The Three Angels' Messages of Revelation 14:6-12

Hidden Sabbath Truths Part 1 - Sabbath at Creation

These two lectures explore the creation and redemption meaning of the Sabbath. Many new insights are presented which have never been explored before. Clear answers to questions such as: Why didn’t God give Adam and Eve a direct command to keep the Sabbath in Genesis? Why doesn’t Genesis mention an evening and a morning of the seventh day? You can’t afford to miss this one!

The Sabbath has three dimensions in our reasons for keeping it. In this first presentation, Pastor Bohr covers the primary one in which the Sabbath points us back as a memorial to God who created us and to whom we owe joyous and grateful worship because of Him being the source of our very existence.

This lecture answers the question of why Genesis does not record God giving a direct command to Adam and Eve to keep the first Sabbath with Him when He rested. It also shows why God did not say after the Sabbath, as He had at the end of each of the other six days, that the evening and the morning were the seventh day. These things have caused some to erroneously think the Sabbath was only first given to the Jews at Sinai to keep.

God is the center of the creation story and the Sabbath is first of all His day, but it also was given to man as a gift to spend special time with their Creator. Pastor Bohr also discusses what God’s “rest” is and why He is said to still be resting, even though Jesus also said that He and His Father are always at work. This sermon shows why the Sabbath is such a blessing for all men, why it was needed even in perfect Eden, whySabbath is still valid and given to us to “enter His rest”, and why those who call it a curse and that it was meant only for the Jews just do not truly understand the character of God and His purpose for sharing the Sabbath with us.

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God's People to Keep the Sabbath

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. ~ Genesis 2: 2

God sanctified and blessed the day in which He had rested from all His wondrous work. And this Sabbath, sanctified of God, was to be kept for a perpetual covenant. It was a memorial that was to stand from age to age, till the close of earth's history.

God brought the Hebrews out of their Egyptian bondage, and commanded them to observe His Sabbath, and keep the law given in Eden. Every week He worked a miracle to establish in their minds the fact that in the beginning of the world He had instituted the Sabbath....

In the third month they came to the desert of Sinai, and there the law was spoken from the mount in awful grandeur. During their stay in Egypt, Israel had so long heard and seen idolatry practiced that to a large degree they had lost their knowledge of God and of His law, and their sense of the importance and sacredness of the Sabbath; the law was given a second time to call these things to their remembrance. In God's statutes was defined practical religion for all mankind. Before Israel was placed the true standard of righteousness.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep.” Some, who have been anxious to make of none effect the law of God, have quoted this word “sabbaths,” interpreting it to mean the annual sabbaths of the Jews. But they do not connect this positive requirement with that which follows: “For it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” ~ The Review and Herald, August 30, 1898

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The Blessings of the Sabbath

Since the law is spiritual, there is no escaping the fact that the holy Sabbath is a spiritual institution. It was a day of "holy convocation" (Leviticus 23:3). The joyful quality of the day is expressed by David in Psalm 42:4; "When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, which a multitude that kept holyday."

The fact that the Sabbath was to be devoted entirely to the Lord, the fact that it was to be spent as a day of joy and praise, proves that the provisions of the fourth commandment contributed more toward making man spiritual than any other commandment of the ten. To deprive man of the spiritual advantages of the Sabbath, the enemy has always sought to lead man to profane the Sabbath day?" "What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath day?" (Nehemiah 13:17). To profane the Sabbath day was, in the eyes of the Lord, an evil thing.

The thought that the Sabbath is a spiritual institution is beautifully brought out in Isaiah 58:13, 14: "If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord." The Sabbath was always to be a refreshing time when men were in a special sense to delight themselves in the Lord.

A verse found in Acts will explain the spiritual advantages the Lord intended the Sabbath to bring to those who in spirit observe it: "On the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither" (Acts 16:13).

We see from this statement that, just as in Old Testament times, so also in the days of the Apostle Paul, the Sabbath was a day of gathering for prayer and worship. Supporting this thought, we read that "the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath." Paul agreed to this, "and the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God" (Acts 13:42-44). Thus we find that, in apostolic times, the Sabbath was looked upon as the day for coming together "to hear the word of God."

The Sabbath is the Lord's appointed day for laying aside all thoughts and activities of a secular nature and for coming together to hear the Word of God. So when Paul said, "The law is spiritual," he included the institution of the Sabbath, which was to be devoted exclusively to things that are spiritual. We inquire: Was that gathering when almost the whole city came together to hear the Word of God of "intrinsic value" to those who were present? We find here - and there is no escaping the fact - that the same use was made of the Sabbath in New Testament times as in the days of the ancient prophets. The New Testament references are as clear and plain as those which we have cited from the Old. The institution and its purpose continued. It was not Sabbath rest, but man-made regulations as to how it should be kept, that was the yoke of bondage.

To the uninformed, certain attacks on the Sabbath day tend to breed a feeling of contempt and disregard for it, and that is just what Satan wishes. But it is the Lord's will that we call the Sabbath a delight. The word "delight" as here used suggests something that brings spiritual joy and happiness. This being the case, how it must displease the Lord of the Sabbath day to hear it belittled, denounced, and set at naught!

- The Law and the Sabbath, Allen Walker, p. 57, 58

Secrets Unsealed - Pastor Stephen Bohr

God's Sabbath and America in Bible Prophecy

Hidden Sabbath Truths

Study Notes by Stephen Bohr