Take Your Rest: The Fourth Commandment Part 05

 

 

The Sabbath & the Book of Hebrews 

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 — Exodus 20:8-11

 

From Blessing to Burden?

 

The 10 commandments offer a concise portrait of God’s alpine high standards; they have been a bedrock for western civilisation and a major reason for its blessing. Of all the commandments, the fourth should be greatly celebrated: it is called the Sabbath rest.

Who wouldn’t want a regular day off?

As we have learned in earlier articles, the very commandment that was meant to bestow blessing became a great burden by the 1st Century AD - the time of Jesus. There were so many manmade ‘do’s & don’ts’ on how to keep the Sabbath ‘holy’ that one wonders if they all could be remembered, let alone observed. It drained the joy right out of the day

Jesus cut through the clutter with His statement that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath: the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27-28). For most Christians, we have accepted the concept of ‘Sabbath’ being on the first day of the week, a celebration of the new creation in Christ.

Insights from the Book of Hebrews

In order to have a complete and balanced understanding of the fourth commandment and rest, we need to turn to the Book of Hebrews 3:7-4:12.

Four times in this passage it makes a reference to Psalm 95:7-11, which says Today, if you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart.

What does this have to do with the rest of Sabbath?

•    Weekly Sabbath: A day of rest on Saturday from your normal labour;

•    The promised land: When the children of Israel possessed the land of Canaan under Joshua, this was a type of rest. God promised the land to their father Abraham and now it was theirs. Instead of wandering through the wilderness or fighting off the locals, every man could ‘rest’ under his own vine and fig tree (1 Kings 4:25; Micah 4:4). The Israelites have arrived and possessed their ‘rest.’

•    Ultimate rest: Making it to heaven, the Kingdom of God, and New Jerusalem, is the final rest. Our life and labours for God lead us to this destination.

Merely having a day off on Saturday or Sunday is not necessarily the rest of God. Jesus’ opponents - Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, scribes, chief priests - all observed Saturday Sabbath, but they in no wise pleased God or prepared themselves for the His rest.

Remember the words of Hebrews 3:7-11, quoting Psalm 95

Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, 8 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: 9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. 10 Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. 11 So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.

The Israelites during Moses’ day rested the Sabbath but God says in Verse 11 they shall not enter His rest.

Why couldn’t they enter into His rest? And how can we?

1.        Refusal to listen to God’s Word: God is always speaking (Hebrews 1:1-2) but we are not always listening. If you belong to Jesus, He says that His sheep hear His voice (John 10:27).

 

2.        Hardened heart: Rejecting God’s voice leads to a hardened heart, and that is more deadly to the spirit than hardened arteries to the body. It is a form of blindness and deafness.

 

3.        Missing out on God: Stubborn spiritual deafness means tempting God, rejecting His grace and miracles, erring in the heart, and ignorance of God’s ways. A person can miss heaven’s best if they persist in this condition.

 

No amount of Sabbath-keeping will remedy this dire situation. So what is the solution? Faith in God and His gospel is the key to pleasing Him, accessing His kingdom, and entering into His rest. Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes from the Word of God (Romans 10:17).

Just as faith is commended, doubt and unbelief are condemned. In fact, Hebrews 3:12 speaks of the worse sin of all: the evil heart of unbelief. Any other sin can be atoned by faith in the gospel of Christ, but if you can’t believe, the gospel will not profit you. That’s why we need to mix the word of the gospel with faith (Hebrews 4:2).

Ironically, we are encouraged to labour in order to enter into God’s rest (Hebrews 4:11): This is not talking about hard manual labour. It is referring to effort to draw close to God in faith and to let the atoning work of Christ on the cross be credited to your life.

Faith and rest: Your standing in God is not determined by what you do but what Christ has done. Believe in receive.

In conclusion, regarding the Sabbath, a disobedient hard-heart will preclude you from God’s rest, even if you do observe the Sabbath. But a life of faith will cause you to please God, enter into His rest, and everyday belongs to Him.