As we continue to ponder the fourth commandment and how Father uses it to reveal Himself and do His redemptive, restorative work in and through His Word’s disciples, let’s give serious consideration to the following questions:
How is it that so much controversy and conflict arise when people react to this particular commandment? What’s so bad with celebrating and resting? Isn’t the freedom to rest and celebrate with God an unmistakable sign that those who do it are God’s true chosen people? Doesn’t it give evidence that they are no longer slaves to the Sin of the Serpent, and that they are redeemed and are being progressively liberated from the curses that Sin imposed on the mortally wounded human race in Genesis 3?
World religions agree that there should be a special day, up to a point. Their Torah-ignoring leaders pick days of their own choosing…and ignore the seventh! Even many who admit that Torah is God’s inspired written Word, reject the part that commands God’s people to set the seventh day apart to focus their attention on His Perfection and to celebrate His awesome Sabbath Rest with Him! And even many who say they revere and honor God’s Ten Commandments give a variety of contrived theological excuses for why they ignore and bypass God’s fourth commandment!
What is it about the nations and peoples of this fallen world that compels them to detest and oppose Israel with such universal consistency? Even though God created Israel to be His ‘Light to the Gentiles’ and His instrument for the world’s salvation and restoration to Eternal Life, Gentiles of every generation consistently single her out for exclusion, persecution and very often, even extermination. But what is the force that keeps driving them to eradicate and eliminate Israel, and the revelation God commissioned her to share with the rest of the world?
And why was there so much conflict between Yeshua and His true Jewish disciples on one side…and most Judean Jewish leaders and secular non-Jewish leaders, on the other side? The ‘frosting’ on the top may seem to be different at different times and in different places…but it’s always the same old fallen world ‘cake’ underneath. Why?
The religious Judean establishment of first century Israel, and Yeshua and His Galilean disciples all observed the Sabbath, although they had different views on how it should be done. And that deadly animosity we’re considering was continuously dividing them, even though they were all Israelites! How people should observe the Sabbath was a prime example of this spiritual hostility. Yeshua accused the esteemed Jewish leaders of idolizing man-made traditions and giving them even more authority than they gave to God’s written Word! Their thinking and teachings caused the people to merge that man-made tradition, with God’s Word. In fact, they began to view that ever-growing man-made body of rules and regulations called ‘halacha’ as being an essential part of the ‘Torah’ itself! And so when they used the word, ‘Torah’, their minds automatically included that ever-growing body of regulations that were invented by Israel’s sages and teachers, even though the sages often disagreed with each other!
Rabbi Yeshua adamantly opposed that practice, not because He intended to abolish the Torah, but because He was there to restore and properly interpret and reestablish its supremacy! He confronted and exposed the errors and resulting confusion and subtle disobedience that had developed in Israel over the centuries. Yeshua, God’s living Word made flesh, was, as always, being perfectly obedient and faithful to His Heavenly Father.
Our Hearts… the Living Sanctuary for the Living Torah
God sent His living Word to interpret His Torah revelation properly and to obey and fulfill it exactly as His Father intended it to be. What would be more fitting, since the written Torah was meant to be a revelation and explanation of Him? He had finally arrived on Earth, in human form, to serve as our Ultimate Prophet and Priest…to begin the New Covenant Era. It was time to fulfill God’s True Revelation, through His disciples, His Word-obedient Israelites. It was time for His Father’s revelation and commandments to begin to be obeyed and fulfilled Perfectly…in Spirit and in Truth…in the name of the human race!
Hebrews 1:1-4
“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed Heir of all things,through whom also He made the world. And He is the Radiance of His Glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the Word of His Power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent Name than they.” (Emphasis added.)
God’s living Word came to write Himself (God’s True living Torah) on the hearts of all who would hear and obey and embody what He was sent to be and do. God’s living Word came to be and to do from within them, by the Holy Spirit, what the written Torah was revealing, commanding and promising! In other words, Yeshua was preparing the ‘ground’ of human hearts to repent of their radical independent ways, and allow Him, God’s living Torah Word, to indwell and abide and be the Perfect Righteousness for them, that no fallen Sin-corrupted flesh could ever be or do, for itself. Yeshua Himself IS the Fulfillment of God’s New Covenant with Israel!
But the Israelites were fallen children of Adam, just like all the rest of the human race! They had specialized background and spiritual advantages given to them by God, but they too often remained strangers to God’s living Word and were not able to recognize, respect and endorse what He had come to be and do for us all. So most of them reacted with that murderous Cain-like rage and hostility against Yeshua and His disciples that we’ve been discussing. But why – how could that have happened even among God’s chosen people? (Note: we’ve discussed this at length elsewhere. You will find it in our two-part Exodus Meditation no. 16: ‘Israel, the Thorn in the World’s Flesh’)
Why does the very diverse world and its many systems react with so much tolerance and openness to just about any other religion or cultic group that emerges, but remains united in its rigid antagonism and opposition to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and His living Word made flesh? From what noxious fatal wellspring does this universal antagonism emerge?
Worldly political and religious leaders are usually wary and suspicious of each other. Even supposed allies pursue concealed, self-serving, competitive agendas against one another. And nations, classes, races, cultures, economic castes and the thousands of different religions that exist, battle each other on many levels. But when it comes to being angrily opposed to the God of Israel, and His chosen people, and His Word and commandments, the usually divided masses of the world suddenly agree and harmonize on this point. They unanimously reject God’s Word and what He reveals and commands through it. In that, they are all the same. And so, they remain, ‘a brood of vipers’ and, ‘children of the Darkness.’
