Old Testament Reading: Exodus 20:8-11

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8–11, ESV)

New Testament Reading: Mark 2:23–28

“One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?’ And he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.’” (Mark 2:23–28, ESV)

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Please excuse any typos and misspellings within this manuscript. It has been published online for the benefit of the saints of Emmaus Reformed Baptist Church but without the benefit of proofreading.

Introduction

We have come now to the fourth of the Ten Commandments, which is “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” 

There are two things that I would like to remind you of by way of introduction. These two points have been made in previous sermons, but they are crucial to a proper understanding of the fourth commandment, and so I will restate them now. 

One, the Ten Commandments contain the moral law of God. We confess that the moral law is from God. It was written on man’s heart at creation. God made man a moral creature and gave him the ability to know right from wrong, and good from evil, and he inscribed (if you will) the moral law on man’s soul. The moral law of God applies to all people at all times and in all places, therefore. I have said in previous sermons that judicial or civil laws may change. Judicial laws are rooted in the moral law, but they may take different forms in different nations depending upon the circumstances. Israel’s Old Covenant judicial laws were indeed from God, but they were unique to that nation given their unique place in God’s program of redemption. And the ceremonial laws given to Israel under the Old Covenant were also unique to them. These were laws governing Old Covenant religious practice, and they have expired with the Old Covenant, for they were fulfilled in Christ. But the moral law which is contained within the Ten Commandments is universal, unchanging, and ever-binding on all men. If you wish to read a scripture text that speaks clearly about this, you can go to Romans chapter 2.

It would take me a very long time to say everything that could be said about the moral or natural law of God. For now, I simply wish to remind you of what we confess to be true. The same moral law which was written on Adam’s heart at creation is summarized in the Ten Commandments. And this same law – the moral law – is rewritten, not in stone (as the Ten Commandments were), but upon the hearts of all who believe upon Christ when they are regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what the LORD says in that famous passage found in Jerimiah 31 wherein he speaks of the coming New Covenant, saying, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33, ESV).

So then, the moral law was delivered to Adam at creation, having been written on his heart, as it were. The same moral law was delivered to Israel. It was contained within the Ten Commandments which he spoke to them from Sinai and later delivered to them through Moses on tablets of stone. And this same moral law remains today. It remains within all men, though it is badly suppressed and distorted by sinners. And it is written anew and afresh upon the hearts of all who are regenerated by the Spirit and united to Christ by faith. We who have faith in Christ love God’s law and desire to keep it (though we often fall short) because God has renewed us by his grace. He has taken the moral law which was delivered to Israel through Moses on stone, and he has written it on our hearts through Christ, the mediator of the New Covenant, and by the Holy Spirit. Finally, it is by this moral or natural law that all men will be judged when Christ returns if not united to him by faith and washed in his blood. 

So why am I reminding you of this? Why am I reminding you that moral law is permanent and unchanging and that it is contained within the Ten Commandments? Well, it is for this reason. Most Christians will admit that it has always been true that YHWH alone is to be worshiped, not with images, and with reverence. They will admit that parents are to be honored by their children, and that murder, adultery, theft, deceit, and covetousness are sinful and always will be. In other words, most will freely acknowledge that nine of the Ten Commandments remain and apply universally. But I have noticed that many Christians today disregard the fourth commandment, which is, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” But here it is situated right in the middle of the Ten Commandments, which contain God’s moral law. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”, the law says. 

My point is this: the law concerning Sabbath observance is moral. It is universal and unchanging. God created the world in such a way that a pattern was established for work, rest, and worship. Adam was to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Israel was to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Christ remembered the Sabbath day and kept it holy, and even declared himself to be Lord of the Sabbath. And all who are in Christ are to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy too, even to this present day, and on until the consummation of all things, and our eternal rest in Christ, of which the Sabbath day is a sign.

The second thing that I wish to remind you of by way of introduction is that some things were said to Old Covenant Israel when the Ten Commandments were delivered to them that were unique to them, and do not apply, therefore, to all people, at all times, and in all places. 

Is the moral law contained within the Ten Words that were delivered to Israel through Moses on Sinai? Yes, it is! It is summarily comprehended there. But do not forget that other things are said in the Ten Commandments that were unique to Old Covenant Israel. Take the preface, for example. It was to Israel, and to no one else, that God said, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2, ESV). And remember also the warning that was attached to the second commandment which forbids idolatry. God warned that he would visit “the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate [him]”, and promised to show “steadfast love to thousands of those who love [him] and keep [his] commandments” (Exodus 20:5-6, ESV). These blessings and curses pertained to the Covenant of Works that God made with Israel in those days – he made that covenant with them, and not with anyone else. And when we come to the command concerning children honoring father and mother, we will see that a blessing was promised to those who obeyed. “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12, ESV). God promised to give Israel the land of Cannan and to bless them in it if they obeyed. He made no such promise to any other people. So then, this promise was specifically for them, though application can certainly be drawn from it, which Paul the apostle does in his letter to the Ephesians. 

