We come in our Bible study today to the book of Exodus, the 20th chapter, reading verses eight through 11. This is the final commandment of the first division of the Ten Commandments, this division dealing with Israel's relationship with God. And we see here that God's people are told to remember something. Exodus 20 verse 8, 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 of the Lord your God.
In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the 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. God's people are told to remember. Why do you think that is so? Might it not be because God's people so easily forget?
That is one of the reasons the Lord gave the feasts of Yahweh or the feasts of the Lord established in the book of Leviticus. These were annual times of remembrance and celebration for them so that they might remember what the Lord their God had done on their behalf. We today do not have these feasts to observe because they were a part of the old covenant with Israel, but we do have the Lord's Supper. Do you remember Jesus' words? As often as you do this, what? Remember me.
You see, today we are a little different than Israel in this respect because we too easily also forget. And so our Lord said every time we gather around His table we are to remember Him. The Lord says to His people Israel in our text today, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. First, I would like to talk with you this morning regarding the significance of the Sabbath to Israel. We must of course summarize this, but it begins actually before Exodus chapter 20.
I would like you to back up a couple of pages in your Bible to the 16th chapter. While they were in the wilderness coming to this mountain, Mount Sinai, God established this day with the nation as a different day for them. The context is the giving of the manna from heaven for the people to eat. In verse 22, now it came about on the sixth day. They gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one.
When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, then he said to them, this is what the Lord meant. Tomorrow is a Sabbath observance, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning. So they put it aside until morning as Moses had ordered, and it did not become foul nor was there any worm in it. And Moses said, eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord.
Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none. Then down to verse 29, see the Lord has given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Remain every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. And so before they came to Mount Sinai, God set apart the seventh day as a special day to be observed.
Now as he institutes his covenant with them, the covenant of the law, and as he lays a foundation for his covenantal relationship with them, he includes as a part of the Ten Commandments the observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath day. It is instituted here in Exodus 20 as a holy day to be remembered. Later as the law is further developed, the Israelites are told how they should observe the Sabbath in detail.
There are two reasons I believe for this theocratic or God-ordained institution of a day for rest. Let me point out to you that the Hebrew word Sabbath means repose, cessation or rest. And so Sabbath means rest. Why did God set apart a day for rest? It seems that the first reason is that God wanted them to commemorate his own rest after creation. We see that mentioned in Exodus 20 and verse 11.
For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the 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. So why did God institute this day of rest? It was to commemorate his day of rest after his creative work. Now it mentions it here, but let's go back to Genesis chapter 2 where it actually takes place and look at it in that context.
Beginning in verse 1 of the second chapter of Genesis, thus the heavens and the earth were completed and all their hosts. And by the seventh day God completed his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made.
The fact that God rested on the seventh day does not imply that God became weary or fatigued in his work of creation, but it does mean that God was satisfied with his work. For six days he had created and had said, it is good. On the seventh day it could not be improved, there was nothing more to do. His work was completed and God was entirely satisfied with his creation. And so he ceased, he rested from his creative work and set apart that seventh day as a Sabbath.
Now apparently this day of rest was observed from Adam's time onward for at least some generations. But eventually the observance of a day of rest, the seventh day, became obscured in its meaning because mankind became increasingly pagan and idolatrous. Mankind turned from the knowledge of the truth and was turned to the lie, as Romans chapter one describes, and began to worship and serve the creature rather than the creator.
And as a part of all of that paganism that mankind developed, the seventh day was obscured in its meaning and the pagan traditions then perverted it from what God intended it to be. I think we see an example of this in ancient Babylon. In early Babylon, cuneiform tablets speak of sabbatu, which was, quote, a day of rest for the soul, close quote. That's what they called it. By the way, that Babylonian word sabbatu was the origin of the Hebrew word for Sabbath.
