SABBATH REMEMBRANCE

The Meaning of the Sabbath Day

I. What is the Sabbath day?

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8).

I often wonder why any time the people always begin with the scripture found in Exodus 20, the creation of the Sabbath was in Genesis 2:2-3.

The word Sabbath comes from a Hebrew word meaning rest. Before the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Sabbath day commemorated God’s day of rest after He finished the Creation.  There was nothing included in this verse about worship on the Sabbath day or that we should worship on this day, it was created as a day of rest, and that was the limited of it, when God ended His work, He said that this day would be "Holy" the Hebrew word is that something is set apart for God's use. "dedicated or devoted to the service of God."

Therefore in dedicating or devoting this day to God in remembrance of what it was created for, we are then forced to go back to Genesis 2 and not Exodus 20.

Some people say, it was a sign of the covenant between God and His people, but since the Sabbath day law was included with 9 other laws, then it stands clear that the whole 10 were a covenant between God and His people the (Jews).  This fourth Commandment was never meant to be separated from the other 9,  "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." James 2:10, and yet the SDA still make the Sabbath to be a curse to those who worship on Sunday when the Sabbath was not made to be a curse, but a blessing, to those who remembered to keep this day holy and to rest from their work week as God did.

 We read in the book of Genesis that God created the heavens and the earth in six periods of time, which He called days: “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it” (Genesis 2:2–3). Now the Sabbath also commemorates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Sabbath day is every seventh day. It is a holy day ordained by God for us to rest from our daily labors, but people added, "to worship Him," now lets keep it plain, to worship the Lord on the Sabbath is alright, nothing wrong with it at all, any day we worship the Lord is a good day, but the confusion came when the Catholic church tried to declare Sunday as the Sabbath, this is the false doctrine of the Catholic church and not to be taken seriously, the Sabbath day was never changed by God and therefore it is still the same day, but the other part of this confusion is that some Churches is now trying to make the Sabbath the seal of God's people which we know to also be wrong, Eph. 4:30 tells us that we are seal by the Holy Ghost until the day of redemption.

II. The Purpose of the Sabbath Day

How would you explain the purpose of the Sabbath day to someone who does not know about the Sabbath?

The people make it sound good when they say, Jesus taught that the Sabbath day was made for our benefit (see Mark 2:27). The purpose of the Sabbath is to give us a certain day of the week on which to direct our thoughts and actions toward God. It is not a day merely to rest from work. It is a sacred day to be spent in worship and reverence. As we rest from our usual daily activities, our minds are freed to ponder spiritual matters. On this day we should renew our covenants with the Lord and feed our souls on the things of the Spirit.

But the Sabbath was made for restoration of the body, after a week of work God rested, and since God rested He knew that man would also need to rest since man was not like God he would need to rest his body, this is why Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man's benefit, but everyday was made for man to worship and reverence God as did Adam in the garden, Adam spent days walking and talking with God, but I know many will say that this doesn't count, so lets look at Exodus when God reminded His people of the Sabbath the first time;  Exodus 16:27-30, Notice the law as God commanded it; "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 two 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." the people never worshiped on this day, they rested from work, and was not allowed to gather manna on the seventh day so they stayed in their tents, by this we can understand the very purpose of the Sabbath day as God wanted it to be.

Think about what you can do to keep the purpose of the Sabbath in mind as you prepare for the day each week.

III. History of the Sabbath

The seventh day was consecrated by God as a Sabbath in the beginning of the earth (see Genesis 2:2–3). Since earliest times, the tradition of a sacred seventh day has been preserved among various peoples of the earth. God renewed a commandment concerning this day to the Israelites, saying, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). Keeping the Sabbath day was also a sign that the Israelites were His covenant people (see Exodus 31:12–13, 16; Isaiah 56:1–8; Jeremiah 17:19–27).

However, some Jewish leaders made many unnecessary rules about the Sabbath. They decided how far people could walk, what kind of knots they could tie, and so forth. When certain Jewish leaders criticized Jesus Christ for healing sick people on the Sabbath, Jesus reminded them that the Sabbath was made for the benefit of man.

The Nephites also observed the Sabbath day according to the commandments of God.

In modern times the Lord has repeated His commandment that we should remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

IV. The Lord’s Day

Why was the Sabbath changed from the seventh day to the first day?

