[2020 Vision] The Home: Sabbath Sample

Sign of the Sabbath

Sabbath: what does it mean? It is one of the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, after freeing his people from Egypt, where Israel had been captive for 400 years. 

The context for Ezekiel 20:20 is Israel’s captivity in Babylon many years later. This is a generation that had many opportunities to learn from their ancestors, and they're just as disobedient as those before them, as disobedient as the first generation that was freed by Moses. Parents, this is convicting. The children are doing what their parents do. The descendants do what their ancestors do. And they are all still disobedient. So here we are, hundreds of years later, and the Lord once again gives His people a message through the prophet Ezekiel, saying: “Keep My Sabbath holy and this will be a sign between you and Me so that you may know that I am the Lord your God.” 

What would it take for God’s people to get the message? What did the verse say? “Keep My Sabbath holy, and this will be a sign between you and Me.” What's the sign? The sign is God's provision and our need. That's what the Sabbath symbolizes: that we need rest and that God can provide it. 

The Lord can do that. Hudson Taylor, the famous missionary and founder of the China Inland Mission, put it like this: “When God’s work is done in God’s way for God’s glory, it will never lack God’s supply.” The Lord can do that. God is not obligated to pay for our selfish schemes. He will not supply us with everything we want so we can do whatever we want. God will support the work He wants us to accomplish, His ministry. What Hudson Taylor means is, “Let's do God’s work the way God wants us to do it.”

Let me ask you this question about the Sabbath: Is it the Lord’s day, or is it just part of your weekend? If God really moved at church today and everyone stayed until 1:00 p.m., praising and praying, asking God to do things, would you feel like your weekend got cut into, or would you be glad God moved? It is the Lord's day. You and I should be able to say, “God, it’s Yours.” To truly rest and have a Sabbath day, give it to the Lord. He can do more in six days than we can in seven.