, written with the finger of God. When God reminded Moses
of this perpetual covenant of the Sabbath day and how he created
the heaven and the earth in six days and on the seventh day he
rested and was refreshed. He tells Moses in type and in
figure that this is what he will do. through his Son everlastingly,
in that everlasting covenant of grace, that new covenant when
he will deliver his people from their sins. This one day of the
Sabbath was a picture of that everlasting day which the believer
enters into. by faith in Christ. What a blessing
the Sabbath is, what a blessing this everlasting rest is. If you believer have been brought
to faith in Christ, if you have seen your sins blotted out by
his blood, if you have seen them washed away, and you have seen
the righteousness of God put to your account, then you will
know what it is to rest and to enter into rest. All the labouring,
all the work you tried to do to gain salvation, you found
to be worthless. You could do nothing to save
yourself. You could do nothing to cleanse
yourself. You could do nothing to wash
your sins away. But here, brought to an end of
yourself, brought to an end of all your efforts in religion
to please God, brought to the point of saying, woe is me, I
am undone. O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from this body of sin and death, brought to
an end of self and an end of working for salvation? Christ
in the gospel comes unto you and points you to his blood,
his finished work, the everlasting rest that he has brought in for
you. And by faith you look and behold
your Saviour upon the cross, suffering in your stead, suffering
for your sins, your iniquity, your rebellion, your unbelief. There He is in your place. He died that you might live. He was judged that you might
be spared. He suffered that you might be
refreshed everlastingly in Him in an eternal and an everlasting
Sabbath. And when you're brought to that
point to believe then you're delivered from the six days of
work in which you laboured, delivered from the law, delivered from
your attempts to keep the law and to work at building a righteousness
with which God might be pleased like Adam and Eve you previously
tried to sow yourself fig leaves to hide your iniquity to hide
your transgression but now God comes and puts upon you clothing
covered in the blood of Christ the righteousness of God he clothes
you and your sins are covered, and you're righteous and perfect
in God's sight, and you enter into everlasting rest. Oh what
a blessing this rest is and what a blessing it is to understand
this rest. That it's not one day in a week. It's not the observance of one
day in the week whether it is Saturday or Sunday. It's not
the observance of a day. That was but a figure. But in
the new covenant Christ having come, our Sabbath, The Christian
Sabbath, the Believer's Sabbath, is an eternal Sabbath. It was
pictured by the seventh day, kept by the Israelites of old,
but now the Believer keeps it every day that he looks unto
Christ by faith. It's everlasting. It's everlasting. God has finished the work. He's
finished the work. Six days may work be done, but
in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. The work is done. But many continue to feel the
need to work. How easily the believer can be
led astray, like those at Galatia. when there were those that came
in to the Galatian church and taught them that yes Christ has
died yes he's delivered you from your sins yes his blood has been
shed but now you should keep the law now you should observe
the law you should live a certain way you should keep the law you
should keep the Sabbath day in order to walk righteously before
this God and they bring the believer who's been delivered from the
law by the blood of Christ back under that law and back under
a keeping of a literal Sabbath. They put them back under the
works and the six days of working which they've been delivered
from. It's so subtle and so easy to deceive because there is this
idea that by so doing you will observe righteousness, you will
restrain your sin, you will live outwardly in a manner pleasing
unto God. But this turns us from faith
in Christ and resting in Christ and looking to the gospel of
Christ and the cross of Christ unto looking to ourselves and
our own obedience and the outward law which instructs that obedience
and striving to be obedient and far from being obedient the more
we strive to be obedient the more we sin the more sin is flared
up as the flames of sin are flared up and stirred up within us.
The more we strive to keep the Lord, the more we fail, the more
we fall. This is what Paul found in Romans
7. The good that he would, he could
not do, and the evil that he would not, that he did. O wretched
man that I am! who shall deliver me from this
body of sin and death. He wanted to be obedient, he
wanted to be righteous, but by trying to, through the law of
God, he did the very opposite. He didn't fulfil the law, he
sinned more and more. Oh, he might be able to restrain
himself outwardly. He might be able to put on an
outward show, as many do. Yes, he could keep the Sabbath
one day a week. Yes, he could work six days physically
and stop to work on that day. Yes, he could go to worship.
