6 Exploring the Biblical Sabbath
Discovering the Biblical Truth about the Sabbath
This post is a rough transcription done by AI. I will later come back and clean it up.
Welcome back to another episode of our Prophecies of Hope series. Thank you so much for joining me in this journey, and as a reminder, the Bible is our primary source of information, so I hope you have your Bible and you can follow along. We want to make sure that the things we're learning are from the Bible and not, you know, there was this guy that I saw online and he was.
Saying, sure, I'm saying things, but when you share the information that you learn, I want you to say, I was studying the Bible and I learned It's not so much about what I'm saying, it's about what this book is saying, and my goal here is to just guide you in this journey and in this study of the Bible. My name is Marlon Seifert.
I have introduced myself in previous videos, and we're gonna just jump into this. Today's. Uh, this episode, I should say is entitled, created for Something Better, exploring the Biblical Sabbath. So, we're gonna look into this topic in the Bible and see what it has to say. Maybe you already have some opinions on it.
Let's see what your thoughts are compared with what I'm going to share from the Bible. I love to know your thoughts. Once again. Um, I, I keep repeating this, but leave me some comments in the video. Let's interact. Lemme know if you agree, if you disagree, questions that you might have. I want this to be helpful to you and if you do find it helpful also give us a thumbs up.
Give us a like, and subscribe to our channel so you can see more content like this that will be coming in the future. We're going to start this time in the Book of Revelation. This is a prophecy seminar after all, and we have not done a whole lot with Revelation yet, even though we keep dipping our toes in Revelation.
And I think as, as we are progressing and and becoming more acquainted with the Bible, with what it teaches, we're preparing ourselves to dive into Revelation. It's the last book of the Bible. It assumes you have read everything that came before it. When we jump into Revelation too soon, my experience is we tend to get a little bit lost.
And very confused. So we are going into Revelation. We're starting on Revelation, but we're always going back and checking with the rest of the Bible to see if our interpretation of the book of Revelation fits with everything else God has been saying throughout the entire Bible. And it's a. It's a tall order, right?
It's a, it's a lot to try to accomplish. I believe we can do it, but we do not want to do this on our own. I invite you to join me in prayer as we begin. Father in heaven, Lord, spiritual things are spiritually discerned. We need your help. Please guide us as we study the topic of the Sabbath as we look at prophecy, as we look at the Bible.
Lord, we want to be faithful to you. We want you to teach us the things that you want us to learn, and we want to learn them from the Bible, so as you read them, inspire us. May Your Holy Spirit guide us in this study. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us. Let's turn to Revelation chapter 14.
This is where we have what's often referred to as the three angels message. There are three angels described in Revelation chapter 14, and we're gonna talk about the first angel this time. And the reason why these three angels are important, it's because when you read through Revelation 14, starting with verse six, we have the first Angel's message.
But as soon as they're done with these three messages, what we have next in Gen Genesis, in Revelation chapter 14 is the second coming of Jesus. So it is my understanding that Revelation 14 and, and the messages of these three angels, and some argue that it's one message given in three parts by three angels.
I don't disagree with that. Either way, you, you slice it up. This is the last message to go to the world before the second coming. So it does seem to me that it's important for us to familiarize ourselves with the message. Of these three angels. So this time in this video, in this episode, we're looking at the first Angel's message and not the whole thing.
We're gonna revisit this, but for now, let's read from Revelation chapter 14, starting with verse six. Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. So we're gonna pause there real quick.
The gospel here is referred to as everlasting, and I, and I love this description of the gospel. My understanding of what this means includes this is not a new gospel. It's not a, a new plan that God came up with. Like, oh, by the way, let's, let's just save people by grace from now on. No, I believe this was the plan all along.
Everything else that God revealed through the sacrificial system was pointing people to Jesus. And Paul talks about this as well, that the sacrifices that the blood of animals was not enough to cleanse our sins, but it was a sign that people had faith that the Messiah was coming one day. So I would argue throughout the Bible, throughout the, the history of humanity here on this.
Planet throughout their, the history of of life Ever sin. Ever since sin came into this world, we have been saved. Humans have been saved by grace through faith. In Jesus Christ. And the sacrificial system of the Old Testament was simply an illustration. It, it, it was how they demonstrated their faith that Jesus was coming.
And now we have communion. We have other things that point back to the fact that Jesus came, we no longer offer sacrifices. We're all saved through the same means. It's through Jesus alone and, and by grace alone and, and through faith. So. That to say the everlasting gospel is the only gospel has not changed is the gospel that these angels are preaching.
Also, the word angel in Greek, it really means messenger. I. So the word angel means messenger, and I, and I say this because sometimes we think we associate the word angel with a being. I believe the word angel is associated with a function. I don't wanna go too deep into this, but you can look this up or we can leave comments, we can talk about it some more later.
