“Lessons from the Sabbath”

Tuesday, April 02, 2019

If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, From doing your pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the LORD honorable, And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, Nor finding your own pleasure, Nor speaking your own words, Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken." (Isaiah 58:13-14)

The Sabbath was given to Israel as a day of rest, and to remind them of how God made the heavens and the earth in six days, but rested on the seventh day.  The Lord stated:  "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)  How wise of God to provide a special time for bodily rest and spiritual reflection.

Unfortunately, the Jews, in various ways abused the Sabbath law.   The more worldly Jews kept its observance to a minimum.   As long as they were keeping its ceremonies, they felt justified in pursuing secular occupations and peddling merchandise.  (Nehemiah 13:15,16)  On the other hand the legalists criticized Jesus for even healing on the Sabbath.  (Mark 3:1-6)

In our text, God is pleading with Israel to approach the Sabbath with the right attitude.   God is exhorting them to turn from their own pleasures and find delight and satisfaction in its observance.   While Christians are not commanded to keep the Sabbath, there are still important lessons that we may apply to our service to God. 

They were to treat the Sabbath with reverence and respect.   The Sabbath law was given to them by God, and it was wrong and disrespectful for them to observe it according to their own pleasures.   Do you think God is pleased when churches direct the worship service to please the carnal man rather than God?  Certainly not! 

They were to find delight in the Sabbath law.   “Do not seek your own pleasure but find delight in doing the Lord’s will”.  Rejoicing in God's work should be an oasis in the wilderness of life - a foretaste of heaven, a real satisfaction to the soul. 

God is pleased when our work and worship is focused on him.  We must rejoice in work than that is not ours but God's.

By George Slover

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