I don’t think there is any question that America has found itself in a spiritual and moral crisis never seen before in her long history. For years, the faithful in the land have been praying for a revival that would shake this nation but revival tarries. The other day, a thought came to me that might help us understand why revival seems out of our grasp. I am not ready to say; “Thus saith the Lord” on this but if you take some time to carefully read this article, I believe God will speak to you from it.
I have heard people say that the beginning of America’s decline occurred when prayer was taken out of school. Certainly that was a dark and shameful day in America’s history. But there is nothing in the Bible that says we must have prayer in our schools. However, there is plenty in the Bible about how we are to keep the Sabbath. I am old enough to remember a time when the Sabbath was holy and sacred to most of the people in America. Either Saturday or Sunday, there was one day for God, family and rest. Stores and businesses were closed and people seemed to manage to go 24 hours without having to go to the mall or Wal-Mart. The Sabbath was special but today it is just like all the other days. All the stores and restaurants are open and life for the American people is like a hamster’s wheel with no way to get off. If we calculate what ignoring the Sabbath is costing us, we will be interested in knowing what God said in the beginning about His plan for us. He was looking out for us by giving us the Sabbath.
I know that in Christ, we are saved by grace through faith and salvation is the gift of God and comes to us by promise. But if we give heed to the Word of God, we will discover that the Sabbath is associated with what we are to do with time. It is a Day that God ascribes massive importance and to write it off as an ancient rite that is irrelevant for modern times is to fail God and insult His wisdom. I will have more to say about what we should do with this at the conclusion.
In the beginning God made man spirit and flesh. The world we live in is material and spirit. With that in mind, when God finished His work of creation, the biblical account says this:
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 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. (Genesis 2:1-30).
Abraham Heschel, a very important Jewish theologian, in his wonderful book aptly named; The Sabbath, noted that the very first time the word qadosh (Hebrew word for holy) was used in Scripture, was used not in relationship to a place, thing, mountain or person. It was used to describe a time, the seventh day. He says; “There is no reference in the record of creation to any object in space that would be endowed with the quality of holiness.”
He continues by saying; “This is a radical departure from accustomed religious thinking. The mythical mind would expect that after heaven and earth have been established, God would create a holy place- a holy mountain or a holy spring- whereupon a sanctuary is to be established. Yet it seems as if to the Bible it is holiness in time, the Sabbath, which comes first.”
In another place he notes “Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time.”What would lead Abraham Heschel make such a statement? It is obvious to him that God’s calendar of Feasts and Sabbaths were given to the people of God to address the spiritual side of their lives and spirit can only be experienced when time has been sanctified, set apart and destined to be holy. The opposite of holy is common or for common use.
Exodus 31:12-17 states; "Say to the Israelites, 'You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between Me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy. For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death. The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. It will be a sign between Me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.' "
Pay close attention; The Sabbath is a lasting covenant, a sign between God and His people forever! That leads me to wonder if we are making a terrible mistake by failing to grasp in some measure God’s intention for the Sabbath. What are we missing by dismissing the Sabbath as something from the Old Testament that has supposedly passed away and not in the New Covenant? How could something that is called forever pass away?
There is another very important point that Abraham Heschel makes that I want to bring to your attention concerning the Sabbath. As we have made reference to, the Lord commanded that no work be done and the Day was a day of rest. But to him, it was more than that. He says;
“Labor is a craft but perfect rest is an art. The seventh day is a palace in time which we build. It is made of soul, of joy and reticence and in its atmosphere, a discipline that is a reminder of our adjacency to eternity.”
In other words, he saw the Sabbath as God’s gift to us as the opportunity to build tabernacles made of Spirit, experienced in sacred time that places us in view of eternity!
Another important Sabbath verse that helps us comes from Isaiah 58:13-14.
"If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on My holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the Lord has spoken.
I have long treasured Isaiah 58 because it speaks of the fast that pleases God. It calls for more than mere ritual but for works of mercy, compassion and justice. But somehow, I always stopped short of what the Lord had to say about the Sabbath. I observed Isaiah 58 up to verse 12 and stopped. What glorious promises are in store for the people who honor the Sabbath and call it a delight!
As I think about the Sabbath, I see it as a one day fast from all the things that compete for my time and attention. Oh the things we like to do on the Sabbath that compete with God! The world conspires against the Sabbath with all its sports, entertainments, food, theme parks, festivals, and so on. The Sabbath is also God’s invitation to experience intimacy with Him, to worship, to love God and be loved by Him and most importantly, be holy. I think you will see that if you were to set your heart to keep the Sabbath, you would find yourself struggling to deliver yourself from all your worldly attachments. How tangled up we are. Seeing this is just another one of God’s benefits.
Another thing that comes to mind concerning the Sabbath is the fact that it is a covenant with God. At our house we believe in tithing. We started thirty years ago and have seen first- hand what God means when He promises to rebuke the devourer on our behalf. We have enjoyed His blessing on our home and lives. God told Israel to work the land for six years and then rest it the seventh. They were not to sow or reap the land the seventh year. But somehow, they would have enough harvest in the six years to feed everyone. I wonder what the other nations thought of Israel’s agricultural methods.
I have been preaching this message to a lot of older folks and to my surprise it has awakened their memories to better times when Americans honored the Sabbath Day. I am sure that many did not understand the full implications of the Sabbath but you cannot deny that we were better off when we shut is all down for one day out of seven and rested from our labors. Those folks thought six days were enough to labor and the Lord would take care of the rest. Families worshipped, prayed and stayed together. Maybe we were blessed because we looked to the Lord of the Sabbath and God had time to build a tabernacle in His people and His people built a tabernacle in time.
As I said earlier, the Sabbath is a lasting covenant, a sign between God and His people forever. And don’t forget, keeping the Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments. If we are God’s people what should our relationship to the Sabbath be? Should we seek to institutionalize it as it was when Jesus came to Israel? They were so wrapped up in legalism they failed to receive the God-Man who was Lord of the Sabbath. They rebuked Him for healing on the Sabbath. On the other hand should we seek to keep the Sabbath by faith and set it apart in our hearts as the Day the Lord has chosen it to be? The Sabbath is not going away and will be honored forever for all time and eternity. Who are we to dismiss the Sabbath as something of ancient times that can be forgotten by modern man?
One final thought. Culturally, Christianity has lost ground in the minds and hearts of people everywhere. We say we want to be a witness of the things of God to our nation and world. But is our failure to keep the Sabbath holy a denial of the God we claim to love and serve? What would America look like if the millions of people who claim to be Christians wholeheartedly kept the Sabbath? Would not the Sabbath be a witness in itself?
To this day, observing and practicing Jews keep the Sabbath holy. In a similar way, Moslems observe months and days with fasting. But Christians do what they want when they want. We are seeing organized youth baseball and soccer leagues scheduling their games beginning early Sunday mornings all over America. Their disrespect for the Sabbath and the faith of people is bewildering. I wonder if anyone objects to this.
The Sabbath makes a statement about God’s claim on man’s time. People do not like anyone including God telling them what they should do or must do with their time. If we could see the Sabbath for the beautiful thing that it is and God created it to be we might find our way back from the edge of spiritual collapse and see revival in America again.
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