At times in the Old Testament, an angel shows up and then later it turns out to be the Lord himself. Also here in Revelation chapter 14 sometimes. Well, also it's, it's, it's prophecy, right? It, it's more symbolic than some of the other books of the Bible. I believe that these angels, even though there is a supernatural aspect to it, I think a lot of it also has to do with the work of the church.
In the last days, we are God's messengers. Me. You listening to this video, those of us who were seeking God, learning about God, God then calls us to be his messengers, to take the everlasting gospel to others. I say this because I don't want you to read about this and be like, ha, I'm, I'm gonna sit around and wait for an angel to come fly in the midst of heaven, to proclaim this gospel to the whole world.
When I believe the proper interpretation of this text is God is calling me to be his messenger. His. Angel, right, to go out and share the everlasting gospel with the world. So we have in the Bible, cherubim and seraphim, these are angelic beings. They often serve or behave as God's messengers. These are beings that the Bible describes as having wings, and they look like they're on fire and right there, bright, um, not necessarily flaming.
But anyway, uh, and I don't want us to confuse, you know. Seraphim with Angel. I believe the seraphim function as angel sometimes. Sometimes God himself functions as an angel. Sometimes prophets functions function as an angel and we can function as an angel, as a messenger. And, and I think that this is a proper thing to keep in mind as we go through this.
Of course, many times when it refers to an angel, it is one of these cherubim or seraphim, they are these beings with the wings, with the brightness that they show up and people think they're gonna die. So. Anyway, I, I hope that that was clear. I hope I did not just confuse you with this. I just don't want you to read this prophecy, this message about the three angels and sit back waiting for somebody else to do it, but rather we.
Partner with God, we partner with the angels, the seraphim and the cherubim, and you know, and all of us going out there to accomplish this mission of preaching the gospel to the whole world. It has to reach everyone before Jesus comes back and we get to be personally engaged with this work of God. Verse seven.
Let's see here. Verse seven saying, with a loud voice, fear God, and this idea of fear. Here we, we can see it in Genesis 2212, Psalm 1 11 10, Ezekiel 12, 13. It's it, it has to do with, it's not fear of when you're scared of something that's evil and bad. This is fear in the sense you have respect for something that is powerful and awesome and amazing.
Fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come worship him. Who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, in the springs of water. So this first angel's message, it ties in several things. The everlasting gospel that has to go to everyone in the world. It ties in also the idea of fearing God, giving him worship, honor, glory.
Um, and of course, you know, worship, I, I mentioned that already. So fearing God, giving him glory, and in the context of judgment, the hour of his judgment has come and worship him. Who made heaven, the earth, the sea in the springs of water. Judgment is often seen as a negative thing. It's not so in the Bible.
We'll talk more about this on the video coming up, but this is the context of the gospel, right? The good news is salvation in Jesus. The good news makes more sense. It's even better news in light of judgment, right? The judgment is the thing that we cannot do, we cannot do. We cannot face on our own. We need to be covered by Jesus's righteousness.
That's why he had to come. That's why he had to die. That's why we need him as our savior. We cannot face judgment on our own. So in light of judgment, the good news, the everlasting Gospel is recognized for what it is. Good. News. So what do we do with this message? This, there is a gospel message. The everlasting gospel fear God give glory to him.
The hour of his judgment has come worship him, who made heaven and earth the sea in the springs of water. The more you study revelation, the more you study prophecy in general, you're gonna see that worship is a big part of it. Worship is a big part of our lives. We go through life and worship is something.
That shapes the way that we live. So worshiping God is a major part of our relationship with God, and the Bible highlights this, especially in Revelation chapter 14, verse seven. The last part, worship him. Who made the heaven, the earth, the sea in the springs of water. Now we live in a modern. Well, I am in, in the western world, right?
It's, it's more secular. It's more scientific. We don't really believe in lots of gods out there. But when this was written into also many parts of the world, still to this day, there is a belief in different gods for different things. There's the God of the rain, there's the God of the crops. There's the God of war, and there's the God of protection.
There's God of fertility, and there's gods of all kinds of things. The Bible points out that we should worship the God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water. That's how we identify. Who should we be worshiping the creator God. And this is important because there are Christians, there are people who claim to believe in God, believe in Jesus, who have accepted, they say Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but they deny the creation accounts.
They think it's kind of embarrassing to believe in creation, right? They, they believe in evolution or some form of evolution, uh, where God, you know, maybe got started things off the Big Bang and then he kind of left things to evolve on their own, to die to struggle. Then to eventually evolve, and then the weak ones die.
The strong ones survive. And then, you know, and that was the rule for a long time until we get to humans and then God says, okay, now let's work together. I just don't see that in the biblical text. And when we look at revelation, if we take out creation, then how do we find out who to worship? If we're supposed to worship the creator God and there is no creator God, we're in trouble.