Religions that fallen men create are just like Eve. They do as they think best. Even many that claim to believe and serve the God of the Bible do that. They take it upon themselves to ‘edit’ God and ‘correct’ His written Word, and disfigure the true appearance and significance of His living Word. They pick and choose which parts of the Scriptures they will embrace and which parts they will ‘correct’ or ‘edit’, or reject altogether. Thus, the same Babel-like confusion that is in the fallen world also appears throughout much of the religious world. It appears in the form of an enormous ‘buffet’ made up of table after competing table filled with various versions of ‘god as you like him’ that the various religions and denominations and sects into which men cluster, continue to invent, on their own self-bestowed authority.
True Biblical Faith Cannot be Served ‘Buffet Style’!
And so the masses of people are forced to shop around; they go from table to table, and entrée to entrée, selecting the versions of ‘god’ that best fit their lifestyles, preferences, comfort zones and passions. And once they make their choices, they argue and fight over which of them has the one, true ‘God.’ Nothing that is run by the rebellious flesh of fallen decapitated humans is ever free of that telltale scourge of strife and division. Even the world religions commonly known as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc. etc. are torn apart by internal sects that scatter in diverse directions. They are all riddled with competing notions that cause them to contradict, oppose, divide and even entertain murderous contempt for each other! This is a true sign of the ‘Rootlessness’ that comes when the Serpent severs people from their True Head, the Word of God, the Foundational ‘Rock’ that is the living and written Torah.
Galatians 5:16-21
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the (curse of the) Law (because in that case, you actually fulfill the Law).
“Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things (do not have God’s Torah written on their hearts and they) will not inherit the Kingdom of God!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Most of the religious and secular leaders who ruled in Israel in Yeshua’s day were hostile and violently opposed to each other, but united in their opposition to Yeshua and His apostles. And throughout Israel’s history, the religious establishment’s reactions to the prophets whom God sent to warn and correct His chosen people, followed the same pattern:
Acts 7:51-53
“You (Judean Israelite) men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the Law (Torah) as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it!” (Amplification and emphasis)
The same has been equally true with Christianity and other worldly religions. They all wage civil and religious wars and they persecute and kill each other. Is that a sign of being under the authentic ‘Headship’ of God’s living Word, or is it a sign of decapitation and living death Darkness? Is that demonic Darkness from Genesis not the common denominator in all of this? Why do individuals and groups that continually oppose each other, suddenly unite in their contempt for the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their Covenant Family? Can it be that the same anti Word spirit that afflicted Cain is also driving them? Are they not idolizing their own ideas about God and placing those created things above God’s living Uncreated Word Himself?
I offer this for you to consider: Cain was outwardly very religious and God-fearing. But even as he went through the motions of worshipping God, the Serpent’s murderous self-adoring urges and desires continued to boil up in his heart. And what the Serpent had put into his fallen flesh drove him to despise and murder his own God-fearing, Word-obedient brother! And all humans who remain decapitated from God’s living and written Word, regardless of what religious labels they hide behind, are enslaved by the same demonic spirit that was afflicting Cain.
Can you see that Joseph’s brothers had the same Cain spirit in them? They were sons of Jacob, children of the Covenant, and the venerated patriarchs of God’s chosen people! Yet they plotted to kill their own brother, Joseph, through whom God’s living Word was revealing Himself to them! And consider the Israelites, Korah and Dathan (see Numbers 16). They schemed and rebelled against the Authority of God’s Word that had clearly been entrusted to Moses and Aaron. And many other examples can be found throughout Scripture and in the annals of the various world religions.
Hyper-religious people, regardless of what labels they paste on themselves, all have blood on their hands, or at least it is smeared across their heart of hearts…even the blood of their own brothers! But why, from what devilish source do such animosity and deadly conflict arise? Torah reveals the source. It is the primeval conflict between God’s Light and the Serpent’s Darkness:
Genesis 1:2-4
“The earth was formless and void, and Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be Light’; and there was Light. God saw that the Light was good (but not the Darkness); and God separated the Light from the Darkness.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Isaiah 53:3-6
“He was despised and forsaken of men, a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we (Israelites) did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” (Emphasis added)
Light vs. Darkness
The Light comes from God’s living, creative, sustaining Word. And the Scriptures that reveal and explain Him to us are God’s written Word. The written Word reveals and explains the significance of the living Word. But the Darkness comes from the Serpent as he continually opposes and tries to blot out the Light of God’s Word. In his jealousy, he strives to usurp for himself, the true legitimate Authority and Status that belongs entirely and exclusively to God. So, based on what we now know from the Torah, this endless conflict is at the fatal root of the relentless war that the powers of Darkness wage through the decapitated people they dominate. Through them, they strike out against God’s living Word and His Authority. That is why there was, and is, so much contempt and conflict against Messiah Yeshua and His followers in this fallen, Serpent-dominated world. The Serpent that infests and dominates the fallen flesh of those who are his image and likeness, as revealed in Genesis 3, hates and envies God’s Word. And so he strives to dethrone Him, destroy His Authority over Creation, blot out His revelation and usurp His place as Lord. And throughout history he continues to try to strike out against God from within the minds, hearts and lives of the humans he still dominates.
So we see that there are two human races – the enslaved, deceived one that the Serpent dominates, and the race that is joined, by God’s Holy Spirit, to the living Word of God made flesh. That race is joined to Him in His crucifixion and death, so that then, their risen Messiah, the glorified Word of God, can abide in and sustain them by the Power of God’s Holy Spirit. They now abide in mankind’s Eternal Covenant Representative, the Last Adam, who was raised from the Dead after He made full Atonement for them, and who now sits at the Father’s right hand on God’s Eternal, Perfect, Heavenly side of the Chasm. They rest in and with, Almighty God. They have been redeemed and restored to mankind’s original image and likeness of God status, purpose and destiny. These are the children of Light…God’s eternal heirs. Their Kingdom and the Eternal Inheritance they will share with their Master, await their arrival, as soon as they complete their Exodus from Darkness to Light.
On the contrary, the humanity that springs from the fallen flesh of the First Adam are the ever-toiling slaves of the Serpent’s Anti-Messiah (Anti-Christ) Darkness. Their citizenship is on the imperfect, Sin-corrupted time-and-space side of the infinite Chasm of Transcendence.
