28th June 2024

28th June 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 16:1-36 focus v21-36)


Message (Alan Burke)


Sabbath is a gift to us from God. Here the Lord was teaching his people just that and its necessity. While keeping the food throughout the week would result in it begin full of maggots and smelling, on the six day they were to gather enough for two days because there would be no manna or qual on the seventh. But then the Sabbath comes and v27 some of the people went out to gather but found none. This wasn’t a complicated set of questions, they weren’t expected to be proficient in maths and English or maths and Hebrew and know all their three dimensional shapes, they just needed to trust in the Lord and not go out looking for the Manna. The Lord says to Moses because of the peoples actions, v28 “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? The Lord had tested his people, he was trying to teach them through it that he could be trusted and the need of the Sabbath. None of what here was a big ask but they still couldn’t do it.


Remember where this comes in the book of Exodus, for the Ten Commandments haven’t been given yet by God to his people and there is a reason because the Sabbath is a creation ordinance. What I mean by that is that it was given in creation for the pattern for life, six days to labour and the seventh to rest. For; By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Ge 2:2–3). From creation, before the law was given God has set apart a day to be observed as a Sabbath. Look to verse 23…23 He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. The day itself is holy. Holy meaning it is set apart, it is concentrated for a purposes and that purpose is to be God’s day. 


What does this mean for us, after all the sabbath to the Jews is our Saturday. For the Christian the Sabbath is no longer a Saturday but on the first day of the week, in Mark’s gospel (16), Luke’s gospel (24) and John’s gospel (20), each one records how Jesus rose on the first day of the week. In Acts 20 we learn how… 7 On the first day of the week they came together to break bread, the first day. Revelation 1:10 speaks of that first day as the Lord’s day (9-11). The sabbath had been on the last day after creation was completed, now the Christian Sabbath is the first day of a new creation, it is the day that we come together as the people of God to worship him, it is the day we set aside as a holy Sabbath rest, and it is a foretaste of the eternal Sabbath rest that awaits all the people of God (Hebrews 4:9-10).


The Lord from the beginning has given his people a sabbath, for our good and his glory. The culture that surrounds us no longer sees the need of a day for rest and worship and if we are honest we prefer to be able to do what we like on the Sabbath, like the Lord is spoiling our fun if we have to actually rest and worship. The Sabbath though was given to bless his people, the Israelites struggled and we struggle with it to, we find it hard to understand, they found it hard to understand, but God himself has given it to us and observes it for it wasn’t only the people that rested on the Sabbath here it was the Lord himself. From Genesis to Revelation God has set aside one day a week as a holy day, for those who do not observe the sabbath the onus is on to justify why from the scriptures, why the sabbath does not matter, why it should no longer observe it. If we do not observe it as such then why? 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q 77. What is required in the ninth commandment?
A. The ninth commandment requireth the maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man, and of our own and our neighbor’s good name, especially in witness bearing.
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