So I feel like if we're going to study. Prophecy and we are studying prophecy, and if we're going to take this message and apply it to our lives, we also have to accept the biblical creation account because if you take that out, then the book of Revelation falls apart. These are the bookends, right? We have the Bible, 66 books, all of these pages, and then we have the first book and the last book.
And you can't have one without the other. You take out Genesis, revelation falls apart if you have Genesis, but you don't look at Revelation. You don't see the ultimate fulfillment and culmination of all of these things that that Genesis deals with. Genesis begins with a perfect world. Then there's trouble.
And in Revelation we see that prob that trouble solved and the new creation takes place. So to understand everything in the middle, it's important to understand both Genesis and Revelation. So I. With that in mind, let's look at Psalm. We're gonna go right to the middle of the Bible, not Genesis, not Revelation, but let's pause in Psalms for a little bit, which is a book that has a lot to do with worship, a lot of, uh, worship songs and poetry.
Let's look at Psalm 33 versus eight and nine. It says, let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Now, this is important because this ties in revelation that we just read. Uh, fear God and honor him, you know, for the hour of his judgment has come worship him.
Who made the heavens, the seed, the earth? Uh. The springs of water, and this also ties in with, with the creation account. Psalm 33 is saying, by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made. So he recognizes God as creator and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. And he gathers the, I'm sorry, I. I went back further.
Uh, let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the word stand in awe of him for his spoke, and it was done. He commanded and then stood fast. The fear, the awe, the respect, the recognition that God is God worthy of our worship. It's connected to his power as creator to his actions as creator.
We worship God, not only because he saved us and redeemed us through his son Jesus Christ, but also because he created us in the first place. God as creator is integral to the biblical understanding of who he is, his character, his power, what he is like, and also our understanding of what He's doing and will do in the future as we look at prophecy.
So now that we have looked at this, let's go back and review Genesis chapter one. And this may be familiar to many of you, but there might be some that this, you're new to the Bible and you're just discovering these things. Welcome to the journey. It's a lifelong journey, but it's always fun to learn and to review and to not only learn new things.
But to be reminded of things that we should just never forget. Genesis chapter one, verse one says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The Bible begins establishing God as the creator. The Book of Revelation, the three angels message just before the second coming of Jesus is making the same proclamation that God is the creator and he is worthy to be worshiped.
And. The only one that should be worshiped. We also had another video in this series that covered that there's an enemy of God who wants to be worshiped in God's place, and he will do anything he can to distract us from worshiping God, to confuse us, and to get us to stop worshiping God. And here's the secret I'm gonna tell you.
Don't tell anybody, actually you can share with other people. Here's the secret. We cannot help but worship. And if we don't worship God, we're just gonna worship something else. And you've seen this, we have that tendency. We want to spend money and invest our time into certain things, and it can easily take the place of God.
For some people, it's their favorite sports team, right? The houses that created the cars, decorat created. They know the names of all the players. They know all the stats. They buy the season takers. They'd never miss a game. They're always there watching. Uh, to me it sounds a lot like worship. Right. What does God require of us?
Time, attention, uh, effort and, and even I think when the Bible talks about the donations, a cheerful giver. It's not like, oh, I have to give, but rather than like, I'm happy to do this, right? Like the fend for their team will buy the merchandise, they'll get the shirts. They're proud to wear it, they're happy to do it.
They're not saying like, why do I have to pay for this? Why do I have to, so I'm not talking about money necessarily. I'm just saying the way that we. Spend. It says something about our hearts. It says something about our values. It says something about worship. So we're gonna worship, worship something, and Satan will try to get us to not worship God, knowing very much that we'll worship something else, whether it's ourselves, education, jobs, spouse relationships, sports, money, power, drugs, whatever.
Right? Pleasure. We're gonna worship something. Not worshiping is not an option. God just says, direct your worship towards me. I am the only one that is worthy of it, and I would agree. And also the thing that we worship shapes our lives, our values, the way that we behave. When we worship God, when we behold God, we are transformed by that and the best way possible.
But also as we worship other things in our focus, our attention, our time, our money, our efforts are directed towards those things. They will also shape our minds, our characters, the way that we go about life. So let's, let's continue this. Let's explore this a little bit further. Genesis chapter one, verse 26.
We did this in one of the other videos, but it's always good to review and the Lord God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth and over. Every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on the earth.
And God said, see, I have given you every herb that yields seed, which is on the face of the earth. Every tree whose fruit yields seed to you, it shall be for food. God gave them everything that they needed, the food, the place, the housing right, everything is taken care of. We are created in God's image. And God gives us all the trees, all the plants, all the, you know, the seed bearing fruit.
We, we have more than enough to enjoy and to live a perfectly happy life. This is the God of the Bible he created, and it was very good. Not okay. Not, it needed to evolve a little bit. Not, it's like, it's this soup that's kind of alive and it's going to eventually evolve and, and get better after, you know, much death and suffering and struggle to survive.