The Exodus From Darkness to Light
As soon as we repent of our radical independence from God’s Word, and begin to follow Him, we embark on our Exodus from the Serpent’s Darkness and Domination. So, right from the point when our radical independence dies with God’s atoning Lamb, God endows us with the Perfect Blessing, which is contained within His living Word. God bestowed this Blessing on the human race right from the beginning. The Word-Blessing is ours…but we must enter into its full possession and ownership by allowing our Master to unite us to Himself so that He can take us across the Infinite Chasm of Transcendence. Only in Him, by our obedient faith in Him and His Perfect Finished Work of Creation, Blessing, Covering, Redemption and Restoration, can we ‘cross over’ and own what God, by His awesome Grace, has so willingly and freely bestowed upon us. And by obedient faith, rather than by appearances, circumstances and feelings that we experience along the way, do we stop being the toiling slaves of the self-adoring Serpent. By obedient faith, we join ourselves to God and His Perfect Eternal Sabbath Rest and Celebration. By obedient faith we abide with God and bask in His Eternal Perfection.
So naturally, the living dead people of the fallen world, who know nothing of this supernatural God-given Faith, and are not equipped to abide in it, deeply resent the differences between them and the disciples. And so they are filled with the hatred of Cain. They oppose and persecute those who join themselves to God’s Word and receive the right and power to obey God and rest and enjoy the privileges of being God’s ‘sons.’ This War between the Light and the Darkness will continue all the way to the end of this time and space dimension. And, as we enter the era of the Last Days, it will intensify and escalate to its Ultimate Crescendo and Climax as the Last Days Era runs its course. It is for this that God must now prepare us.
The Serpent that dominated and drove Word-rejecting Cain to murder his Word-obedient brother, Abel, keeps driving the fallen, decapitated, radically independent flesh of the people that are all around us. Thus they remain strangers and opponents to God’s Word made flesh, Messiah Yeshua…and they oppose those who desire to serve as His true disciples. Yeshua and His disciples are utterly different from the flesh-driven religious people of this world. They are transforming into the New Covenant image and likeness of the Father! God chose and filled them with the Light of His Word and the Power of His Holy Spirit! Because they were willing to join their Master in the shame and humiliation of His Crucifixion, their radically independent existences died with Him. So now the risen Lord of Glory is their New, Eternal Life. And He is able to live in and operate, through them…to Perfection.
Galatians 5:22-25
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.”
The Lord and His disciples are one (echad). He can now live His Perfect Eternal Life in and through them, as their Head. Together, they have become the ‘One New Man’ of the New Covenant. This is God’s promised New Covenant Restoration…a ‘New Creation,’ a new human race that is not at all of, or for, this fallen world! And so while the Serpent directs his never-ending rage at God’s living Word, who now abides and dwells within His disciples, we see that he is the greatest slave to self of all! He has to try to do everything himself!
The Eternal Sabbath Rest and Freedom God shares with His Word’s beloved disciples will be forever ‘off-limits’ and beyond the Serpent’s reach and that of any of the decapitated slaves he dominates, deceives and controls. This is the ‘Great Divide’ that exists between the two races. God is continually separating Light from Darkness. This is the meaning of the Exodus and this is why ceaseless conflict rages all across this fallen, broken world that knows nothing about resting and rejoicing in God’s Eternal Perfection.
Yeshua and His true disciples who serve as His living members are transforming into the image and likeness of their Heavenly Father, even as they remain in this world. And the Sin-corrupted fallen flesh of worldly people (religious or otherwise) serves as the image and likeness of the Serpent. That’s why the conflict between them continues to rage and ‘jump’ from one generation to the next. But God’s living Word is leading those who believe and follow Him into the Fulfillment of the New Covenant. And when that Fulfillment is complete, the Peace, Joy and Rest that belong to God will belong entirely to them. And this is at the heart of what the fourth commandment means and signifies and announces to all of Creation. When God is free to ‘write’ or ‘etch’ His beloved Son – His Perfect Living Torah – onto our yielded, obedient human hearts…there’s nothing left for us to do as we bask in His Perfect Presence…but REST and allow God to live and operate from within us!
Last Days Disciple Boot Camp
We believe that the mandate Father gave to Follow Me Ministries is a mandate to focus on the ‘boot camp’ training that Last Days disciples are going to need in order to stand their ground and persevere in faithful obedience to God, all the way to the successful completion of that Exodus…the Fulfillment of God’s New Covenant with Israel. There will be Darkness and ‘bad news’ all around us…but Yeshua, God’s living Light and ‘Good News’, will prevail and cover us as Scripture clearly promises (Psalms 18, 19, 23, 27, 46, 73 and 91 are good examples).
Thus it is vitally important that we hear clearly and receive faithfully, and transmit precisely, everything Father wants to do to us, in us and through us. And, since our focus is to be on the final Ultimate Fulfillment of all of God’s promises, we are not being told to merely ‘go back’ to a faithful observance of some past set of Israelite traditions, or some past set of Christian traditions. If we did that, we would have to continue to take sides and choose between the various opposing factions that continue to argue and bicker with each other to gain supremacy and preeminence amid the confusion of the big religious ‘buffet.’
But is that the way things will be when Creation finally enters into God’s Ultimate Fulfillment? Will there be a plurality of striving, competing religions and factions in God’s Eternal Kingdom? Will God allow religious and theological strife and controversy and jockeying among various denominations to vie for position and supremacy in His Presence? How many Messiahs or Christs will there be before Almighty God, as He sits on His Throne? Obviously, the way it is today will disappear between now and then. So our focus is not on temporary things that used to be, or that can be found in our present status quo. We look to the days of the Eternal Fulfillment and the Perfection that only God Almighty Himself can bestow upon us. This is the Destination into which our Master is now intent on leading us.