What is my point? My point is that in Exodus 20 we find the moral law communicated to Israel, but it is clearly intermingled with other warnings and remarks that were unique to Old Covenant Israel. We cannot forget that God delivered this law to them while entering into a covenant with them. He gave them the moral law (which is for all men in all times and places), but he also spoke to them specifically as his covenant people. Some things were said to them, and not to us, therefore. And if we wish to understand God’s law correctly we must learn to distinguish between the ever-abiding moral laws themselves and the things which were added to them – either words of warning, or words of explanation, or positive laws of a judicial or ceremonial kind. 

These two points are especially important to remember as we consider the fourth of the Ten Commandments. This is because the fourth of the Ten Commandments contains a mixture of moral law and positive law. 

What is the moral law which is universally binding and unchanging? It is this: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” That will never change – not until Christ returns to usher in the eternal rest of which the weekly Sabbath is a sign. Men and women in all times and places are to worship YHWH alone, not with images, with reverence, with one day in seven being observed as a day that is holy, ceasing from work to engage in worship. That pattern of one out of every seven was established, not in the days of Moses, but at the time of the creation of this world. But do not be surprised when we find that some things about the fourth commandment have changed. What has changed? The day of observance has changed from the seventh day to the first, and for good reason. We will return to consider the reason for the change of the day in just a moment, but for now, I simply wish to remind you that in the law of Moses in general, and even in the Ten Words of Exodus 20, we find a mixture of unchanging and universal moral laws and things that were in some ways unique to Old Covenant Israel. We must be careful to distinguish between them if we are to handle the law of God correctly. 

With that rather long introduction now out of the way, let us consider the fourth commandment itself. 

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The Law

YHWH spoke to Israel saying, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8–11, ESV)

The first three commandments were stated negatively. “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image… You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain…” (Exodus 20:2–7, ESV). These commandments tell us what is forbidden, and we know that what is required of us is implied. God alone is to be worshipped. He is to be worshipped in the way that he prescribes. And he is to revered. 

The fourth commandment is stated positively. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”, God’s law says. I don’t think we are to make too much of this because, with every negative command, the positive is implied. And with every positive command, the negative is implied. Each of these Ten Commandments forbids and requires things of us. Nevertheless, it is true that while the first three commandments place the emphasis upon sins to be avoided, the fourth commandment places the emphasis upon the practice to be observed. To “remember” the Sabbath day is to observe it or to keep, and it is to be kept thoughtfully, as we will see. The Sabbath day is to be remembered. 

Sabbath means rest, or “ceasing. The Sabbath day is a rest day, a day for stopping, or ceasing. The question is, what are we to cease from on the Sabbath day? The text tells us. “Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.” 

Notice what the commandment does not say. It does not say, cease from all activity, but rather, cease from your work, or labors. Cease, in other words, from the common work that you do on the other days of the week. Put a full stop to your normal labor, your ordinary chores, and from those common activities that are appropriate do be done on the common days of the week, but not on the Sabbath day, for the Sabbath day is to be honored as holy. You are to cease from your working, and so too are those in your household. Even the sojourners in Israel were to cease from work on the Sabbath day. In other words, work was not to be delegated to others in Israel.

Indeed, the Sabbath day is a rest day. It is a stop day, or a day to cease from ordinary work. But notice that it is also to be regarded as a holy day. Listen again to the commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8, ESV). As I have said, the Sabbath day is to be observed as a rest day, but this does not mean that it is a day for inactivity. On the Sabbath day, we are to put a stop to our ordinary and common work so that we might engage in a special kind of activity, namely the activity of holy rest and holy worship. In other words, the Sabbath day is not to be an empty day, but a day filled with a special kind of activity. The day is to set apart from all the others as holy unto the Lord. It is a day for holy resting, holy contemplation of the works of God, holy fellowship, and holy worship. 