That's not the god of the Bible. There is no death in this perfect world. That's part of the reason why God is placing right, the, the fruit of the trees and every tree bearing, um, fruit bearing tree and, and, um. Anyway, all the tree whose fruit yields seed to you, it shall be for food. Genesis 1 29. There is no death.
It's a perfect world. There is no evolution. There is no survival of the fittest. There is no death of the weak. It's just a perfect world. This is what God created for us. This is the God of the Bible, the powerful God who deserves our worship. Now chapter two, starting with verse one says, thus the heavens and earth were, and all the hosts of them were finished, which means created.
It was done. It did not need to evolve. It did not need more work. It was done, it was perfect. Verse two, and on the seventh day, so six days, God was created, doing everything. Everything is done now. It's the seventh day. God ended his work, which he had done, and God rested on the seventh day from all the work which he had done.
Now, let me ask you this. God tired. No, God does not get tired. The Bible tells us that. Um, and I could, I didn't think of adding that to this, but if you want those references, let me know in a question and I'll look those up. Or you can just Google it. Does God get tired? And there's several bible verses that says, no.
So anyway, God is not tired. Why is it resting? We're gonna get to that. So in it, God rested. In the seventh day from all his work which he had done, verse three, then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it or made it holy because in it, he rested from all his work, which God had created and made God rested from all the work that he had made.
He finished, he was done. All the work that needed to be done was accomplished. And he rested. What did he do when he rested? I believe that God took that seventh day, the first full day where creation is completely done, and he took it to enjoy what he had created to enjoy us, to enjoy this world, to enjoy the animals.
To enjoy this relationship that we see when we read throughout the Bible. God longing for a relationship with us. The Bible is not a story of us trying to reach God, trying to, you know, somehow get his attention or, or be better so that he would bless us. No. The Bible is a story of God seeking us, coming after us, chasing after us, and loving on us, and providing for us, and inviting us into a loving relationship with him.
That's the gist of the Bible, and I believe this Sabbath day of rest, the seventh day of the week is God, getting to do what he wants to do. Always spend some time with us. He finished working and the first full day of the world being perfect, God says, I'm gonna rest. I'm gonna take a break. I'm gonna hang out with humanity, with Adam and Eve, with the earth, with the animals.
And that's my view on it. And maybe the children of Israel begin to forget this as they were in Egypt, as they were made slaves for over 400 years. And then when Moses comes and brings them out of Egypt. Oh, God sends Moses. God does all the powers and the wonders and the children of Israel coming out of Egypt.
There comes a time when God gives them the 10 Commandments. We have a a whole video on God's law. If you missed it, you can go back and look in the playlist. It's on there on our YouTube channel. Or if you listen to this as a podcast, it's also available there. Um, the, the 10 Commandments was, were given to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt, after God had delivered them not before.
And God didn't say, okay, start keeping these laws and then I'll come back and deliver. You know, he deliver them first and then said, here are some guidelines for you to live your life. And here's an interesting thing. The children of Israel had been slaves. For years and years and years for generations, they don't know what it's like to rest.
They don't know what it's like to have that autonomy, right? They've been slaves for so long. That's all that they know. Good thing is not like that for us, right? Good thing we don't live lives, our lives as slaves constantly working. I don't know. I don't know if I wanna go down this rabbit trail maybe just for a little bit and I'll come right back to this study.
Could it be that we live our lives in debt? I. We, we buy things that we can't really afford, and then we are paying a lot more than it's worth because we're paying interest and all these things, right? You just, you're caught in this rat race and it's that, that different from slavery. We feel like we can't dress, we can't stop.
We need more, and we're just always hungry for more. One thing more, which keeps us work, which keeps us working so we don't have time for the most important things in life. I wonder if perhaps we have more in common with Israel in Egypt than we would like to admit. Slaves to sin, slaves to appetite, slaves to consciousness, right?
We see things. We want the things, so we, we get ourselves in debt trying to get the things and, and it's just this cycle and we never stop. There's always something else to do, and we feel like our value is connected to our doing. Right. When somebody asks us, we tell 'em what we do for a living because that's where my value comes from.
And if I stop doing, do I have any value? I wonder if the children of Israel were struggling with this as well. Their identity connected to their work and how hard they work. I don't know what it's like in in your country here in the us. Whenever you ask people how are they doing, which is a common greeting here, we say, Hey, how are you?
People say, busy. Tired, busy, tired. I hear that all the time, and I don't doubt it. It's a hundred percent true. The question is, why are we all so busy and also tired? And yes, life is busy and things go wrong and and, and there's challenges, but could it be that we also don't allow ourselves and opportunity to rest?
Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's jump into Exodus chapter 20, starting with verse eight. Verse eight says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Interesting. Remember the other commandments I. Don't start with. Remember, a lot of them begin with, you shall not, not all of them, but many of them.
But this one begins with, remember, this is the fourth commandment. This is verse eight of Exodus chapter 20. It says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. So now let me ask you this. It's a simple question. You can answer this. If God is saying, remember, is he establishing something new? No. He's asking you to remember to not forget something that existed from creation from a long time ago.
