Automatic Transcript Generated
Speaker 1
You.
Speaker 2
All right. So Nancy asks I am a retired Catholic who found my way to the truth learning about the Sabbath day. I am a server in a busy restaurant. I am not sure I can take Saturdays off. What do we do in situations where in today’s world to incorporate God’s Sabbath day? This is this is an interesting question because yeah, most most careers today, or quite a lot of careers do require weekend work. I mean, when is the biggest shopping day of the week? It’s Saturday. When are people going out to eat? Primarily at Saturday. When are people going for entertainment at Saturday? That’s a huge part of life. And even Friday, when sundown occurs, most people on nine to five when sundown is at 04:00 and the work day doesn’t end till five. This is a Sabbath consideration. So I’m going to defer this one to Jay first as the attorney, because there are some laws that our country has around some of these things, but there’s also practicality for businesses. Can you speak to some of the legal rights that people have not to.
Speaker 3
Put you on the spot?
Speaker 2
Because I know this isn’t your particular niche of law.
Speaker 3
Yeah, it can be difficult where let’s say you were not previously a Sabbath keeper and you’ve been in a job for a long time and then you suddenly have a new belief your employer might be like, what’s going on? So I don’t know the nuances there. But there are organizations, for example, the church, state council and others, which perhaps even pro bono for free or contingency. Meaning if they win, then they would get paid. Can assist employers or employees sorry. Who’s been discriminated against on religious grounds, including the Sabbath. There’s lots of people for hundreds of years who’ve been discriminated on the Sabbath. We have case law going way back. So it’s not a new thing. But I want to give a word of encouragement to don’t even necessarily expect worst case scenario, go out in a leap of faith and trust God. Depend God. This is a great opportunity to really have your faith tested. And testing your faith isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Right. But think of it as an opportunity to prove to God how much you actually do love God, and not just to God, but to the angels, to everybody else around.
Speaker 3
Show how much you actually do love God. Will you do what you believe God really wants you to do? That really is what Jesus says. Right? If you love me, keep my commandments. And if you just keep God’s law because it’s the law and that’s the reason why you’re going to have a hard time doing it. You need a motivation. Right. Even Wendy would say, would Wendy like to do wifely duties just because she’s my wife and has to do them? Or is it much better when you do it because you love me?
Speaker 2
I prefer to do it because I love you.
Speaker 3
Yeah. So it’s the same thing with God.
Speaker 1
Yeah, and just can I add a little bit to there too? Is that okay?
Speaker 2
Please.
Speaker 3
Where did that heart come from?
Speaker 1
That was so cute, I’m going to melt. But I totally agree. And biblically speaking too, the Sabbath commandment is the fourth commandment. And God says basically he wants you to honor Him with his time. It says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, six days shalt thou work and do all their labor. But the 7th day is a Sabbath unto the Lord thy God. In it, thou shalt not do any work, and so on and so forth. And that’s Exodus, chapter 20, verses eight through eleven. So that’s clear. God is giving us a very specific commandment in that fourth commandment there. Now, just like Jane Wendy are saying, if we’re going to keep those commandments though, it totally has to be from a heart of love. And the prayer that I pray when it comes to serving God, because there’s times any law of God, whether it’s not or being perfectly honest, the 9th commandment, which is to not bear false witness, there’s times where it’s easier to kind of fib than it is to be honest with somebody else. But God calls us to be honest and truthful, to speak the truth and love.
Speaker 1
And so just like my friends are saying, it’s important that we do it in a heart of love because then it will be easy. And like it says in Psalm 119 32, I will run in the way of thy commandment when thou shalt enlarge my heart. And so just praying God put a love in my heart for your law, for your commandments, that I can keep them the right way. And speaking to how can we practically incorporate the Sabbath into our lives? The thing is, it’s better to like it says in the Bible, we would rather obey God than man. Peter says that when he’s speaking in the book of Acts that it’s more important that we obey God’s law than the traditions or whatever man is imposing upon us. And if God is saying in his commandment to work six days, but the 7th day is a Sabbath, he’s definitely going to honor your keeping that commandment. And I would say claim his promises that God is faithful, that he will provide for all your needs through his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. And we know that from the book of Philippians that God will definitely provide for you.
