Remember the Sabbath and Keep It Set Apart!

[Eemah Martha aka Hephzybah]

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to The Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days The Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." (Exodus 20:8-11 RSV)

How To Keep The Sabbath

After realizing the truth about the Sabbath, many people ask, A How do I keep the Sabbath holy or Set Apart? This is a very good question. First, let me remind or inform you that the Sabbath begins at Sundown each Friday to Sundown each Saturday. This is the Seventh Day. See the link for clarity on this issue: (http://lunarsabbath.info/_wsn/page17.html) The Bible gives us a few specific pieces of guidance, which we will look at here. But it doesn =t go into great detail about specific activities to do or not to do. The reason for this is simple. Abba Yahuah gives us principles in His word, and then asks us to seek His guidance individually on how to apply those principles in our own lives. When we look at the specific guidance in the Bible of how to keep the Sabbath, we need to keep the fundamental principles in mind and not get bogged down in the details like the Pharisees did.

What is the primary purpose of the Sabbath?n

Gen 2:2-3
2 And by the seventh day Abba Yahuah completed His work which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done .
3 Then Abba Yahuah blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which Yahuah had created and made.
The primary purpose of the Sabbath is for us to rest from our worldly labors and to seek Yahuah. Yahuah obviously was not tired from all His creation work and just needed a rest. Rather, Yahuah wanted to set that time aside as special time for His people and for the world He created. He blessed the Sabbath day. There is a blessing in the Sabbath day for us if we seek Yahuah on that day. He also sanctified the Sabbath day, or set it aside for a holy purpose. We are to set that time aside for a holy purpose.

The Sabbath was ordained by Yahuah at creation and set aside as a special time for us to cease our worldly activities and to spend time with Yahuah. Everything we do on the Sabbath day should draw our attentions toward Yahuah. If we keep that principle in mind, we will never have to struggle over knowing what activities are appropriate or not on the Sabbath.

What is the fundamental principle we use when determining what activities are appropriate for the Sabbath?

Mark 2:23-28
23 And it came about that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain.
24 And the Pharisees were saying to Him, "See here, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?"
25 And He said to them, "Have you never read what David did when he was in need and became hungry, he and his companions:
26 how he entered the house of Yahuah in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he gave it also to those who were with him?"
27 And He was saying to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
28 "Consequently, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath ."


Isa 58:13-14
13 "If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, and shall honor it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure, and speaking your own word,
14 Then you will take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

The Sabbath was intended to be a delight, not a burden. The focus of the Sabbath should never be what I cannot do, but rather what I can do. However, to get the blessing out of the Sabbath that Yahuah intended, we have to put our own worldly pleasures aside and spend that time seeking Yahuah instead.
I will share more about the Sabbath as a Command of Abba Yahuah next Shabbat. Shabbat Shalom, my friends!

[Tara Robinson]

Thank you for sharing about the sabbath in detail so many don't realize we are still suppose to honor it which is on saturday We can not keep his commandments with out honoring the sabbath God bless my sister.