Understanding the Sabbath
Today’s Focus: Summary of the Sabbath
Scripture: Genesis 2:1-3; Ezekiel 46; Matthew 11:28-30; Hebrews 4
Greetings Kingdom Citizens
Let’s wrap it up. So we know that the Lord rested in the seventh day and this seventh day was not a day in our chronological calendar but an virtual eternal day. Adam before the fall was a man at rest in his spirit, soul and flesh. However once sin entered in, man lost the state of rest and death entered into the earth. Man would now experience strife, confusion, and sweat as a fatherless child or orphan. Man’s spirit, soul and flesh are no longer at rest and now are constantly at work to meet self-provision and protection.
God gives the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai the law and one of the commandments was for them to keep the Sabbath holy and no work was to be done on this seventh day. We understand that the Law is simply a schoolmaster to bring us to the reality who is Christ. We looked at the prophecy of Ezekiel 46 and saw that on the seventh day that the gate to the inner court in the east would be opened. We understand that this east is not the direction but refers to the spiritual gateway by which God would enter into the Earth and do business with His creation. Now fast forward, Jesus comes on the scene and we look at various situations where Jesus healed, picked and ate corn on the Sabbath day. The Pharisees confront Jesus many times on healing and eating on the Sabbath and Jesus simply allows the Father to bring to the remembrance of the Pharisees the things that happened in the past and how it is lawful to show mercy, pick grain and eat bread on the Sabbath day. In Matthew 11:28-30 we see Jesus speaking and telling people to “come unto Him and He will give you rest (in the spirit). When you learn of Him and put on His yoke (Kingdom of God) you will find rest for your souls. We know that the flesh will find rest in the resurrection when it is no longer corrupted but is raised or changed, depending upon who will be here, into immortality.
Jesus goes on to feed the multitudes and make the declaration that He is the Bread of Life and would show the disciples, by them picking up 12 baskets full of fragments, that there is bread that has yet to be eaten by that generation. Jesus is the Shewbread and the Bread of the Presence of God. Jesus upon His death, He makes the declaration that “it’s finished” and this ended the sixth day. It would be the sixth day that Jesus would enter into our lives and when He was resurrected, A New Season was ushered in and a new day and this is the Seventh Day, the Sabbath Day, the Day of the Lord.
To enter into the Sabbath Day or into His rest, Hebrews 4 outlines everything that we must do and it is summed up in one word, “faith”. No one can enter into His rest without faith because when they enter into the Body of Christ, they rest from their labours and do the work of the Lord but from the position of rest.
Finally we concluded understanding that the Sabbath day is not Saturday or Sunday, this would be Law-thinking but if you are an eternal creation then we live eternally and this day that we live in is the Day of the Lord, the Day of Salvation, the Sabbath Day. Hebrews 4:7 speak of TODAY if you will hear His voice and not harden your hearts then you will be able to enter into His rest. This rest is available to you now, not when you die. It requires you to repent from religious thinking and your ambitions and aspirations and thoughts about God and allow Him to lead you, mold you and make you into the son of God that you are. It requires you to live a castrated life like the eunuch who live to serve their Lord fully and not touch, rape or plunder the royal woman who is the church of Jesus Christ. In being a eunuch or having the characteristics of the eunuch they have an intimate relationship with the Lord, so much that they receive a name, higher than son or daughter.
I pray that this series has fed you and that the Word of the Lord works within you peeling and destroying religion to make way for the grace of God and may you walk in truth so the glory of God is shown forth on the Earth and the creation may know that you carry the grace of God within you. May God bless you and keep you.
Peace, Love and Grace from the Father,
Calvin Calhoun, Jr.