Notice that the reason for the Sabbath is stated in verse 11 with the words, “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:11, ESV). This is a reference to Genesis 2:1-3. Here in the fourth commandment, we have a reminder of the original institution of the Sabbath day at the time of creation. This is very, very important. Who instituted the Sabbath? We say, God did. When did he do it? In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them? And how did he institute the Sabbath? By accomplishing the work of creation in six days, by resting from his work of creation on the seventh day, and by blessing the seventh day to make it holy. Who is to honor the Sabbath day, therefore? Adam and Eve were to honor the Sabbath day along with all of their descendants. This pattern of six days of work and one day for rest and worship was established at the time of creation. It was baked into the created order, if you will.

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The Heart Of The Matter

As we transition now to the portion of the sermon where I try to get to the heart of the matter, please allow me to make a few more observations about the institution of the original Sabbath. If we wish to understand the fourth commandment, we must understand what the Sabbath was originally.  

One, we must see that God did not need six days to create the heavens and earth, nor did he need a day of rest. No, he took six days to create the heavens and earth, and he took a day of rest in order to establish a pattern for us. 

Two, when the text says, “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy…” (Genesis 2:3, ESV) we are to see that he blessed the day and made it holy, not for himself, but for us. All of the days of the week are, in and of themselves, the same. The sun rises and sets in the same manner on each day of the week. Time passes in the same way. The winds blow, the clouds move along, the birds sing, and the rain falls in the same way on the first day as on the seventh. What made the seventh day holy at the time of creation? We must say, it was not anything about the nature of the seventh day, but only by the pronouncement of God. God, by his works and by his word, set the day apart as holy. In other words, Adam would not have known that the seventh day was to be regarded as a holy day if the LORD had not said so. To use a technical term, the seventh day was made holy by way of the imposition of positive law. Men know by nature that God is to be worshipped, and that a particular proportion of time is to be devoted to worship. Just look at all of the religions of the world. They all have their holy days, don’t they? But when God created the world he did so in such a way to establish the pattern of one day in every seven. More than this, he blessed the seventh day and set it apart as holy by way of positive law.

Thirdly, and connected to this, we must remember that positive laws are symbolic in nature, and so it was with the seventh-day Sabbath. Just as the trees in the garden, circumcision, baptism and the Lord’s Supper signify or symbolize things, so too the seventh day Sabbath signified or symbolized something. What did it signify? Well, many things. One, it served as a perpetual reminder that God made the heavens and earth. If you cannot see why men need to be perpetually reminded of this, then I do not know what to say. We need to be reminded that God is God, and we are not, that he is the Creator, and we are his creatures, that this world and all that is in it belongs to him, and not to us. We are guests here, and stewards of the good gifts that God has given to us. The weekly Sabbath reminds us of God’s act of creation. Two, the Sabbath day reminds us that God created in six days and entered into rest so that we might follow his example. God took six days to create and entered into rest, and we are to do the same weekly. We are to be imitators of God in all of our work and in our rest. Three, the Sabbath day signifies the eternal rest of God and invites us to enter into it. There was no end to the seventh day of creation. This is because there is no end to God’s rest. But I say that we are invited to enter into God’s rest through the symbolism of the seventh-day Sabbath because this was clearly its original meaning. We must remember that God blessed the seventh day and made it holy while entering into the Covenant of Works with Adam in the garden. What was Adam to do? He was to work the garden to expand its borders. He was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. He was to abstain from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and in due time he was to eat of the tree of life. What was the promised reward for obedience to the terms of this covenant? Eternal life, also known as, eternal rest in God. The commands concerning the trees were positive laws. They were filled with symbolism in connection with the Covenant of Works that God made with Adam in the beginning. And here I am saying to you that the seventh-day Sabbath had a similar significance or meaning. The Sabbath day itself communicated by way of symbol the invitation for man to enter into God’s rest, or to life eternal. And the seventh-day Sabbath in particular communicated the way that eternal rest would be obtained. For Adam under the Covenant of Works, the way to enter into that rest would be through work. If Adam was to eat of the tree of life and to have what it signified, he first was to be obedient to God’s law. In the same way, if Adam was to enter into God’s eternal Sabbath rest, he first had to do the work that God had given him to do. In the garden, the arrangement was this: faithful work will lead to eternal rest and glory. In other words, in general, the Sabbath day signifies eternal life and rest in the blessed presence of God. And in particular, the seventh day Sabbath signified that eternal life and rest in the blessed presence of God would have to be earned by man through obedient work. 

Let me now attempt to bring all of this together for you through a series of questions and answers. 

One, what is the natural law contained within the fourth commandment? It is that God alone is to be worshipped, not with idols, with reverence, and here it is: a particular time is to be set apart for the worship of God. This is the thing which all men seem to know intuitively, or by nature. 

Two, what is the moral law contained within the fourth commandment? It is that one day in seven is to be observed as a holy day of rest according to the pattern established by God when he created the world.