Therefore, the training of the Last Days disciples will not draw them back, to what went before, or to what ‘used to be.’ God’s living Word is here to lead us forward…into the Perfect Fulfillment of the way it is truly going to be – for all eternity! What God’s Word gave to the world in seed form, in Genesis and Exodus, will become fully developed, completely mature, eternally perfect and inconceivably fruitful by the time the Book of Revelation is fulfilled! The Light coming to us from God’s living Word now is not the dimming past Light that was shining at the beginning of the tunnel of time. We are being drawn by the same Light, but now that Light is shining on our Destination…which is the full bloom, the Fulfillment that shines and beckons to us from Eternity’s end of the tunnel of human history. It is beckoning to us to share in the Glory of our risen Lord in all of His Perfection…on the Eternity side of the Chasm…on the Resurrection side of the Cross!
No past generation, and no one living in our day, amid all of our still-present imperfection, has experienced that perfect Fullness yet! Human eyes have not seen anything like it before! Even Yeshua Himself, our Head, must wait for that Ultimate Fulfillment…with all the rest of us that serve as His human members. We must all wait until the Holy Spirit of God leads our Master, the risen Messiah, to His Ultimate Coronation and Enthronement on the Throne of Almighty God, once and for all.
Psalm 110:1-2
“The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.’”
Psalm 2:7-12
“I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, You shall shatter them like earthenware.’
“Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!”
Colossians 3:2-4
“Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our Life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in Glory.” (Emphasis added.)
The Land of Promise… Our Destination
So our Lord is leading us forward to Ultimate Perfection…not backward…to the ‘good old days,’ that are now past history. He’s leading us toward the ‘Finish Line’ that separates the time and space dimension from what God has waiting for His own, in Eternity. It’s time to get ready to enter and possess and OWN…God’s true, Eternal ‘Land of Promise’. That is where the True Rest lies and that is what the fourth commandment is meant to draw us into.
To better understand the mandate and purpose of the Follow Me disciple-training ministry, we must understand our Master, Head and Life-Source. God’s Word, has been commissioned to take His own into Almighty God’s Eternal Fullness. And we must understand all that He must be to us as this process plays itself out in our space and time. Because God’s living Word is our Eternal Blood Covenant Representative, then, in that capacity, He exercises a three-fold function throughout human history: He is God’s Eternal Prophet, Priest & King.
Each of those offices is an eternally infinite aspect of God’s one living Word. But in God’s Plan those aspects receive different emphasis and prominence at different times as our journey through the time and space dimension continues. Generally speaking, we might view those three functions as working like three sections of a telescope. The Word-revealing telescope is one instrument; but it is composed of three interconnected, moveable sections that always work and stay together. Each section adds something to our ability to perceive and view whatever is viewed within its lenses.
In the sense of considering God’s living Word, the first section we see is His Prophetic, revelatory function, such as the foundational revelation He gives us in Genesis and Exodus. And out of that comes the second, His Priestly, intercessory, mediating function…what He is sent to be and to do for us to deliver us from the power of Sin and its eternal effects, as revealed in Exodus 12, Leviticus 16 & 17, Isaiah 53 and Matthew 26, 27. And lastly, when the story of God and the human race has run its course, that third section, the Kingly ‘Son of David’ function will emerge to cap off and complete the revelation and significance of God’s living Word, Israel’s Messiah, and Lord of Creation. Everything that God intends to give to the Sin-wounded children of Adam, and the rest of the Creation that will repent and become part of His Eternal Kingdom, is in Him (See Matthew 25; Revelation 21 & 22).
The first two sections of the ‘telescope’, the prophetic and priestly functions of God’s living Word, Messiah Yeshua, have already appeared in human history. But the final emergence of the third section is yet to appear in its Fullness. That will appear after the physical return of our Messiah to Earth, as The King and Lord of all Creation. Then, His full and ultimate Vindication will finally take place. Father will testify to His Eternal Word and validate all that He is and all that He has done on our behalf and in our name. At that time, His Word’s demonic enemies will be completely exposed, confounded and their ability to resist and rebel will be revoked, stripped away and put to death. Then God will fully testify to and validate Yeshua’s claim that all Authority in Heaven and on Earth have been given to Him (Matthew 28:18).
God’s beloved Son will then receive the full reward of His Perfect Obedience…and of the sufferings He willingly bore on our behalf. And God’s Word will be Eternally Enthroned as King over all of Creation and the Kingdom of Heaven…and those disciples who serve as His living members…under His Headship…will be co-heirs with Him, enjoying the Ultimate Joy, Peace and REST that flow eternally from HIS Perfect Finished Work of Creation that He had already done even before the very beginning of God’s Story with mankind.
So, as far as our Follow Me ministry commission is concerned, this is not a time for the Last Days disciples to look back fondly and longingly to past traditions that God has already rejected. Scripture clearly tells us that they failed. Nothing that has emerged on the fallen earth so far, will last into eternity. All that we see and have today is temporary. We must not idolize any of those things. All will be replaced by things that to us, at this present time, are unimaginably, stupendously wonderful, glorious, fulfilling and far beyond our present ability to even imagine. We know that what emerged in the past, and has run its course and reaches into the present, has been contaminated by the Sin-corrupted ‘human touch’ of fallen flesh and its soulish self-centered interference. And we know that the level of development and obedience that has been able to reach, falls far short of God’s Perfect Standards. Therefore, in Eternity, it will be unacceptable to Him because it fails to fulfill God’s Perfect Standard (For example, see Genesis 4; Deuteronomy 30-32; Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ezekiel 36-48; Matthew 5:17-20, Luke 6:20-49; Revelation 3:15-21).
