Creation, Redemption and the Sabbath.

I listened to a sermon a few weeks ago that opened my mind about the Sabbath commandment.  The preacher reminded us of when God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. When Moses came down the mountain, he saw Israel worshiping a golden calf idol. He threw down the Ten Commandments and they shattered.

God made another set of commandments but he changed one a bit: the fourth one, the Sabbath commandment. I didn't realize this before. Here is the wording for both commandments:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep 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, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner 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 on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 
 Exodus 20:8-11

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. 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 male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day."
Deuteronomy 5:12-15

When I was a little girl, we memorized the first one at church and school. But this preacher was saying we were not to only remember and thank God he created us and all things; but we are also to remember we were slaves at one time. Not to humans, but to sin. Jesus set us free from slavery to sin and adopted us as his children. We are free indeed.

He also spoke on how the Sabbath was a rest after creation.  Genesis 2:2,3 says, "By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made."

The Sabbath was a rest for Jesus, after he had gone through his terrible suffering for our redemption:  "Now the women who had come with Him out of Galilee followed, and saw the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes. And on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment."  Luke 23:55,56

Everyone knows Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday morning. They say that is why Christians celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday. Well, there is no scripture for this idea. It wasn't officially changed to Sunday for hundreds of years after Jesus' death: then it was done to placate the pagans who used to worship the sun on Sunday. Emperor Constantine started it. He was a sun worshiper before he became a Christian.

God is a poet. You can see that all through the Bible. He also speaks to us through symbols that have great meaning. The number 7 in scripture symbolizes perfection. So does the number 12. Most say it doesn't matter what day we worship God as long as we worship him. Yes, we need to worship him every day of the week. But there is a special blessing on the 7th Day. God says there is; we may not understand why, but he says it is a special day so I believe it. No one has the right to change God's law. 

Another law of God's that was changed was the second commandment against making idols. This was changed so they could make statues of Mary, the apostles and Jesus and bow down to them and pray to them. Man has thought to change God's laws, but they have not. They are the same as the day he wrote them on the mountain and gave them to Moses.

The preacher's name is Ty Gibson. He speaks of how God loves us so much that his sermons have helped me believe that. I've kind of thought God put up with me. It was hard to believe he loved me. But after listening to this man's sermons I know God loves me so very much. I feel adored by God.

You can listen to his sermons here:

http://www.pilgrimskeyradionetwork.com/sermons/sermons.php?speak=40

Why Did Jesus Become A Man?

My last post was about the fall of Lucifer. He came to Earth after being thrown out of heaven. He tempted Eve to distrust God and she did; she ate the forbidden fruit and gave it to her husband and he ate.

Satan wanted to be a ruler and a god. When Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God then Satan thought he had a planet to rule. They had chosen Satan by listening to him and agreeing with him that he was right and God was wrong. Their allegiance was now his.

But... But God came down to the garden and told Adam and Eve he had a way out for them. Because the penalty of sin was death, He would give his life in place of theirs. He would come to earth as a baby and pay their penalty for them.

I once read of a priest who was in a concentration camp in Germany during WWII. Someone had escaped and the penalty was that ten men were to be starved to death. One of the men who was chosen begged to live because he had children at home. A priest came forward and said he would die in that man's place. The Nazis allowed it. This is similar to what Jesus has done for all of us.

Satan told God human beings could never be sinless; they could never keep God's laws. To prove to the universe that a human could keep the law, Jesus became a man; if one man could live a sinless life and die for everyone else then justice would be satisfied.

It had to be a man equal to Adam before his sin. A man who would be tempted to do wrong but would not do it. That man was to be Jesus, the Son of God.

Jesus called himself, "The Son of Man," more than any other title. The term occurs 84 times in the New Testament. Here is a commentary on this subject:

Expositions of Holy Scripture — Alexander Maclaren

In substance He is claiming the same thing for Himself that Paul claimed for Him when he called Him 'the second Adam.' 

 'The Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for the many'; 'Ye shall see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.' 1 Corinthians 15:47

And the name is employed habitually on occasions when He desires to emphasize His manhood as having truly taken upon itself the whole weight and weariness of man's sin, and the whole burden of man's guilt, and the whole tragedy of the penalties thereof, as in the familiar passages, so numerous that I need only refer to them and need not attempt to quote them, in which we read of the Son of Man being 'betrayed into the hands of sinners'; or in those words, for instance, which so marvelously blend the lowliness of the Man and the lofty consciousness of the mysterious relation which He bears to the whole world; 'The Son of Man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for the many.'

All our human joys were His. He knew all human sorrow. The ordinary wants of human nature belonged to Him; He hungered, He thirsted, and was weary; He ate and drank and slept. The ordinary wants of the human heart He knew; He was hurt by hatred, stung by ingratitude, yearned for love; His spirit expanded among friends, and was pained when they fell away. He fought and toiled, and sorrowed and enjoyed. He had to pray, to trust, and to weep. He was a Son of Man, a true man among men.

 When He says 'the Son of Man' He seems to declare that in Himself there are gathered up all the qualities that constitute humanity; that He is, to use modern language, the realized Ideal of manhood, the typical Man, in whom is everything that belongs to manhood, and who stands forth as complete and perfect.

Jesus will always be a man:

 'Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the glories of heaven'; or as when He says, 'He hath given Him authority to execute judgment also because He is the Son of Man'; or as when the Stephen, with his last words, declared in sudden burst of surprise and thrill of gladness, 'I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'

What Jesus gave up to become a man we may never know, or we might be told when we are  in heaven. What I do know is I am thankful he did it for me and for you.