Three, what is the positive law concerning the particular day for rest and worship? We confess that “from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ [the Sabbath day] was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ [the Sabbath day] was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lord’s Day: and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week [having been] abolished.” 

If you were to ask me to present you with proof texts from the New Testament to demonstrate that, on the one hand, the weekly Sabbath day is still to be observed under the New Covenant, and on the other hand,  the Sabbath day has changed from the seventh day (Saturday) to the first day (Sunday), it would go something like this. 

First of all, in Mark 2 Jesus Christ declared himself to be Lord of the Sabbath. As Lord of the Sabbath, he taught about its proper observance. And as Lord of Sabbath, he has the authority to change the day. 

Two, Hebrews 4:9 explicitly says, “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God…” (Hebrews 4:9, ESV). The text is very clear. The writer to the Hebrews is declaring that the practice of Sabbath-keeping still remains under the New Covenant, and will remain, until the thing of which the weekly Sabbath signifies arrives, namely eternal rest in the new heavens and earth. 

Three, there are a number of passages that clearly teach that the Old Covenant, Jewish, seventh-day Sabbath, along with all of the festival and feast days associated with it,  have passed away because they have been fulfilled in Christ. Colossians 2:16-17 is the most famous of these. It says, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath [plural in the Greek]. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:16–17, ESV). These three terms, “festival”, “new moon”, and “Sabbaths” are used together in the Old Testament to refer to the entire religious calendar of Old Covenant Israel. As you know, Israel was not only to keep the weekly, seventh-day Sabbath, but other Sabbaths too which were connected to other feasts, such as the Passover, the feast of unleavened bread, and the feast of booths (see 2 Chronicles 8:13 as an example). Paul is saying here in Colossians 2:16-17 that the New Covenant people of God are not obligated to obey the Old Covenant positive laws regarding food and drink, and neither are they obligated to observe the Old Covenant religious calendar, including the seventh-day Sabbath, for these have been fulfilled in Christ.

Four, Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week. And he also made a point of appearing to his disciples in his resurrection when they were assembled together on the first day of the week, which is sometimes called the eight-day. You can read the end of John’s gospel to see how he places an emphasis upon this fact. Christ (who is Lord of the Sabbath, remember) appeared to his disciples in his resurrection when they were assembled together on the first day of the week. He did this to set a precedent, or example, for them. 

Five, the New Testament is clear that it was the practice of the early church to assemble for worship on the first day of the week. For example, Acts 20:7 says, “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight”, etc.  This could not be more clear. The disciples assembled to break bread, that is, to observe the Lord’s Supper, and to listen to the preaching of the word of God. These are elements of New Covenant worship. What day did they assemble on? The first day. And listen to what Paul said to the Corinthian church, “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.” Clearly, it was the practice of the church in the days of the Apostles to assemble on the first day, and we know from the writtings of the early church fathers that this remained their custom after the Apostles had passed. Why? Because Christ, who is the Lord of the Sabbath, established it. 

Six, in the book of Revelation this day is referred to appropriately as the Lord’s Day. In Revelation 1:10 John says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet…”, etc. 

As is often the case, there is no one passage that says it all. But when taken all together the New Testamnet is clear that when Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week there was a fulfillment of the old seventh-day Sabbath. It passed away. But the practice of Sabbath-keeping remains. God’s people are still to rest and worship one day in seven, but the day has changed from the seventh to the first. 

But why?

You see, I can present proof texts to you and demonstrate from the New Testament that the Sabbath day is still to be remembered and kept holy on the first day of the week. But I think it is also important for us to understand why?

Why does Sabbath-keeping remain? And why has the day changed? To understand the why, we cannot simply proof text. We need to also understand what the Sabbath is about. 

Why does Sabbath-keeping remain? I’ve already said it, but I will say it once more. It is because the thing of which the Sabbath is a sign is not here yet. What did the Sabbath day signify from the beginning? In brief, eternal life, eternal rest in the presence of God Almighty. It signified the new heavens and earth. It signified the eternal state which was offered to Adam and is portrayed for us so beautifully in the last chapter of the book of Revelation. Brothers and sisters, do I need to tell you that we have not yet entered into the fullness of that rest? In fact, this is precisely the argument that the writer to the Hebrews makes. A Sabbath-keeping remains for the people of God because we have not entered into the fullness of the rest that was offered to Adam and forfeited but earned by the second Adam, Christ the Lord. Sabbath-keeping remains because the thing of which the Sabbath was a sign is not here yet in full. 

And why has the day changed from the seventh to the first? Three things must be said. 