So it’s time to get ready to enter into the Fulfillment of everything that has gone before us. The Fulfillment will be Perfect, because it will be the Fruit of the Eternal, Perfect Finished Work that the fourth commandment requires us to enjoy and celebrate with God even now. What took place in the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was not the ‘high water mark’ of God’s Story with His people. And what was introduced at Mt. Sinai didn’t fill the bill either. And not even what took place during those glorious early days of the New Covenant in the Book of Acts should be considered to be our destination. Those were seasons devoted to the planting of the seeds of what is yet to develop into a Full Eternal Harvest. No man or generation of men has ever seen or even been able to imagine what God still has in store for us! And what that is, has not yet been given to us. But it is not far away. It is just ahead of us…beckoning us to keep moving toward it…to persevere…and overcome whatever happens…until our risen Master actually places it fully into our possession.
In the era of Fulfillment, into which we are now being drawn, God’s living Word Himself will be our new Eternal Life. He, in all of His Perfection, will live in us and work through us to make sure we are full sharers in His Eternal Perfection. Thus because Perfection has given Himself to us, and because the Eternal New Covenant of God makes us one with His Perfection…the only proper response to that awesome Gift is…to REST AND REJOICE!
1 Corinthians 2:6-13
“Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written,
“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.”
For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.” (Emphasis added.)
So the Light that we must follow is the Eternal Light of the Fulfillment that God has promised to give us at the end, after the Last Days have run their course and Yeshua is, at last, the Eternal King of All. I mean no disrespect when I say that the dim and distant Light, that first began to light the way for the first generations to follow, cannot be our target. The Light that God gave to the Fathers of the Faith was meant to get them headed in the right direction. And in ages past, the saints rightly referred to that Light so that they could continue to be true to that direction and stay on course. But as the generations progressed through the ‘tunnel of time’… the beginning Light that led them into the beginning of that tunnel…was left further and further behind in the past. So naturally its glow began to grow dim and distant.
And now, it seems clear that we’re well past the halfway mark. That original Light is far behind us now. So we’ve passed ‘the point of no return;’ we can no longer think of going back. We must set our minds and hearts to keep going further and further ahead, focusing on the Light that God’s living Word is sending to us from the Destination end of the tunnel of history. That Light once guided our steps ‘out of Egypt.’ But now it must guide our steps into our new Home in our new Kingdom…The New Heaven and the New Earth…the Heavenly Israel in God’s True, Eternal Land of Promise!
And because God has already given it to us from all Eternity, and has fully paid the price of our Redemption from Sin, Death and Darkness, He commands us to start celebrating that Perfection that is ours, even now, even while our Exodus is still underway. We celebrate being full-fledged citizens of God’s Eternal Land of Promise…even while we’re still ‘en route’ to its complete possession and enjoyment.
We know that Yeshua was the Light in the very beginning…in Genesis. And He has been the Light for every generation throughout history. And He is the Light that will bathe and surround us for all of Eternity. But He’s not showing us the way back to the planting season that took place in the beginning. He’s showing us the way into the future full Harvest that has developed from that original planting. It’s the Light of that Full Harvest that is now closest to us, and that is what is beckoning and drawing us forward, into territory none of us has ever seen or experienced before. It’s the same Light to be sure…His Light…the Light of God’s living Word. But the circumstances we will have to face and deal with in days to come are different than those that the earlier generations had to face. We’re now being led into the Great New Covenant Fulfillment of Human History. The ongoing war between Light and Darkness is beginning to reach its Final Crescendo and Ultimate Climax! God’s Word is here with our generation, to lead Abraham’s entire Family, all of those who have gone before us, and all of those who are with us now… and our children and their children…all the way Home!
Heading Home with Our King!
Our Master, God’s living Word, Messiah Yeshua, will see to it that we have the proper qualifications to be allowed through and safely across the Border Checkpoint of His Eternal Kingdom…and that we will receive Father’s full welcome and full Heavenly citizenship and full shares of Yeshua’s eternal Inheritance. But He must now train and empower us to be and do what it will take to persevere and overcome the final, last gasp, fruitless efforts of the Serpent and his condemned and banished powers of Darkness. All the rest of God’s Creation will witness the Ultimate Vindication and Validation and Enthronement of our Majestic Glorious resurrected Lord. Then, our Heavenly Father will force the enemies of His beloved Son to become an Eternal Footstool for His feet! And we will see Him as THE ETERNAL KING OF KINGS!
And this is what the first four of the Ten Commandments are meant to reveal. This is what they are meant to teach and train us to move into, if we will only develop the wisdom and trust in God that we will need to become wholeheartedly willing to believe and obey what He is here to reveal about Himself that no human being, or even the angels, have ever seen or suspected in the past. We’ve seen the era in which the commandments were given. We’ve seen ages and ages in which they have been consistently and almost universally ignored, or rejected and disobeyed and replaced with alien things. But God has determined that now it is time for Him to lead us into the era of the Last Days…when we will receive the Wisdom that leads us into full obedience, stemming from the perfect, wholehearted love, gratitude, agreement and devotion of our Master, as He abides and lives within us…to the total satisfaction of our God.
The Significance of Sabbath
Exodus 20:8-11
“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 of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Emphasis added.)
Hopefully, you can now see how serious God is about this commandment and about our enjoyment of the Total Freedom and Eternal Wealth it announces. So as He continues to lead our generation further and deeper into the era of full understanding and obedient compliance, under our Master’s Headship, ask your heart of hearts the following questions:
Which day of the week has God clearly specified and set apart as His special, reserved Sabbath Day…for Himself and for His obedient chosen people?
Was this a new idea that He first introduced at Mt. Sinai, or was it around long before Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the nation of Israel even existed?
If God instituted His Sabbath at the same time that He created the first two humans, do you think He meant to include the entire human race in its celebration, or did He intend to keep it from all the rest of the human race and save it so that He could celebrate His Perfection exclusively and separately with the Jewish people? (The answer to this question is embedded within what God promised to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 and revealed in Leviticus 16-18; Deuteronomy 4; Matthew 5:17-20 and 28:18-20; Ephesians 2 & 3 and Acts 10 & 15.)
