“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8-11
Scripture Reading: Exodus 16:4-30
Memory Verse: So the people rested on the seventh day. Exodus 16:30
Introduction:
In Romans 3:19-20, the Apostle Paul explains that by the law of God all the world becomes guilty and by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law is a mirror to shine light on the sins of the world. By the deeds of the law nobody will be justified or be accepted by God. In Romans 3:21-22, we find that righteousness comes by faith in Jesus Christ unto all that believe. With this faith comes a freedom, not to do what we want, but to do what the law requires (Romans 8:2-4). We are to bow before our God and humbly ask Him to teach us from the Scriptures how to be obedient.
And so, as the redeemed of the LORD, we come to the fourth commandment where God tells us to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. The LORD is concerned about the sanctity of the seventh day. This is one of the Ten Commandments; it cannot be excluded. It is to be obeyed from the heart.
A person’s outlook on Sabbath observance tells much. Is the Sabbath day an observance of custom or is it an internal conviction? If the view of the Sabbath is based on an internal conviction, then that guides our perspective. Some people might say about Sabbath observance, “Who do they think they are! It is my time, and I will use the day how I please!” They say that the modern world is too complex to set aside a whole day for rest and worship.
Others recognize that every breath they breathe is a gift from God. Their perspective is that the God who created time has said that our use of time will bear testimony that we are His covenant children. Therefore, from that heart conviction, they bow down and follow the command to sanctify the Sabbath day. They take care to make the Sabbath different because God distinguished the seventh day from the rest.
In this lesson, we will look at the principles of the Sabbath day. The next lesson will look at the details of Sabbath day observance.
Lesson Questions:
- Did God create time? Did God create the seven-day week? Genesis 1:5, 14-15; 2:2-3. How does this knowledge about God affect our observance of the Sabbath?
- In the fourth commandment, God also said “Six days you shall labor and do all your work.” Genesis 1:26-28; Exodus 20:9. Do I have a biblical attitude towards work? 2 Thessalonians 3:10-11
- What is to be our attitude towards the Sabbath day? Isaiah 58:13-14; Psalm 92:1-5
- From creation, we know that Saturday was the seventh day of the week. What was one way God helped the Israelites remember the seventh day Sabbath while in the wilderness? Exodus 16:4-5, 21-30. How do these verses in the New Testament affirm a seventh-day Sabbath? Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1-2; Luke 24:1
- Why did God command us to remember the Sabbath day? Exodus 20:11; 23:12; 35:1-2; Deuteronomy 5:13-15
- Review the context of Hebrews 3 and 4. How does it affirm the need for a Sabbath day to Christians? Hebrews 3:11, 18; 4:1, 3, 5, 9
- How does Jesus saying He was “Lord of the Sabbath” and that “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” affirm a Sabbath observance to us? Mark 2:27-28; Matthew 11:25-30; Hebrews 4:9
- Discuss the different reasons God said to keep the Sabbath in Exodus 20:8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15. How do these reasons affirm that we should keep the Sabbath?