The Sabbath

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Permalink Reply by Aidan Jones on September 29, 2009 at 11:22pm

Well, I guess I'll have a go at answering my own question since no-one else is...

Exodus 20:8-11 (The Fourth Commandment) "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

Exodus 31:14-15 tell us that disobedience to this law by working on this day was punishable by excommunication, and "desecration" of this day was punishable by death.

I have not studied to see if the Scriptures lay out a definition of what is counted as "work", but I'm pretty sure that the religious leaders and teachers of the law totally went overboard on this law, forbidding people to do anything remotely useful on this day. A man could not even pick fruit or grain and eat it. Anything remotely associated with food prep had to be done the day before. Apparently the number of steps that a man was permitted to take, apart from his journey to the synagogue and back, was severely restricted. Nothing that could be associated with "healing" people was permitted. I read somewhere that today Jews are not allowed to use any electrical devices, even if a man lives 3 stories up in a flat, he cannot use the elevator, instead he is forced to use the stairs (go figure).

Praise Jesus we are no longer under Mosaic law! (Hebrews 8:6-13)

Matthew 12. Jesus declares that He is Lord of the Sabbath. Just before that He says "I desire mercy, not sacrifice". Then he healed a mans crippled hand, to the disgust of onlookers. Then He illustrates the hypocricy in the way they observe the Sabbath by showing how they would rescue one of their sheep if it fell into a pit on the Sabbath. "How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."

Mark 3:4 "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?"
Rhetorical question, to which His own answer would be, as above, "It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." Duhhh.

And by the way, "Do good all the other days of the week also as well". (That's my exceedingly poor, yet nonetheless very true paraphrase of the rest of Jesus' teaching ministry). Listen to this in John 5:16-17. "So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."" Jesus is ALWAYS working because his Father is ALWAYS working. And what are we called to do as Christians ("little christs" or "Christ-bearers")... to follow Jesus! Which, in this case, would mean to be always working. However, His definition of "working" is simply doing the will of the Father. Verse 19: "the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."

Now, it is obvious that we as human beings need a day of rest every week to cease from our daily bread-winning exploits that are necessary for the survival and well-being of ourselves and our families, because frankly, it's tiring. After all, Jesus said "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27) But that does not mean that we should cease to do the Father's work on our Sabbath.

I have a friend who calls his day off his "grace day". He gives himself the rest that his body and mind need from the weeks required tasks, but also gives himself to writing letters and words of encouragement to people, and sets aside money to give to people (though he himself is very poor), and preparing and planning things that bless those he meets.

On a last note, I find it interesting how people (myself very much included) insist on having 2 days off every week (or even for some of us a half day, a whole day and another half day) when it was God who said "SIX days shall you work...". I guess whether we take one day off or two per week, Jesus simply asks that we would do good. Every day.

If anyone has any further input about this, such as what Paul's thoughts where on the observance of "Holy Days", or what "The Lord's Day" (e.g. Rev 1:10) meant for early church believers, I would appreciate hearing it.

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Permalink Reply by Bethany on September 30, 2009 at 4:36pm

I have something for you to read, but it is really long. If you have an e-mail I could e-mail it to you, but if not I could just post it on a reply to you. Let me know.

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Permalink Reply by Bethany on September 30, 2009 at 4:37pm

P.S. Are you a Christian or Messianic?

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Permalink Reply by Aidan Jones on September 30, 2009 at 5:03pm

Christian... but as far as I'm aware Messianic means the same thing... after all Christ and Messiah are the one and the same guy... Do you mean am I a Messianic Jew? If so, what are the inns and outs of that? (I'm a gentile so I couldn't be a Messianic Jew). As long as they believe that Jesus Christ/Messiah of Nazareth is the uncreated Son of God, the only way to the Father and that He died to atone for their sins and physically rose from the dead to give them eternal life, then that's fine with me.

I'm always interested in reading and learning, so I'll give you my e-mail address via a message. (I don't feel easy putting it up on a public site for anyone to spam). Although if it's a link to another page, you might as well post it up here.

Bethany said:

P.S. Are you a Christian or Messianic?

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Permalink Reply by Aaron M on October 1, 2009 at 6:28pm

I'm kinda interested in this, now... Bethany, I asked Aidan to forward the email to me, if that's alright.