One, the original seventh-day Sabbath was attached to the original creation. God created through the Word and by the Spirit in six days and rested on the seventh. The original creation was ruined by sin. But now, by the grace of God, there is a new creation. It too was brought into existence by the Father through the Word and Spirit. The first-day Sabbath does not only remind us of the original creation only, but of the new creation which was earned by Christ.

Two, the original seventh-day Sabbath was attached to the Covenant of Works that God made with Adam in the beginning. Work would lead to rest. That was the arrangement. And the pattern of six days of work leading to one day of rest was a fitting sign for the Covenant of Works. But now God’s people are under the New Covenant, which is the Covenant of Grace. The seventh-day Sabbath does not fit the Covenant of Grace. In a Covenant of Grace, work does not lead to rest. No, rest is freely received, and then work (or obedience) does follow. Now the moral law remains the same. One day in seven is to be a rest day and observed as holy unto the Lord. But the positive and symbolic part of the law has changed. We rest first, and then we work, for by grace and through faith we have entered into the grace which Christ has earned through his obedience. 

Three, the day of rest is now Sunday, for this is the day on which Jesus Christ rose from the grave, and everything turns on this event. When Christ rose, the power of sin was broken, the evil one was defeated, and the new creation did enter in.  

Brothers and sisters, the fourth commandment is simply this: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Have you kept this law perfectly? We confess that we have violated this law in thought, word, and deed.

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The Gospel

Now for the gospel. Not only did Christ perfectly keep the Sabbath for you, so that you might receive his righteousness by faith. And not only did Christ die to atone for your sins, including your sins of Sabbath-breaking, so that through faith in him your sins are washed away. I also say to you, that Christ is your Sabbath rest. This is good news.  

The first Adam was disobedient and failed to enter into the rest that was offered to him. But Jesus Christ, the second Adam, was obedient. He was obedient in the whole of life, and without sin. And as our appointed mediator, he was obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. He died, was buried, he rose again on the third day, ascended to the Father, and he sat down having finished the work of redemption that was assigned to him. Christ has entered into Sabbath rest. And in him, we have a foretaste of that rest even now. When he returns, we will rest in him fully and for all eternity. 

You see, when the faithful who lived before Christ remembered the Sabbath day and kept it holy, they were reminded of the original act of creation, of the Covenant of Works that God made with Adam, of the fact that Adam fell into sin, that we fell in him, and that we have come short of the eternal rest that was offered. But as they continued to observe the seventh-day Sabbath from the days of Adam to the days of Christ, the faithful were also reminded of the promise of the gospel that had been delivered to them. They knew that eternal rest could still be obtained through faithful work! It could not be their work, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Rest would have to be earned by the work of the Messiah. In this way, when combined with the promise of the gospel, the weekly Sabbath was good news to those who believed before Christ. In other words, those with faith looked forward to the Messiah’s coming and the work that he would accomplish for them. The faithful worked on days 1 through 6 and rested on the seventh as they set their hope on the Christ who was to come in the future.

Now that Messiah has come – now that he has finished his work that the Father gave him to do – and now that he has entered into his rest – we still are to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. And when we do, we do not only remember the first creation, the Covenant of works made with Adam, the breaking of that covenant, and the promise of the gospel that was spoken even in Adam’s presence. No, we also remember that Messiah has come, that he was faithful to do the work the Father gave him to do, that he has entered into his rest, that he has ushered in a new creation. We rest in him now, and are a new creation in him. And as we sojourn in this cursed world we long for the fullness of this rest, the consummation of all things, the new heavens and earth, purchased by Christ’s shed blood. 

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”, brothers and sisters. In six days you shall do all your work. Do it faithfully and as unto the Lord. But the first day of the week is the Lord’s Day, the Christian, New Covenant Sabbath. It is a day for rest and for worship. It is not a day for ordinary work or for worldly recreation. No, with the exception of acts of necessity and mercy, it is to be a day filled with a special kind of activity. It is a day for remembering creation and also our redemption in Christ Jesus. It is a day for worship. It is a day for fellowship amongst believers. Brothers and sisters, the Sabbath was not made for God but for man! It is a gift to us, for in it we have the opportunity to draw near to God, our Creator and Redeemer, and to center and re-center our lives upon him and upon the Savior he has provided. It is a day for us to do business, not with the world, but with God. I pray that the Lord’s Day Sabbath is a blessing to you all. I pray that it is a day that you long for and savor when it is here. I pray that we would learn to keep it more and more, to God’s glory, and for our good, as we wait for the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and our eternal inheritance in him.