Right? He's saying, remember, he's not saying, Hey, here's a new idea. Okay? Moses, you and the children of Israel and all the Jews from this point forward, here's what I want you to do. We talked about this when we talked about the 10 Commandments or God's law. This is not something new. This is something that has always existed.
It's just formally being written down right now in tablets of stone with the finger of God, which separates this from anything else that we have in the Bible. The 10 Commandments are the only thing written by the finger of God in stone. With that in mind, God is saying, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Keep the Sabbath holy. Remember it. That's the command. Wow. What do you mean? Well, there is more description. Don't worry. Verse nine, 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. So maybe this is just for the Jews, right?
Maybe this is just for the Israelites, but let's continue with the commandment. It says You nor your son. Nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, okay? What if my servants are from a different country? Can I get 'em to work on the side? If they're not Jews, right, then they're not Jewish.
If they're not Israelites, could, could I get just like an Egyptian servant or somebody from a different country, you know, they're looking for work, I hire them and then they can work on the Sabbath because they don't have the same religion that I do. No, if they work for you, if they're under your sphere of influence, they get the Sabbath rest as well.
Oh, are you sure? Well, let's keep reading. I'm pretty sure this is what it means because it says, nor your cattle, the animals get to rest. Creation is invited to rest on the Sabbath. Not just people, not just people who belong to a specific faith or. Uh, culture or ethnicity? No. Everybody. Even the cattle.
Even the animals, nor your stranger who is within your gates. If somebody comes from Ethiopia to visit there in Israel, they get the Sabbath off as well. According to this, you know, bring it back to, to that time, people from the surrounding nations, if they're visiting, they also get the Sabbath rest. If there's a stranger in my house and, and he wants to go and do work and mow my lawn or whatever, like, no, no, no, you, you get to rest today.
But I don't have the same faith. I'm not from the same people. I don't, it's okay. Uh, you are invited to rest with us and enjoy this blessing from God. It's for the stranger. It's for the servants, it's for the animal. Anybody within your gates, anyone within your sphere of influence, they get the Sabbath rest.
This is what God is telling Moses. This is what God is telling the children of Israel. This is what God has wrote in stone. This is what God is telling us. From creation. There was a special blessing on that day. God made it holy. He's the only one that gets to do that. And then he invites us to keep it holy.
Right? Don't profane it. Don't desecrate it. Keep it holy. And he's saying how you do that and everybody else, your pets, your animals, your workers, your employees, everybody that works for you, everybody within your sphere of influence, they get the Sabbath rest as well. For what reason, verse 11. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day.
Therefore, the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hollowed it or made it holy. There's a special blessing on this day. There's a holiness about this day. God is the one who did it. And what we do is we keep it holy along with God's plan for it from the beginning. In this commandment, God ties the holiness of the Sabbath back to creation, not to Moses, not to the Jewish people, not to this, uh, faith, but to.
All of humanity to all of creation. Everyone is invited to rest on the Sabbath regardless of your faith. Seems pretty clear to me. I. But why do, why do we struggle so much with rest? Why is it that me as an Adventist, or I could say we who are seven day Adventists, we get accused of being legalistic when we are resting?
We are accused of believing in salvation by works when we're refusing to do works. I wonder what causes people to, to consider that? Maybe you can leave me a comment below. How does me resting count as me working for my salvation? The way that I think about it is I have so much faith in God's grace and his power and his ability to provide for me that I don't have to be constantly working.
I can trust in him and in his ability and find rest in him, and stop for 24 hours when the sun goes down. On Friday night to when the sun goes down on Saturday night. From that time, from sunset to sunset is the Sabbath day made. Holy by God, blessed by God. And then I join him in his invitation for me to rest, and in his desire to spend some time with me on the day that he set aside the day that he chose because he is God and I am not.
So how hard do you have to work to earn your arrest? Sometimes we have that feeling right. I haven't, I haven't finished everything. I haven't done all the things I need to do. Oh, no, no. God invites you to rest. I. You can either work and better use your time during the week. Maybe you should take some things off of your plate and do less.
I don't know what your personal situation is. I don't know what you're going through and struggling with. I'm not sure how that applies to your life. What I know is God calls me to rest on the Sabbath day, and if I'm a follower of God and if I trust in him, and if I worship him as creator, and if I, anyway, there's all these other things tied to it.
Then I, I want to do his will. We're gonna continue to explore this as we go on. If you're worried about how much you have to work before you earn your rest, let me ask you this. How much work did Adam and Eve do before they earned their Sabbath rest? They were created on the sixth day of creation. On the seventh day, God invites them to rest.
I imagine Adam and you saying, but we're not tired. We're just getting started. And God says, yeah, let's hang out. Who hires you for a job and then gives you vacation right away? Right? This doesn't make sense unless God did not create us to be busy working all the time, but to enjoy the life that he gives us.