Speaker 1
And if you lose your job because of your faithfulness and keeping the commandment in faith, trust God will provide for you a better opportunity of employment elsewhere. And speaking of somebody who used to be a server, I understand like being a server is not an easy job, first of all. And second of all, yes, they do try to make you work on the Sabbath. And when I applied, I said, I will not work on the Sabbath day, friday night or Saturday, period. It will not happen. But I said, I will work Sunday because I don’t keep that day. And so because of that, they hired me because they need people on Sunday. So I would say, make that a selling point of yourself. Speak the truth in love, be like, I can’t work Sabbath, but guess what? I’m your Sunday girl. And so there’s a way of going about sharing your faith and making an opportunity to be like, you know, I found this, this is my faith.
Speaker 3
Exactly.
Speaker 1
And just being excited about it and may it be a way of a wedge into spreading the truth to other people. And like I said, it will all be used to God’s glory as long as you’re putting Jesus as a focus. And so I would just encourage you that make a stand for God. Jesus says, if you deny me before man, I will deny you before my Father. But he who expresses confesses me before man, I will confess him before my Father and his angels. And so we definitely need to be being public about our faith in Jesus Christ and our commitment to his truth, no matter what the world may say. And I know that God will definitely bless you and honor you, and you’ll have an experience that coming out of it looking back and be like, wow, God was so faithful to his promise and his word.
Speaker 2
Can I actually share a little, like, okay.
Speaker 3
And I just wanted to acknowledge that we had a great question come in from Richard Brisbane that we’ll get to that’s related to this topic. So we got your question, Richard, and we’ll get to it.
Speaker 2
I want to share a little testimony on Sabbath keeping as well, because I wasn’t raised in a church, I wasn’t raised as a Sabbath keeper. And I had this learning and conversion to this when I was kind of just really starting my career and finishing college and starting my career. So I wasn’t anybody who had any kind of power or influence or anything. I was kind of a nobody, right? And the field I was working in was one that primarily business was Friday night and Saturday. That was the primary time of the industry I was in. And God really convicted me of Sabbath. And sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. And he did that, I think, because I asked Him, if this is important to you, God, show me in my life, because I can’t believe it just because I read it. If this book is about relationship with you, I need a relationship with you. I need to experience you. And he did show me in his own way, and I won’t get into that here. But he did make it clear to me that Sabbath sundown Friday, sundown Friday, sundown Saturday, sundown Friday to sundown Saturday was important to him and convicted me of that.
Speaker 2
And so I was faced with having just completed college at a prestigious school in a prestigious program, and now my career had to change in order for me to keep Sabbath. And so I just invested a ton of money and time and four years of energy in this degree and now I was like, I can’t work in this career anymore and be a Sabbath keeper. And for me, this was really actually about trusting God with his plan for me. And Jeremiah 20 911, he says, I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. And that is what I held Him to. I said, God, you are calling me to keep a day that literally makes the career that I’ve trained for completely not an option. But you’re promising to prosper me. I’m going to keep this day, I’m going to do my best to keep this day, but you’ve got to make the way. And that job that I started in, I let my boss know that Sabbath keeping was very important to me and I would need to leave early on Fridays and could I make up those hours at a different time or do something.
Speaker 2
And I was afraid I was going to lose my job. And actually my boss was like, yeah, that’s no problem at all. We have a lot of people with a lot of different beliefs and we try to make accommodations for people.
Speaker 3
Ask and ye shall receive.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
And it just went so smoothly. I was like, wow, why was I so stressed about that? And ultimately God did bless in that new career path that he brought me into. And that next job was actually the one that launched my career in the career that I was in for many years at that point. And I actually ended up earning more in that career than I probably would have earned in my previous one. So God really did when he had.