Did God give general guidelines to Israel concerning the fourth commandment? Did He leave it up to them to discuss and decide whether or not they might want to select alternate days to suit themselves and the conveniences and priorities dictated by the various preferred ethnic, national and religious cultures, traditions and agendas they might encounter and prefer? If you look at the wording God used, it’s obvious that God meant what He said about the seventh day of the week. And when He gave the fourth commandment to Israel, He was repeating what He revealed from the very beginning when He created the human race. So, as God’s Plan of Redemption and Restoration unfolds in our time and space dimension, the human race God created in Genesis, is going to be entirely, unequivocally, HIS by the end of the Book of Revelation!
Genesis makes it clear that God meant to include all of humanity, and not just Israel in this revelation. The Sabbath is not just a special Jewish religious tradition. It is a glorious universal Testimony to God…and to the Beauty, Wisdom and Perfection of His Flawless work of Creation and Redemption and Restoration. It is also a glorious Testimony to God’s Absolute Authority over all of Creation and a testimony to the joyful, trusting obedience of the true disciples of His living and written Word, regardless of race, ethnicity, culture or era. So…when we see it in this Light, should we assume that the Sabbath commandment is meant to be limited to just one day out of our week? Yes, God truly did tell us to set aside the seventh day and reserve it specifically for this awesome, joyful Family Celebration. And we should take God’s Word literally, unless the Word itself tells us otherwise. But is that once a week celebration ALL that God intended with this commandment?
Remember when God instituted this Sabbath Celebration. He instituted it at the Beginning, as soon as He finished the Creation that was Perfect… right from the beginning. He instituted the Sabbath immediately after creating His human image and likeness. The birthright, legacy and lifestyle of the first man and woman were to be The Celebration of Almighty God’s Eternal Perfect Finished Work and Eternal Sabbath Rest. This is God’s definitive Hallmark! This is much more than just a weekly religious ritual. It’s much more than a scheduled formality to be highlighted and remembered for one day out of each week! It was meant to be Israel’s reflecting back of God’s awesome Nature. It was to be her lifestyle… and every human’s lifestyle… for all of Eternity! So for sure, it is meant to be the lifestyle of the Word’s true disciples. The seventh day Sabbath observance is mankind’s rightful celebration of its awesome Creator, Almighty God Himself! It is all of Humanity’s Psalm of Praise, Worship, Acknowledgement and Eternal Thanksgiving to Him, and only to Him. And His Perfect Image and Likeness, the Word who is our Head and we who are His living members, are to reflect and embody God’s Enjoyment of HIS ETERNAL PERFECTION, gladly, willingly and wholeheartedly, just as God revealed it to us!
Remember – in the Garden of Eden, there were no organized religions, no religious structures and denominations, no man-made temples, churches, synagogues or mosques. There were no human religious go-betweens and ‘superstars.’ There was only Almighty God, His living Word, His Holy Spirit, and His first two beloved human beings. And much later, at Mt. Sinai, when God was re-instating His Sabbath and expressing it to His chosen people in the form of the fourth commandment, they still did not have the highly detailed and developed Judaism and synagogue system that emerged in later centuries. There was God… and this assembly of former slaves… and the wilderness. And all around them by that time, the fallen world was filled with many false gods and well-established, highly structured and organized idolatrous religious systems and false religious authorities. The whole world was decapitated and wallowing in the idolatrous worship and service to false gods! That’s how much damage had already been done to God’s beautiful Creation. And rightly does Scripture call the Serpent, ‘the god of this world.’
2 Corinthians 4:3-5
“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the Gospel of the Glory of Christ, who is the Image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.”
God tells us that the Serpent usurped His Word’s Authority in the darkened souls of decapitated men. And now, that malevolent rebel continues to deceive, control, manipulate and drive myriads of humans to their physical and eternal spiritual destruction. In its Serpent-induced blindness, humanity has lost sight of the true God and His Eternal Perfection, and the Perfect Peace, Rest and Infinite Inheritance that is their God-given birthright. So, like the Serpent, they remain radically independent and self-serving. In other words, instead of being true, privileged sons and heirs of Almighty God, as He created them to be, they remain abysmal slaves, condemned to try to do everything themselves, for themselves. They are spiritual ‘orphans,’ disenfranchised, cut off aliens to the Kingdom of Heaven, hopelessly caught in and crushed by, the coils of the Serpent. Now they are truly so blind, that they assume they are masters of their own fate…when in reality they are as hopeless and bankrupt and enslaved and helpless as rag dolls in the dust.
Revelation 3:15-18
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.”
But as long as men remain in that blind, dark, unredeemed state, they remain condemned to the most devastating, dismal, hopeless kind of slavery there can be – slaves to fruitless frustration because instead of being sons of God, they are slaves to themselves, condemned to labor under the bondage created by their own hopeless bankruptcy and eternal neediness and desolation. They must always control and scheme and manipulate whatever they can, and try to do and handle everything and provide everything…but they are only dust… and so they CAN’T do, what the Serpent’s lies keep convincing them that they can and must do!
Genesis 3:17-19
“Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
At Mt. Sinai, when God gave this commandment concerning His Sabbath, He was revealing once more and reinstating the awesome Reality that He revealed in Genesis 1 and 2. It was centered on one day of the week, the last day, the day the Work was Done. But the significance of that last day’s Rest was a revelation of what is true every moment of every day and night of our existence!
