May 14, 2022
Beware, brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Hebrews 3:12
Our Heavenly Father desires an intimate relationship with each of us; and, whether or not we are aware, our deepest longing is a desire for Him: a confident, unbroken, intimate relationship with the Creator.
Yesterday we observed that the word oth (sign, seal, mark) used in Scripture is intended to help us learn of and remember the credibility of God, as well as place ourselves—by faith—under the protection of His unrivaled power. We must know that only He has the power to cleanse and sanctify, to fit us for Heaven. Sabbath observance protects against the kind of forgetfulness that leads to apostasy.
Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you . . . that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. Exodus 31:13
Observing the Sabbath by abstaining from work is not the same as the rest that God has in mind. But it does open the door to make what God has in mind a reality: He chose and blessed a special day (the seventh one) as a time for unhindered fellowship with Himself, leading us toward the Edenic ideal. Jesus chose to do much healing on the Sabbath, showing the world His rightful claim to the world and the Sabbath day. Restoring those suffering from sin and sickness provided a foretaste of the full restoration promised to those who believe.
When we choose to honor the “temple in time” that He chose, we become a visible symbol of the covenant relationship. In this covenant, He set the terms from the start, and we have the choice to enter the covenant and align ourselves with those terms.
Beloved, chapters 3 and 4 of Hebrews are not a mere invitation to rest, but rather a plea from our Creator and Redeemer to enter that rest. Oh, how we need the rest and revival that only He can provide. The world is on a course that took many depart[ures] from the living God during the Dark Ages. The Reformers bravely initiated an emergence into the light of God’s word. One-by-one, errors have been caught and corrected. One of the last is the correction back to the seventh-day Sabbath from the counterfeit day instituted by man. Revelation 14:6-7 tells us of the final judgement that is fast approaching and points us back to the Sabbath commandment!
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it, you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Exodus 20:8-11
And He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Exodus 33:14
HAPPY SABBATH, BELOVED!