Yes, he could dress a certain way and pray a certain way, but
it was all outward. In his heart, sin was stirred
up in rebellion against that which was commanded. And by turning to the law his
gaze was turned away from faith in Christ in the gospel. He wasn't
looking unto Christ. He wasn't looking unto the finished
work of Christ. The believer that is exhorted
to keep the law and to use the law as a rule of life turns his
gaze away from Christ, away from the finished work. back to himself,
back to the law, back to his own deeds, back to his own obedience,
his own observance, his concentration is on self and on his own righteousness,
his own self-righteousness. He doesn't look under Christ,
he doesn't rest in Christ, he ceases to believe in Christ alone. Oh the appeal is made that we
ought to work We ought to keep the law. We ought to live a certain
way. We ought to be like this. But
the ought is in the wrong place. Our obedience, which is exalted
of us in the gospel, is the obedience of faith. We are exalted to look
unto Christ, to believe on Christ, to stand fast in Christ and in
his gospel. We are exhorted not to return
unto the dead works of the law, not to be entangled again in
that yoke of bondage. We're pointed time and time again
by Christ and the apostles to look by faith unto Christ alone. And in so doing, we rest in Christ. and we rest in the Sabbath. Those who would call us to keep
the law and to keep a literal Sabbath bring us back under the
works of obedience to the law. They bring us back to works. They bring us back to the six
days of works. And they bring us back. in this
eternal Sabbath in which the believer dwells back to working
on the Sabbath day when God has commanded that six days may work
be done but in the seventh no work shall be done. The seventh
is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whosoever doeth
any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. O believer, when you came to
faith in Christ, God brought you. into an everlasting seventh
day of rest, holy to the Lord. I am the Lord that doth sanctify
you, I've set you apart, I've taken you out of the world and
out of that legal religion. Out of the religion of works
in which this world dwells and I've brought you under grace.
I've brought you into an eternal and an everlasting covenant of
grace. I've separated you from the world. I've separated you from sinners
and from sinful religion. I've delivered you from bondage. I've delivered you out of the
six days of labor and I've brought you into the seventh day of rest.
You are holy to the Lord. and whosoever doeth any work
in the Sabbath day, in this everlasting Sabbath day, shall surely be
put to death. The believer is called to rest
in Christ, to rest everlastingly in Christ, to every day to rest
in him and stand fast in him and resist any call or temptation
to work. in this Sabbath day. We ought not to work, we ought
not to mingle the law with the gospel, we ought not to take
up the law as our rule of life, we ought not to render legal
obedience to the law by our own deeds, our own strength, when
Christ has done the work. When Christ has fulfilled the
law to the uttermost through shedding His blood for us upon
the cross, His work of faith fulfilled that law totally. His work of faith brought the
righteousness of God in everlastingly for us. There's nothing that
can be added to it, nothing that can be taken away from it. He's
finished the work. And to turn on the Sabbath day,
this eternal everlasting day of rest into which we've ended,
to any sort of obedience to that law in our own strength, is to
work on the Sabbath day. And he who works on the Sabbath
day shall surely be put to death. We ought not. We are commanded
not to work, but to rest. Our obedience is the obedience
of faith. not the obedience of dead works. We've ceased from dead works
and we are exhorted to stand fast in Christ as those Hebrews
delivered from Egypt when they were led forth by Moses unto
the Red Sea. They were brought to stand fast,
to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. They were brought
to an end of anything they could do. They'd been brought out of
the house of bondage. They'd laboured all those years,
all those days, that figurative six days in the land of bondage. They'd been brought out of it,
delivered from it. And here they are before the
Red Sea. And they cannot pass through
it. And the Egyptians, certain death comes behind them. And
Moses says unto them, as we saw last week, stand fast and see
the salvation of the Lord. They were brought to an end of
doing anything. And they beheld and they saw
the Lord work and the Lord parted the seas before them and led
them through dry shod the Lord did a miraculous work he did
the impossible and they saw it and he delivered them they as
it were beheld by faith stand still That's God's command to
us. That's his command to you believer. When those come alongside you
and say you should go here and go there and do this and do that,
stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Behold by faith. Believe. Again, Paul exhorts
the Galatians. who are entangled and bewitched
by these that came in and would seek to put them back under law
as believers. Yes, you've been justified by
faith, but now sanctify yourselves. Sanctify yourself through the
work of the law. And Paul comes unto them and
says, stand fast. Stand fast therefore in the liberty
wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again
with the yoke of bondage. Stand fast, believe in Christ
alone. He'd spoken there in chapter
4 of the two covenants, that which was from Sinai, which gendereth
to bondage, and that which is from Jerusalem above, which now
is. He speaks of casting out the
son of the bondwoman. He speaks of casting out that
which came from Sinai. You're no longer under that law.