There are some liberal scholars who try to tell us that the Sabbath day was simply picked up by Israel from the pagan religions around them. In fact, the Sabbath day was given to Israel by God himself. The fact that that day or a day of rest was observed in some aspects of paganism only shows that those pagan nations all had a common source for that tradition that had been passed down to them orally from generation to generation.
They had been passed down, in fact, all the way back to the day of Adam when God rested. God instituted the Sabbath day in Israel to commemorate his day of rest after creation. There's a second reason that he instituted the day, and that was to commemorate the nation's redemption from Egypt. We see this in the next account of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament. That is Deuteronomy chapter 5, and I'd like you to look over there with me.
If you compare the wording in the two texts, you'll find it very, very similar. Until you come to the last verse, the Spirit of God causes Moses to change the last verse entirely. After telling them to observe the Sabbath day in Deuteronomy 5, it comes to verse 15. It says, You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
So we see a second reason for the institution of this day in Israel. It was to commemorate the nation's redemption. God's rest after creation, and the nation's redemption from Egypt. Now in another text that will not take time to read, but Exodus 31 verses 13 through 17, God established this day, the Sabbath, as a perpetual covenant and a sign between Israel and himself. That is a summary of the significance of the Sabbath day to the nation of Israel.
This morning we want to go on to talk about something that may be a little more relevant to us, and that is the significance of the Sabbath to the church. Its significance to us today in 1986 in this age. I suppose the first question that would come to one's mind is, are we to observe the Sabbath day? The answer to that is a resounding no from the New Testament. Nine-tenths of the Ten Commandments was repeated in the New Testament.
One command was not restated for us in this age, and that is the fourth commandment regarding the Sabbath day. We will look in vain to find a place after the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in the beginning of this age for a command that deals with our observance of the Sabbath day. You see the Sabbath was a sign between Israel and God. We are not Israel. We are the church. The Sabbath was a part of the old covenant of law made with Israel.
It was done away with by the establishment of the better covenant, the new covenant of grace, with those who trust the Lord Jesus Christ in this age. Jesus Christ has fulfilled all of the demands of the law on our behalf. The law was intended to point the sinner to Christ. The law cannot save by its power. It cannot transform the sinner or bring him new life. The law cannot save. It can only expose the sinner and bring him under the condemnation of the law.
All of sin comes short of the glory of God, and the law turns a spotlight on our hearts, exposes the wickedness and sin that is there, and then pronounces the judgment of God upon us that the soul that sins, says the Lord, shall die. You see the Lord Jesus Christ came and took upon himself the curse of the law on our behalf. He fulfilled the law in his righteous life, paid its penalty in his death, and now lives today to save all who will come to him in faith.
The Sabbath was a part of the law for ancient Israel. It is not related to us today under the new covenant of grace. Indeed, we are specifically warned not to make Sabbath observance a matter of ritual or of faith in this age. Listen with me to Colossians 2, where I believe this to be stated. Colossians 2, rather than starting at verse 9 to pick up the whole context, I think we'll skip down to about verse 16.
But notice in the previous verses that the Apostle Paul has been dealing with our identification with Christ in his death and resurrection. He says we were buried with him, we've been raised up with him, verse 12. In verse 13, we've been made alive together with him. In verse 14, he dealt with all of the debt that we owed to the Lord because of the law.
And now in verse 16 it says, Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. All of these things come out of Israel's ordinances and ceremonies. He says let no one now judge you regarding your observance of them. Why? Because they're a part of the old covenant. He goes on to say these things are a mere shadow of what is to come. The substance belongs to Christ. What does he mean there?
Well, he's saying these things all pointed to the coming of the Savior. But now he's come. We don't need them any longer. We might compare it to a photograph. A wife longs for the return of her husband from military service overseas. What she has from him are letters and a photograph. Every day she looks at that photograph and thinks of that loved one of hers. She may kiss it and hug it and talk to it.
But she has that photograph and some of you identify very keenly with this because you've been there. One day her husband comes home. He arrives at the airfield. He comes to the house to be with his wife and stands there in the living room. You think for one moment she's going to run over there and reach for that picture and hug it and kiss it? Not in your life. She wants the real thing. She doesn't need the picture anymore, you see.
