The 7 tests of the “Wilderness Christian”.
The test of baptism. (The red sea)
The test of Bitterness. (The test of Marah and Elim)
The test of manna. (The bread of God)
The test of Massah and Meribah. (Quarreling)
The test of Amalek. (The flesh)
The test of Mt Sinai. (Hearing from God first-hand)
The Sabbath test.( The rest of God)
The test of Mt Sinai.
Exodus 20:18-20.
When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, Speak to us yourself and we will listen.
But do not have God speak to us or we will die.
Moses said to the people, Do not be afraid.
God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.
The test of Mt Sinai.
There are many Christians who have no desire to hear from the Lord first-hand, they are quite content to sit back and
Let someone else do the praying
Let someone else do the reading of the Word
Let someone else do the studying of the Word
Then they simply receive it from them second hand, and consequently they miss out on a face to face encounter with the Lord and they open themselves up to false teachers.
When you stop listening, God stops talking.
Mark 4:23-25. He who has ears to hear let him hear.
Consider carefully what you hear, with the measure you use it will be given to you and even more.
He who hears will be given more, he who does not hear even that which he has will be taken away.
1 Samuel 28:5-7.
When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart. He inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. Saul then said to his attendants, Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her.
1Samuel 15:22. Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings… as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice.
The “Rest of God”.
Deuteronomy 12:7-10.
There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the LORD your God has blessed you. You are not to do as we do here today, everyone doing as they see fit, since you have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the LORD your God is giving you. But you will cross the Jordan and settle in the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety.
The rest our bodies need.
Sleeping on the job is not the rest we are talking about.
There are some Christians who may be “sleeping on the job.” If so, this message is not to comfort them. The “rest” we are talking about is not the kind that you find a couple of weeks in the summer, in a hammock, or in bed.
Remember that Jesus told the disciples to watch and pray when he found them sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane.
We know that it is important for our bodies to get a proper night’s rest, and if we don’t, there are unpleasant consequences.
But if physical rest is important to our physical well being, spiritual rest is even more important to our spiritual well being.
The “Rest of Death”.
Isaiah 57:1-2. The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death. Revelation 14:9-14. If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name. This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus. Then I heard a voice from heaven say, Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on..Yes, says the Spirit, they will rest from their labour, for their deeds will follow them.
The “Rest from work”.
Mark 6:31. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.
Psalm 127:2. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for he grants sleep to those he loves.
Exodus 23:12. Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.
Mark 2:27. Then he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
The Sabbath rest.
Genesis 2:2-3.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Exodus 20:8-10.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.
On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.
Extracts from Gavin’s ministry... ADAM
God created the world and all that was in it in 6 days. We are told that “On the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” (Gen 2:2-3) 1
However God gave no commandment to Adam to keep the seventh day. The only commandment given was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 1
You will look in vain to find Adam commanded to keep the Sabbath. Nor will you find any such commandment given to men before the flood. 1
1 “The Sabbath Or The First Day Of The Week?” – Warren Paynter
NOAH
After the flood we find God makes a covenant with Noah. There are a number of provisions made in this “everlasting covenant”, including the provision for the death penalty for murder. 1
Now, before the flood there was no death penalty for murder. As murder is forbidden in commandment number six as well as in the everlasting covenant, it is strange that there is no mention of the Sabbath in the everlasting covenant. In fact, there is no mention of the Sabbath until we come to Moses and Mount Sinai. 1
Noah was not commanded to keep the Sabbath. There is no command concerning the Sabbath given for 2500 years from the creation until the Exodus of Israel from Egypt under Moses. 1
1 Ibid
MOSES
We have seen that, from Adam to Moses, no commandment to keep the Sabbath was given to
anyone. 1
Now at Mount Sinai the law was given to Moses to give to Israel, and not to the Gentiles. The ten
commandments were never
given to the Gentile nations. 1
Exodus 20:1-8 reads in this
way, “I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the
land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage … remember
the Sabbath day to keep it
holy.” 1
1 Ibid
This non-observance of the Sabbath before Moses was noted by the early Church fathers. After mentioning Adam, Abel, Enoch, Lot, Noah and Melchizedek, Justin Martyr
(100–165 AD) writes:
“Moreover, all those
righteous men already
mentioned though they
kept no Sabbaths, were
pleasing to God; and
after them Abraham
with all his descendants
until Moses…” 1
1 Dialogue With Trypho
BEFORE MOSES
Justin Martyr (100–165 AD)
Again Justin Martyr writes: “But if we do not admit this, we shall be liable to fall into foolish opinion, as if it were not the same God who existed in the times of Enoch and all the rest, who neither were circumcised after the flesh, nor observed Sabbaths, nor any other rites, seeing that Moses enjoined such observances... For if there was no need of circumcision before Abraham, or of the observance of Sabbaths, of feasts and sacrifices, before Moses; no more need is there of them now, after that, according to the will of God.” 1
About 170 AD Irenaeus says that “Abraham without circumcision and without observance of Sabbaths believed in God,” which proves “the symbolical and temporary character of those ordinances, and their inability to make perfect.” 2
BEFORE MOSES
1 Ibid 2 Against Heresies IV:16
The land must be rested.
