In the account of
creation, we learn that God created everything in six days. On the seventh day,
He ceased creating and rested. God honoured that day. This day is referred to
as the Sabbath day. We see its importance when at Mount Sinai, God gave it in
the Ten Commandments. It is in the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments.
In Exodus 20:8-11 God said, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it
holy. Six days you shall labour 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.” If there is one
commandment that most people ignore today, it is the failure to keep the
Sabbath day holy. It is true that Christians will go to church and join in to
celebrate God’s goodness thinking that they had kept the Sabbath. Generally,
there is a failure to treat it as a holy day where we cease from needless
activities. If there is one day that most people are busier, it had to be on
Sunday, which we consider the rest day.
God
attached great importance to the Sabbath. In the book of Exodus, He had repeatedly
reminded the people to observe it. In Exodus 16:13, when he gave the Israelites
the manna, He commanded that on the Sabbath day no manna would fall for it was
a rest day. Then in Exodus 23:12 this was His words, “Six days
do your work, but on the seventh day do not work so that your ox and your
donkey may rest and the slave born in your household, and the alien as well,
may be refreshed.” Here in Exodus 31, God had put in the Sabbath rest, even as
He appointed Bezalel and Oholiab to lead the work of constructing the
Tabernacle. Even in the building of His dwelling, God wanted them to observe
the Sabbath. If anyone had any excuse why they could not cease from working, it
had to be these two artisans. We can see that God’s intention was to ensure
that this day is kept holy regardless of the work we are doing. No one should
use his or her service to the Lord as an excuse to break the Sabbath. We know
that there are important things that must be done on Sunday such as preaching,
ministry etc., but they should never be an excuse for us not to keep that day
holy.
In
Exodus 31:12-13, we see a new purpose for the Sabbath. God said, “You
shall surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign
between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am
the Lord who sanctifies you.” In this verse, we see that keeping
Sabbath is a day to promote the knowledge of God. It was a day the people set
aside time to know Him. God is serious about the Sabbath so in verse
14, we see the severity of the punishment He had prescribed for those how broke
the Sabbath. Though we don’t put people to death for failure to keep the
Sabbath, we can see the seriousness God had attached to keeping the Sabbath. There
is an unspoken truth about breaking the Sabbath. It is a subtle way of
signalling to God that He is not worth the time. Failure to keep the Sabbath to
know God is as good as saying to Him, “You are not so important in my life that
I should make that special day to spend with You.”
The
reason why Christians consider Sunday as the Sabbath is because it was on that
day that Christ our Lord rose from the dead. Hence, Christians have made it a
holy day where they will go to church and worship God. Let us
remember to keep the Sabbath holy and to spend it to know God.
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