Commandment #4 The Sabbath
Exodus 20:8-11
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.
Putting God in the position of authority and first in our lives is not limited to making sure we do not worship any other god.
We keep this commandment as a thankful reminder of our deliverance from Egypt. Not Just the Jews, but also the gentile in that we also were delivered from the bondage of sin and the world before coming to accept Christ.
We should remember that the Lord himself rested after having created the world. The act of keeping Sabbath is not sufficient of course for salvation.
John 14:6
Je’sus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Only through Christ are we truly saved, and fulfilment of his commandments are one of the ways we express our love and faithfulness unto the Lord.
Mark 12:29-31
And Je’sus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
30. AND THOU SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THY HEART, AND WITH ALL THY SOUL, AND WITH ALL THY MIND, AND WITH ALL THY STRENGTH: This is the first commandment.
31. And the second is like, namely this, THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR AS THYSELF. There is none other commandment greater than these.
These Two commandments Je’sus gave to us to keep with specific instruction, and greater emphasis is given to them. However, we continue to honor the Lords 10 commandments even though we are no longer under the Mosaic law because they were given to us by God for the purpose of structure of social order and for the our benefit. As the time of Jacob’s trouble nears, the 10 commandments as well as the two given by Je’sus will be monumental in setting those who believe in him aside. He will know his people through the fulfilment of his commandments; the anthem between God and his people.
The Sabbath, a day of rest and fellowship, time set apart for time with the Lord. The confusion may be with many today is in regards to which day is the Sabbath. In truth the creation calendar is set by the moon and not the sun. The lunar month places Sabbaths on every, seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first and twenty-seventh day . The day, which began at twilight the day prior would have begun as the sun set on Friday and ended the next sunset on Saturday. The early Christians, themselves Jews in the land of Israel and those to whom later letters would be written celebrated the Sabbath in this manner. The changes to the calendar as we know it today is an alteration brought about in Rome under the reign of Emperor Hadrian. Bishop Sixtus (c.a 116-c.a. 126) was the first to celebrate an Easter Sunday (itself a pagan ritualistic adaptation to the resurrection of Je’sus) in Rome instead of the traditional observation of Passover in the month of Nisan.
We must remember that Rome had been a convergence of ideologies, that created a false sense of unity and full allegiance and servitude to Rome ( a polytheistic and pagan society), not God. This escapes most Christians due in part to the great deception that the Roman Empire imparted to the world and because of ignorance on the matter .
Still the true Sabbath is a day that should be dedicated to the Lord, that we should delight in all things of him and remember to honor him for all that he has done for us. That even still in today’s world we give thanks and remember what he has done for us.