Speaker 3
Some amazing Sabbath stories. Another one about our car, we can’t even get into it. I’m like, wow. For me it’s easy being born into a Sabbath keeping family. But for someone who had to try it out, god sure did a lot to prove it. He did. So as God said, bible says, don’t test God. Right. But he does say like, claim his promises and he will deliver.
Speaker 2
He wants us to test Him in his promises.
Speaker 3
Exactly.
Speaker 2
Not in Him being a genie in a bottle. That just answers any.
Speaker 3
Exactly.
Speaker 2
Does anything we ask for. It’s about testing him in his promises, in his ways.
Speaker 3
And he’ll never ask you to do something that then he won’t be there to help you fulfill. And on that note, actually, let’s transition to the next question, or not the next question, but a follow on question that we got from Richard Berezwell. We’d like to read that wendy.
Speaker 2
So Richard asked, isn’t Jesus our Sabbath rest? So this is a popular topic and discussion today.
Speaker 3
It’s a good question. I’m really glad he asked that.
Speaker 2
I know there’s a lot of mainstream Christianity, if you will, that talks about Jesus is our Sabbath rest. So it doesn’t matter what day we keep, as long as we’re resting in Jesus, we’re keeping Sabbath. I’ve certainly heard this from many Christians, I don’t know if that’s the only interpretation of it, but that’s one that I’ve heard a lot of times. So yeah, Tina is looking up something.
Speaker 3
And I’ll say of the arguments to say that Sabbath has been done away with is probably one of the more compelling ones because there is a lot in the Bible, it talks about how under the New Testament, it’s a different experience than what the Jews had to go through. They had these rules upon rules. And Paul does very much explain that law of that is done away with. So now what do we do with the Sabbath? Where does that come into things? And we’re talking about how it’s in the Ten Commandments. Maybe, Tina, you’d like to touch on that part, like what happened to the Ten Commandments. And I’ll note maybe you also want to fall on you said earlier I like keeping God’s commands because it’s easy. Maybe you can explain a little bit more about that.
Speaker 1
Sure. When it comes to God’s law, I think there’s a lot of confusion because when you read the Bible, even in the New Testament, so much of what is made up in the New Testament is reflecting what mosaic law in the Old Testament. And so a lot of people don’t really understand that. Like when it talks about in Colossians 214, you know, with Sabbath days, you know, these things are nailed to the cross. But it’s talking about the law of Moses, which is kind of almost a whole nother topic, but basically the law of Moses was handwritten laws that Moses wrote on paper. The law of God was written by God himself with his finger on tables of stone. So you can nail paper to a cross, you cannot nail stone to anything. So when God writes something with his finger on stone, I think it’s pretty permanent. And Jesus himself kept the Sabbath. And it talks about in Isaiah 66, I believe it’s like the last verse of the chapter, but basically it says and talking about the new heaven and new earth from one Sabbath day to another, so shall all flesh come to worship basically the Lord.
Speaker 1
So not only was the Sabbath for Jesus keeping the Sabbath, the Sabbath is going to continue even in heaven.
Speaker 3
And I think it’s important to also mention that the Fourth Commandment did not create the Sabbath.
Speaker 1
No, exactly. Genesis two and three. I’m sorry.
Speaker 3
And as a lawyer, I’ve learned different concepts and there’s concepts of moral law, but Sabbath is almost like a natural law, just like gravity or something else, just a fact of nature, really, that sort of same process of creation. God made the Sabbath. He made it holy. That first week in creation, he made it holy. So whether we keep it holy or not is a holy day that’s been set apart, and the commandment is to remember it and to keep it holy. So then our choice is then are we going to recognize that holy day that God set apart, that God says, this is a day that’s meaningful to me, for you to spend time with me? Are you going to say, oh God, I want to spend time with you on my day, on the time I want to spend time with you?