Since everything God had revealed to Adam and Eve had been lost by the time of Moses, and since idolatry and falsehood were choking the entire world to death…God focused Israel’s attention on that one day out of the week that God blessed and sanctified. To remember and get back in touch with the Sabbath by that seventh day observance, was a great start…a good beginning. But actually it meant much, much more than just the formality of observing a certain set of rituals on one day of the week. The Sabbath was to be Israel’s mind, heart and lifestyle, the lifestyle she was commissioned to teach and pass on to the rest of the demon-possessed world! Yes, the Sabbath day is always to be honored and observed each week, but only as a sign, a token or reminder of what was supposed to be going on between God and the heart and soul of each one of His redeemed, chosen people, during each and every moment of their existence! His living Word, Yeshua the risen Messiah, is here to live and abide in us forever…and we are to celebrate His Perfection that is given to us…ALWAYS!
Isaiah 56:1-8
“Thus says the Lord, “Preserve justice and do righteousness, For My Salvation (Messiah Yeshua) is about to come and My Righteousness (that is contained within My living Word) is to be revealed. How blessed is the man who does this, and (how blessed is Yeshua) the Son of Man who (lives within that man who) takes hold of it; who keeps from profaning the Sabbath, and keeps his hand from doing any evil.”
Let not the foreigner (non-Jew) who has joined himself to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from His people.’ Nor let the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree.’ For thus says the Lord, ‘To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, and choose what pleases Me, and hold fast My Covenant, to them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial, and a name better than that of sons and daughters (that disobey it); I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off.
“‘Also the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to Him, and to love the Name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the Sabbath and holds fast My Covenant; even those I will bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; for My House will be called a House of Prayer for all the peoples.’
The Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, declares, ‘Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered.’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Philippians 4:4-7
“Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the Peace (Contented Rest) of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Although the world of Moses’ day was filled with false religions and man-invented gods, for God’s chosen people and those non-Jews who were grafted into Israel’s Covenant with God and her God-given Spiritual Inheritance, there were still no organized religious structures, no ‘organized professional clergy class,’ no competing theologies and temples or synagogues or churches. There was only God, His chosen people…and the wilderness.
Beware the Serpent’s Favorite Distortion of Truth!
For those of us who know nothing else but what exists in our contemporary status quo, the Purity of what existed in Eden, and in the wilderness surrounding Mt. Sinai, is hard to imagine. And so our natural inclination, and temptation, is to ‘read’ what is familiar to us… our cultures and structures and traditions…all that exists in our time…into what God was revealing in the Scriptures that were written thousands of years ago. But to do that is a great error which creates confusion and even more error. It is the error called ‘anachronism’. This error, historically and chronologically, misplaces things and people and structures and events. It removes those that are really true and present in God’s revelation, and takes them out. And because it arbitrarily ‘shuffles’ and relocates things, it takes things out that should really be there and puts things into that revelation that do not belong there at all! So when people unwittingly and mindlessly indulge in anachronism, God’s revelation becomes greatly confused and distorted. And of course it is one of the Serpent’s favorite deception-creating tools.
Despite all the denominational and cultural and ethnic traditions and theologies that exist today to the contrary, the Sabbath and the awesome Gifts of Eternal Rest and Peace that God bestowed on the human race, were meant to be all encompassing. They were intended for all of mankind. This was often forgotten by Israel’s later generations which emerged long after Adam, Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Joshua and Caleb passed into eternity. Many of them became elitist and hyper-possessive. They arrogantly excluded ‘alien strangers’ from God’s Redemption and Restoration in their thinking and attitudes. They didn’t want to ‘soil’ and ‘contaminate’ their God-given spiritual inheritance by allowing them to be touched by ‘unclean’ and ‘unworthy’ people that they felt compelled to exclude from their midst.
And so Biblical history reveals that by the time God’s living Word returned as Israel’s Messiah, God’s prophets had already pronounced those highly-organized, formalized religious rites, rituals and world-excluding traditions that had emerged over the centuries to be displeasing to God. So, in God’s sight, they were a failure. That brand and level of ‘faith’ and ‘obedience’ were unacceptable to His Holy Standards:
Jeremiah 2:4-8
“Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord, ‘What injustice did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty. They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord Who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of deep darkness, through a land that no one crossed and where no man dwelt?’
“I brought you into the fruitful land to eat its fruit and its good things. But you came and defiled My land, And My Inheritance you made an abomination. The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ And those who handle the Law (Torah) did not know Me; the rulers also transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and walked after things that did not profit!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Jeremiah 31:31-32
“‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’ declares the Lord.”
Isaiah 58:10-14
“…if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, THEN your Light will rise in Darkness and your gloom will becomelike midday. And the Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets in which to dwell.
“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 honor it, desisting from your own (flesh-driven) ways, from seeking your own (radically independent, self-serving religious) pleasure and speaking your own word (in opposition to My Word which is for all men), 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.” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
For centuries, Israel practiced its religious traditions, observing the seventh day of the week with a tremendous array of man-made traditions and rigid formulas and laws. No people were more religious and outwardly pious than they. But even though they saw it as ‘obedience,’ God called what many of them were doing ‘lip service’ (Isaiah 29:13). And He was not pleased or satisfied. That’s why He sent His living Word to become one of them, so that even as He was serving as their Atoning Cover and Redeemer, He could warn, correct and lead them into their true New Covenant era of true Fulfillment:
Mark 7:1-23
“The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem, and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.) The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?” And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.’ He was also saying to them, ‘You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death’; but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’ you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother; thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.’
“After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, ‘Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man. [If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.’]
When he had left the crowd and entered the house, His disciples questioned Him about the parable. And He said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?” (Thus He declared all foods [that God’s Torah had declared fit for human consumption] clean.) And He was saying, ‘That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
True Devotion of True Disciples… a Delight to God’s Heart
There was always a faithful Remnant within Israel throughout her history. But they were a minority. The majority were lax, self-serving Israelites…faithless kings and leaders, false, deceiving prophets and sanctimonious, elitist arrogant people were scattered throughout the 12 tribes. And these were continually being warned and berated by God’s true prophets. But, for the most part, they religiously observed the seventh day of the week, and called what they were doing ‘Sabbath Observance.’ Their sages and leaders invented and added ever-growing lists of highly detailed laws and regulations that served as protective ‘fences’ to prevent people from coming even close to violating the Sabbath. And so Israel was taught and expected to observe those regulations meticulously. Thus they caused the true Sabbath, which was intended to be a time of true joy, peace and REST…to devolve into a growing weight of bondage that was laid on the shoulders of the people. And in order to observe all those rules, people had to toil like slaves! Thus the man-made rules led people into a ridiculous contradiction: to make sure they observed all of those ‘fence laws’ , they had to ‘work’ – harder and harder – in order to try to…‘REST’! That utterly violated the Spirit that underlies what God truly intended.