You're no longer under that covenant. You're under the new covenant
of grace which comes from Jerusalem above through Christ alone. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage. Who shall sanctify you? You speak
of justification and sanctification. God has justified us through
the blood of Christ. He has also sanctified us, as
Moses is told. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my
Sabbaths ye shall keep, for it is a sign between me and you
throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the
Lord that doth sanctify you. I have set you apart, and I have
taken you in Christ. into an eternal Sabbath, sanctified
forever, set apart wholly to the Lord, never to return to
the days of work. The seventh day is the Sabbath
of rest and in Christ. It never ends. The believer rests
in this Sabbath every physical day upon earth because it's an
eternal everlasting spiritual day in Christ in which he dwells. He rests in faith in Christ. He looks and beholds Christ.
He stands fast by faith. He believes. He believes in what
Christ did for him at the cross. By faith he rests in Him. And to be obedient to this command,
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to believe on the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be obedient to this command,
is to fulfill the law of God regarding the Sabbath. And to
be obedient to the command of the Sabbath, truly obedient to
the command of the Sabbath, is to rest in Christ. The children
of Israel kept the law outwardly, but the only ones that kept it
spiritually are those who through that law through that type and
that figure, through that sign that was given unto them and
to all their generations, through that covenant, looked and beheld
a Saviour, the Son of God. a sacrifice that God would send
them, who laid down his life for them, who delivered them
from bondage and brought them into rest, those who kept that
law spiritually. are those who are brought by
faith to rest in God their Saviour. Those who are brought to stand
still and see the salvation of the Lord. Not just stand still
on that day and see the miracle performed on that day, but to
stand still in their hearts before God and daily, eternally see
the salvation of the Lord in Jesus Christ. Those who are brought to obey
this command of the Sabbath are those who are brought to rest
in Christ alone for salvation and never to return to the bondage
of the law. You say you're returning to the
law as your guide of life. And one of the commands you read
in that law is to keep the Sabbath day and to do no work in that
Sabbath day for it is holy. So you take one day of the week
and you try not to work in that day and you don't entertain yourself
in that day and you go to the meetings in that day and you
think you've kept the Sabbath day because you've done this
outwardly. What a fool you are! That's merely an outward observance
like the Jews of old observed. But it's that which is eternal
which keeps it. To keep the Sabbath day is to
rest eternally in Christ. And to truly keep it is to be
delivered from the law, delivered from carnal and outward obedience
to the law, delivered from a mere keeping of one day, to rest every
day in Christ. This is how we Fulfill it. This is how we cease to work
in any way on that day. By believing in Christ alone
for salvation. By believing that he's fulfilled
the law. through his shed blood on the
cross, by believing that he's brought in the righteousness
of God which fulfills all the demands of the law for us, and
that righteousness is ours and cannot be added to, by believing
that the work is finished, by ceasing from all our works, all
our legal obedience, all our self-righteousness, and treating
it and owning it as filthy rags. and resting in the righteousness
of God alone. This is how we keep the Sabbath
day. Never returning to the works
of the law, never returning to legal obedience, outward works,
to carnal religion, fleshly religion, that which is done before the
sight of men, when the hearts are far from God. There is no work to be done because
God has completed the work. He finished the work in Christ. It is finished Christ cried at
the end of the hours upon the cross. We can't recreate what
God has done. We can't recreate a new creation
that is already wrought and brought in. He has created us anew within
six hours upon the cross, pictured by the six days of creation.
We're created anew and brought into a seventh day of rest, an
everlasting day. Our rule of life as believers,
as Galatians 6 tells us, our rule is to rest faith in Christ
as new creatures, as new creations, looking unto Jesus, looking unto
Him upon the cross crucified for us, having finished the work. God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world
is crucified unto me and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision but
a new creature and as many as walk according to this rule Peace
beyond them and mercy and upon the Israel of God. This is our
rule of life, believer. That we are a new creature in
Jesus Christ. We glory in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ. We behold him by faith and we
rest in him by faith. We ought to rest. Should you say, but as a believer
should I not do this and should I not do that? What we ought
to do is we ought to rest in Christ our Sabbath. We ought
to rest in him by faith. And to do anything else is to
take up our hand and work. To try to recreate that which
God has created perfectly. To try to add to the finished
work of God. To try to add something that
we can add to it. It's to take away from the work
of God. It is to work in the Sabbath
day. And whosoever doeth any work
in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. This is how serious this matter
is. Those who entangle believers
or entangle themselves back under works, back under the law of
God, back under legal obedience, those who talk of the law as
being the believer's rule of life or his guide of life or
that which will be the tramlines along which he walks, those who
bring the Lord back when Christ has delivered us from it, when
we're married unto Christ and delivered from our former husband. Those who would bring us back
cause us to commit adultery in turning away from our new husband
Christ and cause us to break the Sabbath day rest. They say
keep a Sabbath, but in taking you from resting in Christ alone
back to legal works, you are breaking the Sabbath, and the
consequence is, the judgment of God sounds out from on high,
that whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall
surely be put to death. You prove by your deeds that
you do not believe in the finished work of Christ. That you do not
rest in Christ. That you do not truly have faith
in Christ. He isn't your all in all. You
make a profession of his name whilst you're still under law.