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Permalink Reply by Luke Adam Goss on January 14, 2010 at 8:13pm

Why is it important to remember to keep the Sabbath holy

In Exodus 20:8-11 God spoke: “Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, 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.”

In the above Scripture reference it states that we should remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy and not to do any work on that day and to keep our minds and our hearts focus on Jesus Christ and not to let anything distract us from worshiping Him on the day that He allocated for us to be with Him.
Since Jesus is now our Sabbath Rest since the crucifixion, He invites us to come to Himself and rest in Him wherever and whenever on any particular day, everyday, we should always remember Jesus Christ and what He did for us as well as remembering the special allocated day that He gave to us on each seventh day, the Holy Sabbath Day.
In the creation God made the whole world in six days like it says above and rested on the seventh day, and in the above God wants us to do the same, God wants us to work six days and take the seventh day as a day of rest and worship Him solely. God wants us to meet Him each seventh day Sabbath because that is the only day in the Bible that God has blessed and made holy and sanctified and set apart, it is also the only commandment that has got the word “Remember,” and every other so-called Church wants to forget.

Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus gives us an invitation:
“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Matthew 12:8 Jesus declares:
“For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath Day.”

Jesus was stating that we are no longer bound by law to only rest on a specific day; instead we can now rest in Him 24hrs/7days each week during our busy lifestyles; and to always remember to rest in Him at work & at home & everywhere and also Jesus was stating that when we do meet with Himself each Sabbath, we are actually meeting with Jesus Himself who is the Lord of the Sabbath.
So, let’s come together this Sabbath and remember Jesus our Lord and Savior, as well as all the other days of the week.

Hebrews 4:7-12 tells us:
Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, “Today”, after such a long time; as it is said, “Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”
For if Jesus had given them rest, then would He not afterward have spoken of another day.
There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
For he that is entered into His rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His.
Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Matthew 27:45-53(focus verse 51) Matthew’s account is:
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is to say, “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?”
Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, “This man calleth for Elijah.”
And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink.
The rest said, “Let be, let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.”
Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
And, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks split.
And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared to many.

In the above Scripture verses it’s been saying that at the crucifixion the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom which leads into the holy of holiest and that is telling us that we can now accept Jesus invitation to go through to Him 24hours and 7days each week while we work over six days as well as the seventh day Sabbath.
So, whenever we need to we can seek Jesus anytime through the week within a tough or easy circumstances.
As well as having the privilege of resting and worshipping Him as a whole family of believers each Sabbath day including all the other days of the week.

In Galatians 4:31 it says:
So, then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.”

Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus says:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great Commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Jesus said above that we are not under bondage like the bondwoman was, but we are of the free.


In Genesis 12:1-3, the Lord had said unto Abram:
“Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
And in Genesis 16:3-4,
And Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hager her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.
And verse 5 says:
And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the Lord judge between me and thee.
Then in Genesis 17:15-19 it says:
And God said unto Abraham, “As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.
The name Sarah means: Princess.
Continued from verse 16,
“And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.” And Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old? And shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?” And Abraham said unto God, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” And God said, “Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.

And that has followed through these generations ever since.

The people who delight to do God’s will are in line with Him.

Jesus was born in the line of David, Jacob, Isaac and Abraham.

Those people who are within the line of Jesus in today’s world are of the free, and those who are not are of the bondwoman.

Let everyone here be of the free and keep God’s commandments, because those people who keep the commandments of God has the law written in their hearts and in their minds, and they are the ones who joyfully obey God’s commandments with love and grace.

So if we love Jesus, we would do His commandments, and do what He says, and we would make this relationship work between the two of us.
Let’s be of the free and obey Jesus the Christ.
Let’s love to keep all His Commandments.



Aidan Jones said:

Well, I guess I'll have a go at answering my own question since no-one else is...

Exodus 20:8-11 (The Fourth Commandment) "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

Exodus 31:14-15 tell us that disobedience to this law by working on this day was punishable by excommunication, and "desecration" of this day was punishable by death.