Leviticus 25:4 & 18-22.
But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. "Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety. And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety. And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.
It is a well-established agricultural fact that resting the land every seven years is best for the soil and that much-improved crops result from doing so. During this scriptural practice, there was to be no pruning or planting in the Sabbath year, nor any attempt to kill the insects, or otherwise interfere with natural processes in the field.
The land must be rested.
Between the Exodus and the Babylonian captivity, the land Sabbath was disregarded seventy times by the house of Judah. Hence, those Israelites were sentenced to seventy years in Babylonian captivity, to give the land rest and restore the land:
2 Chronicles 36:17-21.
God gave them all into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. He carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the LORD’s temple and the treasures of the king and his officials. They set fire to God’s temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there. He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his successors until the kingdom of Persia came to power. The land enjoyed its Sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfilment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.
Canaan and the “Rest of God”.
Hebrews 3:18-19
And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Hebrews 4:1-6.
Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, So I declared on oath in my anger, They shall never enter my rest. And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world.For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: On the seventh day God rested from all his works. And again in the passage above he says, They shall never enter my rest.
Canaan and the “Rest of God”.
Hebrews 3:7-17. So, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways. So I declared on oath in my anger, They shall never enter my rest. See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. As has just been said: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness?
Canaan and the “Rest of God”.
Hebrews 4:6-13.
Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, God again set a certain day, calling it Today. This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.
Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Canaan and the “Rest of God”.
Hebrews 4:1.
Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.
The kind of faith that enables us to enter into God’s rest is a faith that first demands that we rest from relying on our own works. Then the writer to the Hebrews seemingly contradicts himself by telling us to make every effort:
Hebrews 4:10–11.
For anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
Biblical faith involves our submissiveness to God. We cease our self-efforts to earn salvation and the promised eternal rest, and we “make every effort to enter that rest” by choosing to depend solely on God, to trust Him implicitly, to yield totally to Him in obedience.
Canaan and the “Rest of God”.
Psalm 95:7-11. Today, if only you would hear his voice, Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did. For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways. So I declared on oath in my anger, They shall never enter my rest. Hebrews 3:18-19.
And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
The fundamental problem was that of “unbelief.”
Hebrews 4:2. For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed.
The “Rest of God” Isaiah 30:1-18.
Woe to the obstinate children, declares the LORD, to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin; who go down to Egypt without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection, to Egypt’s shade for refuge. But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame, Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace. Though they have officials in Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace. A prophecy concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys’ backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to that unprofitable nation, to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the Do-Nothing. Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness.
The “Rest of God” Isaiah 30:1-18 (continued)
For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD’s instruction. They say to the seers, See no more visions! and to the prophets, Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!
Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.
The “Rest of God” Isaiah 30:1-18 (continued)
This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.
You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses. Therefore you will flee! You said, We will ride off on swift horses. Therefore your pursuers will be swift! A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.
Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!
The “Rest of God”.
Hebrews 10:1.
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—
But these sacrifices were offered in anticipation of the ultimate sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
Hebrews 10:12.
But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.
After performing the ultimate sacrifice, He sat down and rested, ceased from His labour of atonement because there was nothing more to be done, ever.
