If you have your Bibles turn
with me please to Genesis chapter 2. Y'all hearing me alright on
the back row? Okay. Genesis chapter 2, gonna read
verses 1 through 3. Thus the heavens and the earth
were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day
God made, God ended his 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 sanctified it because that in it he had
rested from all his work which God created and made. Let us
pray. Now Father in heaven, sovereign
creator of this universe and all that is therein, ruler of
this earth, founded upon the seas, founded by your word, By
the word of your mouth these things came to be. You are our
sovereign creator. We are thankful that you are
also sovereign in the new creation, the creation of our spirit, making
us your children by your sovereign will. We thank you for that. We know that the old man dwells
in us. we struggle with him daily but
you have given us your spirit and made us a new man in Jesus
Christ wherein our life is hid with him and with you father
we ask tonight as we look at this passage of scripture give
us peace rest and glory as we look at the work that you accomplished
for us in the creation of this world and on the cross of Calvary
father we We'll remember those of our company who are sick,
especially Wayne, you'd watch over him, be with him. And Robert,
and Ethel, and Peggy Lambert, we ask your help for them. Those
others who've requested prayer, we ask, Lord, you'd be with them,
watch over them. Help us tonight, Father, as we gather here together,
that you might be pleased to give us worship. We know where
two or three are gathered in thy name, you're in the midst
of them. And we know also that the king in the midst of his
people is mighty to save. Help us, Lord, to worship you
now. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. The title of my message tonight
is The Lord's Sabbath. Now, there are several things
that are necessary for us to understand, to understand the meaning of
the Sabbath as it's revealed in the scriptures. These teachings
are necessary in both a positive and a negative way. The positive
has to do with the true meaning of the Sabbath. What does it
mean? And the negative has to do with the numerous errors that
permeate the teaching of those who would put the believer back
under the law. The most important thing about the Sabbath is found
in our text in the first three verses of the second chapter
of Genesis. We'll look at this as the last point in this message
tonight. First, we'll consider some other
things about the Sabbath that people hold to. First of all,
what is the Sabbath as to a day? What is the Sabbath as to a day?
It is the seventh day of the week. It is Saturday. It is part
of the Jewish economy and was never given to the Gentiles to
observe. The Sabbath day begins on Friday
night at sundown and ends at Saturday night at sunset, sundown.
That aligns with the concept throughout this first and second
chapter of the evening and the morning, darkness to light, defining
what a day is. Now the Lord did not institute
this as a day to be observed until it was given in the Ten
Commandments written in stone and given to Moses on Mount Sinai.
That was after the deliverance of Israel by the blood of the
Lamb. Now in the ceremonial aspect of the law there are eight Sabbaths,
each with a singular precept that's true to all of the Sabbaths.
And that singular precept is that there is no servile work
to be done on any one of the eight Sabbaths. Now there was
a Sabbath of days. It was the Sabbath of years,
the Sabbath for the plowing of fields. There was all kinds of
Sabbath. Jubilee was the last and final
Sabbath. The Day of Atonement was one of the Sabbaths. All
these Sabbaths set forth the same principles. It all talked
about God resting from his work of creation. That was what the
principles, that's what all the Sabbaths are for. There's no
servile work to be done, and this was explicitly set forth
in each case. because regardless of what sabbath
was observed it was observed to remind to remind the people
that the work was finished that's what it's all about when I know
people talk a lot about the sabbath and the sabbath day and things
like that but this is what the sabbath is about the work is
finished that's what it's about god had done the work and there
is nothing that humanity did that's what this says the sabbath
this is always the message now over time because of religious
evolution religion even in christianity so-called because of religious
natural bent to operate under the law decided to change the
sabbath day to the first day of the week and call sunday the
new sabbath this is simply not true The Sabbath, as to a day,
is still Saturday. It's still Saturday. But it's
not about a day. It's about God finishing the
work that He set out to do. The first day of the week, the
day that celebrated the Lord's resurrection, the day when most
believers gather to worship the Lord, is not the Sabbath. It's
called in the New Testament, the Lord's Day. the Lord's Day. It's not, however, by command
of God. There's no commandment in the
New Testament to meet on any specific day of the week. The early disciples in the early
church, that's the example we follow, and only by example.