Speaker 1
Exactly. And I think some people what I understand too, by saying that Jesus is our rest, jesus is our Sabbath. So it’s like we don’t have to keep a day because we believe in Jesus, so he kept it for us and we don’t have to do anything. And I’d have to say that that’s kind of just being I don’t say lazy or just I don’t know the word for it, but just kind of being like, what’s the least I can do to get into heaven? Is kind of the attitude. It’s like, we want to come to God. We want to keep his commandments because we love Him and we want to honor Him and every other commandment. It’s kind of interesting. The first commandment says, thou shalt not have any other gods before me. Would we say that Jesus did that so we can have whatever other gods before Him? There’s a commandment to say not to murder. Do you know kind of the flow in which I’m going in like the train of thought is that you can’t just say, well, Jesus was my perfection, I can do whatever I want. No. And Jesus said himself in Matthew 517, think not that I’ve come to destroy the law or the prophets.
Speaker 1
I’m not come to destroy, but fulfill. And Jesus also goes on to say that till heaven and earth pass away, my law is never going to pass away. You can’t do away with something I commanded. And it’s not like this is just kind of something willy nilly. God wrote it in stone with his own finger. It’s something he set up in the beginning at creation. And I think it’s just kind of interesting, kind of a side note when it comes to the Sabbath, there’s only two things that we took out as the human race out of the Garden of Eden when we fell, we took out marriage and we took out the Sabbath. Those are the only two blessings that we got to keep after sin corrupted our Earth and we became a sinful planet. And I think that those are the two things that Satan is so strongly after in attacking, is marriage and the Sabbath. Because those things both bring us back to a complete understanding of God and his love and his truth. And if we keep God’s Sabbath day, you can’t help but live a righteous life. Because to keep the Sabbath, you are keeping in mind in those six days that you are laboring to enter into that rest.
Speaker 1
Just like it says in Hebrews four in the New Testament, it talks about actually just go there really quick because there’s a verse I want to quote.
Speaker 2
While you’re pulling that up. I just wanted to share about what you were just talking about. A little testimony that came to my mind there when I was working in a field that I had to do a lot of creative problem solving. And I learned from someone that talked about how rest is an important part of getting those light bulb moments that solve our problems. That when we stop doing and rest. I mean, how many of us, when we’re in the shower, we get this idea pops into our head that we’re like, oh, that’s the solution I have to this problem, right?
Speaker 3
Yeah. And the Bible says, be still and know I am God.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So what was interesting, what I was learning from this guy who speaks about stress and rest and these kinds of things, is that actually when we take a rest, when we insert rest into our life, that’s when we can solve complex problems and it’s not really us solving it. That’s when the solution pops in light bulb moment. And I was struggling with something at that time in work that was super complex and super challenging. And when I learned that, I was like, this is all the more reason why I have to take that Sabbath rest. And sure enough, I was seeing that every Sabbath was when I would get the most brilliant solutions to these problems. And it actually was part of what made my work flourish was all those solutions that would come into mind when I took that Sabbath rest.
Speaker 1
Amen. That’s awesome.
Speaker 2
I’m sorry I was handing it back to you.
Speaker 1
No worries. So I just wanted as far as when it comes to Jesus being our rest, I mean, definitely we rest in Jesus. Jesus is the creator. We know that from John, chapter one, one through three and verse 14, that Jesus all things were created by Jesus. And so if Jesus created the Sabbath, as you read in Genesis two, two and three, and blessed the Sabbath day, obviously he’s the creator of it and it was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. I know that.
Speaker 3
Yeah, he’s the lord of the Sabbath.
Speaker 2
Exactly.
Speaker 1
And Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. Exactly. But a lot of people think, oh, that was before Jesus died on the cross. But I want to share with you a passage in Hebrews, chapter four, that just kind of make it a little more clear that yes, the Sabbath is still something that’s a blessing for God’s people, and it didn’t change. If you begin in chapter Hebrews, chapter four, which is again written by the Apostle Paul, it says, let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should come short of it. So God’s saying like, hey, there’s a rest of God that you don’t want to miss out on. And it says, for unto us the gospel preached was the Gospel preached as well as unto them. But the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. This is talking about the Old Testament nation of Israel. God was trying to give them the blessing of the Sabbath, but so many of them just they didn’t do it in faith. It was either something it was drudgery or just something they just didn’t want to do, period.