She's got what she longed for in the substance, the person of her husband who is now home. You see all of these things from the Old Testament are like the photographs. But now Jesus has come. He is here. We no longer need them to point to him. He is here. And those other things have passed away. The early church began worshiping on the first day of the week to commemorate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That was not by accident. We do not adhere to Sabbath worship today.
We follow the example of the early church in meeting on the first day of the week. That occurred over a process of time, it does seem. The first clear mention of Sunday as a day of worship for the church is in Acts 20 and verse 7. That occurred about 55 AD. In other words, it was some 30 years or so after the death and resurrection of Christ. There was a period of transition. But the church came to worship on that first day.
When John wrote the book of the Revelation toward the end of the first century, 95 perhaps AD, he says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. What is John saying? Well, that is his name for the first day of the week. And it was then that he received that great revelation of Jesus Christ recorded in the 22 chapters of Revelation. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, he calls it, because it's a day commemorating the Lord's resurrection.
Paul earlier had mentioned it in 1 Corinthians 16, 2, when he commanded them to set aside proportionately an amount of money for the collection. And that was to be done on the first day of the week. The question that comes to mind, though, is this, is it wrong to have a service on Saturday evening? There are some churches that do this. Is it wrong for a church to worship on the Sabbath?
Well, the answer to that is yes and no. Yes, it is wrong if it is being done as a ceremonial or ritualistic observance of the Old Testament law. It is wrong because we are no longer under the law. We've been redeemed from it. So if it's being done as observance of the law, yes, it is wrong for them to do it. But I believe no, it is not wrong to do it if it is being done for other reasons. Usually it is being done because of crowded Sunday ministry.
And so they provide a Saturday evening service for those who want to attend then. Now it may be wrong for some people's conscience. They may feel guilty worshiping on Saturday. Or it may be wrong in some cultural context. But mark it, it's not wrong biblically to worship on Saturday evening. Now if a person wants to be a legalist about this and say that's the Sabbath, again, he is wrong.
Because for the Jews, the Sabbath ended at sundown on Saturday and the first day of the week began at that point. And so if you want to be a legalist about it, then after sundown on Saturday is the first day of the week. The white quibble over such legalistic fine points. The point is that biblically speaking it's not wrong to have a service on Saturday night. Indeed, in the cultural context of a Muslim land, for example, there are many believers who worship on Friday, not Sunday.
Because Friday is the day of Muslim worship and that's the day when everything is shut up and culturally that's the day when they meet for worship. Are they wrong? No, they're not wrong in that. There's nothing forbidding worship on Friday or any other day of the week. We are not commanded to worship corporately only on Sunday. We do follow the example of the early church in doing so and we live in a culture that is influenced by Christian teachings so it's naturally easy for us to do that.
But every day of the week is suitable for worship. Yes, certainly Sunday has special meaning to us. It is the day of the Lord's resurrection but there is no limitation in scripture to that day only. That is the point. Some of you are feeling pretty good at this point. Now let me make you feel a little less good. I want to come back to another question. How should believers treat the Lord's day? Israel was told how they were to treat the Sabbath. How are believers today to treat the Lord's day?
The answer to that is that there are no rules in the New Testament as to proper or improper activities for that matter. There are some churches that have established rules and standards for their membership. I pastored a church for a time that established rules for all teachers in the church. A teacher had to sign a pledge card stating that he would or would not do certain things including certain things on Sunday. It had been in place in that church since maybe before creation, I'm not sure.
And so we continued to use the pledge card. And I suppose any congregation has a prerogative to establish those standards. However, the problem is that it so often leads to legalism. And to people judging one another's spirituality on the basis of whether they keep those manmade standards and rules. And legalism is wrong. To establish standards for some reasons may be proper, and yet be careful in one's attitude about them. But having said that, do remember this.
