Sabbath as Sign

Mark Schindler, explaining that the purpose of the weekly commentary is not to promote any political agenda, but to help God's People steer clear of toxic worldviews, reminds us that God is above partisan politics. One recent result of such factionalism-run-rampant has been the destruction of civility in the public square as pompous, egocentric pundits dig into ideological trenches which admit to no reconciliation. A salient example of this entrenchment is the uncompromising vitriol between two formerly close friends, George Will and William Bennett. Will has vilified Vice President Pence as being an insincere sycophant of President Trump. By launching salvos of poly-syllabic name-calling, Will, charter member of the Never-Trump movement, has made himself the darling of the left-wing media. Bennett, counteracts Will's venomous attacks on Vice President Pence, suggesting that his only purpose is to denigrate men who are making the nation better. Where soft answers are lacking, anger erupts, and conciliatory spirits vanish into the darkness of deceptions. God's people should avoid being drawn into these secular conflicts because resolution is only available through yielding to Jesus Christ—something those uncalled by God cannot do.

John Ritenbaugh reiterates that God based the awesome promises He gave to His friend Abraham on the patriarch's proclivity to believe Him even when he had only partial and sometimes disturbing information. Abraham remained a lifetime sojourner, owning no land except for Sarah's tomb. His offspring, after some 400 years, received the promised land, the vital resource from which the Israelite nations would produce unbelievable wealth, especially during the time of Solomon. The promises made to Abraham's descendants (of making them a great nation with descendants as numerous as the stars) were unconditional, even though most of the physical Israelites have turned their backs on, or have compromised, the precious covenantal relationship of their forefather. God had absolute confidence that He could change this man who responded to His call, even though Abraham and his offspring probably pondered how that change could be possible. God is confident that He can change those whom He has called if they have the faith Abraham exhibited. If we have a similar relationship with God, we realize that it is impossible for Him to lie. If God can change Abraham, he can change us as well. The 14 chapters dedicated to the father of the faithful, when examined from our own unique historical perspective, gives us testimony that God has faithfully kept His promises. Because many of the people of modern Israel have rejected God's Sabbath, they have lost their knowledge of their identity as part of Israel. Abraham demonstrated to us, as his descendants, that having visible proof is not the key ingredient of faith. Thirty-five-hundred years after Abraham, we, as his spiritual descendants spread throughout the world, are similarly commissioned to believe God, to do what He says, and to keep His commandments, realizing that salvation is by grace through faith in what the Savior says.

Most readers of the Bible make an understandable but unwarranted assumption when considering the people of Israel: They believe that today's Jews are the biblical children of Israel. Pat Higgins, however, explodes this erroneous assumption with multiple passages from Scripture that show that modern-day Jews are just a fraction of those whom the Bible calls "Israelites." This is a distinction we must understand if we wish to grasp vital truths in God's Word.

Having laid extensive groundwork for the Bible's covenants, John Ritenbaugh begins to explore the first of these, the Edenic Covenant. Universal in scope, this covenant introduces God to mankind as his Creator and establishes the rules by which human beings are to relate to Him and to the earth and its human and non-human inhabitants. It is simultaneously a covenant of blessing and responsibility.

David C. Grabbe:  As we have seen in Parts One and Two, God is serious about the signs He has given to His people (Numbers 14:11, 22-23). Obedience to His instructions is a general sign ...

David C. Grabbe:  A distinct difference exists between those who live according to God's instructions and those who do not, and the difference cannot be hidden. The correct actions become a sign—a witness—even without any preaching, which is why God's words are symbolically bound to the hand rather than the tongue. ...

David Grabbe cues in on Matthew 12:39 in which Jesus Christ told the Pharisees that an evil generation looks for a sign from heaven (perhaps like fire or manna). Christ said the sign of Jonah, specifying His time in the tomb, was all He would give them. Jesus was not against signs; the Gospel of John is structured around eight signs. The Old Testament is full of signs, which the Pharisees missed because they failed to keep the Covenant properly. Ancient Israel witnessed numerous signs on the Sinai, but because of the hardness of their hearts, the signs profited them nothing. When God gives a sign, He intends it should be taken seriously. God links a disbelief in His signs as a rejection of Him. Forgetting God's signs leads to forgetting Him. A sign serves as a symbol of divine communication. God desires His Word to be bound as signs in our forehead (our will) and in our hands (our actions and behavior), impressed in our hearts and in our lives. When we behave according to God's Word, it truly is a sign to others, most of whom do not see the value and practicality of following God's Commandments. Obedience is a testimony that there is a God who wants us to live a certain way, modeling our behavior after Jesus Christ, who kept Our Father's Law in the spirit and letter. Obedience to God's Law constitutes a sign to others that we are different, in a positive sense, from the ways of the world, enabling us to demonstrate by our behavior the superiority of God's plan for us. As well, obedience to His Law constitutes a sign to God that we are loyal to Him and will respond to anything He says, including keeping His Sabbath. Sadly, only a fraction of the religious community on the earth take God's Law seriously. The Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread (including the command to eat unleavened bread daily during the seven Days of Unleavened Bread) are also signs we dare not take lightly. If we forget the signs of God, we forget our identity, as has most of Israel, and will bring curses upon ourselves, as has our nation