So there’s an enormous difference between striving to ‘not break the Sabbath’…and actually ‘keeping the Sabbath.’ When you strive not to do something ‘for God,’ you’re doing something. And you’re implying that God’s Perfect Finished Work isn’t good enough. It needs you to ‘fix’ it or ‘finish’ it. But when you do that, you leave God’s Rest and start working again!
On the other hand, when you take God at His Word and believe that He has already done everything necessary…there’s nothing more to do except…celebrate and REST! This reveals the enormous difference between God’s Perfect, Eternal Spirit-led side of the Infinite Chasm of Transcendence…as opposed to this time and space, Sin-corrupted, soul-driven, fallen flesh side of the Chasm. It’s the difference between our flesh and God’s Holy Spirit…the difference between what God has already done, and what we think we’re going to do…and it’s the difference between Satanic Darkness and Yeshua’s Light. As we’ve said elsewhere, God is not so much concerned with what is done, and how it is done, as He is concerned with who is doing it! Is it some Sin-corrupted creature doing it in an attempt to meet God’s Perfect Standards Perfectly? Or is it God’s own Eternal Perfect Word obeying His Father and helping us to rest, rejoice and celebrate as he supplies us with the Perfect Fruit of what He has already done? If God’s Word has done all that is necessary… and if He is the one living within us… then God has news for us: IT IS FINISHED…SO REST AND CELEBRATE WITH ME!
Mark 2:23-28
“And it happened that He was passing through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. The Pharisees were saying to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ And He said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; how he entered the house of God 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 also gave it to those who were with him?’ Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’” (Emphasis added.)
If we are doing things by the exertions and devices of our own fallen religious flesh, we’re doing what Cain tried to do. And God responded to him with a resounding ‘NO!’ Cain was a decapitated, living dead fallen son of Adam. Even on his very best day, even if what he offered to God was religious looking, excellent, beautiful, finely crafted and highly esteemed by this fallen world, God would have never accepted it. Why? Because the wrong person was doing it…Cain. Cain ignored God’s Perfect Finished Work of Creation. He didn’t look to God to provide him with what His Word had already done. Instead, he came up with something of his own that he assumed would be fit and be worthy and just as acceptable, if not even better than the finished Work of God’s own Word! In other words, he assumed that He was able to meet God’s Perfect Standards, Perfectly… independently of and apart from… God’s living Word… as if he himself were God! And that is the essence and heart of every false kind of religion under the sun.
Cain’s brother Abel understood what God required. He didn’t dare try to offer something of his own to God. He understood God’s Perfect Rest. He understood that God required Perfection… something that could and would fulfill His Perfect Standards, Perfectly. And he knew that no fallen flesh would ever be able to do that. He knew that only God could perform such a feat… specifically and only through His living Word and Holy Spirit. So, Abel offered to God what God’s Perfect Word had offered to God before Creation took place. He offered the perfect Sacrifice of Atonement that was given to God by His own living Word, the Eternal Lamb of God! Abel joined God in His Perfect Rest and rejoiced with Him in the Perfection of what had already been done to Perfection. And God will always accept that from any human being, any Jew or Gentile who will believe and obey God and His ways…and do everything out of God’s Eternal Sabbath Rest!
Work? or REST?
So we see that we can’t truly rest the way God requires, UNLESS His Word, His beloved Son, is actually living and working in us, by the Power of the Holy Spirit… transmitting into us and through us, the Perfection of the Fruit of His Eternally Finished Work of Creation, Blessing, Covering, Redemption, Reconciliation and Ultimate Restoration! Whatever we try to do on our own, by our own devices, is WORK! Whatever we allow God to do to us, in us and through us, is REST! And so there’s a paradox involved: When God’s living Word abides in us and reveals His Perfect Work through us… even when it looks as if we’re working to other people, we’re actually resting! That’s because this is not about what we’re doing or how…it’s about WHO IS DOING IT from within us! If our fallen flesh is toiling, SELF is doing something. But if Yeshua is operating through us…LOVE HIMSELF – THE PERFECT ONE – IS DOING IT! Then, it’s not a matter of religiously doing an act FOR God… it becomes an actual act OF God! And that only happens when we’re RESTING in His indwelling Word’s Perfect Presence, which is Eternal Perfection!
Matthew 22:37-40
“And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law (Torah) and the Prophets.”
Luke 13:14-16
“But the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, ‘There are six days in which work should be done; so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day.’ But the Lord answered him and said, ‘You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?”
Luke 14:5-6
“And He said to them, ‘Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?’ And they could make no reply to this.”
As we continue to ponder and look into the rest of God’s Ten Commandments, we will see how all the other commandments relate to and flow forth from God’s Perfect Love Nature and His Perfect Sabbath Rest. And we’ll consider how God’s Love and Sabbath Rest fit in and reveal themselves throughout all the other commandments that pertain to our relationships to other people… and how this Rest applies to everything that we are to be and do as the Royal New Covenant Priesthood that ministers to Almighty God Himself.
1 Peter 2:6-10
“For this is contained in Scripture: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.’
“This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,’ and, ‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense’; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the Word, and to this doom they were also appointed.
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of Darkness into His marvelous Light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Philippians 2:12b-13
“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for HIS good pleasure.“ (Emphasis added.)