Time is the stuff that life is made of. God tells us in the Bible to show our faith in Him by honoring a percentage of time as holy. That is one of the commandments that has largely been forgotten - not only by the world but even by the church.

<p>Time is the stuff that life is made of. God tells us in the Bible to show our faith in Him by honoring a percentage of time as holy. That is one of the commandments that has largely been forgotten - not only by the world but even by the church.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

Sabbath

01 The Sabbath

02 The Sabbath


Wilderness survival is now a standard part of certain branches of military training. How to secure food in a desert is 1 of the basic lessons of that rugged course. I'll be back in a moment with the most amazing story on record of wilderness survival. Hello, this is Joe Cruz in the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you. You know, friends, the story of Israel's survival for 40 years in that desolate wilderness of Sinai is 1 of the epic stories of sacred history.

Probably there has never been another instance recorded of so many people learning to live in such primitive isolation. Food became 1 of the most severe problems to face the million or more men, women, and children having to wrest their livelihood from that forbidding desert of the Sinai Peninsula. Without the miraculous intervention of God, of course, the entire immigration would have ended in the stark tragedy of death by starvation. In Exodus 16, verse 4, we begin to read the account of God's provision for those people through daily supplies of manna, which was a white bread-like substance that fell every day on the camp of Israel. The people gathered it fresh right off the ground, and it tasted like wafers and wild honey, and has often been referred to as angel's food.

For 40 years that supply never diminished, and as they wandered in the wilderness, the manna was a constant reminder of God's care over them. But there is 1 interesting fact about the way this food was given from heaven. God made it a test for His people, and it revolved around the keeping of His 10 Commandment Law. The particular point of the test, of course, was the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath. Listen to the Bible account of it now.

Verse 10, Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out, and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or no. And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gathered daily. And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, 2 almers for 1 man, and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, Tomorrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord. Bake that which ye will bake to-day, and see that ye will see.

And that which remaineth over, lay up for you to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade, and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that to-day, for to-day is a sabbath unto the Lord, to-day ye shall not find it in the field. 6 days ye shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none.

And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments, and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of 2 days. Abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day. Now friends, notice that God worked 3 miracles every week to show the people which day was a true Sabbath.

First of all, He allowed them to gather just enough for 1 day. It would spoil if they kept it over. Then he told them to gather twice as much on the sixth day, to keep it over for the Sabbath, and it would not spoil. And he sent absolutely no manna on the seventh day. So 3 times God worked a miracle on the weekend to show them which day should be observed.

Now some apparently wanted to keep a different day. So they went out on the seventh day to gather the food, and of course there wasn't any. But God met them, and He said, How long do you refuse to keep My law? Now notice they were actually breaking God's Law by not keeping the specified seventh day. Perhaps they were going to keep a different day.

Maybe they had in mind to observe 1 of the other days of the week, but God said, No, you can't do that. You are breaking My law when you come out here and try together on the seventh day, the Sabbath." Now this experience also reveals that the 10 Commandment law of God was known long before it was written at Mount Sinai. Some disclaimers of the law try to show that the moral code was not known until Mount Sinai, that it was given only to the Jewish people at that time. But, friends, this is a great delusion. Please notice that this manna test took place before the commandments had been given at Mount Sinai.

The fact is that these 10 great rules of God's government had been in existence from the very beginning of time. True, they had never been put into written form before, but they were known from generation to generation. Now let's look at a few texts to prove this point. The Bible says, Where there is no law, there is no transgression. Romans 4, 15.

And again it says, Sin is a transgression of the law. 1 John 3, 4. And then, The wages of sin is death. Romans 6, 23. Now you put these 3 texts together.

Where there's no law, there's no sin. Sin is a transgression of the law, and the wages of sin is death. All right, now put 1 more text, Romans 5, 14. It says, Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses. Now friends, if death reign from Adam to Moses, and if death is the wages of sin, and sin is the transgression of the law, and there is no transgression without a law, then there was bound to have been a law present even before Mount Sinai.

Do you see that? When man broke the law and sin, death passed upon him. Otherwise how did Cain know that he had sinned after killing his brother? Joseph knew that adultery was sin because he said, How can I do this great sin against God? Genesis 39, 9.

And then God said about Abraham, He kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my law. Genesis 26, 5. Now all of these things were written before the giving of God's law, and yet it indicates the law was there even though it hadn't been written down before. They had been passed along through 6 generations of men for 2, 500 years, not in written form but by word of mouth. It would be just as illogical to suppose that they knew nothing about God because there was no written Bible as to believe that they were ignorant of the 10 Commandments.

Now you may be wondering if Christ continued to regard the seventh day, or if He later changed His mind about the binding claims of that law. Listen to his words in Matthew 5, 17, and 18, Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, 1 jot or 1 tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Now those are the words of Jesus, friends. He did not do away with any part of that 10 Commandment law.