You're still seeking to save yourself. You're still seeking
to sanctify yourself. You're still adding something
to his works. You turn away from him. We ought not to work in Sabbath
days. We ought to rest, rest by faith,
trusting and believing in Christ alone. Indeed, turning from God and
resting in him is the very essence of the fall of man at the beginning.
Figuratively Adam was in the seventh day. God had created
the heavens and the earth in six days and on the seventh day
he rested and was refreshed. And there was man with his God
in the seventh day, in this rest, put in this garden of Eden with
no labour before him, nothing to be done. And he could rest there forevermore. But Adam's heart stirred up by
his wife through the deception of Satan the serpent. The serpent
comes unto them and deceives and gets at the man through the
woman and says thou shalt surely not die. If you eat of the fruit
of this tree surely you shall not die. For there was a tree
that the Lord had commanded that Adam should not eat of. the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil a tree which would instruct
him about what was good and what was evil a tree which would instruct
him in righteousness and how to be right and how to avoid
wrong and Adam ceased from resting in Christ and resting in God
alone and turned to this tree and ate of this tree and in eating
of this tree he was turning unto works He was turning unto gaining
that knowledge by which He might instruct Himself in how to live. He ate of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. This is what He wanted. He wanted
to know good and evil. He wanted to be as a God. He wanted to be as a God, knowing
good from evil. As God said of him. The Lord
God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us to know good
and evil. And now lest he put forth his
hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever,
therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden
to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out
the man and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims
and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of
the tree of life. He was cast out. Man turned to
works. He turned to his own strength. He turned to working and adding
to the work of God. He turned to his own wisdom and
the knowledge of good and evil and through it he died. He disobeyed
God. He turned from resting in God
to his own self and his own glory. He became as it were as a God
knowing good from evil and the tree of life was barred from
him. Whosoever doeth any work in the
Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. God said unto Adam, Because thou
hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of
the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not
eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt
thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles
shall bring it forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of
the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground. For out of it
thou wast taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou
return. Adam Woodwork. He would turn
to his own strength, he would turn to his own wisdom, he would
know good from evil and act on it himself. And the result of
it was death and condemnation. The result of it was hard labour
in this world. He worked by the sweat of his
face to gain bread and survive. He had to till the hard ground. He put himself under works and
works was what God put him under. He hardened his heart against
God and God hardened him and the way to the tree of life was
barred. Except God preached the gospel
in mercy under him and Eve and said in order to live blood must
be shed. He took the animals He slew the
animals, blood was shed and he clothed them. And in a figure
he said, your sin has brought this death. And the only way
back from your sin in turning to your works, turning to your
wisdom, turning to your glory, the only way back unto life is
if one dies in your place, is if one sheds his blood your place. Adam ate of the tree and was
cast out of this rest which he had in Eden. He was cast out
of this seventh-day figure in which he dwelt and he knew what
it was to sweat and to toil and labor That was what his disobedience
brought in. That's what your disobedience
has brought in. That's why you sweat. That's
why you labor. That's why you cannot survive.