At creation, God sanctified only one day, the seventh, as a day of rest. At Sinai, He once again sanctified it as a holy day, connecting it with creation and freedom. John Ritenbaugh expands on these concepts, showing that God wants us to keep the Sabbath to support our continuing spiritual creation and freedom.

John Ritenbaugh reflects on a Catholic Priest's answer to a question about why the Sabbath was allegedly changed from Saturday to Sunday. The priest, in his reasoning was 99% wrong. God has determined what and how we worship. The world's religions, in this context, can be considered an outright curse, because they have exchanged the truth of God for the lie. We cannot exchange anything God has given to us for something else, or it becomes idolatry. While the first three commandments focus on what, how, and the quality of our worship, the fourth commandment was provided for mankind as a means of unified instruction to initiate a spiritual creation. God Almighty, not man, created, sanctified and memorialized the seventh day Sabbath from the time of creation, intending that man use this holy time to worship God. The Sabbath is the very crown of the creation week, when God shifted from a physical to a spiritual mode of creation, a time when God commenced reproducing Himself. Mankind cannot make the Sabbath holy, but man can keep the Sabbath holy. If we want to be in God's presence, we must meet at the time God has appointed. The Sabbath must be kept in the manner God has prescribed in order for this day to be properly sanctified. God uses the Sabbath to educate His children in His ways. To use the Sabbath in any other way is an abomination to God. Sabbath breaking and idolatry go hand in hand; the best protection against idolatry is to keep God's Sabbath.

Though the search criteria for the whereabouts of Israel point to only one conclusion, most Israelites are blind to their origins. In this final installment of the series, Charles Whitaker deals with the question of why Israel has forgotten its identity.

John Ritenbaugh, clearing up the needless confusion about the proper day to begin counting to Pentecost, examines the basic passages on it. Because Pentecost does not have a specific date, God commands us to count from the day after the weekly Sabbath falling within the Days of Unleavened Bread. When Passover occurs on a weekly Sabbath, the only weekly Sabbath occurring within Unleavened Bread is the last holy day. The wavesheaf offering occurs the next day - from which we begin the count. As the First of the Firstfruits, Jesus was waved Sunday morning after being resurrected Sabbath evening. The red-herring argument, focusing on Joshua 5:10-11, carelessly assuming that the wavesheaf was offered (with polluted, Canaanite grain), ignores the strict requirements of Exodus 23:14-16. No offerings of any kind could be made until specific conditions, outlined in Deuteronomy 12:1-13, were met, which did not happen until Joshua 18:1 (seven years after Joshua 5).

Richard Ritenbaugh, focusing on the second beast of Revelation 13:11-18, offers his speculative interpretation. Both beasts appear to be end-time entities (having a brief but horrifying 3 1/2-year tenure), serving as counterfeits of the Two Witnesses. Both beasts derive their power from Satan the Devil, the god of this world. The first beast rises out of volatile, ever-changing political turmoil, while the second rises out of an entrenched, worldwide religious system, totally opposed to God's laws. The second beast will be able to perform lying wonders, have capital authority over the lives of "heretics," and cause an identifying "mark" on the forehead (representing thoughts or attitudes) and right hand (representing physical activities) of those who voluntarily take it. The number 666 seems to represent the number of ultimate human imperfection (humanism) apart from God—as opposed to the number of ultimate godly perfection.

John Ritenbaugh emphasizes that God's people must exercise correct judgment as to what is permitted on the Sabbath and what is not. God's law is not so inflexible that He will not allow alteration for special circumstances. Sometimes higher laws of extending mercy overrule a normal situation. The intensity of work or energy expended is not the issue, but rather the motivation behind the work. We need to develop righteous judgment about what constitutes a genuine Sabbath emergency and what may be a deceptive rationalization of our human nature.