We're not commanded to do so. The example that the early church
followed was that on the first day of the week, which was representative
of the day that our Lord rose from the grave, they gather together
to worship the risen Lord. There is no evidence in scripture
that the Sabbath was observed in scripture or even mentioned
in scripture until Moses referred to it in Exodus 16 and he referred
to it when the giving of the manna and the quail was given
to the people of the sojourning Israelites on friday that morning
they gathered twice the amount that gathered uh... before sunset
and then after sunset they didn't gather any all day the next day
it was the sabbath it was a day and what it pictured was the
risk that god had taken in creation so the sabbath is still saturday
if you want to make it a day if you want to make it a day
i have a number of friends Well, I won't say friends, acquaintances
who have jumped on my case over a number of times saying that
Saturday's the new Sabbath. There are several on this, or
Sunday's the new Sabbath. There are several on this reservation
who believe that. Several prophetic men believe that, and they've
given me a hard time about it, but I just tell them that we
worship the Lord on the first day of the week, because that's
when the disciples did it. And you don't worship him on
the Sabbath, or you'd be worshiping him on Saturday. They don't particularly
like that, but that's neither here nor there. The people were to rest and enjoy
what the Lord had provided for them, what the Lord had done
for them. Adam, Abel, Abraham, or Noah
is never said to observe the seventh day as different from
any other. They never did. There's no indication
all the way through their lives through the book of Genesis we'll
look at and all the way up to Exodus 16 until it's just mentioned
by Moses there's no indication that Abraham ever worshipped
on the Sabbath or observed the Sabbath. Why? Because it was
a Sabbath of the Lord. It was the Lord's rest, not our
rest. his rest, and that's very important. In religion, the Sabbath has
evolved into simply another way of self-righteousness to raise
its ugly head in the midst of believers. Those raised in false
religion know how the Sabbath has been used to accuse and excuse
behavior of what religious falsely refers to as the new Sabbath.
I had a friend, his name was Doug, and he was washing his
car one Sunday, and a preacher actually stopped. and got out
and laid him low. And told him, you're washing
the car on the Sabbath day. You're washing, doing something
on the Sabbath day. He said, no, well, first of all, it's
not the Sabbath. And secondly, the Lord gave me this car and
it's dirty, so I'm gonna clean it for his glory. The preacher
left. A dear lady that all of us would
know, all of us do know. I was at the hospital one Sunday,
visiting one of her sick relatives, and she was there And the Sabbath
came up, you know, and I told him it was Saturday. And she
told me, no, it was Sunday. And she said, I don't do anything
on Sunday. I said, well, do you eat? She
said, yeah, I eat. I said, well, then you prepare
food. She said, no, I always go to
a restaurant. So I said, so you have other people prepare food
for you on Sunday. on a Sunday. But people have
these ideas about Sabbath. You've been in religion long
enough to know that people start with these things and they'll give
you reasons how you ought to act and how you ought to be.
Those are false things. Since the Sabbath day was given
in the Law of Sinai, legalist religion pretty much disregards
the other seven Sabbaths and relegates the Sabbath to a day
only. and this is a religious error,
and once you have encountered that, or once you have sought
to please the Lord by the law on any level, you're accountable
to do the whole law and to do it perfectly before God, or you
will perish. It's that simple. The believer,
I've been saying this for 40 years, and I hope to say it for
40 years more. No, I won't say it for 40 years
more. I don't think I'll be around that long. The believer's not
under the law. He is not under the law for righteousness,
for sanctification, for justification, for redemption, for wisdom, for
anything. The believer is simply not under
the law. To say that he is is to lie, and to bring him under
the law is blasphemy. It's blasphemy. The word Sabbath,
what does it mean? The Hebrew word is Shabbat. It
means rest. That's what it means, that's
the word rest. When people say Shabbat shalom, they're saying
rest in peace. Shabbat shalom, rest and peace.
Shabbat means rest, but it means rest for a particular reason.
In the scriptures, how it's used and how it's used, it means rest
in a particular sense. Rest not because one is tired
from labor, but because the work is finished and there's nothing
left to do. There's nothing left to be done.
This is clearly stated in our text. Our Lord says this, and
note the wording. Our Lord said, Thus the heavens
and the earth were what? Finished. Well, that's done. The work of creation is done.
