by Belinda Jabore
I would like to continue in the Sabbath and its promises for us. The safety and protection it will bring to us His people.
I love it how the Lord clearly keeps saying it is a sign between Me and you (twice) in
Ezekiel 20:12, ‘Moreover I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me , that they may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.’
Exodus 31:13, 31:17- In these scriptures the Lord speaks about the Sabbath being a sign between Me and you again, (twice) in the same verse. God is really trying to make this clear heh. Yet I love the part that He speaks about it being throughout the generations, that you may know that I am the Lord God who sanctifies you. You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. (Holy meaning- morally and spiritually excellent or perfect, and to be revered; belonging to or devoted to God. consecrated, sacred.) (Sanctified – meaning consecrate; treat as holy; free from sin; justify.)
So to me His promise to us is that we will be continually sanctified, made holy and refreshed in the Sabbath. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to miss out on His promises. We need all the help we can get. This is a conditional word to us as His people to be obedient, faithful (not rebellious) - being sanctified and refreshed in His presence. This is a sign between us and God that we follow Him. This is about God’s authority. When I spoke last time re holy days or holidays this is about the catholic church changing the holy Sabbath day of God almighty Himself from Saturday to Sunday. Ultimately, this is about Gods authority verses mans. This is why coming into the Sabbath is so crucial as it will separate the sacred and the secular. “It will be a sign between them and Me, that they may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them”. It is also about standing for righteousness.
We must come and receive and believe Him. If we don’t it then goes on to say in Exodus 31: 12-18, ‘Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death: for who ever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people.’ (profane means- irreverent, blasphemous, not sacred or biblical; secular; treat (especially a sacred thing) irreverently or with disrespect)- Of coarse that is not literal – But it is and would be a spiritual death not being able to hear His voice and to know His ways. Being deceived, and not being able to hear Him. Ahh what could be worse than that!
It also says that to observe the Sabbath as a perpetual covenant. (Perpetual meaning- lasting forever or indefinitely; continuous; uninterrupted.) It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.
Isaiah 58:13, “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honourable, and shall honour Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
So here is one of the promises the Lord has for us that He will cause us to ride on the high hills of the earth. What will that look like I ask myself? It sounds too good to miss to me.
In Exodus 20:8 10th Commandment.
In Deuteronomy 26:16-19, It says you shall be careful to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. Then the blessings come that He will set us high above all nations which He has made, in praise, in name, and in honour, and that you may be a holy people to the Lord your God, just as He has spoken. More blessings on obedience in Duet 28:1-14. Then the opposite comes as it continues on in curses on disobedience. Ahh I sure know which one I am choosing!
I would like to end in this, Hebrews 3 and 4 says it all but especially this part;
BE FAITHFUL
Hebrews 3:7-15
“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says;
Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
In the day of trial in the wilderness,
Where your fathers tested Me, and tried Me,
And saw My works forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they have not known My ways’
So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest’.
Beware, brethren, lest their be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today”, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said:
‘Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in rebellion”.
Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said:
“So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’”
Although the works were finished from the foundations of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “ And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”, and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.”
Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said:
“Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.”
For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and powerful, and shaper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathise with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Gods love for us is such an amazing thing.
No eye has seen or ear has heard what God has in store and prepared for those who love Him.
If we love Him we will obey Him…