John Ritenbaugh reminds us that the Sabbath constitutes a recurring appointment with the Deity, a special time for developing and building our relationship with God. It is from the proper use of this day—in fellowshipping with Him and getting to know Him—that we derive true spiritual rest and refreshment. Keeping the Sabbath properly, as a special date with God, will restore our energy, renew our strength, and liberate us from bondage to sin and worldly entanglements. We need to vigilantly guard our minds from any unlawful desire which detracts from the Sabbath, taking the place of God. This idol will destroy our relationship from God. We desperately need this vital seventh of our lives to rehearse and experience what we are to become.

John Ritenbaugh warns that keeping the right days on the calendar is no guarantee of attaining a right relationship with God. How and why a person keeps the Sabbath determines whether this test commandment is really a sign between God and His people or an idolatrous act of futility. The Sabbath could metaphorically represent a date between God and His affianced bride, a special 24-hour time to become more intimately acquainted, the actual courtship stage before marriage. Letting worldly concerns enter the Sabbath is like committing adultery or flirting with other lovers. When we take time to know God, we become refreshed, strengthened, and actually liberated from worldly entanglements.

John Ritenbaugh emphasizes that there is a very clear "them and us" demarcation in God's mind regarding which is the true way and which is not. We were formerly children of Satan (John 8:44) until God rescued us from this evil system (Ephesians 2:3), making us at odds with the entire world (I John 5:19). The churches of this world have attempted to appropriate the name of Christ and the grace concept, but then vigorously have thrown out God's law. The acid test indicating God's true church consists of obedience of His laws (John 14:15) including the Sabbath (Exodus 31:16-17), preventing the confusion and shameless compromising (the fruits of disobedience) which characterize the majority of the world's religions.

Observing the Sabbath day is a vital key that this world's Christianity has lost. It opens up whole vistas of God's way and purpose!

The fourth commandment is the one that most people think is least important, but in reality it may be one of the most important! John Ritenbaugh explains the Sabbath commandment and its vital teaching.

John Ritenbaugh warns that Satan, through subtle doctrinal changes, has attempted to obliterate one major step in the conversion process, namely the sanctification step. Sanctification is the only step which shows (witnesses) on the outside; its effects cannot be hidden. Sanctification is produced by our choosing to do works pleasing to Almighty God. Works are not meant for our salvation, but for our transformation and growing in the knowledge of God. Without transformation, there is no Kingdom to look forward to (Romans 14:10; II Corinthians 5:10; and Revelation 20:13). As with physical exercise, spiritual exercise also mandates: no pain, no gain.

The Sabbath is the "hinge" on which the others turn. This basic study treats the foundational truths about God's Sabbath day.

John Ritenbaugh stresses that the Sabbath is the major means by which He protects His investment, the spiritual creation of His family. The Sabbath, far from being the least of the commandments, is a special creation, a very specific period of holy time (only God can set apart something as holy) given to all of mankind, reminding us that God does not stop creating, but elevates His attention to spiritual creation, providing us with unified instruction designed to free us from sin, celebrate life, develop a special relationship with Him, providing a major tool for our conversion, sanctification, and ultimate glorification. No other commandment so specifically defines God's purpose. Breaking the Sabbath is tantamount to idolatry.

John Ritenbaugh reminds us that the Sabbath is a memorial to the awesome creative power of Almighty God, a period of time God purposefully sanctified and set apart for the benefit of mankind, a time God shifted His creative effort onto an even more awesome spiritual plane, the process of reproducing Himself. The seventh day is holy (sanctified, set apart as a perpetual covenant- a sign identifying His people), because God's presence makes it so- not because mankind has arbitrarily chosen this time. Only God can sanctify. God uses this appointed holy time to prepare His people with needed instruction to become like Him. Sabbath keeping binds us to God (and fellow members of the family of God); Sabbath breaking cuts people off from God, leading automatically into idolatry.

John Ritenbaugh warns us that where our eyes are fixed upon (looking to for guidance and direction) determines how we will conduct our lives. Like our forebears in Ezekiel 20, we have also been influenced by our father's idols, placing us (ignorantly perhaps) in opposition to God's laws and judgments. Immorality is the natural cause-effect consequence of rejecting God's counsel, forcing one to embrace evil as good and reject good as evil, totally perverting standards of morality. Rejecting the true God automatically leads to idolatry, worshipping the god of this world, a being bent on our destruction. Idolatry constitutes the fountainhead from which all other sins flow, all of which amplify obsessive self-centeredness and self-indulgence. We need to educate our conscience to worship (cultivate a relationship with) the true God rather than misconceptions manufactured by our misguided imaginations.