And all the host of them, what's that? That's all the creatures
and all the trees and all the grasses and all the flowers and
a man and a woman. All of that is finished. It's
finished now. It's done. And on the seventh
day, After our Lord had six days in creation, on the seventh day
God ended His work. He finished His work which He
had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work
which He had made. Now was it because the Lord was
tired? The Lord spoke these things into
existence. He wasn't tired. It takes infinitely
more energy for us to lift our hand in the air than for God
to create the world. He's sovereign. He's absolute
sovereign in all things. He simply spoke and there was light. He
simply spoke and there was earth. He simply spoke and there was
trees. The only thing that He actually put His hands on was
us. He manipulated the dirt of the ground. and made us into
a human being and breathed the breath into our nostrils and
we became a living soul. That's the only one he handled
with his hands and we know that since God his spirit has no hands
it was the Lord Jesus Christ who did that. Who it says in
John chapter one was the creator of all that is. So God blessed
the seventh day and sanctified it. Now that word means, sanctify
means to make holy, to regard as holy, to set apart for particular
use of the Lord. The Lord sanctified some things
in the temple that were only to be used of the Lord, or used
in worship of the Lord. Spoons, some spoons and some
forks and some tongs and things like that, and cups, chalices
and so forth were used only in the worship of the Lord. Now,
remember Belshazzar? Belshazzar had a party. And he
took those things that God had sanctified and said, only use
this to honor me. That's all they'll be used for.
He took those cups and those things. He filled them with wine
and fed them to all his friends. And suddenly a finger began to
write on the wall, meenie, meenie, tickle your florescent. And he
called, and Daniel interpreted what that meant. He says, your
kingdom's going to end today. Another's going to rule in your
stead. You've been weighed in the balance and found one. And
why? Because he took that which God had sanctified and used it
for some other reason. Now those who seek to make the
Sabbath the Lord's day or seek to use the Sabbath to excuse
or accuse others are using that which God has sanctified to himself
to honor and glorify his name. He sanctified it. Why? Why did
he sanctify it? Why did he set it apart? Why
did he make it holy? Why did he regard it as holy?
Because that in it he had rested from all his work. That's why
it's holy. That's why it's set apart. That's
why it's regarded as holy. That's why it's sanctified because
in that sanctification he had rested from all his work. That
tells us why the Sabbath day was later, in the word of God,
said to be holy. Remember the Sabbath day and
keep it holy. Keep it holy. It doesn't say
keep the Sabbath day and keep it holy. It says remember the
Sabbath day. Why? Because this is a recollection
of something that's already been done and already been finished,
and that is the work of the Lord. The Lord had finished the work
of creation. Now, we know, we have seen, and throughout the
scripture, typifying the creation typifies the new creation. And
the new creation is salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
having finished the work, God rested. He sanctified the seven
days, set it apart, regarded it as holy because in that he
rested from all his work. The day was set apart to be observed
as a remembrance, a recollection that the Lord had finished the
work. That's why it was Sabbath. It was a recollection. Now what
is it when we preach the gospel? It's a recollection. I continue
repeating the record that is already written in the book.
No more is going to be written, no more is going to be said until
God speaks again at the end of time. And when He speaks again,
it'll be as a loud trump and He'll wind this whole thing up.
But we have this record. When we are baptized, when we
confess the Lord in baptism, what are we doing? Well, we're
creating a recollection in our minds, in our hearts. We are
recalling that when Jesus Christ died, we died in Him. We died with Him. What do we
do when we take the Lord's table? The same thing. We are recollecting
that we died in Jesus Christ. It was His death that we honor.
That's what it's all about. We take the Lord's table to commemorate
what God has already accomplished for us, commemorate a finished
work. He finished the work, and he
rested. Sabbath means rest. What rest?
It means this, and this is important to understand. It's not really
about us at all. The Bible does say the Sabbath
was made for man, and what does it mean by that? It was made
for man, like all things are made for man, to glorify and
honor God. That's why you're made. That's
why you exist in this world, and all things you have are made
for the glorification of God. And you will, and I will, and
every person on the face of the earth will glorify God in His
grace, or we will glorify God in His wrath, but we will all
glorify God. The day was set apart to be observed
as a remembrance that the Lord had finished the work. Now those
who know the gospel know where I'm going with this, and you
don't have to use your minds too much to get there. When the
law was given on Sinai, It was only the law of the Sabbath,
the law of the Sabbath, that was explicitly explained. The others were just stated.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make
any grave enemies. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. Thou shalt not steal. Thou
shalt not buy false affluence. All these were just simply stated,
but not the Sabbath. Turn over to Exodus chapter 20.
Again, the reason given that the Sabbath was to be kept or
to remembered and regarded as holy is given when this commandment
was given on Mount Sinai. Verse eight is this commandment. Six days, excuse me, remember
the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and
do all thy work, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath of who? of
the Lord, the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work,
thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant,
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For
because in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea
and all that is in them, and he rested the seventh day, wherefore
the Lord blessed the Sabbath and hallowed it. Why did he do
it? Because he rested the seventh day. It's His Sabbath. It's His
Sabbath. It's God's Sabbath. It was to
be observed, to remember that the Lord had finished the work.