That's why you're dying and are dead in your sins, in trespasses
and sins. That's why God is a far off and
you're restrained from him by nature. Adam would work, he would
labour, he would glory in self. You will work, you will labour,
you will glory in yourself and your own doing. You will seek
the praise of man and seek the praise of God even. But the result
is sin, death, iniquity, dwelling in darkness, toiling in the sweat
of your face. The result is all the misery
that we experience in this world. All the tragedy, all the misery,
all the heartache, all the loss, all the bereavement, all the
disease, all the disasters, every evil thing and evil consequence
that mankind experiences in this world is because he turned from
God and turned to his own works and his own glory. and would
not rest and stand still and believe in God alone. Unto dust
shalt thou return. He shall surely be put to death. Put to death. He who labors on
the seventh day shall surely be put to death. Adam died spiritually as a consequence
of his disobedience. You and I in Adam have died because
of Adam's disobedience and our disobedience in him and we've
all been disobedient from the day we were born. In the same
way we've turned from God, we've turned from looking unto God,
we turned from trusting God, we've turned from him, we've
gone our own way, we go in our own strength, we will work order
to gain salvation, we will work in order to bring glory unto
ourselves, we won't stop, we won't stand still, we won't look
helpless, weak, without strength, hopeless, guilty unto God. We will stand in our own foolish
arrogance, our own wisdom, And the consequence, like Adam, is
we are put to death because of our disobedience. But as God showed unto Adam in
taking those skins of the animals, in taking the animals and slaying
them and clothing him in blood-soaked skins, there was one whom God
would put to death for his people. One who he would put to death
that those who disobeyed, those who worked when they should rest,
those who turned from God, should be delivered from their sin,
delivered from their iniquity, delivered from condemnation. Christ, the Son of God, was put
to death. And in his death, he worked that
we should rest eternally. For in six days the Lord made
heaven and earth and all that in them is and rested the seventh
day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the
Sabbath day and hallowed it. In six days the Lord made the
heaven and earth Light was separated from darkness, the sea from the
dry land, all was brought into being. God breathed life into
man, he brought the woman out of the side of Adam and then
he rested. And when Christ came into the
darkness of this world and was rejected of all, and taken up
outside Jerusalem to be crucified and nailed upon a cross and lifted
up above the earth that all men should behold when he was lifted
up and suffered and hung there. In six hours he laboured and
worked by faith in order to deliver his people from their sins. In
six hours he worked in order to bring in that new creation.
Three hours in the light and three hours in the darkness the
Son of God hung He hung three hours in the light and three
hours in the darkness. In those six hours, the work
of God was to divide light from darkness, heaven from hell, the
sheep from the goats, God's elect from the reprobate. In those six hours God divided
the light from the darkness. He divided heaven and earth.
He divided the sea from the dry land. He brought his people into
being. He brought them as it were through
the sea into dry land, into a new heaven and a new earth. He brought
forth a new creation. Life was breathed into man, in
the new man, and the bride of life was brought out of his side
as he slept, as Christ entered into the darkness of the grave,
six hours upon the cross, in the light and in the dark, when
he cried out it is finished and slept, his wife, his bride was
in his side. She was there as He suffered
upon the cross. It was her sins which He bore. It was her sins for which He
suffered. It was her sins which brought
the wrath and the judgment of Almighty God down upon the Son
of God. It was her sins that caused Him
to cry out, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me? It was
her sins which caused His blood to be shed. And as he was laid
in the grave, as he slept, she slept with him. And on the beginning,
on the first day of the week, as the light shone, and the Sabbath
was at an end, she rose with him. And she was brought out
of his side. The Bride of Christ was brought
out of the side of her husband. The second man, the last Adam,
she was brought out and presented to him. Eve was presented to
Adam as it were, a new creation to live forever, spotless and
without blemish. That church delivered from the
side of Christ for whose sins he suffered, she was presented
unto him spotless and without blemish, righteous. The blood
of Jesus Christ having washed away every spot and every blemish,
every sin, past, present and future. She was presented to him in the
victory of that moment as he rose again from the grave, as
he rose with her in newness of life, a new creation together
to enter into that eternal rest in the new covenant and in the
new heavens and the new earth, the inheritance prepared for
them. What a work he wrought in those
six hours upon the cross. Six days God laboured in the
first creation as a picture which points us to the six hours of
labour of faith of Christ upon the cross to bring in the new
creation. The day of rest at the beginning,
the seventh day, the Sabbath day points to the everlasting
day of rest into which God's people enter in Christ as he
rose from the grave. Oh what a day this is, what a
rest this is. Have you been brought there believer?
Have you been brought to rest in Christ? We rest in him, never
to work again. never to work again, we're under
grace not under the law. There is nothing to be added
to the work of Christ which he wrought by faith upon the cross,
nothing at all, nothing can be added, nothing should be added,
nothing must be added. For to add to that is to put
our hands to the labour It is to work in the day of rest. It
is to get up in this eternal Sabbath and do work in that day
which the Lord has sanctified and made holy. Whosoever doeth
any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. We either rest in Christ eternally
and live forever in Him by faith or we put our hand to the work
and we die forever. It is life or death. Life or death. Works or faith. Law or grace. everlasting judgment,
in darkness to come, or everlasting life, in Christ alone, in eternity. Those with life, those in Christ,
those who are given faith to believe in Him, and only those,
enter into rest. Have you rested? Have you ceased
from dead works? Have you been brought by faith,
by the work of God, to keep the Sabbath day? We keep it in Christ,
who is our Sabbath. We rest in Him, who is our rest. We trust in Him, who is all our
salvation. Amen.