Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.

“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:8-11, KJV).

The first four commandments are concerned with man’s relationship with God and God’s with man. We have seen how the first denotes God’s identity, the second His nature, the third His name. The fourth honors His day. Read the second giving of the law in Deuteronomy. The one about the Sabbath, or 4th commandment is contained in Deuteronomy 5:12-15. There, deliverance from Egyptian bondage is given as a reason for remembering the Sabbath. On the Sabbath, God first provided manna from heaven to feed the wilderness wanderers. As this blessing kept sustaining them, they were to gather enough on the sixth day to last through the Sabbath so they would not have to work on that day. In the Exodus account, the Creation is the focus. God spent six days creating all that He made. On the seventh day He rested. He gave it as a day of rest for mankind, knowing that in the cycle of work, he needed a time apart from the week of work to be refreshed in body, mind and spirit, and a day specifically for worship, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”

Over time, the Jews had made so many additional rules to apply to and interpret the Ten Commandments that observing the Sabbath had become burdensome. Many rules stated what could and could not be done on the Sabbath. Jesus declared, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Following the resurrection, which occurred on the first day of the week, Christians made it (our Sunday) the “Sabbath”, or day of worship and rest. In Exodus: Called for Redemptive Mission (1977), Dr. Page H. Kelley wrote: “What a blessed privilege to observe the Lord’s Day! When we do so, all of life falls into the rhythmic pattern of meaningful work and festive rest. On this special day out of seven we lay down our strengths and achievements at the feet of Him who created us for His praise and His adoration. In a sense, the Sabbath expresses the essence of all the other commandments, both in its religious as well as its social meaning.” The seventh day, whether observed as the old Sabbath or the Lord’s Day (the first day of the week) is devoted to God. But all of our time is sacred, a gift from God and to be used for His glory. Is that hard to do? We have to admit it is. But God stands ready to help us order our days for Him, precious and to be used to glorify God, who “made the Sabbath” and every day for our use and stewardship.

c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Sunday, August 8, 2010