Because of what He did, we no longer have to "labour" in law-keeping in order to be justified in the sight of God. Jesus was sent so that we might rest in God and in what He has provided. There is no other Sabbath rest besides Jesus. He alone satisfies the requirements of the Law, and He alone provides the sacrifice that atones for sin. He is God’s plan for us to cease from the labour of our own works.
Col 2:16-17 … a religious festival… or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ
SHADOWS
Both religious festivals and the Sabbath are said to be shadows, the reality being found in Christ. Just as we no longer keep the Jewish festivals which were simply typical of the realities in the NT, so the Sabbath is typical – being fulfilled in Christ who gives us the true rest (from works).
The Passover was a shadow of Jesus’ death, Pentecost of the pouring out of Holy Spirit. The OT shadows pointed to Christ. The tabernacle was a shadow of Jesus. The high priest was a shadow of Christ as our High Priest. The book of Hebrews shows clearly that the OT shadows pointed to the coming of the one who would fulfill them and thus end them. With Jesus’ work finished, the shadows were no longer needed.
Extracts from Gavin’s ministry... SHADOWS
Sabbatarians will argue that “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God” (Heb 4:9) indicates that we should observe the Sabbath. However the context shows that the writer to the Jewish Christians clearly indicates that the real Sabbath referred to a “rest from works”:
Heb 4:8-10 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.
There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.
Thus the true Sabbath is to cease from your own efforts and works and depend on the work of Jesus. As Paul wrote, “Not I, but Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20).
REST FROM WORKS
In the same context about God’s true rest, God says to the ‘Sabbath-keeping’ people, “So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” (Heb 3:11)
The writer goes on to show that unbelief (i.e. no faith is what prevents us from receiving God’s true rest)
Heb 3:12-19 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness… And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
REST FROM WORKS
We then see that the Sabbath day of the Mosaic Covenant did not give the promised rest:
Heb 4:1 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it…
Neither was the Promised Land of Canaan a fulfillment of the promise of rest:
Heb 4:8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.
REST FROM WORKS
Hebrews 3:7-4:11 shows:
that the seventh-day Sabbath is no longer relevant as a regular, literal day of rest, but instead is a symbolic metaphor for the eternal ‘rest’ that Christians enjoy in Christ, which was in turn prefigured by the promised land of Canaan. 1
Faith was required to obtain the true rest:
Heb 4:2-3 For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter that rest…
1 SOURCE: Wikipedia
REST FROM WORKS
The Sabbath is superseded by a day called “Today” where we rest from works by grace through faith:
Heb 4:4-10 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “And on the seventh day God rested from all his work.” … It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” … There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.
REST FROM WORKS
So Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath rest shadowed in the OT by “resting” in the tomb on Saturday, but rose from the dead on the first day allowing us
to enter our rest.
Origen writes: “Hence it is not
possible that the [day of] rest
after the Sabbath should have
come into existence from the
seventh [day] of our God. On the
contrary, it is our Savior who,
after the pattern of his own
rest, caused us to be made in the
likeness of his death, and hence
also of his resurrection…” 1
1 Commentary on John 2:28
REST FROM WORKS
Going back to the full context of Colossians 2 we now understand the “rest” from works that Jesus achieved at the cross:
Col 2:13-17 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Therefore do not let anyone judge you by … a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.
REST FROM WORKS
This is why Jesus said that the “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27). So the true Sabbath rest is to rest from works by relying on what another (Jesus) has done.
This is why Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
(Matt 11:28)
In contrast, Jesus said of the legalistic Pharisees that they “tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matt 23:4)
REST FROM WORKS
So the NT indicates that the Sabbath found its goal in Christ’s redemptive work where through his death and resurrection we have rest from our own efforts to reach and please God.
The writer of Hebrews exhorts us to “therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience” (Heb 4:11).
REST FROM WORKS
Moses and the “Rest of God”.
Exodus 33:12-17.
Moses said to the LORD, You have been telling me, Lead these people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, I know you by name and you have found favour with me. If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favour with you. Remember that this nation is your people.
The LORD replied, My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.
Then Moses said to him, If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?
And the LORD said to Moses, I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.
You and me and the “Rest of God”.
Matthew 11:28-30.
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Psalm 62:1-2.
My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.
Psalm 116:7.
Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Mt 11:28-30)
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