Although there are no rules in the New Testament as to how we observe the Lord's Day, it is the Lord's Day. It should be a time for corporate worship and personal contemplation. And not a time to selfishly indulge ourselves in doing what pleases us. The Word of God does establish a principle, I think, that should not be ignored regarding the Lord's Day. In Hebrews 10, 25, it says, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. Now it's in the present tense there.
And the point is that we are not to make it a habit of forsaking the assembling of the saints for corporate worship. When the body gathers for worship and fellowship, the point is, God expects me to be there as a habit of life. He doesn't say, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together on Sunday morning. Do you notice that? The point is that whenever the church meets, I have a responsibility to be there when it meets for corporate worship.
I suppose if a church wanted to meet five times a week for that purpose, I would have an obligation, according to this principle, to be there. We meet twice a week for corporate worship, Sunday morning and Sunday night. And it seems to me that the clear principle of God's Word is that we have a responsibility not to forsake the worship of this church, Sunday morning and Sunday night. We are ingenious at devising excuses. It's either too hot or it's too cold. We can't miss this movie.
It waited a long time for this to get on TV. Why, this football game only happens once a year. Sunday is my only time with the family. I got out of church late. Can't get back for Sunday night. Can you imagine using those same excuses at work? Well I didn't get here yesterday because it was just too hot, boss. Or you know what the windchill was Monday? Boy, I'm not coming in when the windchill is that cold. Somebody will freeze to death.
But you don't understand how long I've waited for this movie. I had to watch that before coming into work tonight. But this football game is really important to me. No, I can't go on that business trip after all. I need some time with my family. Forget it. I got out of my work late this morning. So what if I'm late today getting back from my lunch? You see, these same excuses that we pawn off on God sound rather silly when we use them with our employer.
What these kinds of excuses really do is to expose us, don't they? They serve to show what our real priorities and commitments are. Now there may be some who get angry at that kind of talking and who would respond by saying, well, I don't care what he says. Well the fact is you don't have to care what the preacher says. It's not his day that's involved. The point I'm making is that this is the Lord's day. It's not the Sabbath day, no. But it is the Lord's day. And how we use it is important.
Now what is the meaning of the Sabbath to us? Let's ask that question next. Apart from no ceremonial or legal meaning, it does have some significance that's worth pondering. Let me just state two or three things and we'll be on our way. Number one, the Sabbath was established as a day of rest for mankind. God seems to have established that principle all the way back at creation. And I believe it's still his design today. I believe it's still valid today that we need to have a day of rest.
We ignore that at our own risk. The person who perpetually ignores a time of rest in his schedule will sooner or later pay for it. And on that day he'll not be able to say to God, why did you let this happen to me? Because he did it to himself. God has already established this principle for all of mankind. You say, but I don't have time for a day of rest. My friend, you better make time for it. Now how that is observed in your life and where it may be observed can have a lot of variety.
A day of rest for one man would be a day of work for another man. A man who works with his brain all week long sitting behind a desk may enjoy going out and chopping wood on his day off. But the man who does that for a living wants to sit and do nothing on his day off. You see, the point is we need a day for rest and refreshment. I believe it has that meaning to us. But then there's a spiritual, a symbolic meaning. And we see this in Hebrews chapter 4.
The idea of rest or Sabbath is used several ways in this chapter, but I want to point out two of them. Symbolically the Sabbath means to us the rest that we have by faith in Jesus Christ. It says in verse 1 of chapter 4, Therefore let us fear, lest while a promise remains of entering his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us just as they also did, they being the Israelites in the wilderness in the Old Testament.
Chapter 3 explains that. But the word they heard did not profit them because it was not united by faith in those who heard. We who have believed enter that rest. The good news to the Israelites was the promised land could be theirs. They turned from that. They would not believe that God would give it to them and they came short of it. Only two of that whole generation entered into the promised land because of unbelief. And the point the writer is making is this.
