29th October 2025

29th October 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 16:3-5, 20, 22-23, 27)


Message (Alan Burke)
This week we are working our way through the Fourth Commandment, you probably know the one I’m talking about, the one that we ignore and reality have only Nine Commandments, I even refer to them as that sometimes the Eight Commandments because that last one about coveting is well a little awkward because we all desire more and more stuff and are never contented. That though is for another time. So the Fourth Commandment yes it comes in Exodus 20 but today I want you to see that even before the commandment was given by God to his people at Sinai that the Sabbath had already been instituted not only by the creation ordering of it by God, declaring it to be Holy but in the lives of his people. 


In Exodus 16 we learn of the LORD’s provision to his people in the wilderness. The LORD had brought his people out of Egypt, and once more they are gurning about their lot, they had forgotten the harsh reality of what they faced, they dreamt of what they had, we see that in verse 3, “there we sat round pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death”. 


Oh how fickle we are as the human race, how quick we are to forget. But did you notice what the LORD said to Moses in v4-5, how they were to gather enough food for each day except for the Sabbath and gather twice as much the day before. This is what the people were to do, Moses told them not to keep it to morning, but they did not listen verse 20, it was full of maggots and it began to smell, then on the sixth day the tattered twice as much (22), and in verse 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. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’ ”


Before Sinai, before the Ten Commandments were given to the people, the people were to keep a holy Sabbath, just as the Lord had instituted in the beginning for the pattern of all people, as he blessed the seventh day and made it holy, resting from all the work of creating he had done, he was to be this way for his people. Look though to what happened, when the sabbath came verse 27, even though they were told that there would not be any; “Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none”.


God had told them to keep the Sabbath holy, to refrain from their work, to rest his him but they didn’t listen and then the Lord says to them verse 28; “Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? 29 Bear in mind that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no one is to go out.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.”


Their failure to keep the sabbath was failure to obey the Lord their God. What we learn from this even before the LORD had given the Ten Commandments to his people is that he had already given his people a Sabbath, it was something that he had already instituted with his people, actually it was something that was there from the very beginning, and as the Lord formally gives these commandments to his people, they already understood the Sabbath, they already knew that on the seventh day they were to rest for it was a holy sabbath to the LORD. The Sabbath, was given by God and it was given as a day that was set apart for God, it is a day like no other, a day unlike the rest of the week, it was given in the beginning, Adam and even were expected to follow it, his people in the wilderness were expected to follow it and live that way even before he had given it to them in the Forth Commandment, that the seventh day was to be a Holy Sabbath to the LORD.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q5 Are there more Gods than one?
A. There is but one only, the living and true God.
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