Yes, work is important right there in the commandment and in creation story. God worked for six days, right? He created for six days. It's good for us to create. It's good for us to work, but our identity is not found in the work. Our identity is found in God, and God invites us to rest. It's okay for us to rest.
It builds our faith. It reminds us of the God that we worship. We're not working for our salvation. We are resting in our salvation and in our identity in Jesus Christ. Here's the thing that I think we struggle with. When work becomes an idol, rest feels like sin. Think about that. When my work becomes my idol resting feels like sin, feels like I'm turning away from my lowercase G God.
Uh oh. No, but what's gonna happen to me? This is what saves me. This is what provides for me. This is right. We, we ha we raise up our work, our job, what we do to get money to the place of God. It's so interesting. Let's think about this. Think about this with me. So we, we refuse to rest because of work, right?
I need money. I, I need all these things. I, I need to do all this work. Otherwise, who's gonna take care of me? I have to provide for myself and my boss will provide for me. So we raise it to the level of God because we want to work when God told us to rest. Because after all, this has to provide for me. So, okay, you're, you're working really hard or.
Whether it's your education, maybe you're a student, so you're studying and the Sabbath hours come in. But I have a project, but I have a final, so I have to study in the Sabbath hours. Okay? Right. So you do, you, you, you do what you think is best. Let's say in the process you get sick, horribly sick, and you can't go to school anymore.
Are you gonna pass your class? I don't think your professor will pass you. Right. But maybe all the things that you study will heal you and all your good grades will restore your health. I, I, I don't think it works that way, even though I believe that people who study medicine or I. You know, pharmaceuticals or whatever, and you're able to bring healing, praise the Lord, please continue to do your work as God uses you to bring healing.
Um, what if you're just making a lot of money? You set up your own company, your business is growing, so you feel like you can't stop because there's money to be made, and then you get sick, right? Your, your health is struggling. Can the money solve the problem? Sometimes, not all the time. What about when your marriage starts falling apart?
Your, your relationship with your children is not great, and all of these things start to fall apart, right? We're sacrificing our health. We're sacrificing our children, we're sacrificing our marriage, we're sacrificing our emotional wellbeing in the alter of work, money, education, you name it. So we sacrifice all these things.
So these false gods, can those gods save you? I don't know what it's like for you. For me, when I'm sick, I turn to God. I turn to doctors, I turn to medicine. I do what I can, but ultimately I'm praying through the whole thing. I want God to bring healing 'cause I know God is able to, he's able to save these other gods or not.
I don't wanna sacrifice. My health, my family, my mental health, my emotional health, my relationships with my children, and those around me in the altar of work or education or money or what have you. Something to think about, are we able to pause and rest? Can we trust that God knows what's best for us and he knows what we need?
Can we join? Can we trust God enough to join in this blessing that he wants to give us? God is our provider. The 10 Commandments begins with the Lord. God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. I am the God that sets you free.
I am the God who provides for you. Will you listen to me and rest or do you not trust me enough? Do we not trust God enough to rest when he calls us to rest? Because we have become so used to thinking about ourselves and, and we are the ones who have to provide, and we have to do everything that we feel like we, oh, I'm not sure if God can provide, if I stop in faithfulness to him.
I'm not talking about laziness. I'm talking about faithfulness to God when he says rest is important. And I want you to rest with me. I want you to spend time with me. I want us to connect. I want you to connect with your family. I want you to take care of your health. Do we listen to God or do we say, no, Lord, you don't understand how busy I am.
No, Lord, you don't understand I have bills. No, Lord, you don't understand. But my job, no, Lord, you don't understand. But this project, this professor is really hard. Really, God doesn't understand. Or is it us or is it me? Maybe I don't understand. What's most important in God's plan for my life? Something to think about.
I think there's a story that illustrates this, and it's before the 10 Commandments are given. Exodus chapter 16. Let's look at Exodus chapter 16. And we're gonna do verses four and five. Exodus 16 says, the Lord said to Moses, behold, I will reign bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.
And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. I. If you're familiar with the children of Israel going through the desert when they're going to the promised land, there was no food and God provided them manna, which is this bread from heaven.
I would encourage you to read the whole chapter of Exodus 16. For the sake of time, we won't. We're gonna jump down to verse 15. It says, so when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is it for? They did not know what it was, and that's the name. Manna is, what is it? And Moses said to them, this is the bread which the Lord God has given you to eat.
This is the thing, verse 16, which the Lord has commanded. Now listen to the command. God is giving them bread. He didn't give him a command first. First, he provides for them, just like he brought 'em out of Egypt in the chapter 16. They haven't even gotten the 10 Commandments yet. That's coming in chapter 20, before the 10 Commandments, before the laws are given formally written in stone.