And it was given to man, not that he might use it as evidence
of some righteousness of his, or some merit of his, but as
a remembrance that the Lord was done with whatever he had started. It was all finished. You see,
the Sabbath is God's Sabbath. Now let's move from Genesis and
from Sinai forward a few millennia to a hill outside Jerusalem.
There on Friday, as the Sabbath day was approaching, the Son
of God is hung on a tree. He is there to finish something. a work that he came to do. He is to finish what will be
later called throughout the New Testament, the new creation. The new creation, which is the
salvation of that elect remnant. Now from that cross, what did
he cry? And he said seven different sayings,
but what was the last thing he said? After he had taken the
vinegar, he said with a loud voice, it is finished. So, all right, we have a work
finished. We have a work finished. And
then he gave up the ghost. He willingly died, voluntarily
died. Life ended. I don't know how
that works. I can't imagine. He who has who
is life died, but he did to satisfy God's demands because the law
said the soul of the sinner shall die. And he was made to be sin
for us. And you know sin that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. It was finished. that day on
friday before sunset he was taken from the cross and entombed on
that day why? because he couldn't hang on the
cross on the sabbath that's what the scripture says so he's taken
out of the tomb and on the sabbath he is put in a tomb he is wrapped
in grave clothes and a rock is put in front of the tomb he finished
the work now he enters into his rest his rest why? because the work is done the
next day was the sabbath day when did he enter into his rest?
on the sabbath in that tomb on the sabbath and he rested and
the next day was sunday it was the first day of the week and
he arose and later to ascend on high and receive the title
of lord which he had earned, why? because he was obedient
unto death he was obedient unto death you see our salvation is
his rest. It's his rest. We enter into
his rest. And at the appointed time, we
are given faith to believe and therefore rest in him because
he's finished the work. That's why we rest. We don't
rest because we've done something. We've done nothing. In fact,
we were dead when this news came to us. We were dead when we were
made alive unto God through the gospel and heard the truth of
how God had done these things and finished the work of salvation.
and we trust in that finished work and that's the sabbath that's
the sabbath we rest in him because he finished the work in hebrews
paul says it this way in hebrews chapter four in hebrews chapter four it speaks
of joshua in verse eight it says for if jesus had given them rest
then there would not after have been spoken of the word jesus
there is actually joshua is actually Joshua, which is Greek. The Greek for Joshua is Jesus.
And Joshua, had Joshua been given, had given them rest, there would
never have been a rest that was afterwards spoken of. And what
does he say? Joshua, Joshua was still under
that old covenant when he delivered the people into the promised
land. And Joshua never gave them rest, they never had rest in
the promised land. But there was a rest to come that was spoken
of. Now that rest is different. He says, there remaineth therefore
a rest for the people of God. Now if you have a Bible with
a marginal reading, you probably have a number beside the word
rest. In mine it's the number four. And the marginal reading
is this, there remaineth therefore a keeping of the Sabbath. that remaineth, therefore, the
keeping of the Sabbath to the people of God. For he that entered
into his rest, his rest, he also ceased from his own works, as
God did from his. Let us labor, therefore, to enter
into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of
unbelief. His rest, his rest, the keeping
of the Sabbath. The gospel celebrates, declares,
proclaims, memorializes, records the work of salvation and the
record is that it is finished. It's done. And it is Christ who
finished it. you don't finish it. I know some
people say, well Christ did his part, now it's your part. You
don't have a part. You're dead and trespassing sin when the
news comes to you. Now having finished it, he sat
down on the right hand of the majesty on high, and in the matter
of salvation, very clearly, throughout the scriptures, there is nothing
for the elect to do. There is nothing for the sinner
to do. It's already been done. They have entered into Christ's
rest. And here's the key. The next
time someone says, you gotta keep the Sabbath, you say, I
keep it every moment of every day of my life. Because I'm a
believer. I've entered into His rest. and I'll rejoice in his finished
work the believer keeps the sabbath every day and the believer is
the only one who does the only one and he doesn't keep the day
he keeps the rest of the person who finished the work for his
salvation that's what it is to keep the sabbath There remaineth
a keeping of the Sabbath for the people of God. Every believer
is a Sabbath keeper, and not one of them is a Sabbath breaker,
a Sabbath keeper. It is the Lord's rest, the Lord's
Sabbath. Father, bless us to our understanding.
We pray in Christ's name, amen.