I have not studied to see if the Scriptures lay out a definition of what is counted as "work", but I'm pretty sure that the religious leaders and teachers of the law totally went overboard on this law, forbidding people to do anything remotely useful on this day. A man could not even pick fruit or grain and eat it. Anything remotely associated with food prep had to be done the day before. Apparently the number of steps that a man was permitted to take, apart from his journey to the synagogue and back, was severely restricted. Nothing that could be associated with "healing" people was permitted. I read somewhere that today Jews are not allowed to use any electrical devices, even if a man lives 3 stories up in a flat, he cannot use the elevator, instead he is forced to use the stairs (go figure).

Praise Jesus we are no longer under Mosaic law! (Hebrews 8:6-13)

Matthew 12. Jesus declares that He is Lord of the Sabbath. Just before that He says "I desire mercy, not sacrifice". Then he healed a mans crippled hand, to the disgust of onlookers. Then He illustrates the hypocricy in the way they observe the Sabbath by showing how they would rescue one of their sheep if it fell into a pit on the Sabbath. "How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."

Mark 3:4 "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?"
Rhetorical question, to which His own answer would be, as above, "It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." Duhhh.

And by the way, "Do good all the other days of the week also as well". (That's my exceedingly poor, yet nonetheless very true paraphrase of the rest of Jesus' teaching ministry). Listen to this in John 5:16-17. "So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."" Jesus is ALWAYS working because his Father is ALWAYS working. And what are we called to do as Christians ("little christs" or "Christ-bearers")... to follow Jesus! Which, in this case, would mean to be always working. However, His definition of "working" is simply doing the will of the Father. Verse 19: "the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."

Now, it is obvious that we as human beings need a day of rest every week to cease from our daily bread-winning exploits that are necessary for the survival and well-being of ourselves and our families, because frankly, it's tiring. After all, Jesus said "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27) But that does not mean that we should cease to do the Father's work on our Sabbath.

I have a friend who calls his day off his "grace day". He gives himself the rest that his body and mind need from the weeks required tasks, but also gives himself to writing letters and words of encouragement to people, and sets aside money to give to people (though he himself is very poor), and preparing and planning things that bless those he meets.

On a last note, I find it interesting how people (myself very much included) insist on having 2 days off every week (or even for some of us a half day, a whole day and another half day) when it was God who said "SIX days shall you work...". I guess whether we take one day off or two per week, Jesus simply asks that we would do good. Every day.

If anyone has any further input about this, such as what Paul's thoughts where on the observance of "Holy Days", or what "The Lord's Day" (e.g. Rev 1:10) meant for early church believers, I would appreciate hearing it.

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Permalink Reply by Luke Adam Goss on January 14, 2010 at 8:28pm

What in this world is happening to Luke Adam Goss???
His personal testimony on how God is using him currently:

I have been a Born-Again, Spirit-Filled AOG Pentecostal Christian my whole entire 27yrs of my life, even my sisters and mother.
We were brought up going to Paradise Community Church, the biggest AOG Pentecostal Church in Adelaide, SA.
My sisters and I went to all the youth programs while growing up and even participated in other youth programs from various other Churches so we could interact with other youthful teenagers our own age brackets.
When I turned 12yrs, my sisters turned their back on going to Church for quite a while, my middle sister left me home alone while she secretly packed her stuff and runaway, their was always uneasiness within our family circle while growing up.
My sisters and I were raised fatherless, even though he did pay for all our school fees, and send down “gifts” to us on birthdays and Christmas’s, we also stayed over at our father’s place when we were in our teens “very rarely”, and still now being all three grown adult children do see him but still very rarely, he still not putting any effort on his behalf to see his own children or even grand children now.
When I turned 13yrs I was baptized into the Holy Spirit by full immersion and the effects was speaking in unknown tongues, my sisters were also baptized like that in their teenage years.
When I was 21yrs, I felt the call to get rebaptize to start off my adult-hood and to dedicate the rest of my life with studying the Truth and living the Truth of the Bible alone and let Jesus start using me to build up His Kingdom.
I was rebaptize at Seaton Baptist Church, and became a member and a deacon within that Church and God gave me my best ever seven years there, I was involved with YAM—Young Adult Ministry which had an healthy six young adults including myself but the others gradually left the Church and left the faith and continued to live in sin---fornicated relationships.
God called me to start a ministry with the teenagers around the area at the Baptist Church called, the Friends 4 Life Outreach ministry (F4LO), with myself being the only sole youth/young adult leader.
The Seaton area was the hardest area without support---(only support from the senior pastor at that time) to gather young people.
But the Lord still gave me the best ever seven years of my life.
The Lord gave me a few Indian young adults and a few Australian young adults and a huge number of Sudanese teenagers---about from three to forty any given week, and also up to about six to eight Australian teenagers.
The F4LO was a drop-in centre with weights, gym equipment, table tennis, eightball, darts, Bible study, Prayer meetings, and also we go out on excursions to various places.
The young people that did attend these meetings didn’t attend the main worship services on Sundays and so the people within the Church since they never came over to see what’s happening, never knew with the numbers of the amount of young people we had.
The only way we could successfully obtain these young people into the main worship services on Sundays were in the evening meetings and only IF the young people took the service, we did happen quite a few times.
At first at the young people’s services we wouldn’t get hardly any, but gradually towards the end of me and my pastor being there we seen up to twenty young people in the service, with quite a few giving their testimonies.
When our pastor finally retired, we got a new pastor, and after quite a while things continued to go really well, BUT I wasn’t getting any support from this new pastor like I did from my former pastor, ‘cause he went back to Victor Harbor, and this new pastor is from Romania which means nothing, but he didn’t really support me physically over there with the young people.
My best friend also left who was Indian, to go to Sydney to work, and now he is in Dubbo, just out from Sydney.
The last five years of my life at Seaton Baptist I began a study for Biblical Truth, and I was the one who was always preaching AGAINST SDA’s and proclaiming them a cult, and all sorts of names, because every Pentecostal//Baptist person I know did that, and after a very long while I began to ponder and thought to myself that I shouldn’t be doing that.
I went to learn more information about “this group” I always use to back-stabbed, and founded out that they were more Biblically correct than we were, so I continued to investigate the Truth a whole lot more better.
I went to the Baptist Bible college and also the Bible college at Paradise Church, and I didn’t really feel convicted of any of the beliefs that I thought I believe.
During my long five years of struggle and quest to find the ultimate Truth, which was a secret, only between me and God at that particular time, God opened my eyes and revealed to me some awesome Biblical facts.
Meanwhile back with my roles at Seaton Baptist Church, and since I was going to Bible College, I was able to preach quite a few sermons, more than ten within the worship services that I was still there.
In most of my sermons that I preach it was mainly topics that strongly oppose SDA teaching and doctrine, and like I said, I was very strongly opposed to them until…
Until I went for a trip to the Reformed SDA Church down at Somerton Park, and I went and met another great friend there who I tried for him to leave Adventism or even to leave Reformed Adventism, which did work after a while, but in the end the Truth always prevails.
I studied all the Reformed SDA doctrines, and Mainstream SDA doctrines, and Baptist doctrines, and also the Pentecostal AOG doctrines over this last five years secretly between me and God.
And then oneday I asked my new pastor if I could preach quite a few sermons on the true Sabbath, and tell people the difference between Mose’ Law and God’s Law, and tell people the truth about Hell that it isn’t FOREVER like the Baptists say.
To even think that people will be burning forever and be in so much torture continually after death for eternity is just so UNBIBLICAL and is FALSE TEACHING, the Baptists and some Pentecostals have got it dead wrong, because in the End Times we’re told the former things will be passed away and there will be NO MORE death, NO MORE hell, NO MORE pain and sorrow, swallowed up in VICTORY, also NO MORE tears.
In Adelaide, SA, we have these Street Preachers that meet in our city streets every Friday night and start preaching Hell and Condemnation and people will burn for eternity, these people are so FALSE and they are bringing another gospel to suit themselves.
My Baptist Church denied me preaching any of these Biblical Truths, and they wanted to stay in Apostasy, and so I stepped down as Youth Leader and Deacon, and cancelled my membership and left my ministry that I was fortunate in running, and I LEFT ALL for the TRUTH.
I am now a member by profession of faith within the Seventh-day Adventist Church down at Queenstown, and I am praying earnestly that God will begin to use me in the same way in this Church like He did for me in the Baptist Church.
This SDA Church that God led me to has got young people but no activities or programs for young people as yet, and I am praying earnestly that God will use me in this field to build up His Kingdom starting from my home Church here at Queenstown.

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