Here's what God is commanding. Um, where did I stop? Verse 16. This is the thing which the Lord has commanded. Let every man, man, woman, people, gather it according to each one's need. One omer for each person according to the number of persons. Let every man take for those who are in his tent. Take enough for your household.
One, Omer. This was a measurement at the time. How? How much it is. It doesn't really matter for us for the. For this study, the idea is each person take enough for each day. This reminds me of when Jesus teaches the prayer to his disciples, the model prayer. He says, give us this day our daily bread. This is what the manna was enough.
For each day, take enough for that day, and as according to the number of people that are in your tent, right in your household, then the children of Israel, verse 17, did so and gathered some more, some less. So they measured it by Omers and he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little, had no lack as long as it got enough for each person, that was exactly what they needed.
Every man had gathered according to each one's need. I. And Moses said, let no one leave any till morning. So you eat it for the day, don't store it for the next day. Right? You, you don't fill up your pantry with extra manna just in case you get for that day. You're not gonna lack. And also don't get more than you need to save up for the next day.
Not withstanding, they did not heed Moses verse 20, but some of them left part of it until morning. And Moses was angry with them, so they gathered it every morning and every man according to his need. And when the sun became hot, it melted. Oh, sorry, I skipped something in verse 20. Not withstanding, they did not hit Moses, but some of them left parts of it until morning and it bred worms and stank and Moses was angry with them.
I skipped that one line. So if you keep it overnight. It begins to stink. Worms come out like it's, it's terrible. It's very like, you can't hide it, right? Like you, you were keeping man, and what's that awful smell? So when the sun would come up, it'd become hot, it melted, it disappeared from the ground. Then the next day you would get more.
And so it was on the sixth day that they gathered twice as much bread to ERs for each person and that all the rulers. All the congregation came and told Moses, then he said to them, this is what the Lord has said. Tomorrow is a Sabbath. Rest, a Holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today. Boil what you will boil today and lay up for yourselves.
All that remains to be kept until morning. So now it's the opposite. Now you keep it until the next morning. Prepare it all today. And apparently there is something special. We call it bread. We don't really have a word to translate it to. Bread is also used in the Bible as as food sustenance. So they're calling it bread from heaven or sustenance from heaven, food from heaven.
And they could boil it, bake it, you know. I'm sure if it was nowadays, we would deep fry it or something, but you know, there's different ways they could do with it. Do all of that on Friday. So they laid it up till morning as Moses commended and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. Then Moses said, eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord.
Today you will find, not find it in the field, six days, verse 26. You shall gather it, but not. But on the seventh day the Sabbath, there will be none. This was before the 10 Commandments, and God is already teaching the people six days you gather food, six day, you do the work for the Sabbath. On the Sabbath.
Seventh day you rest. He's teaching these people who are brought outta slavery, the meaning of rest. So he is commanding them to rest as he provides for all of their needs. Now, verse 27 says, now it happened that some people went out on the seventh day together, but they found none. They went to gather the manna, but there was none.
And the Lord said to Moses, verse 28, how long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? Now listen, this is before the 10 Commandments. The 10 Commandments written, the tablets of stone have not happened yet. Moses going up to the mountain. God speaking to the people through the mountain, as the mountain was shaking, this has not happened yet.
Yet God refers to getting the manna working, the six days resting on the Sabbath as my commandments and my laws. God says, I'm doing my part in providing for you. Why don't you do your part in obeying me? God is providing says, why aren't you resting? I'm taking care of you. You don't trust me. You don't obey me.
Do you think that life will be better when you go against my will? Something for us to think about. Do you think that about the other commandments? I. Or that life will be better if you just commit a little bit more murder or if you just steal a little bit more, or if you commit a little bit adult of adultery, right?
If you just do a little bit of these things, life will be better. No, it makes life worth worse every single time. When you steal, it makes life worse for you and for others. When you commit murder, it makes life worse. When you commit adultery, it makes life worse. When you lie, it makes life worse. So the laws of God are there to protect us.
And that includes the Sabbath rest, the special day that God blessed from creation, part of his original plan before the fall, and now he's reminding Israel as he provides for them bread in the desert, food in the desert. And we wonder if we can rest on the Sabbath and we question whether God will provide for us.
I don't think this is a matter of legalism. I believe this is a matter of faith. I think we don't trust God enough when we don't feel safe resting on the Sabbath. Maybe we question his grace. Maybe we question his power. Maybe we question his ability to provide. Maybe we question his love. We're so afraid and God's saying rest.
Why won't you listen to me? Why won't you obey my laws and my commandments? This reminds us or not reminds us. This reminds me, and I'll share this with you of, let's go back to Revelation. So we looked at Genesis, we looked at Exodus, we looked at some Psalms that talk about worship and singing praises to God, and God is creator.
And now we're looking at keeping God's law as a part of God's will for us. Revelation chapter 14. Which is where we have the the Three Angels message. Let's look at verse 12. Revelation chapter 14, verse 12 says, here is the patient of the Saints. Do we want to be a part of that group? Right? In the last days, the saints, those were faithful to God.
