Sabbath Thought.

Sabbath thought-

Each day of creation brought something into being-

1. Earth, space, time, light and water.
2. Atmosphere.
3. Dry land and plants.
4. Sun, Moon, Stars.
5. Sea & Flying creatures.
6. Land animals & man.
7. Sabbath Rest.

Has ANY of those created things as a WHOLE- disappeared?

We still exist upon an earth, water exists, space exists, time and light exist.

We still have an atmosphere.

We still have dry land and plants.

We still have a sun, moon and stars.

We still have sea and flying creatures.

We still have land animals and mankind.

So why wouldn't we still have a day of rest?

There was NO real reason whatsoever for God to CREATE a seventh day if it weren't important.

The weekly cycle was enacted at creation and still exists today.  Man has changed a lot of things and even tried to change the weekly cycle to a different one- but it never caught on.

Six days of labor- of work.

One day of rest.

This is God's plan even before the fall into sin which made work something hard and unpleasant.

Six days of living tending the garden, tending the animals all as desired- none of that tending was a hardship at all. Six days to focus upon things around you in your world, and one day to turn that focus on a central figure- God.

Let me put an idea out there for a moment- one that could be totally wrong, but maybe not.

Remember this verse--

Gen 3:8  And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

God was NOT always in the presence of the created pair.

However, I believe on the day of rest they were together the entire day. I even believe they could go the entire six days without seeing God and talking to Him- never forgetting Him of course, just as we don't forget people we love just because we don't interact with them. However, I truly do believe that they were together on that seventh day- every seventh day Sabbath. 

Jesus, when He walked the earth before His death and resurrection, kept the Sabbath day. He could be found in temples teaching as was the custom, He could be found conversing with His disciples, He could be found healing and helping others on the Sabbath. Jesus was accused of violating the dictates of the Sabbath- no work- and the Pharisees considered Jesus' healing of others to be work, but Jesus showed them their hypocrisy concerning that.  Jesus was accused of working by allowing His disciples to get a bit of corn off a cob in a field as they walked. Jesus also put that hypocrisy to rest as well. Jesus was NEVER accused of not recognizing the Sabbath day for what it was. He kept the Sabbath! If He simple did NOT keep the Sabbath at all and treated it as all other days we would have heard a lot more from the Pharisees and rulers of that day who were out to get rid of Jesus. Jesus' accusers would have jumped upon the chance to add charges against Him. Remember violating the Sabbath meant being stoned to death.  Do you recall the passage where Jesus intervened with people getting ready to stone an adulteress to death?  The mob getting ready to do the stoning believed in keeping the moral laws as they saw them and their sacrificial system of ruling then called for the punishment of stoning- not forgiveness.  They could have picked up their stones and murdered Jesus for breaking the Sabbath, but they didn't because He kept the Sabbath.  As already mentioned the few times they accused Jesus of Sabbath breaking they were proven false.  Jesus did NOT come to condemn people, but to save them. The murderers were those who even thought about murdering someone, the adulterers were those who even thought about lusting after another.  The heart of the moral law was being REVEALED by Jesus.  Keeping the Sabbath in the heart of the moral law meant keeping it in the way God intended, not in the way of rigidity before the Son of God came to save sinners.  Doing away with ANY of the ten moral laws was NEVER something Jesus would do- He created the moral law! 

The Sabbath was instituted at Creation there is no doubt about that- on the Seventh day God rested from all He'd made and He blessed and sanctified the seventh day.

Gen 2:1  Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

Gen 2:2  And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

Gen 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.

Why would God bless the seventh day if it were simply to be forgotten?

Why would God make the seventh day holy through sanctifying it if it meant nothing for the future?

Seriously we need to consider this because people today simply don't believe in keeping the Sabbath day holy.  They tend to keep an hour here or there, maybe a bit more- if they keep it and generally they keep the wrong day altogether- not caring that God went out of His way to assure us which day was the proper day.  We KNOW which day is the Seventh day. The Jewish people still in existence today still keep the same Sabbath day they were given to keep in the moral laws- and while they don't keep it in accordance to Jesus- the heart of the law, they are still keeping that day.  We KNOW which day is God's Sabbath and Biblically it was NEVER changed. People will say but Jesus rose the first day so that changed it.  But Jesus didn't authorize that change and you can be sure He would have made it perfectly clear.  Others say they gathered together on the first day of the week- the apostles and such.  It also says they gathered together daily and they gathered money on the first day of the week something they wouldn't do on the Sabbath. If their Sabbath day had changed to another day it would have been such a HUGE deal, it would tremendously more important than if we changed the day we celebrate yearly holidays. Yet can you imagine someone telling you that we know longer celebrate Ground Hog's day on February 2nd but from now on it'll be on the 3rd of February.  I'm just throwing that out there but think about it, we'd go nuts over a celebration day change yet we don't hear anything about a law kept for thousands of years being changed? 

How was it changed by people? Very subtly, very slowly.  The pagan and Christians began to merge and several holiday and such were altered to fit the Christian idea, not the pagan. For a long time the seventh and the first day were both kept, and then gradually the corrupted Christian church authorized the change and their bogus reasoning was taken for truth because by then they told people only they could truly interpret God's word.  There is a lot of proof but the Devil has done an amazing job of stamping down God's truth. 

Remember- that broad path is where the majority believe- the narrow path is what few believe.

Please, Father God in heaven, please help us to keep the day YOU set aside Holy. Jesus was there with you at the creation of our world and we know He was part of creating the Sabbath day, that He wants us to keep this day holy unto YOU! Teach us how to worship You, to keep Your day holy!  Guide us, Lord.

All through the love of Your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior now and forever!!!!!!!

Amen.