The seventh day is the Christian Sabbath not only because it is the Sabbath Christ made, and it is a part of the law that He gave, but it is because it is the only Sabbath He ever kept when He was here on this earth. Notice in Luke 4, 16, "...and he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read." Now what is the significance of this great fact that Jesus kept the Sabbath regularly as His custom was? 1 Peter 2, 21 tells us Jesus is our example in all things. He said, For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.

Why friends, if I had no other text in the Bible about the Sabbath than this 1 in Luke 4, I would know exactly what to do about it. Jesus said, I am to weigh the truth and the life, and He kept the Sabbath every week as His custom was. That means that I should keep it. Listen, I keep the seventh-day Sabbath because Jesus made it, Jesus blessed it, Jesus commanded it, and then He set us an example by keeping it Himself as a regular customary practice. And He actually rested from His work of redemption on the Sabbath as He had rested from the work of creation in the beginning.

When was Jesus crucified? We have all heard, of course, about Good Friday and Easter Sunday, haven't we? We know that Jesus did rise on the first day of the week, and He died on the day that is commonly called Good Friday. In fact, Jesus actually died about 05:00 on Friday afternoon and was placed in the tomb before sunset. He rose Sunday morning about the breaking of day, and thus he rested in the tomb over the Sabbath.

Now let's read it in Luke 23, beginning with verse 52. This man went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid. And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. Now notice that He died on the day called the Preparation Day and the Sabbath was approaching.

And the women also which came with Him from Galilee, I am reading now in the Bible, the women followed after and beheld the sepulcher and how His body was laid. Now Here is something very important, friends. The women continued to keep the Sabbath according to the commandment even after the death of Jesus. The commandment says the seventh day is the Sabbath, so these women then were continuing to keep the same seventh-day Sabbath even after Jesus died because it says they kept the Sabbath according to the commandment. And then verse 56 says, And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments, and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.

Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them, and they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher." That is Luke 24, 1 and 2. Now these verses indicate that Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, or Sunday as we call it. Now most of the Christian world celebrates Easter Sunday in honor of that event. But according to our text, the Sabbath, according to the commandment, was the day before He rose from the dead, which is Saturday. It's the seventh day of the week, the very 1 which was blessed by Jesus as a holy day.

Now somebody has suggested that maybe the day was changed at the cross and that we should now observe the day of His resurrection. Friends, there is not a single intimation that such should be the case. The seventh-day Sabbath continued to be observed by the disciples in the years following the resurrection. His disciples and His mother knew nothing about such a change. In fact, Jesus instructed His disciples to pray that they should continue to observe the Sabbath after His resurrection and ascension.

You read it in Matthew 24, 19 and 20, Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day. Now here Jesus is predicting the destruction of Jerusalem that took place in 70 AD by the Roman armies. He told His disciples to pray that at that time, 40 years after His death, they would not have to flee on the Sabbath. Certainly this shows that Christ had no idea of any other day of worship coming in to displace the Sabbath.

It was still His own special day that He made in which He was now sharing with man. Friends, listen. The Sabbath of Paradise lost will become the Sabbath of Paradise restored. All who are saved in the kingdom of God will keep the Sabbath by worshiping before the throne of God. In Isaiah 66, 22 we read these words, For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, So shall your seed in your name remain, and it shall come to pass, that from 1 new moon to another, and from 1 sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.

So there it is, friends. We have the Lord's day spanning the ages, And it was kept in the Garden of Eden, in Paradise, and it will be kept with Jesus in the earth made new. Now perhaps you are thinking that only a small insignificant number have ever kept the Sabbath, but that is wrong, friends. The fact is that all the prophets, judges, and patriarchs of the Old Testament were Sabbath keepers. Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Joseph, all the disciples, and Paul, they were all observers of the seventh-day Sabbath.

And towering above them all is Jesus, my example and yours, lighting the way by keeping holy the Sabbath he made, that he blessed, and that he commanded, in order that we might share that blessing which he placed upon it. And then he goes on to say there, of course, in Isaiah, that he will keep it with us before the throne of God throughout all eternity, will come up there from Sabbath to Sabbath, and will actually worship God in the earth made new with Jesus, and it will be a continual perpetual reminder of the work of redemption that Jesus accomplished for us in giving His life as an atonement. Well, I want to urge you to write for my free book entitled Why God Said Remember. This will contain, of course, some evidences even that we have not had time to present on the broadcast today about how you can locate the true seventh day today. Sometimes people say, well, the calendar has been changed, or we can't really find out which is a true seventh day.

Well, this little book, Why God Said Remember, will present proof, absolute proof concerning that day and how you can locate it now. Some say they can't be sure, but this will prove that you

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Sabbath

02 The Sabbath

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01 The Sabbath

14m

02 The Sabbath

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