Here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, the two of them together. Both the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. There are people who think that these two are mutually exclusive. Either there is those who keep the commandments of God and they don't have faith in Jesus, and there's those who keep, who have faith in Jesus and they disregard the commandments of God.
The Book of Revelation says, Nope, it's both. The same God that gave us Jesus is the God that gave us the 10 Commandments. If God is all knowing, all wise, powerful, if God is love, then the 10 Commandments are a reflection of his character, of his love, of His kindness, and he knows what's best for us. So he tells us.
What to do. So for example, if you get a brand new car, do you want to know the type of gas to put in it? How often to change the oil, how often you should rotate the tires, how much area you should put in the tires, right? You wanna take care of your investments, you want to fold the instructions. Same thing if you buy a new anything, God is saying.
For your life. Here's 10 guidelines. The best way to take care of your life, to take care of yourself. And we say, nah, no, no, no. I, I don't want that. That's for the Jews. That's for the Old Testament. God's saying, no, no, no, this is for all of humanity. Everybody benefits from this regardless of their faith.
Revelation 14 says, in the last days, the saints, those were faithful to God, God's children, they're identified as those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Most of us will agree on not committing murder, not committing adultery. We should be honest, but for some reason we don't think it's important or necessary.
It's a minor thing when it comes to the Sabbath rest. It's right there in stone with all the others. We wouldn't say that worshiping other gods is okay, but why don't we wanna worship God the way that he wants to be worshiped? Something to think about. Revelation chapter 12, so we're going back a little bit.
Verse 17. Revelation 1217. It's talking about this battle between the dragon and the woman. This a little bit foreshadows, or it relates to when we're reading Genesis chapter three, verse 15, when God talks about the enmity, right, their enemies between the serpent and the woman, the serpents, offspring, and the woman's offspring.
We see this played out also in Revelation. The serpent now being referred to as the dragon. But we know that, uh, verse nine of Revelation 12 says, the great dragon was cast out that serpent of old called the devil and Satan. So same being so verse 17 of Genesis of Genesis of Revelation 12, it says the following and the dragon was enraged with the woman.
And he went to make war with the rest of her offspring. Remember, Jesus was part of the seed of the woman. He had the victory. That's why the dragon was cast out of heaven. I. But now there's the rest of the offspring of the woman that's us, the followers of Jesus. The part of that remnant that has been remained faithful to God throughout scriptures from Adam, down to Jesus, down to the early church, all the way down to the last days, the seeds, the offspring of the woman.
And who are they according to Revelation seven, uh, 1217, they're those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus once again, commandments of God, testimony of Jesus, the two. Together. This is what the Bible presents to us. The Bible in its entirety, the word of God, God's plan for our lives.
It involves the 10 commandments. It involves the commandments of God. God would not commend us to do something that is harmful to us. But there's also the faith, the testimony of Jesus. He died for our sins. We are not perfect. Jesus is perfect. We receive his perfection as a gift, as we stand before God in the day of judgment, someday in the future.
But it's both that we need The testimony of Jesus and the 10 commandments, one does not cancel out the other. Here is the patience of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God in the faith of Jesus. Revelation 1412 in John chapter 14, and I think we'll close with this, John, the gospel of John chapter 14.
John 14, by the way, this is where Jesus says I am the way, the truth, uh, I'm sorry. This is where Jesus says, let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe in me. Also, I. In my father's house or many mentions if it were not so, I would've told you. I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself.
That where I am there you may be. Also, Jesus says, I'm coming back. I'm going preparing a place. I'm coming back As we continue on this chapter, and we make it down to verse 15, John 1415. Jesus says, if you love me. Keep my commandments. Ultimately, it's about love. God invites us to rest. God invites us to live our best life possible, and that's gonna be a life in line with his commandments, which means keeping his commandments not as a means of saving ourselves, but as a way of showing our love for God.
So the question now, it's up to you. What will you do? Do you choose to rest? Do you choose to follow God? Do you want to experience the life that he has for you? The choice is yours. I encourage you to choose rest, to choose God, to try out his law and see that it is good. There are blessings waiting for you as you make these choices.
I hope that you'll choose to rest on the Sabbath. I hope that you'll choose to make the 10 Commandments a part of your life, not as a means of salvation, but as a way of experiencing the God, the life that God has in mind for you. There are blessings in store. Trust me. I'd love to know your thoughts on this.
If this was helpful, give this video a thumbs up. Subscribe to our channel so you don't miss future presentations. We have one more coming up. It's called Full by A Myth from Saturday to Sunday. How come so many people worship on Sunday? We're gonna talk about that a little bit, but that's not as important as what we talked about today.
In this video about the importance of the Sabbath. Lemme know if you have any questions. We can talk about those maybe in a future video. Until next time, may God bless you.