Until His Resurrection, Jesus Christ and His disciples honored the seventh day as the Sabbath. After His Resurrection, Sunday was held sacred as the Lord’s day in remembrance of His Resurrection on that day (see Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2). From that time on, His followers observed the first day of the week as their Sabbath. In both cases there were six days of labor and one for rest and devotion.

Mind you this is the theory of some churches, the Sabbath was never changed by the disciples or anyone else, the Lord's day was a day of worship for the resurrection of Jesus Christ and not the Sabbath, the Sabbath had nothing to do with the day of resurrection and the disciples still honored the Sabbath day as the seventh day.

The Lord has given us a direct commandment in these days that we too should honor Sunday, the Lord’s day, as our Sabbath. This to is wrong, the Lord never commanded us to honor Sunday as the Sabbath, we worship on Sunday as the resurrection day of our Lord, and some of us who understands the Sabbath still rest on that day in remembrance of creation and that God is our creator.

How can the remembrance of the Resurrection influence our worship on the Sabbath?

For teachers: You can help class members or family members think more deeply about a question by giving them time to ponder. After they have had enough time, ask for their responses.

V. Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy

What does it mean to keep the Sabbath day holy?

The Lord asks us, first, to sanctify the Sabbath day. In a revelation given to Joseph Smith in 1831, the Lord commanded the Saints to go to the house of prayer and offer up their sacraments, rest from their labors, and pay their devotions to the Most High. Who is Joseph Smith and where did he get his authority above God's?

Second, He asks us to rest from daily work. This means we should perform no labor that would keep us from giving our full attention to spiritual matters. The Lord told the Israelites, “Thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle” (Exodus 20:10). If you will notice the commandment law of the Sabbath was to every living thing, and if worship was what God had in mind, then wouldn't the animal mentioned in the law also be in worship on the Sabbath day as well?  Our prophets have told us that we should not shop, hunt, fish, attend sports events, or participate in similar activities on that day.

President Spencer W. Kimball cautioned, however, that if we merely lounge about doing nothing on the Sabbath, we are not keeping the day holy. The Sabbath calls for constructive thoughts and acts. (See Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball [2006], 170.) Here we see another man that felt that he had authority to tell God how His law should be kept, as a matter of fact, God Himself did just that on His day off, He lounge about doing nothing on the Sabbath."

What kinds of things may we do on the Sabbath? The prophet Isaiah suggested that we should turn away from doing our own pleasure and should “call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable” (Isaiah 58:13).

We should consider righteous things we can do on the Sabbath. For example, we can keep the Sabbath day holy by attending Church meetings; reading the scriptures and the words of our Church leaders; visiting the sick, the aged, and our loved ones; listening to uplifting music and singing hymns; praying to our Heavenly Father with praise and thanksgiving; performing Church service; preparing family history records and personal histories; telling faith-promoting stories and bearing our testimony to family members and sharing spiritual experiences with them; writing letters to missionaries and loved ones; fasting with a purpose; and sharing time with children and others in the home.

In deciding what other activities we could properly engage in on the Sabbath, we could ask ourselves: Will it uplift and inspire me? Does it show respect for the Lord? Does it direct my thoughts to Him?

    Think about something you can do to improve in your efforts to keep the Sabbath day holy. If you are a parent or grandparent, think about something you can do to help your children or grandchildren understand the meaning of the Sabbath.

VI. Blessings for Observing the Sabbath

What are some blessings we receive when we keep the Sabbath day holy?

If we honor the Sabbath day, we may receive great spiritual and temporal blessings. The Lord has said that if we keep the Sabbath day with thanksgiving and cheerful hearts, we will be full of joy. He has promised:

“The fulness of the earth is yours, … whether for food or for raiment, or for houses, or for barns, or for orchards, or for gardens, or for vineyards;

“Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart;

“Yea, for food and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul”.

VII. Additional Scriptures

Exodus 31:16–17 (the Sabbath is a perpetual covenant between the Lord and His people)

Mosiah 13:16–19; 18:23; Exodus 35:1–3; Leviticus 26:2–4, 6, 12 (observe the Sabbath as a holy day).

Luke 6:1–11 (lawful to do good on the Sabbath).

Luke 13:11–17; John 5:1–18 (Jesus’s example of doing good on the Sabbath).

Here is a thought for those who condemn others for going to Church on Sunday; Luke 6:1-11 that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day and any other day apart from the Sabbath.

For question and contact; https://www.facebook.com/groups/WorldWideWord/