We too have had good news delivered to us. The good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. It is not enough that we simply have received it, have it delivered to us. We must unite that by our personal faith. We who have believed enter into this rest of salvation in Jesus Christ. That is one way the Sabbath speaks symbolically to us. It is the rest that we have from the labor of our own fleshly efforts to please God. Thank God we don't have to do that. We rest from our own efforts.
We rest, thank God, from the guilt and load of our sin because of our faith in Christ. But the idea of rest is used a different way in verses 9 and 10. There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from his. Therefore, let us be diligent, let us labor to enter that rest. What is that rest? This is the rest, my friend, of heaven. In heaven we are not going to repose on cloud couches forever.
That's not the point. We are going to serve the Lord there according to Revelation 22 verse 3. But in Revelation 14 verse 13 it says, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. And it says the Spirit that they may rest from their labors for their deeds. Follow them. That's the point. The Sabbath speaks to you and me of that rest from our earthly labors that we have coming. And he says let's labor to enter that rest. That almost sounds like a contradiction, doesn't it?
It reminds me of what J. Vernon McGee told about the Irishman who said, I'm going to have peace in my home even if I have to fight for it. Well it sounds like there's a contradiction there. But there's not. His point in verse 11 is not that we can somehow lose out on getting to heaven if we're not careful. His point is be sure that heaven is your home. Be sure that you're saved.
You see the point of assurance of salvation in the Word of God is not that somewhere back yonder on such and such a day I prayed to receive Christ. If a person can say that it's wonderful, but many of us here today cannot say that. The point of assurance of salvation in the Bible is one's continuance in the faith. It is the perseverance of one who says he believes. His continuing to believe and to walk with God. And the writer is saying here, let's be sure my friend that you're really saved.
That's why Peter tells us make sure about your calling in the election. You mean I've got to do something about it? No, God's done that. But make sure that you've trusted Christ. Paul says to the Corinthians, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. You see the point is that we can be deceived. We can somehow think that because we've been raised in a Christian home, we've gone to a fine church, and we've heard the gospel from day one, that we are automatically saved.
Listen, my friend, if you're saved there's going to be fruit in your life. You're going to walk with God. There's going to be faith there. There's going to be obedience there. Therefore be diligent. Examine yourselves. Make your calling and election sure. Is there proof that you really are a child of God? Each of us must answer that for himself. This is not contradicting salvation by grace through faith. It's just the balance of it. It's just the check of it.
You see unbelief will rob a person of heaven and salvation and send him to hell and damnation. It is not enough only to receive the good news. We must, as verse 3 says, believe to enter into that rest. Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation? If not, will you do it today? My friend, having done that at some point in your life, let me close with this point. What do you need to do to honor the Lord's day?
No, there are not legalistic rules as to what you must do to observe it, but remember it is the Lord's day. Do not use it to abuse it, rather, to use it for your own indulgence, but use it as God wants you to use it. Worship him in it. Be with the Lord's people. Don't seek to find excuses which are silly on the surface. I know there are reasons sometimes when we cannot be at church, we cannot do this, we cannot do that, we would like to do, we know we would honor God.
There are legitimate reasons, but the point is the pattern of our lives should be one of obedience in our use of the Lord's day. So may it be so of each of us. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you that you have delivered us from the curse of the law. You have fulfilled the law on our behalf and now we stand before the Father as perfectly righteous in yourself.
I thank you that you write upon the heart of each regenerate person the standards of the law so that we need no external code of conduct, that it's internal, you put it there by the work of your spirit. Thank you, Lord. But there are times, as you know, when we fail to live up to what we should do and we sin.
And Lord, if in our use of the Lord's day, your day, we have been careless and casual and uncommitted, I pray that you will bring to us a fresh commitment, a fresh dedication to this day that bears your name. And I pray, Father, for that one who is here without the Lord Jesus today to receive Christ and to enter into that rest which the Sabbath pictures for us. In His name I pray, in Jesus' name, amen.