Grace Bible Church
Basic Training in Doctrine
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Religion destroys freedom, which destroys rest, which destroys thinking, which makes for psychosis and neurosis.
The body, the mind, and the soul need rest.
A day of rest and no work was to be observed on the Saturday of each week; the last year of every 7 years; and all possessions were to be returned to their original owners every 50th year.
In six days God took the earth which was a mess from the rulership of Satan and He restored it.
All the work that needed to be done so that man could rule the earth in perfect environment was accomplished.
“rested” = kal imp of shabath, sabbath means to rest.
The Sabbath is the rest of grace. Everything that man would ever need was provided by God so He rested and asked mankind to rest as well.
Grace = God does the work while man reaps the benefits. Perfect environment was provided and nothing could be added to it. Man never earns or deserves what God provides.
God told the Jews to gather the manna which fell from the sky from Sunday through Friday, but they had to gather a double portion on Friday since none would be provided on Saturday.
It was to be a reminder to Israel that God provided everything and that, you can’t work for salvation, for divine provisions, or for blessings. Grace and works are antagonistic, ROM 11:6.
ROM 11:6
But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.
You are free to perform whatever good works God has predestined you to perform (EPH 2:10), but true good works that are truly motivated by love for God are always done because the believer wants to and loves to and never in any attempt to impress God or to merit His favor.
For the mature Church-age believer, every day is a Sabbath or day of rest that commemorates the grace of God.
Rest
God provided for Adam in perfect environment and then rested. However, when Adam fell, God took upon Himself another work that once again would have to be completed by Him alone.
The solution to man’s fall was the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, which once accomplished He said, “It is finished.”
For three days the Lord’s Spirit went to be with the Father where He enjoyed fellowship and rested.
The Jewish Sabbath was a part of the 10 commandments. It was the 4th commandment of the decalogue, EXO 20:8-11; DEU 12:15.
The word remember describes what the Sabbath is all about, remembering. It is a thinking day and not a working day. It is a time to think and remember.
“keep it holy”, literally means to set it apart.
Freedom demands rest and meditation. You cannot have freedom when you stop thinking. Therefore the Sabbath was a day for physical resting and mental thinking.
On the 7th day God stopped providing because He had already provided everything.
The word blessed indicates that God pronounced it a source of blessing or intensity of happiness.
This one day of rest each week is not only a principle of blessing, it is also a principle of freedom. Freedom and blessing go together.
Knowing the blessings of God demands cognition of His character and nature (His ways).
The Sabbath or rest that God has for every believer was completely neglected by the Pharisees because of ignorance.
At the moment you believed in Jesus Christ as Savior you entered an eternal rest, Matt 11:28
Matt 11:28
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
God has accomplished all the work. Enter into His rest.
While the daily rest of God has been provided for the Church-age believer, we should be in fear of failing to enter into it like the religious Jews did.
The Sabbath is set aside in the Church Age, COL 2:16-17, Galatians. The memorial to grace in the Church Age is not Saturday but Sunday, the first day of the week, 1 Cor 16:2; ACT 20:7.
1 Cor 16:2
On the first day of every week let each one of you put aside and save, as he may prosper, that no collections be made when I come.
is a memorial to the grace of God. For 6 days God worked and on the 7th He rested. And why did He rest? Because there was nothing else for Him to provide.
Acts 20:7
And on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to depart the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight.
However, Sunday is not a Sabbath. The Sabbath was abolished and a moment by moment Sabbath was established for the Church-age believer, HEB 4:1-3, which is the faith-rest technique.
Your moment-by- moment Sabbath means your spiritual advance, your annual Sabbatical is comparable to the supergrace life, and the year of Jubilee is comparable to the ultra-supergrace life.