Speaker 1
For we which have believed do enter into rest. As he said, I have sworn in My wrath if they shall enter into My rest. Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world, referring to the creation, verse four, for he spake in a certain place of the 7th day on this wise, and God did rest the 7th day from all his works. So again, this is talking about the 7th day Sabbath, and in this place again, if they shall enter into my rest, seeing therefore it remains that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief. It is because of unbelief that the nation of Israel refused to adhere to God’s Sabbath day properly. In verse seven, again, he limited a certain day. So it says he limited this specific day, saying in David today, after so long a time as it is to say today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day? There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also ceased from his own works as God did from his.
Speaker 1
So again, it’s referring back to the creation. This isn’t something made up. This is something having to do with God’s plan from before he even wrote the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. This is from the creation, and it says that it remains and it’s a blessing God wants to keep giving us even today as Christians. And so I think it’s kind of hard to argue that we can either keep any day or we don’t even need to keep a day because Jesus is our rest. We just rest in Jesus all the time because we’re saved by his grace. Which is true, we are saved as grace, but that doesn’t mean we don’t make a point to honor Him by keeping a commandment that he specifically says, remember.
Speaker 3
But there’s even a grace that we often forget, which is it’s not just he has a grace that forgives our sins, but he has the grace that he helps us keep his commandments.
Speaker 1
Amen.
Speaker 3
And we even go back to the Old Testament, ezekiel 36, a new heart also will I I God give you, and a new spirit will I put in you. And I will take away the stony heart and take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, a soft heart, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them to me. This is one of the greatest truths that comes out, especially in the New Testament, that Jesus trying to tell us. Paul is trying to tell us, if you try to be righteous yourself, you’re going to fail. The Jews, the Israelites tried to be righteous themselves. They thought they could do it themselves and they failed abysmally because they were depending on themselves. We got to depend on God to keep his commandments. Isn’t that amazing? God has these laws and God says, I’m going to help you keep my laws.
Speaker 2
So we can’t just say, well, you know what? I’m convicted of the Sabbath now, and so I’m just going to keep it myself. I’m just going to tell my boss that I now believe in the Sabbath and I’m not going to work at this time. Is that trying to keep it on our own?
Speaker 3
We got to do our part. But if you’re trying to force it, you’re actually going to start realizing as you’re trying to do it yourself, you’re going to be messed up, you’re not going to do it right, you’re not going to want to do it and all this stuff. But we got to come to God to even give us the willpower, to really encourage us, to really help us fulfill his laws. And it goes back to what we talked about earlier. The secret to that is love. Without that love, you’re not going to have the motivation. The love comes from God. And there’s so many Bible verses that tell us law is fulfillment of the law. I think Romans, Galatians, James, these different books tell us it all comes down to love. And ultimately, do you love God? Do you love man? Those are the two commandments. And how do you show God your love? He gives us four ways, and one of those is keeping his day.
Speaker 2
So maybe the better way to approach it is to go to our boss and say, hey, I have become convicted of this, that I believe God is calling me to keep the Sabbath. And that is my intention in every aspect of my life, to keep yeah.
Speaker 3
You got to do your part.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Very important, I think, to note that keeping Sabbath isn’t just a way to call off work for a day.
Speaker 3
It’s for your benefit, you should enjoy it.
Speaker 2
Yes, it is for your benefit. But I come across a few people who have done things like that, where it’s like, oh, well, I keep Sabbath so that I don’t have to go to work this day. But I’m still going to go shopping, I’m still going to go out to the movies, I’m still going to do.
Speaker 1
I’m going to do all these things.
Speaker 2
Well, that’s not really keeping Sabbath and I think it’s important and a boss is going to see right through that and they’re not going to respect that. But when they see that you have a conviction about this, that you truly committed to that, I think many are much more supportive of that sort of thing because it is a true conviction and belief. I also wanted to share, we had a comment from Nancy here about the Sabbath, if we can pop that up on screen. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed. It very specific what the Sabbath is, that it is a day. I thought that was a good comment to put there.
Share this video with a friend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1RUw9X3ilE
In His Service
BibleAsk Team
