The Creator Himself ordained and established our world with a seventh day and tailored His World to fit that pattern. We are designed by this cycle and cripple our own bodies by neglecting the fact. From the moment of our conception inside our mother’s womb, we are developed by this design of seven. In Genesis, the book of God’s creative ingenuity, He rested on the Seventh Day and enjoyed the labor of the previous six days. He made us to enjoy Him and His appointed rest on our Seventh Day. To ignore this is to defy Him. Every Sabbath you steal from Him will have to be repaid.
Even our longevity of life is established with a seven, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten (70 years)” (Psalm 90:10a). The Book of Revelation is a masterpiece of literature. It does not have any competition as the most beautiful of all written eloquences. The structure of this book is composed of sevens. The Spirit of Revelation is described as “Seven lamps of fire burning before the throne” (Revelation 4:5b). The entire church dispensation is prefigured in seven churches called “seven candlesticks.” The Great Tribulation period is complete in seven years. The judgments to cleanse and renew our earth are seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven vials. We wait for the one thousand years of His Millennium of peace as we complete six thousand years of human failure. The seventh thousand year period will be a rest for this universe.
Understanding the beauty of both a Bible and a world established by sevens, do we dare disregard our seventh day of rest and worship? The Bible plainly warns us of this responsibility. The Fourth Commandment states, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). In this passage “holy” is a very unique word that means “to be observed or appointed; to hallow and consecrate.” The language used to instruct us about our Seventh Day presents this to us as a privilege and a day to come apart and enjoy ourselves with Him. The Son of God was quick to challenge any idea of keeping the Sabbath Day legalistically or as a rigid bondage. His disciples plucked corn and ate as they passed by a cornfield on this day. He rebuked those that condemned them.
By no means did that suggest a disregard of the proper respect for this holy day. In His great lesson in Matthew He said, “But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day” (Matthew 24:20). His life was so planned by His Father that His three days and nights in the heart of the earth would end at the close of the Jewish Sabbath. By His very resurrection He would establish a New Beginning. John the Revelator called it the “Lord’s Day.” (Revelation 1:10). Order our booklet entitled, “The Lord’s Day and the Feast of Firstfruits,” for information.
Every Born Again believer desperately needs this day of worship and rest. The deep meaning of holy as reflected in the Fourth Commandment means an appointment with Him. Our Holy Day or New Testament Sabbath will never mean what He intended until we see it as our appointment with Him. Worship is the deepest passion in a person’s heart. We will either worship Him or find something or someone else to passionately love and worship. In fact, that is what worship is. It is passionate love poured out on either God or some chosen idol.
In the New Testament the Lord’s Day was prophetically visible in the third feast that God gave to Israel in the Old Testament. The Feast of Passover was to be observed on Nisan 14th, which often varies as to the day of the week. The next day after the Feast of Passover began the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It lasted for seven days with the first and seventh day of the seven being special Sabbaths. Within those seven days came a regular Sabbath. On the next day after the regular Sabbath was the Feast of Firstfruits. This feast was always celebrated on the 8th day or the next day following the Sabbath (7th day). Coming in the spring of the year (March/April) as these feasts did and still do, this included a rejoicing of the firstfruits of their fields as God had blessed them. Remember, these feasts were not just for Israel, but were a rehearsal of the prophetic future in the Messiah’s life and kingdom. In this feast event God was establishing the day of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and our Lord’s Day to be set apart to Him.
We are blessed to set this day (24 hours) apart and give it wholly to Him. To do otherwise is certainly unwise. The Ten Commandments are not suggestions. If we love Him passionately, we will live by them. “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (I John 2:4). When His people, who are called by His name, turn back to Him and forsake their disobedience and careless living, we will have a New Testament revival in our land.
Joseph R. Chambers